No.1199
*on goodreads, I mean. A dedicated list on goodreads. I have braindamage.
No.1202
>>1195Yes. I finished the first Earthsea book and I'm hooked. The theme feels a bit Jungian, cause he confronts his literal shadow. But I enjoyed it, and I don't read fantasy normally. Got the 4-book collected book off of bookdepository, I got it for 5€ (+free shipping).
No.1216
>>1214Bruhhhh, that sounds cool as shit.
No.1217
>read any good fantasy recently?
Not read but watched The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance and its a very unique fantasy show that verges on being brocialist.
The thrust of the story is "class war now," with a side of "take care of the environment" and "stop letting idpol divide you."
It is pretty niche though, being a dark fantasy story portrayed with puppets. It's a prequel series to The Dark Crystal, a cult classic fantasy film from 1982, made by Jim Henson (the Muppets), Frank Oz (Yoda), and Brian Froud (fantasy artist) - the same guys went on to make Labyrinth. Both the film and series use extensive puppetry to portray the fantasy races/creatures. The original film is a pretty standard fairy tale emphasizing the world-building and puppetry, as a proof of concept. Jim Henson wanted to sell people on puppets as a medium for serious storytelling, and his daughter Lisa, the Jim Henson Company, and Brian Froud (again) are continuing that project. The series improves the puppetry and writing enough to carry an epic fantasy story (similar total run time to LotR), and the creators decided to go with a plot of "You can't reason or negotiate with the ruling class. Unless you resist with maximum force they will destroy themselves and everything else with them." The puppets take some getting used to and the story takes a while to settle in, since the protagonists and supporting cast have to take the class pill, but it is thoroughly and explicitly pro-(violent)revolution.The whole thing is tinged with left-wing politics. It's anti-imperialist at the surface level, but you could read the villains as allegorical for capitalists too (in literal terms they're rentiers at the top of a feudal system). "More female CEOs" doesn't apply because the setting is matriarchal to begin with and still has problems. It depicts racism as a product of class. One scene shows law enforcement helping racists. There's a plot in the first episode that depicts and criticizes feudal surplus extraction. I could write a whole ass post about all those elements, but it's better to just watch it, because the show is good in general. I was not into it at first - it's very unusual and uncanny, so give it a chance to set itself up.Overall I rate it leftykino/10.
No.1221
>>1217>Dark Crystal: Age of ResistanceNot the originalCome on now
No.1222
>>1221The original is good and all, but it isn't telling the viewer to go kill the bourgeoisie.
No.1293
>>1196>Also, Dwarves (those that aren't ruled by kings/lords) are basically tankies. Explain please.
No.1296
>>1293Not that anon, but I think dwarves usually have some kind of clannish guild system with a lot of heavy industry. Tolkien's dwarves were modeled after Jews, and IIRC they have some elements of the kibbutz system.I did always think of dwarves as more like Russians than the Scots they're mostly portrayed as. Dwarven architecture normally looks reminiscent of brutalism with the raw
concrete stone, massive blocky shapes and sharp angles.
No.1299
>>1297I read the first 100 or so pages of the first book and found it very hard to follow and the writing a bit pretentious. Shortly after trying Malazan, I tried the first book of the War of Light and Shadow series by Janny Wurts, which is a series people recommend alongside malazan, and I also found it incredibly purple and obnoxious to read.I find that when people praise the " prose " of a series, it's usually just overly complicated purple horseshit. Simple, direct language is a virtue in writing, which is why I love David Gemmell so much.
No.1310
>>1299The first book can be annoying to read and sludge through, but it picks up afterwards. The problem is that the book was written after all of this was more or less played out in a type of DnD campaign by the writer, his friend who is also writing about this world and friends of theirs. So that's why the first book throws you into the middle of the story right away without giving out ANY background.
No.1311
>>1293THAT anon here
>>1296 said it well, they are Largely brother-for-brother in their society and largely function like a giant industrialized/collectivized system reminiscent of Stalin-era USSR.
No.1941
Ay, thank fuck for this thread. I like fantasy settings, just cant help myself. I'm a bit of an Arda fag and I decided to branch out. I kinda picked up a few books on a whim, just going by the synopsis on the inside flap, and skimming a few pages. Have been pleasantly surprised by the rationalization of magic in Black Sun Rising, where future humans space ship themselves to a distant planet as a last resort to save the species, a planet home to a trans dimensional "species" that influences the world around them based on perception, essentially making idealism real. But it's mostly pretty mild until humans show up and bring their wild imagination and fears with them, eventually they successfully construct a religious dogma with actual power, but of course all this bites them in the ass as often as it's helpful. I also appreciate how it appeals to furry fetishists, corruptionfags and bishie loving fujoshi.
The Gift was another interesting read, a fantasy story in a fairly whimsical fairtale style, but also embracing some pretty dark themes out of the blue. So not recommended for children. The story is told by an old dude on a boat, and his tale relates to what has happened/is happening aboard. In addition, there are numerous short stories strewn throughout that in turn relate to the long tale that he's telling.
I like both these books, even if they aren't going to be remembered a hundred years form now as classics of the genre. Black Sun Rising would make a pretty sick anime, and learning how magic works and affects the whole world is intriguing. The mode of story telling in The Gift is really unique and lends an interesting tone. Both have characters that work for their respective styles.
Which brings me to The Wheel of Time.
I read the first book, Eye of the World, and while I can't say it was bad, and infact I'd say it's almost objectively pretty good, overall, nothing about it had really pulled me in. I can't quite invest myself in the characters, can't quite come to be captured by the world, can't quite find the magic either wondrous and mystical nor intriguing and clever. So what gives. Why's it so popular. Am I missing something or am I being memed? Reading the second book now, and same as the first, it's pretty good, but that's about it.
No.1942
>>1213I wanna write a book where mana is generated like bitcoins by wizards, and then literally spent, in the monetary sense, to cast spells.
No.1944
>>1942Make is so wizards are 30+ year old virgins too.
No.1949
>>1944Hey pal, I aint writing a biography here.
No.1951
>>1297All the parts with Letheras were so crushing to me. the only thing that prevented it from being a total downer were Tehol and Bugg.
No.1954
>>1942I like this idea. The sources of magic are often handwaved, but the economics of wizards can be really interesting. If magic is so powerful, why are wizards so rare? You could go the "they're exceptional people" route, but that's pretty reactionary. If the costs of magic are too high, they could be a barrier to entry that stops normies from attaining wizardhood. It would also explain why nobles tend to have
the court wizard instead of amassing a wizard army. It's expensive to maintain the magic user, and it's not really worth the cost of having more than one, when you could spend that money on a bunch of knights.
Where the cost come in is the question. On the one hand, material components are often a thing, but they're also usually something that's easy to come by and separate from "mana" or its equivalent. I tend to like a sort of humanist view of magic. For divine magic, you may have actual deities, but I tend to think of them as an egregore (a being that manifests from people's belief in it). For arcane magic maybe you could apply something similar with magical energy being widely available in the world, but wizards having some kind of tool or technique that allows them to harness it to convert into mana. It would also justify the sword and sorcery mentality of mages being evil, since they have to exploit the natural magic or life force of the world around them.
No.1973
What’s with people Chan circles hating elves? I first I thought it was a meme but I’m starting to think it’s /pol/fags projecting their hatred of Jews an natives on them
No.1974
>>1973It started as an ironic meme due to how Elves are depicted as very snobbish towards humans and other 'lower' beings of fantasy worlds, yet simultaneously are either dependent or otherwise have to interact with humanity.
Ironically Tolkien's LoTR breaks away from the human-elf relations though still maintaining "le higher beings" idea.
Obviously like any medium there are always horny people and the idea of elves is sexually appealing so a race-mixing appeal also plays into it. This appeals to /pol/ mindset and along with their "humans vs orcs" idea of the world it fit into their political narrative.
TL;DR: Its an old fantasy-genre meme about pretentious elves thinking they're better than humans being co-opted by /pol/ due to the vague similarities to their "muh race" ideology.
No.2051
Not fantasy, but scifi, and generally there's some crossover in the readership, but here's my question. It's about Robert Heinlein. I heard that he's basically a fascist, but having read Stranger in a Strange land, he comes off more like a radlib pseudo anarchist. From what I've heard, Starship Troopers, the novel, was unironically fascist, while the movie (which I've seen) was a satire of nationalist militarism how could you miss it?. Was SST actually serious? Heinlein supposedly supported increased US militarism, which seems opposed to Stranger in a Strange Land.
No.2052
>>1974Everyone thinks middle earth elves were smug bastards. They were mostly just super reserved. The smug and arrogant elves tended to get their just desserts, and in the Silmarillion they are, in contradiction to le higher beings, major fuck ups. They're supernaturally talented, but because of that they also don't get to experience the same afterlife that humans have the potential to realize.
No.2053
>>2052>They were mostly just super reservedThat's true but it still comes off as being an elitist attitude to most people.
>>2051>sci-fi not fantasyFYI you should just create a Sci-Fi thread (with preparation) and post/repost this question there
>le Heinlein fascist question.I'm not going to touch Stranger in a Strange Land here but I will touch on Starship Troopers and repost something I wrote on 8chan leftypol.
No.2054
>>2051>>2053Repost:
The main arguments and attacks I hear about SST are that
>A) the book unironically condones a fascist, militarist society>B) It was a response to US halting nuclear testing>all together it is implied as a promotion of 'le evil fascist military'Heinlein’s Starship Troopers is not in fact an argument for fascism. This was an argument made by reactionary critics seeking to discredit him. The world of Starship Troopers is far more similar to the USSR than to a fascist society.
The book suggests the idea that democracy is too flawed and unreliable, and presents a society where those who are serving or have served get full citizenship rights because they have earned it and gained the experience required to be able to understand the full ramifications and importance of their rights.
In other words it's a method of coming of age and thus being adult enough to take part in shaping society and the world. And frankly that makes sense. Look at the USA, infantile man-children make up the majority of the adult population. Teens are aimless and apathetic and don't grow mentally, instead becoming mentally cemented in their undeveloped ideas and beliefs and are unable to approach things in a logical and serious manner.
Militarism and war-mongering are not the same thing. Militarism simply means the population is disciplined by passing through the army, even an arbitrary 2 year service is already an education in and of itself.
Heinlein said it quite well,
“I must pause to brush off those parlor pacifists I mentioned earlier… for they contend that their actions are on this highest moral level. They want to put a stop to war; they say so. Their purpose is to save the human race from killing itself off; they say that too. Anyone who disagrees with them must be a bloodthirsty scoundrel – and they'll tell you that to your face. I won't waste time trying to judge their motives; my criticism is of their mental processes: Their heads aren't screwed on tight. They live in a world of fantasy. Let me stipulate that, if the human race managed its affairs sensibly, we could do without war. Yes – and if pigs had wings, they could fly.”People (in SST) only get citizenship and suffrage after their military service, and there is no evidence of any restriction of freedom of speech or movement for non-citizens. Also, you don't have a situation where one group has power by virtue of their ancestry, race, or religion.
I think the point that Heinlein is making is that citizenship and suffrage must be earned. Note that the military service in Starship Troopers is not compulsory. People can freely choose to serve, and in exchange they get the right to vote after they complete their service. This is obviously very different from what we have in the US and in most Western countries, but it is not fascism.
In ancient Athens citizens (adult men) were expected to either fight in the army or row in the navy. In modern democracies citizens are required to contribute to the state by paying taxes. Many democracies have mandatory military service, and all of them may conscript citizens into the military during a time of war. Heinlein turns this around, and says that citizenship is not a birthright, but something that one can freely earn by risking one's life for the state.
I don't know for sure whether a society like the one in Starship Troopers could actually function, or whether it would be better than a present-day republic. But consider this: in the 2008 US elections there was a very high voter turnout… 56.8% of the voting age population. In other words, half of the citizens took their suffrage for granted. Maybe if they had to earn their right to vote and their votes have actual meaning to them, they would have placed a higher value on it. Now of course we can go into the semantics about how voting in the USA is rigged, etc. etc. that's besides the point. In laymen's terms; people don't appreciate the things they are given BECAUSE its just given to them. This is actually part of why the USSR fell, the youth, who did not experience the hardship of industrialization an undeveloped country, of fighting in a revolution or the second world war etc. did not understand the value of what they had, they took it for granted and instead wanted the nebulous freedom to have jeans and gum and rock music.
No.2055
>>2053>>2054>>2051Addendum
The movie is nothing like the book and is meant to convey drastically differing ideas. Red Cynic has a great video on the film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMay7rYzMzQ No.2071
>>2054Good post
BUT
> half of the citizens took their suffrage for grantedDude, most people would want to go to vote but it's on a weekday, and most employers don't let you out to the nearest poll to cast your ballot. Not to mention the fucking "you can't vote in a hospital" thing.
No.2073
>>2071>ost people would want to go to vote but it's on a weekday, and most employers don't let you out to the nearest poll to cast your ballot.TBH that's bullshit, I've voted before and it takes all of 15 minutes, 1/2 my lunch break time. If people really cared all that much people would vote more.
>>2070This reminds me of a series called Young Wizards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_WizardsThe sequel details magic better, with it being full of limits and Physics calculations to do things. The first 2 books are greatbut eventually the series sort of drags on and the last book I read became contradictive and inane. My favorite is the second book (followed by the first one), mostly because I love sea creatures and Norse mythology.
No.2860
>>1195How would a communist like ideology develop in a fantasy world? Can a pagan Soviet with commie wizards like Tukhachevsky possible?
>By instinct, he was a romantic barbarian who abhorred Western civilization. He had the soul of Genghis Khan, of Ogdai and of Batu. Autocratic, superstitious, romantic and ruthless, he loved the open plain lands and the thud of a thousands hooves, and he loathed and feared the unromantic orderliness of civilization. He hated Christianity and Christian culture because it had obliterated paganism and barbarism and had deprived his fellow countrymen of the ecstasy of the god of war and the glamor of the "carnival of death." Also he loathed the Jews because they had helped inoculate the Russians with the "plague of civilization " and "the morale of capitalism.">A demon or a god animates our race. We shall make ourselves drunk, because we cannot as yet make the world drunk. That will come. Fervacque having found him painting the head of an atrocious idol, the future Marshal answered: Do not laugh. I have told you that the Slavs are in want of a new religion. They are being given Marxism; but aspects of that theology are too modern and too civilized. It is possible to mitigate this disagreeable state by 'returning to our Slavic gods, who were deprived of their prerogative and strength; nevertheless, they can soon regain them. There is Daschbog, the god of the Sun; Stribog, the god of the Storm; Wolos, the god of human arts and poetry; and also Pierounn,the god of War and Lightning. For long, I have hesitated to choose my particular god; but after reflection, I have chosen Pierounn, because once Marxism is thrust upon Russia, the most devastating wars will be let loose …. We shall enter chaos and we shall not leave it until civilization is reduced to total ruin. >Seriously, it would be good for humanity were all books burned, so that we could bathe in the fresh spring of ignorance. I even think that this is the solemeans of preventing mankind from becoming sterile.The hero of the Red Army explained how necessary it was to have Russia ruled by a new Ivan the Terrible-a hope that was to be fulfilled even beyond the marshal's wildest expectations, and at the cost of his own execution: Then, Moscow will become the center of the world of barbarians …. If Lenin is able to disencumber Russia from the old junk of prejudices and de-Westernize her, I will follow him. But he must raze all to the ground, and deliberately hurl us back into barbarism No.4057
>>1195Not literature, but
I want to make a medieval fantasy game with posadist extraterrestrial elves>>1954I'd been trying to come up with a magic system for my fantasy world and I think it's a bit like what you're thinking of. I wrote a lot of notes but this is what I remember off the top of my head:
>there are many sources of magic. Nature, deities, etc. produce a different type each; magic acts as a resource>everyone has the capacity to use magic, but it requires both mental and physical power, so you must train a lot, both body and mind to use it and to do more advanced stuff>using magic then becomes so natural and easy that it's just an extension of yourself, like thinking or moving your limbs, although it can still drain your stamina as if you were thinking too much or doing too much physical effort if you're not careful>after that you just need a source of magic, like I already said, such as worshipping a god or gods>atheists can't use divine magic, but they're not affected by it either (the definition for an atheist is probably different in this world as there is too much evidence that gods are real for them to not believe in their existence; I've yet to come up with a workaround to keep the meaning the same, but I really want to keep this aspect because it's an interesting concept)>it's canonically unclear whether the gods created humans or vice versa (though it's implied that humans created gods first)>you control magic "psychically", so to speak, which also means that you must have a good deal of magic knowledge (spells) and good concentration>spells and stuff must have been invented first, in this sense magic also acts like any other resource (you can't do anything with a raw resource if you don't know how to use or transform it)>you can learn already existing spells or create new ones, which is very complicated (basic weak stuff has already been done) so not anyone can do it due to lack of creativity and training>"wizards" are people who study or invent new ways to use magic energy>there are some extraordinary ways to obtain more magic than usual (like a powerful being transferring its magic to you) but there are no prerequisites for these rare and random events. It also doesn't mean that you'll know how to use your newfound power, and without knowing the proper spells you won't be able to do anything with itCould this possibly work in a way that doesn't create plot holes or make everybody OP? Does this still give room to the problems you mentioned? I want to have a magic system that allows technology and regular combat to exist, depite being available for everyone. Sorta like how most people in real life could do exercise and have a healthy diet to have a perfectly looking and functioning body but not many people commit to it for a variety of reasons.
No.4081
>>1214The Silmarillion is just straight up Elf propaganda
No.4082
I wrote a short novella about a lightly fantasy world set in old south east asia jungles concerning a revolution at an elephant/timber camp.
would anyone be interested to read it and give feedback?
No.4088
I feel like I am one of the few people who is kind of just rolling my eyes at the sort of crap that is "realistic" and "down-to-earth" in fantasy shit.
It seems to be an especially common thing in /tg/.
No.4092
>>4088Same, its fairly pretentious in my opinion and rarely done well (LoTR and the Hobbit being primary exceptions)
>>4081TBH Silmarillion felt really dry compared to Tolkien's prior work.
>>4089I'll read through this thing later and try to write up a review when I finish my work. From the first few pages however it's fairly interesting so far.
No.4100
>>4092My main issue with it, just seems like people who want to have short cuts to being "clever" or some shit. Like "This is not your typical fantasy tale! There's no wizards here!". In fact a lot of things I don't care for mostly boils down to people who try to be clever without actually doing so.
In fact the desire to constantly keep things as low magic and "realistic" as possible mostly just boils down to people not wanting to create overly complex character buiilds in DnD for one thing, but they just can't have it be like that. It is always some sort of autistic complex to it.
No.4102
>>2860>How would a communist like ideology develop in a fantasy worldI had an idea for an industrial era fantasy world where the only race is the human race and magic is embedded into technology
No.4147
what do you people think of the idea of orcs and some fantasy races being more violent than others?
No.4149
>>4147Fantasy was created by a anti-democratic conservative, thus inherently right-wing, so not surprising. Tolkien doesn't think that TLoR is anticomunnist tho.
No.4152
>>4102>humans onlyWhile not inherently bad, it takes a lot of effort - such as in the Young Wizards series
>>2073 - as a large part of fantasy IS mythological creatures.
>>4147Brightburn was an attempt to criticize this idea, and while not wholly successful (overtly obvious black-white allegories and metaphors), it was an interesting concept. Personally I don't find much wrong with having Orcs be more aggressive, they're not humans, and like different animals have differing norms for violence and other behaviors in comparison. If a reader relates them to "black vs white" race tensions, that speaks more about the reader's mind than the book, unless its blatant (like Brightburn).
>>4149>Fantasy was created by a anti-democratic conservativeLoTR is not the first fantasy fiction m8 so you can't say that. It does have Right-Wing themes, but none of them are outright intentional, Tolkien outright stated a dislike for direct political allegory, so any of his views (political or otherwise) would be rather upfront. He cared more for the world-building and added an ordinary "Quest of good guys against the true evil" plotline. Moreover Tolkien disavowed racism, however like many people of his time, some things considered racist today were fine then.
While obviously a biased site, I found the analysis of the matter at link related to be quite enlightening regarding this whole Orc-race debate, as well as other "race" issues.
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Racism_in_Tolkien's_Works>>4100>they just can't have it be like thatBecause they subconsciously feel that outright wanting a simple build would mean that they have no creativity.
No.4158
>>4147De 👏colonize👏 mordor👏
No.4160
>>4159I agree with the immediate sentiment: Tolkien was a racist nut and fantasy species are better off assuming distance from his legacy, even if just for the sake of variety.
But avoiding cliched takes on dwarves, orcs, elves, etc. has already been the norm among fantasy writers for almost a century. There's nothing special or innovative about this procedure, no reason to flaunt wokeness over it. Tolkien's staple races are so worn and tired by now that no one cares to think of orcs the exact same way he did. Except for /pol/, I guess.
No matter how cuddly and fuckable artists write and draw those pig people (sometimes to great success), they're still accepting Tolkien's ideation as the foundation. It's a weird compromise. Taking the racial coding of orcs at face value and just flipping it from negative to positive changes very little. It's still a caricature. It's like writers and artists feel obliged to stick to the tradition of racial coding while endlessly trying and failing to positivize it. Why not just throw said tradition to the trash bin of history and leave it at that?
Pig people are just one kind of anthro among others. If you want to be free from Tolkien's legacy, all you have to do is pick any animal and turn that into a fantasy race instead. That's how e.g. skaven and kenku were invented; I have a hard time finding any blatant racial stereotypes in them. Hell, you could even come up with your own pig people, without calling them orcs or styling them after Tolkien's.
No.4162
>>4159That pic is cringe. Honestly, has anyone played World of Warcraft? Or actually looked into Orcs as a fantasy race? Not to mention self-inserting the obvious sexual idpol. Word to the wise, lewd self-inserting makes for poor literature, as the tens of thousands of garbage fanfiction demonstrate.
>>4158>clap memeNice stereotype
>>4160>accepting Tolkien's ideation as the foundationI don't see how. Tolkien's works were always based in the mythologies and legends of European and other cultures that he was well-versed in. He derived the name Orc from a historical source. The concept of such beasts is long and colorful in mythologies such as those of the Norse and Saxons.
>Why not just throw said tradition to the trash bin of historyBecause then that's not a fucking Orc. It's like saying lets throw away all African American history because some prominent features, such as a love for fried chicken and watermelon, were presented in racist manner by someone decades ago. Brightburn, as I previously mentioned, sort of addressed this, though rather poorly.
>want to be free from Tolkien's legacyWhy? Who said that? Tolkien was a very skilled writer, personal differences aside and the world he built is some of the most extensive known with separate languages and histories written out in detail, and with consistency.
>Kenku<their character traits match Jewish Stereotypes, down to a crow-like representation (big beak- big nose, like to plot and steal, keep to themselves, selfish and secretive, like shiny things like gold etc.)
>Skaven<Literal rat humanoids, detested as conniving thieves or high-way men more often than not
Bad examples m8
>create your own pig people<without calling them orcs
They're going to be seen as Orcs that are just given a different name. You do realize that even Tolkien has different names for Orcs within the narrative of the story right?
>Tolkien was a racist nutHardly, he was adamantly against Apartheid, against Eugenics and admired Jews. Read the link in
>>4152He also stated himself as an anarchist and hated Hitler for appropriating Northern culture for his propaganda.
No.4171
Reminder that LotR and The Hobbit are canonically written from the perspective of Frodo and Bilbo, who are (like virtually all the characters) passively racist. They only interact with orcs, goblins, and uruk-hai in the context of fighting them in a war. The hobbits are basically some kids from a gated community who are meeting foreign cultures for the first time, and the descriptions of anything in the books reflects this.
Tolkien's legendarium is full of different groups among the various races. Many of the orcs just mind their own business and even have friendly relations with others. Sauron and Saruman's use of orcs is a product of pragmatic racism and eugenics as stated in the text. They also use human forces but those don't get much attention. Some people need to read the books before they make commentary.
If you want to talk about racist fantasy races, look at Harry Potter.
>Jew goblins run the banking system and will cheat you any chance they get, because it's instinct to them. They will even fuck themselves over just to screw you too.
>House elves are biologically programmed to be slaves, and if you have a problem with slavery you're a bleeding heart.
>Some creatures, like centaurs, may be sapient but they're too feral to live in normal society and belong separated in places like the forbidden forest.
>Hagrid is a borderline "retard strength" trope, and giants are supposed to be unintelligent.
No.4173
>>4162>Kenku<their character traits match Jewish Stereotypes, down to a crow-like representation (big beak- big nose, like to plot and steal, keep to themselves, selfish and secretive, like shiny things like gold etc.)
Fuck Lego chima had the crows liking shining gold
Although they lived in trash and were potrayed as mercenaries
So i guess they were "inspired" by romani people
For some reason in the early tens late 2000s everyone made fantasy romanis
No.4175
>>4171I agree on Tolkien, and disagree on the topic of Harry Potter.
>Hagrid is a borderline "retard strength"Hagrid is exactly the opposite of that. He's strong and huge and wild-looking which clashes with his gentle personality, naivety and general straightforward attitude towards life. He's the embodiment of the Gentle Giant Trope.
>giants are supposed to be unintelligentLike in LoTR, this is the general narrative of Wizards, Dumbledore and his followers know better, they are not unintelligent, they simply have more violent tendencies and are uneducated, being ostracized from society and thus becoming even more violent from forced close-proximity. They are as much lone forces of nature as they are intelligent beings.
>House Elves programmed slavesNot quite; While they can be TREATED like slaves (Dobby) this is not the general rule and is technically illegal. Their role as obedient servants has to do with their origin of inspiration, creatures like Brownies and Domovoi, who are magical house-keepers in European folklore. Treat them well, they care for you, treat them poorly and reap the consequences.
Their entire existence is based on the houses they work for and they prefer it. Home, food, and work they generally enjoy, made all the easier by casual use of advanced magic. As with orcs, you remove this and they cease to be who they are.
>You're a bleeding heartNope. As numerous fanfictions address, Hermione's view on the matter is equivalent to liberals who go "you have internalized racism" to black people that defy the idea that they're super-oppressed. The House-Elves are not interested in nebulous freedoms, and the concept of vacation doesn't work with them.
>Jew GoblinsI agree, and as an ethnic Jew I see nothing wrong with it. Goblins are a separate culture with their own norms and the fact that YOU as a human see this as wrong is precisely the issue, since you're seeing it from the perspective of a human and not a Goblin. If you paid attention to the notes about Goblin/Wizard wars, it bears uncanny similarity to European and Middle-Eastern treatment of Jews over history, and the subsequent result being Goblins pushed into niche roles like banking and jewelery.
>the will even fuck themselves overI don't recall that. They are entirely self-serving but won't fuck themselves over just for spite.
>they're too feral to live in normal society and belong separated in places like the forbidden forestSo they're anarcho-primitivists, and? How is this racist? The Centaurs are depicted as reclusive but highly intelligent, who CHOOSE to live simply, not because they are forced.
>>4173Gypsies and subsequent stereotypes were popular in the 2000s and late 90s.
No.4176
Any attempt to create fantasy races will be construed as racist by some people because in writing their culture you will have to take some inspiration from real world cultures, since that's our frame of reference.
No.4180
>>4176>Any half-assed "attempt" to create fantasy races in which every member of a race has a monolithic culture, language, values and ideology will seen as racist and lazy because it is.Fixed it for you, no need to thank me.
No.4181
>>4152>While not inherently bad, it takes a lot of effort - such as in the Young Wizards series >>2073 - as a large part of fantasy IS mythological creatures. There are magical creatures, but not different races. I was trying to conceptualize a world to be able to comment on capitalism and imperialism; the point of the story is a socialist revolution hence why it’s a “fantasy” that takes place in an age akin to our 20s - 40s and races are as made up as our own. The races of the world are defined along lines of colonialism like our world.
There’s heavy magic in it tho, the whole magic system is basically magical industrial capitalism where the owners of factories accumulate bits of the souls of magic and even normal laborers so they can expand to accumulate even more souls. In my world this is awful due to the need to accumulate more and more from laborers, the creation of worse and worse magical weaponry (before, for instance, wiping out a city entailed either extremely powerful and well-trained warriors or a huge ritual to annihilate souls, now there is a bomb that devours the souls of the inhabitants of a city around a radius it’s dropped in to then trigger a massive explosion to obliterate the rest of the city), and the exploitation of Nature by these magical capitalists is more or less set to completely destroy or at least corrupt and distort magic as a whole (Nature is the source of magic and humans are capable of magic because they’re a part of Nature). However there are also benefits to the new industrial magic, namely the combination of masses of magic laborers together in production and the mass production of magical implements so everyone can hypothetically develop their abilities, rather than what existed before (few magic users who were either enslaved, in military roles, or deranged ruling classes; and of course powerful magic required wholesale sacrifice rather than just socializing usage of life energy so nobody has to simply die).
Haven’t worked out all the kinks but I think I’ve got an interesting magical system so far.
No.4185
>>4180>FixedI think you mean, self-inserted your idpol opinions
>racist and lazy because it is<Narrative can be racist and dat's bad
You have no understanding of story
> monolithic culture, language, values and ideologyI don't see how that is a bad thing?
>half-assedYeah, first write anything comparable to Tolkien and then you can talk shit about him "half-assing" anything.
No.4258
>>4180yeah the best way to go about it is to have many human cultures instead of fantasy races
No.4298
>>4258You still have to draw from IRL influences and some people will complain about it. The fucked up thing is that this
should be a topic open to reasonable critique but capitalism has turned media "criticism" into throwing a bitch fit because something doesn't align with your values and getting your followers to get mad about it and go tweet or whatever to give the property a bunch of free advertising.
No.4313
>>4180>Imagine using this much garbage mental gymnastics to justify your setting being boring trashJust make the other races or cultures that have different uses for magic completely alien! It’s not that hard to create an interesting culture or nation in fantasy without being shit and contrived. Plenty of fantasy books do this well.
The Discworld series and the Other Songs book are great examples.
No.4386
Leftist fantasy is difficult to come by due, I think, to the escapist nature of fantasy. Sure, like any other genre of fiction it can be used to tell an alegorical tale of the real tribulations that people face in this world, but that is not what it is best at. Fantasy takes to reader/viewer/player/listener out of the capitalist proletarian drugery of our lives and takes us back to a time between when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Arias. It wipes away the physical limitations of our world and allows us to dream ourselves into a limitless world. That just does not jive well with a perspective based on the necessity to struggle to fix a broken world.
No.4429
From a HisMat perspective, most fantasy, when it plays in a feudal world, would have to have the early bourgeoisie, the merchants, and free cities as revolutionary subjects. This really doesn't provide for a very exciting storyline, and merchants are usually portrayed as two-faced godless money worshippers. It's kind of funny, because that is basically what survived in our consciousness of the anti-capitalist feudal propaganda where small pockets of capitalism like Florence, Venice, etc, were stamped out.
No.4430
>>4374Sam Vimes is still the best fantasy cop ever.
>>4386It’s kinda weird too since sci-fi although being as much of an escapist medium is much more embraced by the left even though some technology featured are much more in the realm of technobabble magic than any real technology in the materialistic sense. I could see the magic being supported by fantasy utopian socialist as a way to increase productivity and better living standards rather than restrict it amongst wizard guilds. Especially when most fantasy magic are just as well understand as technology during feudalism.
No.4436
>>4430>It’s kinda weird too since sci-fi although being as much of an escapist medium is much more embraced by the leftWell because the distinction between sci-fi and fantasy is often just when the story takes place. Technically science fiction is a subgenre of fantasy, but people associate fantasy with the past. The radical left tends to be future oriented (when not LARPing about past experiments), so it makes sense to gravitate toward science fiction in that context.
But now I kind of want a sword and sorcery version of the October revolution where Rasputin is an actual sorcerer.
No.4669
>>4668China Miéville, socialist urban fantasy author
No.4670
>>4669Redpill me on his best books.
No.4671
>>4670Embassytown is probably his most ambitious and smartest work; it's more sci-fi, though. His most well-regarded fantasies are the series set in the world of Bas-Lag: Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council. They're steampunkish and more Weird Fiction than straight-up Fantasy. Mieville bends (or breaks) genre a lot, which is why I like his stuff. It's refreshing.
I like some of his deep cuts like Kraken or New Paris but I don't know if they'd be great for first time readers.
No.4688
>>4181How could one incorporate this magic system into past modes of production like slavery and feudalism? I figured out how to fit it for hunter gatherer society but really can't work out the kinks for other societies.
No.5195
>>4180Nigger shut the fuck up
No.5248
>>51845e cringe shit.
man that game really fucked DnD and tabletop up
No.5366
>>5248The only good thing Wizards ever did was OGL, and even that's pointlessly capitalistic.
No.6395
>>5366 >>5248>OGL>5e cringeNewfag here, what is that?
No.6710
I wasn't a big Artemis Fowl fan back in the day and didn't care much for it. However the recent (shitty) film that came out reminded me of its existence. I only saw clips but according to fans the part closest to the actual books was when the Dwarf Mulch Diggums (portrayed by Josh Gad) does his 'feeding time' in one of the most horrifically funny scenes of the movie. Ironically the film for once wasn't graphic enough in that scene nor detailed properly. Dwarves in the series are roughly 1.3 meters tall and they unhinge their jaw to eat dirt and shit it out the other end to propel themselves. They can also eject a portion of their body weight in an emergency blast to escape danger, and their beard hairs work like tremor sensors and can pick locks. Mulch once shits the dirt straight on Butler's face, knocking him unconscious. Also, he once eats his way through a dried sewage pipe, calling the contents 'nutritious'. He also didn't have underwear and instead wore a farmer's jumper - the ones with the flap on the ass - with the back-end open.
Movie clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a1nquvQqtc No.6713
>>1196What about Le Guin?
No.6719
>>63955e had a bunch of pandering shit in it that everyone already understood that you don't have to make your character cisgender/binary/whatever.
OGL = Open Gaming License which was like a half-cucked open source license allowing homebrewers to publish their content for 3.5e and d20 in general. It resulted in various modules and rule changes being published and hobbyists being able to earn money for their labor.
No.6725
>>6719Now barely anybody plays 3.5e because "wizards are too OP" or some gay shit that barely comes up in actual games instead of mindless theory crafting. Also zoomers have no attention span to read anything anymore.
No.6729
>>6726but hey half-orcs don't have an intelligence penalty and that's totally worth dumbing down tabletop games for a long ass time.
No.6803
>>1198/leftypol/ wouldn't even be able to agree on the basics.
>NOOOO DONT ADD 1984 ORWELL IS A MCCARThYIST No.6804
>>68031984 is shit and Orwell is just an older, more racist version of Brendan O'Neill who attempts to make his boring, reactionary takes seem interesting by claiming to be a Leftist despite never saying anything even remotely Leftists because he's just a boring reactionary.
No.6810
>>6803Fuck off and read the Orwell thread
>>6804True, he was a shitty ideologue, however he is a good writer, you have to admit… and it IS fiction - the irony.
No.6872
>>6870Fucking this. Its the same shit as Magic the Gathering getting rid of Black and White magic, and Dark and Light creature classifications, the sheer implications of this implies that anything using those words is related to race… which is retarded idpol.
No.6904
>>68031984 is a shit book since even the book that it ripped off of - We, was also dogshit.
No.6905
>>6904>>6804>>6803Please take this to the Orwell thread
No.6908
>>4159This is literally fetish art.
No.6974
>>6872It's even stupider because the concepts predate racial classifications, and race theory deliberately incorporated them to tie certain groups to a host of good and bad associations. What these people are doing is literally backwards.
No.7873
>>1949>Make is so wizards are 30+ year old virgins too<Hey pal, I aint writing a biography here.
Fucking under-rated kek.
No.7963
Let me ask you a question instead. What would your response be if I told you that a fantasy game in which "races" are biologically determined, these differences are grafted onto species, and that these species have essential cultural and behavioral features is racist? What if I pointed out the racist origins of the entire fantasy genre and how by consuming fantasy media, you reproduce racism and, even worse, turn racism into a "post-racial" ideology of "just having fun" unlike in "real" politics where of course you are not racist and don't like Trump. What if I pointed out that it is actually the space of real politics which is the fantasy, since as you point out as long as you avoid forbidden words it doesn't make much of a difference, whereas the media young people consume is where their identity is really determined, as revealed by the venomous response such questions usually receive and the immense amount of obsessive energy generated by media compared to picking up a single book?
The truly unfortunate thing is that the reverse of "I'm not racist," the liberal counterclaim made famous by a puppet theater show for "adults" that "everyone's a little bit racist" is no better since it dissolves racism into a background white noise. Everyone is, in fact, extremely racist, but in today's society of brand identity you have to root it out and find where it hurts. For Avenue Q type liberals, it is pointing out the extreme racism of Hamilton and Joe Biden. For the average redditor, it is video games and the fantasy genre. For the average suburban boomer it is sending your kids to an inner city school or housing projects in your community.
The basic post-civil rights compromise was that racism would continue but no one could acknowledge racism. Racism was something only evil people did, everyone else in post-Jim Crow America was not racist (something you reproduce by imagining Mississippi as more racist or some segregationist backwater. In fact the new South is closer to Orange County, California whereas the most segregated cities are in the North and progressive small towns like Bernie Sanders' Burlington, Vermont). The side effect was the dispersal of racism into every nook and cranny of culture rather than a centralized politics and community, and thus many racisms all hiding within the multiplicity of subcultures. It's not enough to say that both Trump and Joe Biden are racists, and in fact Biden is probably more racist given he was a key figure in forming post-civil rights segregation and continues to uphold it while Trump just whines on twitter, though this helps target a certain demographic who have "mainstream" media hegemony. One must point out how foundational and how powerful racism is, to the point that colonized people rhemselves often reproduce racist logics about themselves in competing with American cultural hegemony on its terms. One must root it out everywhere it disguises itself by pointing to somebody else and saying "look, that's the real racist!" Your way plays into racism's hands.
—
from smokeuptheweed9
No.8040
>>7963I’ll call you a retard and move on.
No.8043
>>7963>muh fantastic racismLeaving aside historical fact of the actual intended thematic aims by, e.g., Tolkien, Howard, Leiber, Alexander, etc. completely obliterating the implication this is supposed to damn fantasy with as a genre, something else MUCH more obvious has always made me kek about it.
If muh races and muh cultures are supposed to be so unforgivable in fictional worldbuilding, doesn't this implicate (except for something completely lacking them like Foundation
where they were silently genocided by friendly robots) the entire SF genre as well?
No.8046
>>7963This has to be a copy-pasta by some liberal PoMoist.
1) This has already been addressed with the whole Tolkien debate
2) This automatically assumes that races in magical realms correlate to human races when the latter has no biological basis or have un-natural origins, like most "pure evil" races do. again, this is visible in Tolkien's works where the only true evil is Orcs and their creator who became darkness, while humans, dwarves and other races tend to vary in virtue and vice.
No.8318
>>7963>when I look at black people I see orcs and vice versanigga you the real racist here
fantasy races are analogous to homo sapiens vs the other homo species
No.8840
>>1293>>1296>>1311 Speaking of industrialism and fantasy there is an obscure film from the 1993 called Children of the Iron Gods (Дети чугунных богов), a gem among the schlock of 90s media in the CIS.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Дети_чугунных_боговhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHC0sampPIcFor Russian speakers, Uncle Joe explains this much better and at length in his recent video on the film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sNbCbqKVFc For non-Russians, a basic explanation:
The factories and industries were portrayed in an almost mystic way, like the fortresses of a decayed kingdom. Their lives revolve around their steel and their inter-factory struggles, even as they fend off bandits and survive in the depressive desolation they live in. It is a film that expresses the vision of the last generation of Soviet people as they entered the new capitalist era and its barrenness. It tells the story of the ordinary workers (who the Screenwriters were) in an exaggerated understanding and depiction that in some ways resembles the romanticism of "The Secret of Steel" from Conan the Barbarian. The upper bureaucracy descend in helicopters like huge, mechanized angels to judge the worth of the men beneath them, and the men struggle to prove themselves worthy of being respected between themselves and to these angels. They live and fight and create, with their own legends and myths and stories and struggles. The elder man who claims Kaganovich punched his tooth out for making such great steel when he was young, before replacing it with that same steel, is like the stories of bygone champions of a warrior tribe and their harsh congratulations and trials.
The main character goes through a strange industrial-realist version of Campbell's Twelve Stages to a Hero's Journey, in this isolated 'castle' he works and lives in. The careful omission of things like the city where everyone lives, or the way equipment works isolate the factory and make the aged archaic technology act more like magical objects. All this resembles Gnomes and Dwarves for me, especially since it reminds me of how, in Middle-Earth, the Dwarves have lost many of their old homes and while their remaining halls were powerful and cared-for, it is a hollow echo of their former glory. Also reminds me of Jack London's writings as well, though that's another topic and genre.
TL;DR: It is an industrial post-Soviet techno-fantasy with little reservations in what it shows, filmed with great care.
No.8901
>>2860>How would a communist like ideology develop in a fantasy world? Can a pagan Soviet with commie wizards like Tukhachevsky possible?All kinds of ways. It could be an intrinsic property of magic that it works best when all work it together - communal magic, massive rituals that the entire society participates in equally because there can't be any single focal point or they'd be melted.
The Runelord Saga had a brilliant magic system that was hyper-monarchist. Subjects could give their Attributes (strength, wit, etc) to their ruler by means of a magic branding iron, who was then empowered by the collective might of thousands of crippled citizens. The higher rank a noble was, the more families they had to harvest (though of course the society was set up to consider it a noble sacrifice by the peasants).
Thus, the natural end result of that type of magic existing was a system of superhuman feudalism.
It might be less satisfying having it be something that the rules of the setting actively reward though, rather than something that humans have to bleed and suffer to build in the face of an unfair and uncaring fantasyland full of divine right and bloodlines
Another way of having it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fr4aAu_RycSome random wizard develops a relatively easy spell that links minds together, creating a benevolent hivemind. Of course, that may be a bit too utopian and transhuman.
But pic related for a combination of the utopianism with reality (kinda), from the best modern-fantasy setting, Technomancer.
No.8906
>>8901>The Runelord Saga had a brilliant magic system that was hyper-monarchist>Thus, the natural end result of that type of magic existing was a system of superhuman feudalism.In the case of high fantasy, there's an even better justification for a given system of government than quirks of magic: Cosmology
A good example is the basically Confucian theocracy enforced by the way pretty much every facet of the world works in Twelve Kingdoms. People (and other living things, sort of) reproduce not by impregnation, but by marriage and joint prayer, causing a magic egg fruit to grow on a tree. Monarchs are selected through implied divine choice by angelic "ki-rin" that also allow them to tame monsters, through which they control they influence the weather and other elements. And their otherwise eternal rulership over their kingdom is circumscribed by a set of divine mandates (peace, prosperity, etc.), violation of which will result in their sickness and death depending on severity. The setting's approximately medieval technology is also enforced (in spite of limited 1-way traffic from Earth) by a paucity of metal, rare earths, fossil fuels, etc.
As a result, kingdoms without a monarch will succumb to monsters and bad environmental conditions, while religious devotion is necessary to maintain life.
>It might be less satisfying having it be something that the rules of the setting actively reward though, rather than something that humans have to bleed and suffer to build in the face of an unfair and uncaring fantasyland full of divine right and bloodlinesYeah, there's definitely a difference between non-ideological
or just incompetently written "gee, this is an interesting piece of worldbuilding", versus something that feels legitimate as political commentary "in-world".
No.9093
>>1195The Culture series is pretty good, but it is a post-scarcity utopia setting.
No.9109
>>1297Some of my favorite fantasy books ever written.
Actually written by an anthropologist. Has Anti-Civ characters. Is a giant critique of Imperialism and at times Capitalism.
BASED books
No.9214
>>2073As explained in post
>>5174 Young Wizards takes a very calculative approach in most of its magic, which is used rather loosely when inconvenient because its not quite going for the "Magic is misunderstood Science" meme.
This is compared to Harry Potter's magic where intent, belief and emotion matter (as well as a wand and its movement).
Interestingly in High School DxD there are many kinds of magics though they are almost unexplored for the most part. However we do get some explanations in the difference between magic of supernatural beings and ordinary human magic. It's use and display is somewhat similar to the magic in Dr.Strange just more intricate-looking.
Devil magic uses a devil's demonic energy and requires focused imagination. While Angels and Fallen angles use their "light element" to create weapons and magic of light, (which is poisonous to devils).
Meanwhile Human wizards, witches and the like use (unexplained) calculations, imitating the magic they observed from devils, angels, supernatural beings and godly miracles. Vid-related demonstrates and explains this well.
In Volume 14, Le Fay mentions that demonic power requires the power of using your imagination and the power to create, as well as having a good sense, while magic is just knowledge to control equations, i.e. using your head and making calculations. So while they may seem similar, they are very different from each other. Kuroka further added that magic is something where the user uses the knowledge and calculations to know "If I do this, this will happen". https://highschooldxd.fandom.com/wiki/Magic No.9235
I feel like 5e dnd is the most culture industry version of dungeons and dragons. All the other editions have some sort of weird autistic shit going on for them, but 5e is about as tropey and by the numbers as fantasy can ever get. There is nothing all that wacky or strange about that game, nothing that is really all that bizarre. I'm not talking about the gameplay mechanics, although I think the gameplay in that game is like the worst of all the previous editions. It's just a game that I hate, and it's all that roll20 every wants to play. Like ADnD had Dark Sun, Ravenloft and shit, 3.5 had all sorts of wacky high magic builds that you could austically obsess over but 5e is just "pick a fighter" or "pick a sorcaden" if you actually want to win the game at all.
I'm just bored of culture industry. I'm bored of isekai garbage too. I think there is a correlation between the two genres, as Goblin Slayer is the most paint by the numbers fantasy dross that you could think of. All the other fantasy isekai shit had their own sort of things they were going for, but the sheer dullness of 5e can be seen in Goblin Slayer as a setting. THat's why it relies on edge to be even remotely interesting.
But fantasy was never all that great when it came to conveying character details, the setting itself should be a character and goblin slayer fails on this front.
But this is just an example of the fractural normalfaggotry that is 5e.
No.9238
>>9235>Goblin Slayer is the most paint by the numbers fantasy drossHow is that relevant to 5e? Are you rambling? Or are you a buttmad Goblin? With this kind of bait I can't tell.
>the sheer dullness of 5e can be seen in Goblin Slayer as a settingNo, not really. Sure, its setting is not groundbreaking or without tropes, but who gives a fuck? The issue with 5e most people had was that the stories in the settings become samefaced. The setting itself is not the issues. You can be tropey and still good, or unique and still shitty.
Goblin Slayer is most certainly NOT this, given that the main hero is not the "prophesied hero who will defeat the Devil King" but an above average fighter who focuses on one thing (which breaks the mold): Goblins, and only goblins. This is even pointed out with flashes of "the number one hero" fighting demon generals and the like, and then contrasting this with Goblin Slayer who just continues to eradicate Goblins before they over-run the land unnoticed.
Goblins are typically seen as utter fodder and ignored or used as grinding fodder by most fighters above a certain rank in many stories. Yet in fact they are dangerous if improperly prepared for and can become very powerful. Rather than being a gung-ho hero, Goblin Slayer himself is an obviously damaged person whose obsession with Goblins is caused by a horrific past events and who favors pragmatism and experience over flashiness. He's usually outmatched in either numbers or fire-power or strength, yet he overcomes through preparation, strategy and knowledge as well as determination.
Even though we never see the homeland of elves and dwarves, for example, the show brings us up to speed on inter-species relations via dialogue and character interaction. All the while, we get to see Goblin Slayer doing what he professes; slaying goblins. That’s all the show says it is and that’s where it shines. The focus isn't the complex worldbuilding, but a tiny portion of the world that is also important.
There is of course legitimate criticism to be had for it, with some more work needed later for the High Elf Archer, Dwarf Shaman and Lizard Priest.
>it relies on edge to be even remotely interesting LOL what? Stop memeing. Depiction of rape and death or blood is hardly uncommon in Japanese media, however it is impactful in Goblin Slayer because of the nature of these rapes compared to others.
TL;DR:
By situating a fantastical enemy within the real dimensions of struggling, weak humans, it found a niche. Usually, anime just let the overpowered protagonist slaughter, weak enemies, like goblins, as training fodder. Making a character whose entire fighting persona was built around killing goblins was super cool. Even more, Goblin Slayer’s resolve toward doing such a facially insignificant but truly important job felt admirable. People began to respect the hell out of him over timeMy points are fairly well summarized in link related as well:
http://archive.vn/lUf2F No.9242
>>9238I was just using the setting of goblin slayer to come up with a the reason why a fantasy setting based on the 5e ruleset and it's mechanics would be dull, and I have read tucker's kobbolds before and that manga is just an illustration of that concept stretched out to it's logical breaking point, before the goblin slayerman has to go fight some big bad evil man with his friends and save the world from the green tide. Goblin Slayer isn't ugly to look at and I'd fuck the high elf archer, but I"m not going to pretend that it's a very deep or nuanced look into anything at all. I was probably a bit too harsh on it, but whatever. I still don't care for it.
At least we agree on
>the issue with 5e most people had was that the stories in the settings become samefaced No.9257
>>9242honestly, if I may interject, I don't give a flying fuck about setting, give the players something generic by the rules and then give 'em a good adventure, tack on some interesting things here and there if you really want. I don't even feel 5e is that typical of a fantasy for its reliance on demihumans, you wouldn't find that anywhere else because most fantasy and fantasy parties in fiction a human based. My main problem with 5e is that combat is emphasized at the expense of everything else (which has been simplified down to a die roll), which wouldn't be that big of an issue if the combat was any good, but it's not, combat in 5e consists of ambulatory sponges tapping each other w/ sticks until someone dies from boredom, you aren't encouraged to think things out, the combat system is bare-bones and prolonged by everyone have high HP, and don't even get me started on "balance", all balance means is fights have to be easy because that's the main way forward, and lets not forget OP characters, after 3rd level, the game gets boring. I also don't like the fact the game pushes a default setting that is fucking boring, you'd think magic everywhere would be cool right? wrong, it makes the cool moments less cool because everybody's a shonen protag or a deviantart OC, just fuck man, I liked the SENSE of realism in the TSR editions, even if it was just a SENSE, the mundanity gave you a greater ability to appreciate the weird, and it's gone now.
No.9260
>>9257SO, TL;DR, you don't like the combat mechanics… that makes sense I guess.
No.9266
>>9257Ironically enough though the magic in 5e is massively nerfed so maybe that's why it feels boring. At lesat that's what I thought. Charop culture or rather the response against it and people not knowing how to actually build good fightan' men is what made magic feel less magical.
No.9270
>>9266maybe, but I mean, everyone has the magic and magic items are less special, honestly fuck charbuilders, it makes all manner of complexities in games which could be avoided if people had the creativity to not need a special class/build/whatever to stand out
No.9271
>>9266A shame they didn't bring back pre-3e stuff that gave interesting tactical options against magic, like segmented rounds making it easier to disrupt casting, the very high saves of fighting classes compared to magic classes, or the emphasis on henchmen for fighting classes vs. magic classes.
Much better than either nerfing magic, or (both 4e & Book of Weaboo Fightan Majick) making every class play identically to wizards.
No.9273
Oh, plus perhaps the biggest imbalance from 3e onward in favor of making magic classes broken: The 5-minute adventuring day
No.9274
>>9271I honestly quite liked Book of Weeaboo Fightan Magic, but I was always more of a combatfag anyways.
Fightan mans not having higher saves on average is fucking silly though.
No.9568
i belive theres sci-fi thats far more fiction (or fantasy) than science
Neznaika is just a good example probably
it is basically soviet fantasy
except they don't have races or whatever shit
they only had problems with Capitalist people who live inside of the Moon
also with general retards
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunno No.9569
>>4386Soc. """"realism""""" does the same thing
complitely unnatural fantasy lmao
but it tends to be even uglier than reality
No.9608
>>6723I just didn't see anyone in the thread discussing her and I found it strange as she is The socialist fantasy writer and I wanted to mention her. I've probably read half of what she wrote including essays. What criticisms are you talking about?
No.9610
>>9608>I just didn't see anyone in the thread discussing her Oh, I thought you were responding to my response (about why fantasy is generally depicted in feudal settings).
>What criticisms are you talking about?Le Guin is known for her books having varied
social and political themes, [covering] race, gender, sexuality, and coming of age… and she explored alternative political structures.
She pushed the boundaries of the time in fantasy and sci-fi. However in the past 3 decades day she is subject criticism from the Western Left because she wasn't not pushing them far enough. In other words she lightly touched upon topics that are often co-opted by intersectional liberals and is criticized for not going far enough.
For a concrete example, in Earthsea she was criticized for having androgynous characters be referred to in male-pronouns and were not portrayed as doing feminine things.
Le Guin initially defended her writing; in a 1976 essay "Is Gender Necessary?" she wrote that gender was secondary to the novel's primary theme of loyalty. This is important, the main message is what is important, and nitpicks on pronouns are childish.
However after being brow-beaten by liberals she
revisited [the essay] in 1988, and acknowledged that gender was central to the novel; she also apologized for depicting Gethenians solely in heterosexual relationships Furthermore
Le Guin's portrayal of gender in Earthsea was also described as perpetuating the notion of a male-dominated world; according to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, "Le Guin saw men as the actors and doers in the [world], while women remain the still centre, the well from which they drink" This is of course contradictive, if it is male dominated, yet women are the center that is like saying the Solar system is Planet dominated because planets revolve around the sun and 'absorb solar energy'.
>Source: White, Donna (1999). Dancing with Dragons: Ursula K. Le Guin and the Critics. Camden HouseMy point about this was that Le Guin writes fairly well and does in fact present interesting perspectives and ideas, but even referencing certain topics that are obsessed over by idpozzed liberals, sets one up for failure, because it will rarely be enough, or it will be all that people focus on, ignoring the actual merits of the story being told, it's the same reason that rightoids love WH40K and have the whole "Humans vs Orcs" mentality. In my opinion Ursula was trying to go for something similar to Star Trek, in that her more utopian works depicted a more free society in general and not "a sexually-fixated libertarianism".
Honestly I wonder if Uncle Joe would do a review on Le Guin, he's fairly well-read on fantasy and sci-fi fiction and is adept at making balanced critiques and reviews of works.
No.9611
>>9610>he's fairly well-read on fantasy and sci-fi fictionAnon, you can't say something like that and not dish deets.
Tell us about ironman's tastes in pulp serials
No.9612
>>9611>dish deetsDamn I haven't heard that in a while.
Uncle Joe is a Russian youtuber who, along with his girl Neon Cherry enjoy breaking down a lot of fantasy and sci-fi fiction and some genres within those genres. He criticizes both rightoids, liberals and nazbols for their rhetoric as well as non-ideological works. One of his most consistent points is on how base and superstructure affect one another, referring to Marx and Engels on the topic.
An example is Russian Fantasy and its Symptoms, where he breaks down the degradation of Russian fantasy literature from the 90s to current era and how it horribly reflects on fantasy of the previous century.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQgKQEQctCg A specific video of his is dedicated to a right-wing Russian writer who was well-known in the 90s/2000s for his bloody, hardcore fiction, and whose actions and later literature indicate a clearly fundementalist neo-nazi mindset.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGoxj7wgSFQRecently he's been breaking down specific works of fiction or specific authors, an example being Children of the Iron Gods
>>8840 And a similar more recent film Завод (Factory)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgGEkmJOMmsNeon Cherry tends to cover female topics more often
Women's Comedic Fantasy/SciFi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73VdADJUZQc50 Shades of saviour fantasy trash
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er72ONQheC4Zulleha (the topic is a rather shitty but high-budget TV series produced in Russia recently about the post-revolutionary bolsheviks)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvjFCaReaaE No.9613
>>9612Can you tell why other russian leftists deridingly refer to fans of these channels as "joejacks"?
Also, are you from russia or around it yourself? No.9614
>>9612Oh, right, I vaguely remember hearing about him in some "AMA I'm Russkie" threads here. I assumed you were literally referring to იოსებ ბესარიონის ძე ჯუღაშვილი writing fanboi letters to whatever the Russian equivalent of Argosy Magazine was.
No.9617
>>9613Other Russian leftists that do refer to them thsi way are mainly radical liberals butthurt over being called out as capitalists with a red/black-coat of paint. It's a combo of Uncle Joe and Rebel Jack which are their ironic usernames because political correctness in casual discourse is for weenies.
>are you from russia Yes
>>9614>იოსებ ბესარიონის ძე ჯუღაშვილი writing fanboi letters to whatever the Russian equivalent of Argosy Magazine was.Hahaha! no, unfortunately I wasn't referring to that, sorry, however I do have a rather good book called Stalin and the Writers by Benedict Sarnov which describes letters and interactions between Stalin and various writers of his time, so that may be of interest.
I can say that Stalin was very hung up on literature being of quality but not necessarily inline with ideology. Sholohov recieved the Stalin prize for his Quiet Flows the Don despite the main character going from White to Bolshevik and back to White.
Or Bulgakov's fairly anti soviet works. His reasoning for it was described by his adoptive son, that it was important to remember that in the Revolution there were heroes and villains and simply people on both sides of the conflict and that it is important to acknowledge this and not let one degrade into a mentality of them-and-us dehumanization. A Dog's Heart by Bulgakov was bitterly anti-soviet, but it was also a work of literary art and thus deserved its right to exist. It wasn't some shitty, low level propaganda or some anti-soviet rant, but merely a story that ridiculed the over-eagerness of the Bolsheviks
No.9624
>>9617Radical liberals who otherwise spread marxist theory, correct myths around USSR and call for a planned economy because they don't like a couple of youtubers and their fanbase for edgy posturing? Sounds like sectarian shit.
>A Dog's Heart But it wasn't really antisoviet, the novel was mainly critical of the professor and the tzarist intelligentsia in his stead. Because Sharikov was, in fact, their own doing, and then they immediately abandoned him after birth because he was uncouth. It's saying that they're the ones who brought up a mass of sharikovs in the first place and then they refuse to take any responsibility for it, retreating as they do into class chauvinism. The anti-soviet notion came from a later film adaptation which has distorted the original novel to fit better with the decommunization of 90's.
Bulgakov really wasn't treated very fairly, he was taken off theatre positions and ignored by Stalin when he tried contacting him, he was a bit of an obsession for Bulgakov.
No.9630
>>9624>it wasn't really antisovietNot on the surface. The dog turned human was essentially Bulgakov's idea that no matter how hard you try, a dog will remain a dog even if you humanize and educate it, something commented on further by the Doctor, who frequently uses veiled insults in address of "modern times" referring to the Bolsheviks.
Sure your point about the Doctor being hypocritical and creating the problems of Sharikov may be correct, but not entirely so.
>The anti-soviet notion came from a later film adaptation Eh not quite. Bulgakov held no love for the communists so it is not a stretch for him to have anti-communist ideals in his books and plays.
>because they don't like a couple of youtubers and their fanbase for edgy posturingUh no. Most actual communists who want planned economy and correct anti-Soviet myths do not delve into petty moralist attacks on Uncle Joe, and in fact they often refer to one another. I've never seen Konstantin Syemin or TubusShow or anyone else go after the JoeJacks, and the only ones who do re mostly made up of offended liberal feminists and a few moral-fags who think Home-Alone is a bad film because "capitalism".
No.9632
>>9630If you've read the book, you'd notice that the way Bulgakov writes professor and his assistant is not flattering at all, in fact, they come off as repulsive and amoral people. And the point is,- they didn't try. They left Sharikov to his own devices immediately. I've read the book a long time ago, but this video helped clear out some misconceptions, if you're not someone repulsed by Goblin
https://youtu.be/Lh7MeIu26Gg .
No.9633
>>9632I have read the book, in the original Russian form and English. The Professor is in many ways a reflection of Pavlov and his dog experiments. His attitude is that of a "higher person".
There are many interpretations of this regardless.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Филипп_Филиппович_Преображенский>GoblinI'm not repulsed at all, I don't always agree with him but I certainly find his talk-show to be fairly informative.
No.9634
>>9633Yeah and so, whatever negative traits and character flaws Sharikov has gained during his very limited development time, he got directly from Professor who he lived with. In a sense, Sharikov is mr. Hyde. to Preobrazhensky's dr. Jekyll.
No.9837
>>1214I've read it and I liked it. The author is a history professor so he goes into details about the causes of industrialization and of Mordor's invasion of the West. Also it isn't from Sauron's perspective but from various characters', most on Sauron's side. It includes multiple narrative threads that link together to form the plot, including a medieval espionage arc in the port-city of Umbar and a secret group constructing a flying machine.
The funniest thing is that orcs, trolls, etc. aren't monstruous things, but normal humans, who have been vilified in LOTR through racist progaganda.
No.10987
Hot Take:
J.R.R. Tolkien attracts reactionaries because he himself is a reactionary anarcho-monarchist.
>the proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men>My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning the abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs)—or to ‘unconstitutional’ Monarchy. I would arrest anybody who uses the word State (in any sense other than the inanimate real of England and its inhabitants, a thing that has neither power, rights nor mind); and after a chance of recantation, execute them if they remained obstinate! If we could go back to personal names, it would do a lot of good. Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so to refer to people >Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity. At least it is done only to a small group of men who know who their master is. The mediaevals were only too right in taking nolo episcopari as the best reason a man could give to others for making him a bishop. Grant me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses; and who has the power to sack his Vizier (or whatever you dare call him) if he does not like the cut of his trousers. And so on down the line. But, of course, the fatal weakness of all that—after all only the fatal weakness of all good natural things in a bad corrupt unnatural world—is that it works and has only worked when all the world is messing along in the same good old inefficient human way . . . . There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal. https://ordinary-times.com/2010/11/12/tolkiens-anarcho-monarchism/https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2010/11/anarcho-monarchism No.11003
>>4436>Rasputin is an actual sorcererI mean we do have Don Bluth's Anastasia (1997) Where I was rooting for the old bastard the whole time.
A decent (Russian) review by Ikotika
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0pIXX15xN0 Media Hunter does a good overview too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2JRRpp5yVU https://archive.vn/hcy4M I personally disliked the film because of the nature of its story, nicely made as it was. It's like Ra Ra Rasputin or Moskau Moskau or Disney's Quasimodo, in that the arrangement and performance is nice, but I dislike the lack of cultural awareness.
What I enjoyed without much guilt is the music, specifically Rasputin's song (which was sung like Scar's song and by the same people) and Once Upon a September.
The sequel about Bartok is utter trash tho.
No.11009
>>11003This is my favorite animated movie of all time (probably not for long), but I haven't really watched it since I became a communist, so I had completely forgotten about its anti-communist references and now I feel so conflicted because of its nature.
It must've been hell for my communist dad when I'd watch it again and again as a kid.Still I think it's superior to most Disney princess crap.
No.11010
>>11009>I feel so conflicted because of its nature (now)Same
>hell for my communist dad when I'd watch it againThat's pretty funny TBH, but not unusual.
>superior to most Disney princess crapWhile older Disney stuff is great, she does have plenty of character, and certainly was better than her contemporary Esmeralda from Quasimodo or Frozen's Elsa.
No.11011
>>1974A lot of Wehraboos and other /pol/yps like to defer to fantasy because unlike sci-fi their ideological idiocy is more easily slapped on. This is a historical precedent and applies to historical rightoids like the Nazis themselves. This is why LOTR is often projected as right-wing.
Himmler purchased a castle off the German gov with his own money and turned it into an Occult monastery where he and the SS legion commanders would go and LARP as Knights of the round table and Knights templars. Their symbols for the SS, Black-Sun and Swastika were taken from various "aryan" sources of ancient repute, co-opting old symbols for their nationalism. The Nazi german internal and foreign policy literally relied on the idea of some Mythical, Pseudoscientific or religious Deus-Ex Machina coming down from Heaven and saving the world from itself basically. Inner earth expeditions, The Hunt for Vrilium, The idea of all white people being descended from a group of pallid skined elf like aliens etc were all just these world saving ideas they invented and hoped one would be true. That's not even going into their various homosexual and pedophilic tendencies (see the Occult Nazi thread on /leftypol/
https://archive.is/5Yt5j)
-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occultism_in_Nazism -
https://archive.is/CoEPAThe neo-fash LARPers only promote this further: They either basically talk about how the SS were noble warriors fighting infinite raging red hordes who didn't feel the cold and didn't fear machine gun fire and tore the Germans apart through brute force and numbers. OR they talk about how the based Germans had Wunderwaffe weapons and tech that was beyond our understanding and that it's the jews repressing this secret knowledge. Half of this comes from the Burger government disseminating German generals' personal diaries as official war accounts. A perfect encapsulation of this is Child 44 both book and film which are irrational beyond belief. Red Cynic has an excellent review of the film and parts of the book (with proper english closed captions):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAUMpNDJyCEYounger reactionaries in particular basically have a view of the world as some kind of fantasy RTS. Personalities, traits and allegiances are determined entirely by “race”, with all engaged in an eternal battle against each other for supremacy, the end goal being “winning the game” or wiping out the other races. Through the lens of this worldview any actions a different group takes are seen as a calculated effort to undermine “their” group, with positive interactions being entire cynical or self serving in some way. A world view like this partly explains their propensity toward Byzantine conspiracies as an explanation for phenomena, their constant projection and also their disgust with mixed race relationships and “race traitors” as in their mind it at best muddies the water of the game and at worst is recruiting women (who, possessing the means of reproduction are in RTS terms a particularly powerful and necessary “unit”.) to the enemy camp (think priests in Age of Empires I). This also explains the willingness of many of them to accept inter-racial relationships between white men and non white (usually Asian) women. It's like their beloved Evola's musing about the Minotaur.
If you see the entire world through this lens, if this form of analysis dominated your thinking then of course it’ll seem sketch as fuck when communists claim not to give a shit about race. Because 20th century communist leadership in parts of the world was somewhat disproportionately Jewish (in heritage), they derive from that
“the communists” must be a kind of 5th column or stealth units of the Jewish faction/race". Reactionaries have always leaned toward a weird fantasy genre view of reality, but it seems to have really been solidified among millennials and gen z. Modern RTS games and gaming culture generally no doubt played a part and perhaps made them more susceptible to the reactionary worldview, but it seems like the “dumbing down” and simplification of reactionaries has been going on for quite a while as a process.
Funnily enough, their "Us vs Them" ideology makes absolutely no sense even within it's own premise; if anything the Axis were like Mordor, they're the ones that launched aggressive wars against their neighbors, they're the ones that went on a feverish rampage of rape, murder, and genocide on their military front, and it was Nazi Germany that tried destroying the free world when it attacked the USSR. It was the USSR that was an union of free workers who faced off against the seemingly infinite and increasingly disheveled/fanatical armies of Germany and the nearby puppet states it controlled. And, heck, the Japanese had their own civilians kill themselves when the Americans invaded. Even more ironically is that even if they placed themselves on a pedestal using LOTR, in Simarillion the Elves are often more savage and destructive than Orcs, in cold-blood (much like the SS when executing prisoners). See more with The Last Ringbearer
>>1214https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_RingbearerThe ironic part is that Stalin recognized this, which is why he helped Alexander Nevsky be produced in 1938 and re-released, using the imagery in war-time propaganda (pic 3 related).
-
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Александр_Невский_(фильм) A later film in 1944 about Kashey The Immortal also reflects this understanding.
-
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Кащей_Бессмертный_(фильм) Modern Russian culture also has a jocular take associating/sympathizing with Orks and Mordor and comparing collapse of the Soviet Union with the fall of Mordor in LOTR, basing this off the 'Klyukva'* depictions of the USSR and Russia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UND1mlrGJzs An interesting direct depiction of the Nazi Occult is in the Russian anime movie First Squad, where-in they try to revive the Teutonic knights and assist them in destroying the Soviet army.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UND1mlrGJzsTL;DR: The Germans believed they were based noble knights "saving" Europe from a red horde and the red army were basically orcs, and this narrative has been picked up by escapist burgers looking to LARP.
*
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Развесистая_клюква>Ringbearer No.11015
>>11011>This is a historical precedent and applies to historical rightoids like the Nazis themselves.I forget the name of the theory and the hypothetical culture, but they believed in some great precursor race from the north pole didn't they?
No.11018
>>11015>they believed in some great precursor race from the north pole didn't they? Yeah, part of this is where they got the whole Nazi UFO thing (and the UFO under the ice idea in The Thing.
No.11025
>>7963I highly doubt Tolkien,D&D etc and the rest gave a fuck about Race as much your IDPol types do. In fact I would say doing this makes race very obvious and creates division in things that were not supposed to have this in the first place and creates a precedent to censor good and evil or even contrasts of species themselves.
No.11026
>>6725It comes up in almost every game, especially if people don't know how to optimize their characters.
No.11027
>>9633Professor gives illegal abortions and treats old pedophiles. He is probably the worst character in the novel if you think about it. Unlike the movie which cu out worst parts of the novel about Preobrazhenski to help him look better. Remember that the movie was made at the end of USSR and it reflects a lot of anti-sovet propaganda popular at that time among intelligentsia.
No.11034
>>11023 Sounds familiar enough
-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Nazism#Hyperborean_racial_doctrine -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_Nazism >>11026>don't know how to optimize their charactersTBH I've forgotten how to do this in tabletop games.
>>11025>creates a precedent to censor good and evil or even contrasts of species themselves I think that's the point. capitalism is eliminating some basic writing concepts important for good fictional stories, using liberal racial virtue-signalling.
No.11365
>>1214>>9837Just started reading it and, eh… maybe its me, but ot feels increadibly grim, or at least that it will be so the further I go. Also I can't shake off the feeling that in the end there will be no fulfilling resolution, just getting to watch the proverbial train crash in slow motion.
Am I wrong in this first impresion? Should I go on or just stop before properly begining, because doomer shit like a progressive nation being fucking genocided by a self righteous maniac, details of which are revealed through a long book, is a bit too much in my current situation.
No.11372
Anyone Like the Strugatsky Brothers? It’s the reason why my curry-burger ass is now fluent in Russian.
No.11383
>>11372>curry-burgerTaking that literally would be gross. It's like that shitty lemon-slice burger from Boruto, who fuckng thinks those toppings would be a good idea.
No.11385
>>11372>Strugatsky BrothersThey're hit-or-miss for the most part with their later works (late-soviet/post-soviet) being politicized garbage, and most movies based off of their books being mediocre, destroying the good ideas they have. Red Cynic does some good reviews of several films based on their literature (such as Hard to be God), and brings up their books during his reviews as contrast and comparison.
Hard to Be God:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcSPyrfoCRk Inhabitable Island:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g800-KkHHxUAs a side note the film Annihilation (2018) (based off a series of books) totally rips off their works as well as STALKER ad Solaris.
UglyJoke deconstructs this pretty well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEIDqMUzq3s No.11444
I am thinking of creating a fantasy-ish setting. Most likely nothing more than a little hobby / pet project, but still, I'd like to try and make it as believable as possible. Any advice on this? I have the idea for what will be the main feature of the setting and how in general term the world should look, but nothing else really. So how should I start? Try to create the geography and distinguishing regional climate and other features first, then see where it makes sense to have different civilizations etc.?
No.11465
>>11444>So how should I start- Write out your ideas; settings races, magic system, various people etc.
- Plan out a story within the setting
- Begin writing.
No.11473
>>1195>fantasy with leftist themesI used to be a huge fan of it, but at some point I realise it's the most conservative genre of all the genres out there.
The same fucking elves, dwarves and orcs. And for some reason Elves come in various flavours, while Dwarves never change and always have Scottish accents for some reason (even if Tolkien based them on Jews and their language on Hebrew).
Most copycats don't even bother to read the stuff that inspired Tolkien in the first place.
And euro/anglocentrism is just another part of it. Humans are always medieval Europeans. Race is often used as an allegory to foreign cultures. Like djinns as nomadic desert dwellers, lizardmen as Mayincatecs or the fish people from Pillars of Eternity being Polynesians. Cultures mind you, that humans were perfectly capable of creating themselves. At least Tolkien understood that the appeal of race was to create a civilization that was impossible for humans to recreate, because of the radically different psych.
And let's talk about human societies in this. The gods are real and for some reasons other races share the same pantheon. Only that the "good" races worship the "good" part of the pantheon, while the "evil" races worship the "evil" part of the pantheon. There is no theological debate on whether the "evil" god is truly evil and not just a terribly misunderstood freak.
The king is always just. His lineage being blessed by the "good" god after all. If he's evil it's because outside corruption (probably Russians). And while we are at it:
>Good male leaderKing
>Evil male leaderEmperor
>Good female leaderPrincess
>Evil female leaderQueen
The people are content with the social stratification. There are never revolts, scientific progress is also frozen, gunpowder will never be a thing (looking at you Endless Legends) and neither will other forms of government but divine succession.
And the worst thing? People exist who genuinely defend this bland copypasta. People who deviate from the norm, like the HoMM crew, who dared to add science fiction into their setting (in their defence, science fiction was always part of the M&M world and it subtly lingered in HoMM as well) were fucking threatened with murder. I don't know what joy they derive from it, except the insurance that everything will always remain the same. Something only a conservative yearns for.
No.11476
>>11473Are attributes described by yourself specific to leftist fantasy? Where are good and bad things everywhere and cliches you described tend to be considered on the badder side. Have you read anything from Le Guin, for example? Even on non specifically leftist side there's bonkers fantasy books such as The Worm Ouroboros which take a much exalted approach to fantasy more reminiscent of ancient epics to the point of almost being impenetrable.
No.11484
>>4081>The Silmarillion is just straight up Elf propaganda.This is the most retarted take I've seen on here.
If you actually read the Silmarillion you soon realize its mostly about elves murdering and committing war crimes against each other and other races. In order to regain the lost Silmarils that was stolen, by Morgoth. And because of all of this strife, they severely weaken their forces, causing them to need seek help against Morgoth by calling on Valar in the War of the Wrath. Even the defeat of Morgoth in the War of the Wrath, they still don't regain the Silmarils as they were lost in the chaos of the war.
The three kin slayings.
https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Kinslaying_at_Alqualond%C3%ABhttps://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Second_Sack_of_Doriathhttps://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Third_Kinslaying No.11505
>>11473>Most copycats don't even bother to read the stuff that inspired Tolkien in the first place I read a lot of old literature and myths however I'm not sure what exactly Tolkien's inspirations were beyond "North European stories" and have had a hard time tracking down the literature that inspired him other than obvious things like the tale of Beowulf vs Grendel.
Do you know any specific works that he was inspired by (I know his ideas and characterizations for hobbits were inspired by South Africa and his experiences in WW-1)
>>11473>Humans are always medieval EuropeansWell not always. I've seen quite a few fantasies use Ancient Chinese or Japanese inspired settlements.
>Race is often used as an allegory to foreign cultures I mean that's not exactly fair, given that different races OUGHT to have differing cultures and in fantasy settings will have distrust of strangers… that's a natural part of all foreign cultures to one another, and why metropolitan cities often have divisions of ethnicity that arise over time.
>There is no theological debate on whether the "evil" god is truly evil and not just a terribly misunderstood freakBecause unlike most mortal humans, a God CAN embody pure evil and do things only for that reason since it is a deity that is often beyond human comprehension or morality. Moreover there is little theological debate to be had when killing each other on the battlefield. As the Last Ringbearer shows (and to an extent Silmarillion) even Tolkien doesn't have characters engage in such thoughts. Some media like World of Warcraft, however, do have such internal debates.
>king is always justNot always, that's just a lazy cliche used by paper-back rip-off writers. There is plenty of fantasy where-in the royal family aren't good people at all and get usurped or usurp as rulers constantly.
>His lineage being blessed by the "good" godTBH I don't see this often in fantasy and we see it more in real life history (a la the Romanovs)
>Emperor is evil Depends on the media
>Queen is evilDepends on the media
>people are content with the social stratificationI addressed this way back in my first post
>>1196sometimes it is nice to imagine a world of good kings, devious war-lords and magical creatures without having everything be about socialism.>No RevoltsExcept… we do see this. Often when we have a good king usurped by a warlord who leads a misguided revolt… or the subsequent revolt to remove the warlord.
>People exist who genuinely defend this bland copypastaCopy-pasta is annoying, but sometimes people just want to read simple bland escapism to self-insert into because capitalism makes real life unbearable to them at times.
>add science-fictionWhile "magic is unknown science" can be fun, it's been so overdone at this point that to be frank I'm sick of it. Especially when they can't keep it consistent or otherwise have failings as I pointed out in reference to the Young Wizards franchise;
>>2073>>5174>>9214 No.11522
>>11484Is there something extremely oddball about gruelling warfare and bloodshed among these ethereal ships and disney castles?
No.11534
>>11505>Do you know any specific works that he was inspired byProse Edda comes in mind
No.11536
>>11505>sometimes it is nice to imagine a world of good kings, devious war-lords and magical creatures without having everything be about socialism.Except that it has nothing to do with socialism. Feudalism was constantly plagued by peasant's revolts. One was so successful in China, the elite opened the gates at the great wall, prefering barbarians to rule it rather than a peasant on the emperor's throne.
That's how the Manchus came into power.
No.11541
>>11534thanks
>>11536>Except that it has nothing to do with socialismYou're missing the point
>Feudalism was constantly plagued by peasant's revolts I don't generally read fantasy, looking for "just like reel laif!" content, because there isn't much of a point in it being a fantasy then.
>inb4 allegoriesTolkien detested allegories and fantasy fiction written with them and for a good reason.
>the elite opened the gates at the great wall, prefering barbarians to rule it rather than a peasant on the emperor's throne.Ok, cool, but not relevant to fantasy unless you're going for gritty stuff which generally bores me because it's far too dry and 'realistic' for something meant to be fantastical.
When I want to read fictional portrayal of real world feudalism I look to read those specifically, and have fantasy put on the background of the story (if at all).
No.11548
>>11473I gotta say, I disagree with most of that. You are of course correct that the genre is plagued with shitty tropes that sometimes infect even the best example, however the truly bad examples don't really matter, the same way that shooty-shooty-bang-bang films don't matter when considering the quality of cinema as an art genre. So, to counter your post, I'll use some of the better known settings, as well as some of my favorites, to debunk the omnipresance of these flaws.
>The same fucking elves, dwarves and orcs. Settings that, in my opinion, don't fall into these traps as much:
<Dragon Age
Elves are the collapsed and racially discriminated survivors of an apocalyptic event that destroyed their horrific empire (in which they all were slaves), also loosing most historical knowledge, now worshiping their slaver overlords as gods. Most either live as an apartheid underclass in human cities or wander the wilds similar to the Indian tribes post-Trail of Tears.
Dwarves, previously a mighty Tolkien-esque civilization, now are an endangered species due to the changed material conditions. Hyper-reactionary culture cements the inevitable collapse of their last holdings, meaning only surface dwelling exiles who became craftsmen and traders in human cities will survive.
<Warcraft
Elves are different types of mutants with deep grudges against each of their more or less mutated cousins. While the traditional elf trope of magical higher beings is used, it is subverted with Nightelves being the descendants of a disgruntled non-magical lower class that now has turned to a fanatical worship of nature.
Dwarves are a sentient servitor race of control-maniac gods, who have lost their old rock bodies for flesh and gained free will due to the influence of the void (basically chaos/madness). Now, having lost their former knowledge of the world they seek to rediscover it.
Orcs probably are the single best and most unique part of the setting, as, unlike most former fantasy settings, they are not an "evil" race. Actually they are pretty chill, just pushed very far due to horrible environmental conditions that promote a mentality of expansion. Culturally I can't even put a finger on what they are. Best comparison is something close but note quite similar to paleolithic cultures of Europe.
<Witcher
Dwarves are stereotypical, but elves are not. For the most part their situation is similar to that in Dragon Age, but worse. Also their forefathers were basically Tolkien Orcs, just with fancy aesthetics and the ability to make their genocidal conquests inter-dimensional.
<Arcanum
The entire setting intentionally takes the tropes, but then turns them all on their head. It can be summed up as "what if LotR had an industrialization?", and its perfect, as it explores what would be the fate of all the idealized fantasy cultures in a real world - elves get fucked due to decline of magic and have to integrate as entertainers to human cities, orcs become wage slaves, humans easily transition to industrial order and dwarfs retreat from the world in isolation.
>And euro/anglocentrism is just another part of it. Humans are always medieval Europeans.Dragon Age and Game of Thrones both have a world that is close-to-real with different cultures and human ethnicity throughout the world. Tyranny also does this, and also the setting is purely human, with the cultures presented being similar to ones of the ancient middle east and southern Europe. Pillars of Eternity is a huge fucker of a ton of background lore that I only half recall, but I am pretty sure it is also akin to GoT and DA.
>Race is often used as an allegory to foreign cultures.Yea, got to agree that this is pretty wide spread, but I'd argue that at least Dragon Age dodges this. As I talked above, both Dwarves and elves are rather unique. Then there is the Qunari, who are really unique - less of a race, but a culture, that is based around a race that to my knowledge is nameless, or at least indistinguishable from the culture, that also subdues other races into it self. The culture is based around a principle of a theocratic barrack communism, something that I have never seen before in fiction to be honest.
Also, while Warcraft is especially guilty of your point, it also breaks this rule. Orcs, elves and dwarves all do this in my opinion. Also, the Draenai - a sci-fi civilization that was brought down to its knees and is now only a group of highly religious refugees.
>The gods are real and for some reasons other races share the same pantheon.Are you talking about Scrolls / DND? I don't know these well, but I believe these are the only ones which I've heard to do something like this. Here are some examples of religions / "gods" being done right in my opinion:
<Pillars of Eternity
A caveat, I didn't finnish the first game or the second one, but I think I got a good feel about the setting rules. In it gods aren't really gods, just a more powerful magical entity. They can be killed and seem to be bound to setting rules.
<Warcraft
Instead of gods, the setting has multiple opposing and rival universal forces, which are far more like types of magic which can be represented by exceptionally powerful representatives of theirs. For the most part, the races don't even understand this and just follow happen to start following one of these due to material conditions.
<Dragon Age
Possibly the most mature setting ever when it comes to religion. Gods are, almost definitively, not real, but the powers that they are attributed to are. Human nations are split between different sects of a once-unified faith, which gets bent due to political machinations in some cases. Elves and Qunari, as mentioned above, have also rather interesting and not good/evil faith that are rather interesting.
<Tyranny
Gods as such don't seem to exist, but mortals in the setting can basically become demigods - archons of a certain aspect. This happens due to the magical system that works mainly through the power of word and script - as a person becomes known for being, say, a great general who has a special bond with his men, he in fact forms such a bond, being able to save them from death and so on.
>The titles of evil/good rulersDon't really know where you are getting this from. For the most part the fiction I see just has Queen / King for a small-scale ruler and Empress / Emperor for the ones that, you know, actually have an empire.
>Tech stagnation<Witcher series (books) have nonsequetors of archeologists looking back on the setting, also technology is shown as entering renaissance era.
<Warcraft has been more and more tech heavy over time.
<PoE and Dragon Age have gunpowder
<Arcanum literally set in Industrial Revolution, so do quite a few urban fiction works that use fantasy elements, like that China guys works.
<Tyranny is all about a civilization that discovered iron smithing btfo'ing the rest of the world.
>Content sociallyAgree on this point. While it is reasonable for medieval setting, I do believe peasant revolts are underrepresented, even if they shouldn't be successful.
>Only Divine Right<Witcher: Enlightened despotism, merchant republics, clan societies
<Warcraft: theocracies, technocratic republic, oligarchies, clan societies, anarcho-communism, Incan socialism, post-scarcity societies, noble republics.
<Arcanum: corporate despotism
<Dragon Age: merchant republics, mage oligarchy, theocratic barrack communism
No.11549
>>11522A little, but this place was never attended to be built for warfare. Because it was built in Valinor.
No.11623
>>11548Based trips
>>4171Speaking of Hobbits
http://archive.is/zy0B8It's also interesting - and a possible reference by JK Rowling - that the Weasley family live in a home they call "the Burrow" and are one of the pureblood wizarding families, but remarkably poor in comparison to ones like the Blacks or Malfoys (poor and rich hobbits).
Also Tolkien thread
>>11615 No.11629
>>4171This, the people who actually that last ring bearer is true, and Sauron did nothing wrong, I guarantee you have never read the Lord of the Rings. But what I disagree with you are one, orcs having friendly relations with one another, when left to their own devices. The orcs who Cirith Ungol kill the majority of the themselves in fight. And when two orcs following Frodo in Sam in Mordor before they are able to find them, they get into a argument and one kills the other and runs away.
No.11636
>>11629Bear in mind, I have nothing against The Last Ring bearer, I just think people here take it as gospel.
No.11637
>>11629>>11636Thing about the LRB is that its a perfect example of death of the author. Tolkien never intended such a reading from his works. I'd say both settings are alright, but you can't consider them at the same time, because the characters of both are different people.
Anyway, aslo bumping my question
>>11365 which I guess I should just rephrase to "does LRB have a good / not hopeless ending?"
No.11736
>>10994puppetering is expensive, there's also the age old question of how to end your show when everyone knows that your heroes lose and get most of their species genocided
No.11759
>>11736Also many puppets require multiple puppeteers in close proximity and with covid they couldn't pull it off technically for safety reasons.
No.12039
>>2054> This is actually part of why the USSR fell, the youth, who did not experience the hardship of industrialization an undeveloped country, of fighting in a revolution or the second world war etc. did not understand the value of what they had, they took it for granted and instead wanted the nebulous freedom to have jeans and gum and rock music.Ok boomer
No.12041
>>11636 >>11637 Russian Speaker here, the translation leaves much to be desired, as Russian lends itself more easily to much more rhythmic verses, while English literature requires a master of English language like Tolkien to truly bring out its potential in interesting reading.
It's not a perfect book but the point was simply to provide an interesting counter to the original work.
>>11736>>11759Covid aside, I suppose you make a good argument, still makes me sad, because puppet work is rare. The only thing current is Sesame street and they've lost a lot of quality since 2012 (along wtih most of PBS).
Speaking of, I highly recommend Dinosaurs, by Jim Henson. I have no idea how some of its satire made air in the USA.
>>12039>'The social environment and inherent differences between generations caused dissonance in the late USSR because the youth, living in good conditions and who did not fully appreciate it, are different to their parents/grandparents who lived under true hardship.' <Hurr ur Boomer durr
Brilliant fucking argument you undialectical westernoid.
No.12047
>>12041>Speaking of, I highly recommend Dinosaurs, by Jim Henson. I have no idea how some of its satire made air in the USA. IDK if it counts as fantasy, but yes Dinosaurs is shockingly based.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jO0Fp_BHLs No.12220
So a while back I read on some tumblr blog a hot take that I was reminded of by all this talk of Orcs and racism. The idea was that "Vampires are Anti-Semitic caricatures!", the reasoning being primarily superficial: sallow skin, aquiline nose, bald head, and Nosferatuesque hands indicating a supposed Jewish caricature (which isn't even all that accurate to the famed "Happy Merchant" tbh). Ironically, however, this idea has also been picked up by 8pol with someone screencapping their own OP post and spreading it on multiple threads (pic 1). The funny thing is their logic is essentially the "Orcs vs Humans" argument of
>>1974 just more complex.
As far as I am aware, this is incorrect. While the Nazis definitely used vampiric imagery in regards to Jews as a metaphor; more them projecting vampirism onto Jews, rather than it being the other way around.
Frankly it would be far more accurate to consider porky as vampires given both Adrenochrome and the fact that vampires are typically depicted as hidden, often in the guise of a rich and powerful person (COUNT Dracula for example). Moreover, most monster myths do not originate with persecution against Jews. They originate in the superstitions of smaller cultural groups. No one borrowed physical tropes about Jews in China and Japan, where sallow faced black haired monsters roamed willynilly eating people.
The Indigenous peoples of North and South America did not target Jews when thy talk about the pale, sickly monsters who whistle and skulk in the rain forests, jungles and mountains.
The ancient Europeans to the far North did not borrow supposed modern tropes of Jewish appearance when they began speaking of the corpse eating denizens of deep forests that led to the modern elf. And let’s not talk about how many of the “Vampire” myths actually come from populations that are in fact, Jewish.
https://jewishjournal.com/culture/arts/74108/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_folklore_by_regionThe truth is, liberals are bound and determined to see anything as anti-Semitic, when in fact all that’s happening is that pale, sickly, strange-faced horrors have been lurking in folklore for millennia. The logic of it all is so stretched, so warped, so utterly grotesque, I myself find it difficult to believe. To those who may edge towards such ideas, fight the fights that actually require fighting. Pick enemies who are actually hateful toward Jews.
TL;DR: Vampires are not Jews and the claims of such are founded on racist projection and subsequent connecting historical prejudices and misconceptions (such as blood libel) on little more than an allegation.
No.12223
>>12222 >you're the real racist for thinking it's racistLet's not go there, frogposter.
No.12226
>>12223Piss off m8, how is he wrong? Liberal projection of race is essentially the same as /pol/'s except instead of reveling in the supposed superiority they get offended about it. Both sides seem to think life is a videogame.
No.12233
>>12223I wasn't saying anon is racist, but the people anon is talking about are racist. Liberals who think that any gross subhuman image is automatically anti-Semitic are basically saying they think Jews look like vampires/goblins/whatever. The trope of an uncannily human monster is extremely old and has plenty of examples where it's unrelated to Jews. Even putting that aside, in responding to the idea expressed in that pic, the libs are saying that racism is bad, but they validate the false premise that vampires are inspired by Jews.
No.12236
>>12226 >>12233 If you think pointing out someone is racist is racist in itself you're silly.
No.12240
>>12236Pointing out REAL racism is not racist. Projecting racism onto something that is not actually racist is racist however. Orcs being the most commonly discussed example (including in this thread), where liberal virtue-signalers whine about it being about "muh Black people" even though Tolkien not only was anti-racist and hated Hitler for co-opting North European folkore, but also denied them being anything close to such an allegory (an idea he detested in the first place). Hell, Orcs don't even make sense as African-Americans given that in many ways they would be far closer to portraying a stereotype of Mongoloids and East Europe, an idea he also denied.
The same applies to vampires; as I explained, the Jewish 'features' are projected onto vampires, first by Nazis who took the medieval idea of Blood Libel and connected it to their metaphors about Jews sucking the life out of Germany. This is despite the two concepts existing for long times separately and within multiple cultures (especially Jewish ones) featuring vampiric monsters in their legends. Liberals are just picking it up from the other end of the spectrum.
2 sides of the same coin essentially.
No.12258
>>12236If you see a vampire and think "Jew" or an orc and thing "black people" you are the one who's racist.
No.12266
>>12240>>12258>Tolkien the well known racist and pro-colonialism didnt actually mean orcs to be an allegory of black peopleyou guys dumb as fuck lmfao
No.12269
>>12266>the well known racist and pro-colonialism you're retarded as fuck.
>>11779 No.12275
>>12266>Tolkien>allegorynigga…
<“I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.”
No.12285
>>12266>black people is more industrial and the whitoid barbaric>black people is an evolutionary step forward from whitesBased if true.
But seriously though, you must be a dumbass to think the orcs being anything other than Tolkien monkey brained hatred for modern industrial capitalism.
No.12300
>>12285>[orcs] is an evolutionary step forward from whitesI missed this part of the story.
No.12306
>>12269wow a retarded social media meme, i have been proven wrong
reminder tolkien was explicitly against race mixing and he even shoved that into his books
No.12337
>>12285>hurr muh black supremacy is totally ok because 'fugg de whitey!' Sakaism >>>/out/
>Tolkien monkey brained hatred for modern industrial capitalism The guy was an idealist who experienced war, racism and the disgusting results of industrial capitalism and therefore longed for simple peaceful life without such complex things. He was a writer, not a politician and therefore his idealism is merely his lament of that. I hardly see this as a bad thing. While I am by far no Tolkienist or agree with his political ideas, his literature and statements are inoffensive in the least, especially compared to twits like Ayn Rand, Terry Goodkind, H.P. Lovecraft and George Orwell.
>>12306>muh meme<doesn't pay attention to the links pointing to posts on Tolkien's hatred for Hitler and racism.
<Doesn't pay attention to Tolkien's dislike for allegorical bullshit.
Ok skimreader
>muh books no racemixingBitch where? Just because the elves are pretentious pricks about Orcs and others doesn't mean shit. FFS Orcs are - in the lore of the story - elves corrupted by the wiles of Sauron. This is based on the inspiration for Orcs themselves, being forest demons and dark counterparts of elves in North European mythology, from people who, at the time of creating said elves were 99% unaware of black people.
>explicitly againstBITCH WHERE? I don't recall this in any of this works.
No.12339
>>12306>tolkien was explicitly against race mixing and he even shoved that into his booksThe human king marries and elf lol.
No.13231
So what are the origins of the average fantasy wizards? As in them being mostly normal people who have the power to cast wide variety of spells?
I realize that the source is once again Tolkien if I had to guess, but he had to get the idea from somewhere, right? But from my knowledge of folklore, nothing akin to them really existed before Tolkien. You had more pagan folklore, but spells there were far more just mortals tampering with the spiritual / godly world (so more like fantasy priests or druids), or the creatures doing magic being godly themselves. Then with Christian folklore spells seem to be far more just very specific and usually evil enchantments, eg most of Brothers Grimm stuff, or just works of Satan. So what are the origins of the stereotypical DnD Mage, who has a wast access to diverse powers and little reliance on anything other than their own proficiency?
No.13233
>>13231>So what are the origins of the stereotypical DnD Mage, who has a wast access to diverse powers and little reliance on anything other than their own proficiency?Merlin? He's closer than Gandalf at least. Gandalf is an actual angel who just takes a human shape (being inspired partly by Odin's wanderer disguise). Merlin is said to be born of demonic ancestry, though, so more like a sorcerer than a wizard in that context.
No.13713
Bump, this thread is good
No.13714
Dwarves are pretty cool
No.13716
>>13233Depends on what kind of wizard you're talking about. Modern fantasy wizards are either mystical hermits or the equivalent of university students, taking years of their lives to study magic.
In modern fantasy magic is essentially science that different magic users channel and understand in different ways. Wizards, sorcerers, essentially and primary magic users are the most enlightened because they don't just blindly channel magic, they actually understand how it works and where it comes from.
No.13735
>>13731I think anon meant in theory. Harry potter literally takes place a school where the mechanics of magic are explained at length.
No.13741
>>13731>What kind of natural phenomenon does it represent?my dick in ur ass
No.13742
>>13731NTA but lightning.
>>13741help mods ther eis an asshole on ftrongpage
No.13747
>>13735>I think anon meant in theory. Harry potter literally takes place a school where the mechanics of magic are explained at length.Maybe i'm a blithering idiot making a fool out of my self because I've forgotten the trivia from a fantasy world but isn't Hogwarts a school for special magical people ? Wizards have to learn how to use their powers, but Muggles aren't magical creatures and can't learn how to use magic no matter how much they study.. You don't need to be a scientific creature to learn and use science.
No.13748
>>13747Not a HP fan but isn't Hermione like super good at magic?
No.13749
>>13747>>13748Yeah, I think Muggles are more uninformed than unable.
I'm not sure if the science and magic in fantasy is really comparable, if you mean scientific method…. actually scrap that. Science in films is usually magic based on a true story.
No.13763
>>13748I thought the being good at magic gene could be atavistic and thus not show up for a while when a special magic wizard man fucks a dirty humanoid.
No.13771
>>13749Do I understand you correctly ? You are saying that films don't show science at all. They show secular magic when they mean science, and they show fantasy magic when they mean magic.
No.13792
>>13747Magic in HP is a bit weird because you have to have innate ability
and you have to study at length to learn how to use it.
>>13748Hermione has the magic gene or whatever it is that lets her do magic. She's not a muggle, just her parents are. It's unclear if there's something like a recessive gene or whatever but some magic users are born to muggles and some non-magic users are born to magic-users. It's kind of implied that having a scientific or muggle-oriented approach to magic is actually helpful, because people like Hermione or Arthur Weasley get good results thanks to their curiosity and experimentation.
>>13763Yes except it doesn't seem to have anything to do with blood purity. IIRC there was somebody from a pureblood family with no magic. One of the Black family I think. One of Harry's neighbors is also a squib (which is how the books introduce the idea), and so is Filch.
>>13749>Yeah, I think Muggles are more uninformed than unable.No, they are 100% unable, as are the "squibs" who are born to wizard families but can't do magic. You need the mojo to be able to do magic at all. How good a study you are just influences your aptitude.
>I'm not sure if the science and magic in fantasy is really comparable, if you mean scientific methodHP plays with that. The wizard world uses antiquated technology (Harry's first year is 1991-1992) and supposedly certain more modern technology malfunctions in areas with a lot of magic like Hogwartz (although that could be a spell that does that intentionally). One of the themes of the story is that the wizards are kind of backward because they're insular and think they're superior to muggles and ignore their technology. Like there's the bit where Arthur Weasley got bit by the magic snake and wizard medicine wasn't able to help him but muggle medicine worked. Most wizards also don't seem to have a deep understanding of magic and how it works, but just say the words and do the gestures to make stuff happen, so their understanding of magic isn't scientific at all really.
No.13803
>>13792>>13792>Most wizards also don't seem to have a deep understanding of magic and how it works, but just say the words and do the gestures to make stuff happen, so their understanding of magic isn't scientific at all really.Is it even possible to write a universe in which magic can be studied and explained scientifically?
No.13837
>>13803It would just be medieval sci-fi then.
Which would be a cool as shit concept.
No.15198
>>4147I guess the best way would be to make your own fictional cultures from scratch as realistically as possible. I imagine that it would take an immense amount of effort though.
No.15199
>>15198Sorry, meant for
>>4298 No.17065
>>13803thats what magic realism is, to write a story in wich magic and fantasy are treated as normal everyday stuff that doesnt surprise people. latinoamericans have been doing this since the 50s
No.17083
>>15200thanks, currently fapping to lower left
No.17632
>>17564looks pretty kino, very refreshing in the age of GoT ripoffs
No.17661
>>17637It's an adaptation of a 13th century poem, plus it aint like King Arthur's knights acted anything like real knights did, they were more like the Superheros of their day than anything else
>>17632Yeah I really miss 80's style fantasy so my interest piqued when I saw the trailer and saw how not-GOT it looks
No.17935
>>17637Imagine being such a pathetically unimaginative twat that you can't detach actual history from the time-period context of a fictional legend telling a story. You're like one of those insufferable cunts who thinks they're smart by going around and saying Santa isn't real on Christmas, just to spoil the fun.
No.18110
>>18103>Eyes Wide Shut of knight moviesWhat did he mean by this
No.18619
The Green Knight was dope af, you should see it
No.18620
>>18619okay I will see it
No.18621
>>18182Jay's laugh got geniunely evil and spiteful lmao
No.18660
>>18619okay i will not see it
No.18676
>>18619I can't fucking find it anywhere for some reason, send link pls?
No.18678
>>1196>fucking transition and site-redirect from bunkerchan to leftypol has fucked up formatting and deleted several posts Why the fuck did you people take down Bunkerchan instead of leaving it up as a backup mirror?!
No.18821
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqYtmWbw19k&ab_channel=SolusAstorias >" Whoah, is she crying ?"<" Is she actually crying ? Dude you just made her cry, you made a succubus cry from celibacy.">" I didn't think she would actually cry.."<" She is in fucking tears.">" I thought it would be funny you know."<" I'm a man of God but even that was fucking ice cold.">" Come on, man."<"She's holding her tears in public, this is the most pathetic thing I have ever seen since the fourth crusade*." *Pillaging of the Constantinople by a Crusaders and Venetians before being wrecked fighting the Muslims. This weakened Constantinople enough for the Ottomans to grab a hold of it later.
No.18875
>>2860Now I see why Tukhachevsky got purged and 100% agree with it
No.18892
Fifth Season blatantly comments on our world, and isn't very positive. It's also much more interesting than your average Tolkien-wannabe.
>>11505He copies entire ideas, characters, arcs, settings, and plots from both the Eddas, Völsunga saga, and Heimskringla. Beowulf is more of an abstract influence, like it is on all English literature. Völsungs was highly influential on 19th century romantic literature by the way, so it's no surprise it influenced Tolkien in turn.
Went through a Nordic animism phase as a teen and read everything I could find related to it. Read The Hobbit and LoTR much later, and the influence (read: thievery) was blatant.
No.18894
>>18892>Fifth Season blatantly comments on our world5th season of what?
>entire ideas, characters, arcs, settings, and plots from both the Eddas, Völsunga saga, and Heimskringla mind elaborating how with a specific example from both works, because beside basic tropes/storylines that are repeated in European myths, legends and literature many times, I don't see it beyond those similarities. Also I'm fairly sure that his idea of elves and such were never hidden to be directly interpreted from Norse stories from what I recall and were merely placed within Middle Earth as a neutral setting away from real life history.
>a Nordic animism phase as a teen and read everything I could findPlease recommend titles and authors I've been having a tough time finding good Norse literature outside of the basics.
Smaug is obviously a call back to Fafnir, but a gold-hoarding dragon is a story as old as dragons themselves. And the One Ring is a reference as well (Ivaldi's ring or whatever it was called from Wagner's cycle). But it's not quite 1:1 and it still takes a lot of skill to take stories interpreted from odd ballads and to rewrite it into a huge story with humor and wit and songs and multiple languages.
No.18956
is dragon age inquisition any good?
No.18986
>>18956>dragon age inquisitionnever played it but reviews are good for it and the clips seem decent enough. This is more
>>>/games/ content TBH
No.18992
>>18894>5th season of what? KEK
NTA, but i think he meant novel "Fifth Season"
No.18993
>>18992Oooooh, that makes sense. a novel called that, kek
No.18996
>>18110Eyes Wide Shut is the Dark Souls of movie comparisons.
No.19006
>>18986Yeah but the /games/ board is mostly about gameplay and shit, meanwhile I aint really much of a videogame guy, I just got an itch to play something quest-ey because I liked The Green Knight a lot and can't think of many things quite like it
No.19007
>>19006Dragon Lance was good back in the day, or at least I remember it being good.
Most things including Dragon Age are just variations on DnD ideas, just as an FYI.
No.19027
I have been agonizing over if I should start writting a fantasy setting as a hobby. I've already on-and-off tried cooking up ideas for it in my head for like 6 months and its to the point that I have:
>Basic layout for the "special" feature of the setting
>A very basic geography
>Wide-strokes backstory for the setting
>A collection of "cool things" that I want to include (locations, technologies, nations etc)
However I don't really know how to start and try to tie it all up together. Also I am kinda scared I'll just end up creating a cringe nonsense that can't stay self-consistant or is filled with plotholes.
Anyone got advice?
No.19028
>>19027>However I don't really know how to start and try to tie it all up together.Try writing a story to give you a reason to incorporate specific elements of the setting and help focus which parts need more development.
No.19029
>>18956Its servicable. First I played it I had the "just left the Star Wars movie theater" vibe of it being the best of the franchise, but a year later now I think Origins still blows it out of the water. In short, hopefully not too spoilery:
>Too few story missions>Main antagonist is a bit of a meme, Low-Key spoiler: He is hyped up as being super duper bad dude but just comes off as a push-over who only sets cool things in motion around him, while himself staying as a joke>Gameplay is neither as in-depth as Origins or as fun as the LIDL-WoW combat of DA2. >Apparently you have to do a bit of grinding of low quality side content in order to progress, I can't say since I was a completionist and did all of it before the main missions, which lead to me having way too much mission-starter points)What good it does have:
>Very strong characters, basically all but 1 companion were great, while Varrick is probably best companion in an RPG period>Very good story in everything else aside from main villain>Good mission design in the few main missions, including some awsome moments as well>Amazing DLC content (If you ever play the game, you activate the last DLC through your mission table after the last main campaign act, while the other two are integrated in the base game)>A very strong final ending that still has me hyped for DA4 No.19030
>>19006Guessing you are the guy from /games/ who started the "Games like Green Knight" thread. I recommended Dark Souls 2 there. I really think Dark Souls games would be right up you alley in terms of story, adventuring and style. As much as those are memed for their difficulty, I'd argue they shine the most in terms of story, and I fully endorse cheesing and cheating your way through just for that.
No.19043
>>18993I have just started reading it and can recommend it. Good stuff.
No.19053
>>19030ill give em a check, ive always loved the look of the screenshots ive seen
>>19029good rundown comrade, ill also check them out
No.19143
Anyone looking forward to the Wheel of Time adaptation on Prime coming by the end of the year?
>>19027Start with short stories first. Trying to write a massive epic from scratch is not a good idea.
No.19242
>>19137I really dig these songs
Ah fuck it, I'll give her a shot. What's the worst that can happen?
No.19438
Embedding error.
While the show is pretty cool, I'm not a raving fan of Samurai Jack, it just wasn't my thing, BUT it had a lot of good moments that did stick with me. Video related (the magic worm) was one of them.
The final question seems simple, just ask something inane like 2+2 and deduce the answer by the lie, but that misses the point of the riddle. In the classic riddle, the traveler doesn't need to know which brother lies, he needs to know which path to take. The person in the riddle gets one question. Knowing which one is the liar doesn't help you find the right path or the magic worm, because you don't get to follow it up with any more questions so you don't know what the truth teller or liar would say.
So you ask what the other person would say.
Take the path riddle. Fork in the road, west or east, and two brothers, one liar, one truthful, to ask one question. Let's say west is the correct path.
If you ask Liar what his brother would say, he would lie. Truther would tell you west, because that's the correct path, so Liar would lie and say, "My brother would say go east!"
If you ask Truther what his brother would say, he would tell the truth. Liar would tell you east, because that's the wrong path, so Truther would tell the truth and say, "My brother would say go east!"
Now you know that the liar would tell you east, and the opposite of what the truther would tell you is east, so that proves west is the correct path. If you just asked them, "What's 2+2?" One would say "4!" and one would say "38!", so you would know which one speaks truth and which one tells lies. But you just blew your only question, so you can't use this new information to find the correct path.
No.19505
Watched Green Knight yesterday becsuse it was recommended here. Honestly, it might just be that I just watched it and its fresh in my mind and all, but I think it might push out Stalker as my favourite film of all time.
No.19779
>>19505Neato, sounds fun.
No.23262
>>18821neat continutation idea: I imagine he's forced to apologize by saying she's a most deplorable temptress of the darkest pits of hell and she ends up becoming so smitten with him that she joins the party just so that she can seduce him. Her attempts don't work out, but the paladin doesn't want to upset her again so he begrudgingly lets her keep attempting, creating a weird romantic comedy.
No.23551
>>12222>12222Checked and based summary
No.23954
>>19505Thought it was pretentious as fuck, especially after I learned the actual green knight story it was clearly attempting to "deconstruct".
No.24815
>>23954Please Elaborate. I remember the original story and haven't gotten to see the film, so an outside opinion 'd be interesting to hear.
No.25246
>>25245why should i watch this reaction video
No.25248
>>25246It's the reason why that animation was probably favored by the algorithm. Skip to around the 29 minute mark if you don't believe me.
No.25249
>>25248I don't quite see your point. Yes its a 3d character animation but how is that relevant to it getting recc'd to me? I haven't indulged in Nostalgia critic for a long ass time.
No.25251
>>1196>>1950Ironically this is literally a minor thing in Fenoxo's Trials in Tainted Space that has Steph Irson do this kind of thing and get into sexual situations in each episode
https://wiki.smutosaur.us/TiTS/Steph_Irson No.25252
>>25249Because Nostalgia Critic's review of The Wall was horrendously bad to the point that it garnered a bunch of attention.
No.25255
>>25252Oh really? I honestly had no idea. Can you explain it to me? I don't think I've seen The Wall, let alone the review (in full) so please elaborate on his mistakes.
No.25258
>>25255NTA but The Wall is a very famous and well regarded film / rock opera about very heavy and significant subject matter (post-WWII rot of liberal society), and the Nostalgia Critic's "review" of it is an obnoxious long-form parody of the movie and songs. But it's not just a Weird Al kind of parody - it's extremely disparaging of the content it's parodying, the original The Wall.
But it's bewildering because the people involved seem to have neither the talent to pull off the musical parody of anything nor even enough of a surface level understanding of the original material to be able to construct a parody of it that makes any sense. It's a little shocking how bad, confused, and ill-conceived it is, and it became a bit of a meme because of this.
No.25261
>>25258Oh you mean like Pink Floyd's stuff? and damn that's cringe-inducing.
No.25262
>>25261>Oh you mean like Pink Floyd's stuff?Yes.
>and damn that's cringe-inducing.It might be the current high water mark for internet cringe.
No.25263
>>25259>>25262Yeah, anyhow thanks for the reccs, gonna check it out.
No.27240
Is it chddy to think black hobbits native to the north is weird?
Immigrant I get but native should be too mixed out by third generation, unless hobbits practice jim crow
No.30369
>>27240 No it's a reasonable question as it doesn't make narrative sense, following the world-building. The only reason it'd be 'chinletdy' is if your reasoning is "hurr blacks in de shire is bad" or some /pol/shit like that.
No.30824
>>27240I think it's weirder for hobbits to be diverse per se than to have black hobbits. Black hobbits per se isn't necessarily odd. I vaguely recall descriptions of hobbits being brown, or maybe specifically their hands/feet looking brown. People tolerate drow being pitch black in the underdark even though logically they would be extremely pale.
Hobbits
all having dark skin for some reason would be one thing, but having a small and famously sedentary group of people be diverse makes no sense at all - where do the different phenotypes come from? I guess you could have an explanation but there is a weird trend in fantasy lately to completely ignore actors' and characters' ethnicities even when it raises obvious questions. If you want black hobbits just make them all black or change what hobbits are so it makes sense. Occasional black halflings in D&D is fine because the lore is totally different and they live all over the world, but for what the lore is in Tolkien it's weird to have significant diversity in an area that's roughly equivalent to rural England.
No.30830
>>30824In the Silmarillion, Men came wandering out of the east when they first encountered Elves iirc. I think proto hobbits also had a similar wandering period before settling down in the Shire. If I was writing the show, that's how I would explain it at least, that this community has picked up different hobbity folk in its history of travel. IIRC, Smeagol isn't a hobbit either, but his people are related to hobbits. I'd imagine that this group is also made up of not quite hobbits, before settling down into what will become the hobbit community.
Or you can just say that Eru works in mysterious ways.
No.34723
>>19438>Embedding error. This fucking site…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBEEBXsFeRk Samurai Jack - Final Question (Season 2, Episode 2)
No.34743
>>30824I’m still so mad they took the 9 hour edit down from YouTube.
No.34748
Surprised to have not seen mentioned the black company serie here, which despite the fantasy background and evil wizards, very much likes to play with political themes and a materialist view of history
You basically start by following a band of mercenary reputed for their ability under the orders of the local big bad evil wizard, which reveal herself to not be that bad administration wise really, just ruthless and magically powerful.
No.34755
>>34723skill issue
check this out
No.34768
>>34755 Retard, I'm saying the Embeds are functional initially, but when there's some new update to the site or other /tech/ fuckery, a ton of the embeds are gone with "Embed Error" afterwards because the site's embed system is janky.
>>34748>black company serieI personally didn't like it very much, it feels a little like GATE and just goes way to hard on the "realism meets fantasy" aspect that I've frankly found tiresome at this point. I'd rather just read the shitty isekai pennybacks from Russia, because those are at least funny and weird.
>>34743 You mean the "one more step" YTP?
No.34779
>>30824Well all fantasy shit now is just D&D schlock so it's to be expected
No.34780
>>34768Yes, the “every time Sam takes a step further from the shire the scene where Sam says if he takes one more step it’ll be the furthest he’s ever been” 9 hour edit.
No.34789
Been looking at some obscure fantasy films of the past and found some that I remember from when I was a kid that are interestingly different.
First is The Black Cauldron - the almost forgotten Disney flop based on a trilogy of books that are themselves based on Welsh mythology, written by Lloyd Alexander.
The Second is The Princess and the Goblin, a story based on a 19th century novel of the same name.
Third is The Swan Princess, which is an interesting reinterpretation of the Swan Ballet.
All of them differ from the traditionally action-adventure genre of Swords and Sorcery fantasy that is commonplace and is instead more in the original vein of fairy tale stories. It's unfortunate they were not quite up to scratch of some more classic, well known fairy tale interpretations. Cutting out the graphic scenery was a mistake in Black Cauldron.
Frankly, other than the Black Cauldron I though the other 2 were Don Bluth films but surprisingly are productions of other animation studios that have essentially vanished in all but name - the producers of the third film have since only made 1 other decent cartoon - The Trumpet of the Swan - and otherwise focused on making terrible Swan Princess sequels and the shitty 3D Alpha/Omega series.
The creators of the second are an obscure Hungarian film studio that has made numerous unknown fairy tale films.
Cut scenes from the Black Cauldron (pic rel)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRzdVzeOBqk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3iRGmRDaFU The troubled history of Black Cauldron
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIuK4OZCWbU The Princess and the Goblin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fERWxl4c4s Princess Swan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qqqi_M7ais review
No.37333
I read a lot of fantasy growing up but the one that will always stand out is The Edge Chronicles. I'm amazed that no one ever mentions it. It's been so long and wiki claims it's a children's book so idk how the writing holds up but the world the authors created, complete with a lot of amazing artwork, is fascinating. They need to turn that into a TV show at some point.
Of the more mature works my fav was probably the Kingkiller Chronicle though that might just be recency bias as it was one of the last fantasy novels i've read. I was gifted The Fionavar Tapestry by an uncle that loves this stuff but I'd already grown bored with genre at that point so still havent read it. If I ever get back into it I'll start with that one
No.37335
>>34789None of those are even in the ballpark of "obscure". Black Cauldron especially.
No.37336
>>37335Ask any Gen Z kid what any of the three are or what they're about beyond the names, almost nobody below the age of 25 (that isn't a /co/fag) would even know of them, let alone their basic plots.
No.37664
>>37663Disney Diversity is a good term for it.
But more than "how do I insert black people into Tolkien-based fantasy?" the way to actually do diverse media would be to do fantasy based on African folklore. There is plenty of material to work from.
Tolkien style fantasy races probably just shouldn't be done in live action. They ought to look different enough that you can't make up an actor to portray it. The humans shouldn't
really look like IRL humans either. They're not going to have the same ethnicities and clusters of traits as Earth humans. Fantasy humans should look to us kind of like they're mixed-ancestry but you can't tell what.
No.37697
>>37664The LOTR only really talks about one single part of the world and isn't supposed to be interpreted as literally true historical record anyway. There's big blank spaces that you could theoretically fill with practically anything you want. I mean, we're already in bullshit corpo fanfiction territory, so it's not like there's any actual concern for the integrity of the work itself, so why not go nuts? I bet there are plenty of talented writers that could come up with good shit about black elves or whatever. Sauron can't be the ONLY evil guy running around Middle Earth, so yeah show us the good guys and bad guys in fantasy tolkien africa or china or whatever. Take a fucking CHANCE, make something NEW, fucks sake.
No.37714
>>30824>>37663>>37664In this thread niqqaz try to use race science on high fantasy. I hate fantasy fags. There's truly nothing worse
No.37719
>>37714Ah yes the two genders of fantasy demographics - "completely ignore it" and "race science." Tolkien was extremely fixated on demography, which has left a major impact, but it's much older than his influence. Fantasy always has had lineage be an important element, right back to Gilgamesh being a demigod by ancestry.
No.37727
>>30824It would be less weird if they were all black than to have them be mixed for no reason, or all black with one white hobbit, or there's some tribe of black hobbits we've never seen for some reason. If you have a race of people who predominantly look like one type of people and live in the same general region (middle earth is just a small corner of its world), it's unrealistic to insert random others into that group without some in-universe justification. What they should have done is hired more African and Middle Eastern actors and written in some Men of Rhun or Haradrim. But they don't want to do that because westoid diversity is simply diversity of appearance. They only want people who look different but think exactly the same, which is why whitoids are racist against Chinese people who keep their Chinese names but are happy to socialize with ones who assimilate into the Anglo monoculture.
But it's already been established by LOTR movies that in the Peter Jackson universe, Middle Earth's denizens are white Angloids and the only brown people are the foreigners who side with Sauron. Otherwise Gondor should all be Greeks or Turks because they're basically the Byzantine Empire, instead of looking like redheaded Irishmen. They made them all white already and try to patch it up by adding some token blacks, and end up just making things worse. That's not really representation, it's just advanced level tokenism.
I noticed this in Dishonored too, where Dishonored 2 has black people on Serkonos but they're just there, they didn't create another island with its own culture where they could have originated, even though the setting could have badly used a couple extra islands to add variety of cultures. Instead there's an Anglo island, Nordic/Slavic island, Italian/Med island, and weird Irish island, and black people just exist with no origin and uniqueness. That's worse than not having them there. At least in the Elder Scrolls, Redguards have their own culture and history instead of just being darker Imperials who pop up halfway through.
No.37743
>>37727dishonored setting never truly made sense, all the islands are part of an empire, but the slav island is seemingly just le 1984 ussr cummunism. I don’t fully understand the complaint about there being black people since dishonored while based on irl world, isn’t really logical and also I am pretty sure dishonored 1 already had black people, black aristocrats, black bottle street gang members etc.
Honestly speaking I always found it funny how fantsy tards love complaining about black people in fantasy media, even if the setting is something like dishonored, I understand complaining about lotr, but dishonored lmao. You guys will believe in shitty roman empire rip offs existing side by side with elves, but not into the possibility of black people being around with whites in some magical continent, that was created by some god or whatever. Maybe I am just misunderstanding the complaint.
No.37744
>>37743Black people in fantasy shouldn't just be tokens. There should be entire cultures and continents worth of different peoples. Unless individual characters are just popping into existence, they have to come from somewhere. If you have people with clearly distinct ancestry, it raises questions about who their ancestors are, where they're from, and why the different groups are separate and distinct from each other. It's good for stories to be diverse, but there should be actual thought put into how the world works. Diversity isn't just about faces. It's about culture and history too.
And seriously, there is enough fantasy that's lazily ripping off European history and culture. We could definitely use more stories based on the folklore in the rest of the world, that doesn't even have white characters in the setting.
No.37754
>>37714Demography isn't race science, anon. People aren't just randomly born black.
No.37775
>>37723>the dildo in the backgroundevery time
No.37782
>>37777NTA but goons are meant to be forgettable by design.
No.37783
>>37775must have seen that pic over a hundred times, never noticed the dildo. fucking swedes…
No.37801
I've been getting into Discworld lately and it's pretty cool
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