Elf edition.
Since a bunch of the old threads were basically nuked with the server transfer, I wanted to revive some of them.
General discussion of the fantasy genre.
185 posts and 58 image replies omitted.>>47535Call them pointy eared snobs unable to make some good swords.
>>47536I think that argument is cutting it a bit SHORT, sir dwarf
>>47386Honestly, even some Brando Sando fans feel like his writing has gone downhill.
>>47536Thats a LOTR quote, so they make the best swords.
>>47768What series is this?
>>47988If they were what?
>>47989I legitimately don't know. I assume it's either "straight" or "men." So either they were questioning if they were straight or questioning if they were men. IE - the other men were either lusting after him and his perfect jaw, or they were feeling brutally mogged. Which are two entirely different reactions.
Brando Sando isn't always that great of a writer.
>>47989>>47990Straight, clearly. Why the hell would you assume it was referring to "men", whatever his writing skills presumably he knows how to structure a sentence.
>>47993It depends on how your put emphasis in the sentence.
Like "had a jaw so straight it made other men question if they
were."
>>47988finally
women writing the male version of breasting boobily
>>47996Baroque: adventurer's guild
Be smoked: adventurer's union
I've been reading Moorcock's Elric books, and god damn. If everyone that cribbed off his stories cut him a check he'd probably be the richest living author.
>>47996Not a single one function like a medieval guild too, it's just a centralized townhall with mercenary job listings, no idea how this shit would make money
>>48004I think in goblin slayer at least the guild takes a cut of the promised reward as a listing price. Iirc in universe it's supposed to partially justify how little interest there is in fighting goblins as the reward is already meager and then the guild takes a cut out of that.
But yeah, I read a ton of isekai slop where it's only real function is to facilitate the mc styling on all the beta cucks he's inherently better than. It's essentially a high school locker room for him to show off how big his dick is.
>>47996Isekai is mostly an ocean of junk, but sometimes there's some fun stuff. I really enjoy some of the stuff Log Horizon does for instance. Like, it does kind of deal with rpg mechanics in more interesting ways after the world and the people in it become real or whatever. After the isekai, the npcs become real, actual people, but remember what happened when it was just an rpg. So from their perspective, they've kind of been isekaied too as now these immortal hooligans that just get stronger over time and can't really be killed aren't interested in the petty quest shit or piddling rewards they used to give them, and now the whole economy that had been built up around these gubbins adventuring is falling apart because they've just inexplicably stopped. Not only that, but they're showing signs of politically organizing and introducing crazy new technologies to the world, like hamburgers, and behind the scenes the NPCs are trying not to freak the fuck out.
>>48005Cut for what? Their entire function can be replaced by a noticeboard.
>>48007They serve other in universe functions too my dude
>>48018>Genndy making a Conan showIt's called Primal season 2 and 3
>>48018Might be cool. I've been reading the Elric and Gor book serieses lately, and that kind of sword and sorcery stuff would mesh well with Gendy's taste for action. Too bad they'll probably take out the socialism.
>>48065"Sexy orcs" in general are fucking lame
>>48070Not if you're into butch lesbians
>>48072Well thats because one side is the characters who are the focus of the story, and need to be distinct, and the other is army of faceless mooks to be gunned down with impunity. You cant have your protagonists be all generic John Soldierman with buzzcuts and matching uniforms,.
>>48065I was reading this (actually pretty enjoyable) history of D&D that argued that tabletops are actually the main root of the popular notion of "standard fantasy". That Tolkien might be the main influence on it all but it was by organizing him (and scattered elements of other authors) into a literal rulebook that the primary thing we think of as fantasy was born. Idk if it's true but makes sense to me.
>>48077If you put anything even remotely close to Tolkien’s actual depictions into modern fantasy, it would be considered abnormal.
His Elves are 6'5 superhumans who speak Finnish and have their own fully developed societies, craftsmen, builders, blacksmiths, kings and entire civilizations. And contrary to the modern fantasy stereotype, Tolkien’s Elves don’t even necessarily have exaggeratedly pointed ears.
His Dwarves are famous for mining and craftmanship, but that’s nowhere near the whole of their culture. Tolkien drew significant inspiration for them from the Jewish diaspora in ways that are generally sympathetic rather than negative. At the same time Dwarven society is implied to be patriarchal, and they’re even more conscious than the Elves of the possibility of their people becoming extinct and assimilating,
And Tolkien’s Orcs are completely different from the generic fantasy. They’re corrupted men and elves creatured through torture and abuse and used as soldiers and slaves by evil. Tolkien also depicts them as physically deformed and relatively short, much closer to what we think of as goblinss. The Uruk-hai are the exception, they’re much larger and roughly human-sized.
D&D in the interest of game balance, assigned traits to different races, making Elves only nimble archers, Dwarves resistant to magic e.t.c and we’ve been living with these caricatures ever since
>>48076That’s why 40K is an irrelevant series. military shooters like CoD/Battlefield/MoH and even Helldivers are even more irrelevant.
>>48072The real answer is that most authors are hacks and don't really think about this shit, they're just copying Star Wars.
>>48082This is the same retardation as
>>48076 but in the other direction. If le epic male warrior psychology was the way it's described here the rebels wouldn't be nearly as popular as they factually are. Instead of trying to understand human behavior by overanalyzing 21st century pop culture maybe go read actual history.
>>48083>rebels wouldn't be nearly as popular as they factually areexcept they aren't, not even 1/10th popular as the stormtropppers.
>>48072as somebody said they are lazily doing the villains look like nazis trop that star wars did, not thinking about how star wars came out at a time where every other movie was about ww2 and that nazi aesthetics were designed by people who knew what they were doing.
also the weird eternal meme about good guys being uncool for some reason.
>>48139It's kinda funny that Disney era star wars somehow managed to fuck up the nazi aesthetic
>>48082I thought this said The Bad Bitch
>>48139It's usually because these types of characters are not just the ones with the coolest gear, but because they're often portrayed as hyper-competent. In Star Wars, the imperials don't just have cool uniforms, they're portrayed as intelligent, orderly and exacting and put such a high value on competence and success that the punishment for incompetence and failure is often death.
Another example of this would be Regill from Wrath of the Righteous. He's a Hellknight and serves as one of your token evil teammates and the game seems to assume that you'd find him appalling, but he's easily one of the most popular characters. Because he's the only one taking the war seriously. He's the only one who seems to want to hold the crusaders to actual military discipline. He's the only one that apparently values competence and results over being a nice guy. His methods are often harsh and brutal, but he can still come across looking really good compared to the circus of clowns you have to deal with elsewhere in the crusade.
I think that for certain libs, strict discipline and military excellence is scary and fascist, but to broad audiences its cool. I think to the average Joe, the strict and harsh leader, but is also extremely competent and an absolute exemplar to his men and would never ask his people to do anything he himself wouldn't do is actually a figure of respect and admiration, not fear and loathing. Darth Vader was a bad guy, no doubt, but it was hard not to have some admiration for him when you see that he personifies the discipline and competence that he demands of his officers and that he leads from the front and frequently gets stuck in with the boys during military engagements.
>>48154>I first became aware of Yoshitaka Amano's work in the early 1980s when he was illustrating and painting the covers for my own Elric books and the Japanese version of Behold the Man. I loved his work, and thought that he, of all artists, had managed to capture the essential spirit of my characters. Many other fine artists, such as James Cawthorn, Michael Whelan, and Robert Gould had depicted them, and I certainly should not wish to minimise their work, but for me Amano captured something no other artist had seen.
>I began to buy books of his work, and was astonished at their variety and beauty. When a company produced a model kit based on one of his Elric paintings, it was the only representation of this character of mine I felt worthy to keep amongst my collection of original Art Nouveau and Art Deco figurines. My only hope is that one day some artist feels an urge to make it in ivory, silver, and brass. It deserves that kind of permanence. You may not like it, but this is what canon Elric looks like.
>>48155>>48156Yeah, I gotta agree. Amano's Elric is superior.
>>47195Because you live in a world of profits and late stage capitalism and internet ADD.
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