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dmsden · 4 years

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Jumping the Tracks - Coaxing a plot without railroading your players.

Hullo, Gentle Readers. This week's Question from a Denizen is from Foxycipher. They ask, "How do I keep my players from derailing/ignoring the plot without railroading them or being seen as strict/no fun to play with?"

I mean...this is such a challenge that it can be seen parodied in countless comics and cartoons about D&D. You have a plot you want to run, and your players are off trying to kill an insignificant NPC you introduced in Act I because they didn't like his attitude. You want the players to pay attention to the story you're trying to tell, but you don't want to force it down their throats and make them feel like they have no agency in your campaign world.

Well, good news. There are some tricks you can employ to help keep them on track without having them feel like they're on rails.

I actually think you'd be wise to get their buy in on your plot right from the beginning. During your Session Zero (you are planning having a Session Zero, right?), talk to the players about a vague outline for a plot and make sure you have their buy in. Let's say you want to run a campaign inspired by the classic Slavers series of modules. During Session Zero, you could say, "I want to run a campaign where you've all been hired by an alliance of lords to wipe out slavery in their lands." This gives your players an idea of ways they can tie their characters into your story. Maybe the rogue used to work for some criminals before he realized the depths they were sinking to. Maybe the fighter is an escaped gladiator slave who wants revenge. Immediately, they're tying their characters directly to your plot, insuring that at least a couple of characters will have a vested interest in seeing your story unfold.

The other reason it's useful to reveal a bit of your idea during Session Zero is that it can give your players some idea of where you want to go. In my experience, most players want to work with the DM, not against them, in terms of making a fun story for everyone. There are always problem players, but the majority want to have fun along with you. If they know you're running "Curse of Strahd", then they're going to react to certain things that happen differently than if they know you're running "Tyranny of Dragons". Either way, though, they'll be more apt to follow clues that seem to tie into the story you've told them to expect.

Another thing you can do is a bit of a reverse on the players making characters that tie into your plot: tie the plot to your characters. Let's say you want them to battle an ancient sorceress, and you have a player whose village was wiped out by a dragon and whose motivation is vengeance. When the PCs finally defeat the dragon, have there be evidence that shows that the dragon wiped out the village on orders from the sorceress. Now their motivation continues to be vengeance, but they have a new target that ties to them directly. They'll be likely to spur the party on to pursue the goal you have in mind.

A trick that sits at the foundation of my current campaign is the "random loot drop" that isn't actually random at all. If you want to center your plot around locating the pieces of the Rod of Seven Parts, then plan on an early treasure in the campaign being one of those parts. Give the PCs a choice of multiple adventures, but, whichever one they choose, put the Rod there. Make sure it's very useful to the PCs so they won't want to part with it. Then have people show up trying to get it, demanding it and being obnoxious and belligerent. I can all but guarantee that the PCs will fight tooth and nail to keep it, and then try to figure out why someone else wants it. This can lead into a much bigger story, and the PCs never need to know that they were going to find the Rod no matter what.

One thing you must be ready for is that the PCs may refuse to follow your plot. If this is the case, you can try to re-engage them, but, if they continue to resist, I don't recommend forcing it. What I recommend instead is to give the NPCs timeline events. If the PCs don't stop them, the villains will take certain actions on certain dates, leading to potential consequences. If the PCs ignore the goblin invasion, you can have a timeline of the goblin progress. Eventually, unless the PCs move ahead of it, they'll run into consequences of not acting. Maybe hobgoblin patrols will start harassing them for their papers, or they'll return home to find their family home burned down and their family enslaved. Maybe they'll seek out a treasure they want to find that hobgoblins got there before them and claimed it. Will they take action then, perhaps at an increased difficulty, or will they continue to resist and avoid being drawn in? That in and of itself could be an interesting story. I remember playing in a campaign where we were forced to travel to lands occupied by our enemies, and it was terrifying. We were dodging patrols and fighting when we had to, and it felt intense and worrisome, especially as we accumulated fugitives and our supplies dwindled.

In the end, if the PCs completely refuse to engage in your plot, you have a choice: bring the campaign to an end, or follow your players' bliss. Maybe they just want to dungeon crawl, in which case you can run some dungeon crawls for them. Hopefully, however, they would've expressed this in a Session Zero, and some kind of compromise could've been worked out.

I hope this advice helps, Foxy. Let us know how it goes.

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justgottafinishthischapter · 5 years

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Deciding on a POV

There are many ways to tell a story, and each one comes with a benefit or a downside. Still, I figured it’s worth going over the different ways each can be effective.

First Person

Reliable Narrator: A story with a reliable First Person narrator is one of the most common narrative styles. What this means is that the reader can trust what the narrator is telling them is the truth as it actually happened. Think Percy Jackson in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series.The reliable narrator is far more common than the unreliable variety. The benefit of this narrative style is that it mirrors how we tell stories verbally. If something happened to me, and I tell my friend what happened, I am going to use First Person narration to explain the events that transpired. Thus, this can feel like the most organic option. It also allows for total access to the POV character’s thoughts, allowing readers to see how they reached a conclusion, or why they’re acting a certain way. However, this can come with the problem of not being able to get inside the head of anyone except for the narrator. Now, while it’s standard for the First Person narrator to be the main character, it isn’t always the case. If the narrator is some sort of omniscient, bystander, or divine presence, whether they interact with the characters or not, it technically falls under First Person if they voice their opinion using I statements. The figure of Death in The Book Thief is a good example of this, as Death uses I and me in the narrative of the story. Because the story is set in Germany during World War II, the narrator of Death sees the protagonist, Liesel, frequently, and thus we’re able to get a narrator who is observing a protagonist from outside of her immediate story.

Unreliable Narrator: An Unreliable narrator is going to be the exact opposite. They tell the story, but take their story with a grain of salt. Whether their perception of reality is distorted, they’re using metaphors and symbolic imagery to tell the story, or they’re telling the story from a very narrow viewpoint, the unreliable narrator can be a good choice to get the reader to engage with the story and think critically about the work. Rugrats is a good example of this type of storytelling, as the main characters are babies, and therefore often mistake things for something else, making them unreliable narrators. This type works well if you want to tell a more abstract story. For instance, an entire story is about a boy chasing after a red balloon, but that red balloon itself represents accepting his mother’s death. Suddenly everything experienced becomes unreliable, leaving the reader wondering if the foes he defeated or the desert he crossed was literal, and he went on an actual journey to come to terms with his mother’s death, or was everything figurative, and the journey was more symbolic and allegorical? An unreliable narrator can play with these questions, blur the lines between reality and fiction, and leave their readers asking questions.

Third Person

Omniscient: Lemony Snicket is a perfect example of a great omniscient narrator. Mr. Snicket knows everything about every character, knows what’s going to happen before it happens, and comments on everything. Lemony Snicket himself is not a character in the story. Rather he recounts the story much like the First Person style, but from an outside perspective. Instead of being part of the story, Lemony Snicket is telling us about the Baudelaire children through the lens of the all-knowing and opinionated narrator. It’s not entirely uncommon for this type of narrator to be some supernatural force, a wise old sage, or someone who lived through an experience recounting the tale many years later. In fact it could be rather fun to play with this last one, having the story almost be told like a myth or legend, but having the narrator constantly side track to discuss how historians know and gathered the information for this story, only to reveal the narrator isn’t some omniscient being, but just a docent in a museum giving a tour and explaining an old myth to the patrons.

Limited: With a Limited POV, the reader learns things as the narrator does. Even though the narrator is the one telling the story, their information is only up to date with whatever is currently happening on the page. This and First Person are the two POV types most likely to appear in a mystery novel, or any novel where a mystery or unanswered questions drives the plot. Harry Potter is a series written in Limited Third Person. The story follows Harry, and the reader only learns information as Harry does. And every year, Harry is faced with the recurring mystery element of figuring out what’s going on, and stopping whatever their plan was. However, because the narrator only knows what the protagonist knows, this can allow you to play around with giving the narrator a personality, and having them comment or react to things as they happen, perhaps even mirroring the way you hope the readers are responding.

Objective: Think of Objective Point of View as watching a tv show. Anyone who’s into shipping has to read into objective romantic coding. Two characters held eye contact for five seconds? You the reader have to interpret that as you will. Objective is strangely both the most human and the most robotic point of view. At its most human, Objective treats the narration like a normal person. They can’t read the thoughts of other characters, they don’t know more than the hero or reader, and you’re effectively just a bystander in the crowd watching things happen with no context clues about what’s happening inside a character’s head. On the opposite end, it can also be the most robotic because it is the most lacking in human connection, as it leaves the reader detached from the characters themselves. However, a liberating or perhaps crippling aspect of this POV style is that it frees the author of show don’t tell because this type of POV can’t enter anyone’s minds or go on a rant about a character’s feelings about someone else. You just have to take what you get at face value and all information has to be conveyed through your characters and story, whether directly through dialogue, or subtly through background details.

Switching POVs

Most stories tend to stick with a single narrator. Stories can be complicated when one person is giving an opinion, but when multiple people are talking, it can be hard to find a voice and plot for each of them. And if you’re planning on writing a series, you may run into the problem of some characters having meatier plots than others. It’s for this reason that when it comes to watching Game of Thrones, I always groan internally whenver the story cuts back to Bran or Jon at the Wall. It’s a scene or two of people standing around being cold or talking about being cold and something something three-eyed raven and then we finally get back to the part I’m more interested in: the political games of manipulation and intrigue. But that’s also a strength of changing POVs. With something like Game of Thrones, you might not necessarily like every storyline happening, but you’re more likely to enjoy one. In a sense, Game of Thrones is like 11 novels stitched together, and because each is so different, you’re more likely to find something in the series that speaks to you. Conversely, when there’s multiple POVs experiencing the same thing, such as with the Heroes of Olympus series, having shifting POVs can be a good way of exploring each character. In The Lost Hero, Piper knows more about the giant waiting to fight them than either Jason or Leo, and because we have shifting POVs, we the reader get access to this otherwise Limited Third Person information from the character who already knows it, thus building dramatic tension of when the others will find out. Another benefit to this is giving unique encounters to the characters. Percy has already met Aphrodite in the past, but through Piper, Aphrodite’s daughter, we’re able to see a different side of this goddess, the goddess as a mother to someone else. This could also manifest in differing opinions of the same things. This is also part of why it works so well in Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones is a civil war story with multiple sides all vying for the same end goal. Because there are so many sides and players in the game, having so many different points of view is valueable to the story being told. If Eddard Stark was the sole protagonist, the only thing that we would know is whatever he knows. Everything Danny is doing across the narrow sea would need to be told to Ned for it to matter. And the same with Jon at the Wall. And if Jon or Danny was the sole narrator, the reader would miss out on everything happening in King’s Landing because neither Danny nor Jon are connected to that part of the plot. An entire element to the story is lost when a major POV character is dropped, which goes to show how strong George RR Martin’s writing really is. Something I like doing with multiple POVs is describing the same character in two different ways from two characters who would see them in a drastically different way. One description might paint a character as dark, alluring, and attractive, while another person might describe them as a rat-faced shifty-eyed snake that stinks of booze and dead fish. It’s the same character, but two different people see that character in entirely different ways. However, this also comes with a major backlash. It can be an absolute nightmare juggling not only so many plots, but trying to make them fit together nicely. You’ll notice this a lot with shows that emphasize drama and interconnecting storylines. They’ll be really strong in their earlier seasons, then peter out once they’ve hit the creative brick wall. It happened to Once Upon a Time and to a lesser extent, Glee. Both shows had tightly knit and compelling drama in season 1, but by season 4, both shows felt like they were just going through the motions and had lost the edge that made them interesting. Even with something as well-written as Game of Thrones, it’s still possible to have someone’s story be weaker than everyone else’s. Arya Stark for instance spent the first couple of seasons focused on learning to sword fighting, then once the Hound died, she went to Braavos, but it always kind of felt more like a detour than really what Arya’s story was supposed to be about. She was a little girl out for vengeance, she went to Braavos for a season or two, didn’t really learn much, and then she came back to Westeros and pretty much went right back to exactly who she was before going to Braavos. Now granted, I’m going by the TV show, but it always felt to me at least that Arya’s vacation in Braavos was just kind of George not knowing what to do with her as he built up to the big climactic battle. So if you’re going to use shifting POVs, it’s important to weigh the pros and the cons carefully.

#writing #writing tips #writing advice #pov #writer problems #writing your book #do it write #points of view #point of view

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asherlockstudy · 5 years

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Are Jaime and Jon linked by destiny?

Slowly reaching the end of AGoT, Jon Snow’s chapters, which began quite bland, start intriguing me more and more. I don’t want to expand on it in this post but it is after the middle of the book and well past half his chapters when it starts getting implied that Jon might be a very important character.

So far, all those themes of fate, history repeating itself, gods and prophecies are prevalent throughout the story. So much that I don’t believe the popular assumption that GRRM’s point is that we shouldn’t rely on prophecies one bit. In the books, prophecies and symbolism will matter because they are basically the core of the story. Anyway, I don’t want to digress. In short, prophetic dreams, cryptic signs and gods all are much more important in the first book alone than in the entire show.

Although I am not sure what we can conclude after the ending of the TV show, the most popular and ongoing for the most years theory is that Jon is the Chosen One, the Prince that was Promised, Azor Ahai. Until half his chapters in AGoT, I could not see any indication towards that direction. It’s the last three chapters that start making me stir uncomfortably because, as I’ve stated many times, I do not wish for Jon to be Azor Ahai.

The first of these chapters describes Jon’s initiation in the Night’s Watch and the rite of him and Sam taking the Oath before the Old Gods’ trees.

“They are watching us”, he [Sam] whispered. “The Old Gods.” “Yes.” Jon knelt, and Sam knelt beside him. (...) “I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. (...) I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn. - Jon VI, AGoT

Jon and Sam both think the trees are disconcerting and the Gods’ faces that are carved on their trunks look as if they are watching them. The Nightswatch oath states they will never wear crowns and they will live all their life in that same post. The Old Gods listen to them or so it seems. What is this then? Do they bind Jon to his oath and we get an ending very similar to that of the show for him? And yet, the next sentence is very interesting as well. The fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn. Here’s the first strong Jon is Azor Ahai evidence that I noticed. Bonus for the Targaryen hint.

There is a lot that should be unpacked and reexamined in this chapter after the completion of the books, should we ever be blessed to see that day... and we’re not done here. Here’s what happens in the very next sentences.

And suddenly Ghost was back, stalking softly between two weirwoods. White fur and red eyes, Jon realized, disquieted. Like the trees . . . - Jon VI, AGoT

Here we have a strong implication that Ghost is now sent to him as a messenger from the Old Gods.

The wolf had something in his jaws. (...) “Gods be good,” Dywen muttered. “That’s a hand.” - Jon VI, AGoT

A right hand, to be precise.

Direwolves, which I admit I didn’t care for a lot before I started reading the book, seem to be linked to their masters and usually foreshadow their fate. Thus, I am not sure how I should interpret this moment. Surely, the basic meaning is that the Old Gods sent Ghost to fetch the hand and consequently make the Nightwatch realize the existence of the wights. But what can we hypothesize on a subtextual level - is Ghost foreshadowing that the Old Gods will give Jon a “hand” or is Ghost a symbolism of Jon himself, who will be the one to bring / have a “hand”? Whatever, the conclusion is similar but we also saw that Jon took an oath before the watching Gods that he will know neither crowns nor glory. If all this seems too stretched or unfounded, hang on a little bit more.

So, two Jon chapters later and Jon has saved Lord Mormont’s life from the wight. Lord Mormont gives him a gift as thanks and what a gift it is! Longclaw, the Mormont sword (that Jorah was supposed to have but was disgraced). Made from Valyrian steel and quite agreeable to Jon’s, alas, left hand.

Yes, left. Because he’s wounded after the fight and his right hand is...burning.

Awkwardly, Jon took the sword in hand. His left hand; his bandaged right was still too raw and clumsy. (...) The edges glimmered faintly as they kissed the light. - Jon VIII, AGoT

The word “left” is italicized by Martin. These two sentences alone give us all the Azor Ahai and Lightbringer signs that we need, right? However...

I have no right to this, he thought, no more than to Ice. He twitched his burned fingers, feeling a throb of pain deep under the skin. “My lord, you honor me, but—” (...)

He is not my father. The thought leapt unbidden to Jon’s mind. Lord Eddard Stark is my father. I will not forget him, no matter how many swords they give me. Yet he could scarcely tell Lord Mormont that it was another man’s sword he dreamt of . . . - Jon VIII, AGoT

While I am sure Jon will soon bond with Longclaw, I think the first impression matters here. Longclaw is a fine sword no doubt but Jon dreams of Ice. Where will this sword of dreams end up? Well, to Jaime’s left hand. And Brienne’s hand. However, the foreshadowing here can only work for Jaime because we have a Jon with a burnt right hand that can’t wield the sword properly yet. If you think about it, there is not a serious reason plot-wise for Jon to have a burnt useless hand because the hand eventually healed without any serious consequences. This is simultaneously a red herring and a foreshadowing and, basically, this means GRRM used bloody Jon Snow as a tool to foreshadow onehanded Jaime Lannister taking initially Oathkeeper. This hasn’t happened yet in the books but I assume Jaime will eventually take Window’s Wail too, even D&D emphasized on the significance of the twin swords. (Even though they never explained the importance.) Interestingly enough, Jon’s discomfort for Longclaw might also be a parallel to Jaime’s decision to pass the sword to Brienne as he thought it was wasted on him.

If only that was all there is to it. Because in the next few sentences the foreshadowing goes batshit crazy and hilarious. If you haven’t read the book, brace yourself:

“And you’ll need to work at your two-handed strikes as well. Ser Endrew can show you some moves, when your burns have healed.” “Ser Endrew?” Jon did not know the name. “Ser Endrew Tarth, a good man. He’s on his way from the Shadow Tower to assume the duties of master-at-arms.” - Jon VIII, AGoT

I’m laughing. There you go folks. Jon Aegon Targaryen Snow, a foreshadowing tool for Jaime and Brienne’s relationship. It’s not amongst George’s subtlest efforts.

Gather all the clues here:

Gods watch Jon Snow.

He vows to be the light that will bring dawn (aka the sun, see my “Jaime is symbolized by the sun” post)

Ghost, as symbol of either the Old Gods or Jon himself, brings them a right hand.

Jon is given a very important sword which glimmers with light but he envies the sword that became Jaime and Brienne’s.

As he accepts it, he can’t use his right hand because it is burning. In his case, this soon will be over and he’ll use his right hand without some deep meaning behind it. So, this is important only in this particular paragraph.

In order to help him learn use both his hands, Mormont will send him to a Knight of Tarth, a good man!!!

So Jaime...ehm... JON can’t use the sword YET with his right hand and someone from Tarth must show him the way (and then he’ll start fighting the White Walkers and learn his real identity)

In other words, proof #68764912749147 Jaime meeting Brienne is the beginning of the prophecy’s fulfillment. Brienne is going to be the major factor ( I am afraid that means “Nissa Nissa” ) that will make Jaime Azor Ahai.

Why would GRRM get into such great trouble to create such heavy foreshadowing if it doesn’t mean Ice and Oathkeeper and Window’s Wail are as important for the story as the knights wielding them are as well?

Jon is a red herring for Jaime and he might help prepare the latter’s way. Not like in the stupid show where they barely exchange a look. Actually, this might fit with my old theory that Jon is meant to prepare the way, unknowingly, for Azor Ahai and he’s not Azor Ahai himself.

#jaime lannister #jon snow #braime #jaime x brienne #asoiaf #grrm #got #game of thrones #azor ahai #theory #more

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jeanjauthor · 5 years

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Writers? This is the artistic version of a short story.

Artists...?

...WHY??

So...many...questions.

A lot of this breaks what writers call “the willing suspension of disbelief.” It’s where the audience is willing to overlook implausible things in order to keep following the story. At some point their credibility has a limit, a breaking point where their ability to suspend and ignore their disbelief will snap, like hanging a thread from the ceiling, and then putting too much weight on it.

Some of these weighty questions include:

Why is she "standing" like that? She looks like she's sitting on an invisible stool!

Why is her cloak/sheet still bound up like that if she's been fighting long enough to get her sword bloodied?

Why is she so pristine when the wyrm corpse is clearly freshly arterially injured??

Why does she have no shoes and pristine feet when she’s clearly touching a bloody corpse?

Why is the tag end of her cloak/sheet...thing...whipped up under one leg and over the other when she’s been chopping up a monster and now has to fight another one?

Again, why is she so clean??

There are so many WTF questions...

What is she sitting on?

If she’s not sitting on anything, how is she supporting her weight in that position?

She’s not being supported by her feet, that’s for sure--is she seriously en pointe with her left foot (the one on our right, visually)?

And the one on the left (her right foot), if it’s resting at a 45-ish degree angle on a corpse so freshly butchered it’s still spurting, how is it she’s able to keep it in place when it should be slipping out from under her by all the laws of squshy meaty blood-filled things?

Where is the missing V shaped wedge of that tail? Look at the angles on those two cut ends; there is clearly a whole big fat wedge of flesh that is missing! If there wasn’t, that tail would literally have been an L shaped structure with the cut angling on the diagonal down into the corner, and that is just disturbing to contemplate...

...Where are the arm bones in those dragon-wings?? Seriously, that is disturbing, seeing the thin metacarpals and phalanges (the “finger bones” of wings if you look at wings as nothing more than elongated & weirdly angled hands) ...but not the arm bones...so where are they??

...Now this isn’t to say the picture is all bad! The concept is actually a neat idea, looking like a cross of Lord of the Rings meets all those hedonistic Renaissance paintings of the Ancient Greek mythos. And it would be 100% correct to mix mythos like this, as the Renaissance painters were doing that all over the place, mixing Greek mythos symbology into Biblical art, and vice versa (all of which was fan art, btw).

The streaky effect of the Nazgûl is wonderful, though I’d like to see a bit more tattering (along the same diagonal upper left to lower right lines) on that right side of the Ringwraith fellow, there.

The Ringrwraith even seems to be bending the airwaves around and above him, with the effects of the clouds sort of streaking in toward that bright spot in the sky above and behind. It makes it look like the halo is sucking in all the Light before fleeing into the West, or trying to suck the Nazgûl off the face of the planet to hopefully disinterate its evilness out of existence...

The bright part of the sky also kind of looks like dragonbreath fire, even though the Fell Beasts that the Nazgûl rode upon aren’t evern mentioned (as far as I can recall) as being able to breathe fire like dragons. So that’s another point of coolness.

I have no idea what’s going on anatomy-wise of the presumed fallen and chopped up Fell Beast, but at least some effort has been made to provide it with a (weird) internal structure. If it really is a Fell Beast and not meant to be a dragon or a wyrm, then I can accept the odd anatomy and darkness of the...I’m not sure if those are bones, but I’m presuming that it has some bones in its tail, and if it’s a foul abomination style creation, I can accept the creator had no clue.

I do like the crispness of the woman in focus versus the Nazgûl who is equally clearly not in focus.

Certainly the woman definitely looks like a Renaissance painting of a Greek Mythos Action Sequence! She’s in a classic serene, poised action pose that no doubt has some sort of supporting stool & armature behind and under the original model for her to rest her arms upon.

The symbology of Shield Maiden of Rohan certainly gets the first two components of that descriptor down visually: for the first part, she has a shield (lovely round thing, very Classic Greek Hero With Spiffy Expensive Metal Shield), and she definitely is using it to shield herself from something. (Plus the sword.) The other part of the symbology is the “modesty sheet drape” under one thigh (gotta show off them nekkid thighs, Renaissance foiks!!) and up over the other, between the legs, blocking off any view of or access to the mons pubis...aka, shielding her maidenly modesty.

However, there is zero sign she’s from Rohan, because there’s zero symbolism representing Rohirrim culture...and the key element to Renaissance pictures of various cultures’ mythos were that they were rich with symbolism. The Rohirrim, the Riders of Rohan, were emphasized over and over as horse people.

Tolkienn also cribbed the Scandinavian culture for his descriptions of them (I suspect the Golden Hordes of the Russian Steppes, heavily influenced by the Rus folks who were Scandinavians who had moved east and mingled with the Mongolian Empire remnants who a little earlier had moved west. The Greeks knew of the Scandinavian peoples (no, really, they knew of them! Electricity is actually just the Latin word elektron (which comes from a similar-sounding Greek word I’m not going to bother to spell correctly), which meant amber, as in the petrified pine pitch being shipped down through Europe from the Baltic Sea in the far north, which is surrounded by Scandinavian countries.

Yet there’s no signs or symbols of Scandinavia about her, no knotwork animals, no amber, just pale blonde hair (which frankly could be representative of the British Isles or partial albinoism)... So while there’s a lovely Greek Mythos in Renaissance Paintings feel to her...it falls short of being a true copy/homage, which is unfortunate. It could’ve been so easily fixed, too, with a bit of knotwork braiding painted onto the cloak/sheet thing.

I will say that the folds of that sheet are spectacularly well painted, lovely depth and dimensionality to them!

Same goes for the condours of her body, and the tail of the wyrm. I fully believe these are three dimensional objects!

The lighting is beautifully done. Admittedly if the light is coming from that glowy bit of the sky behind the Nazgûl, she should be in shadow...except he’s a Ringwraith, and it’s 100% acceptable for light to go through him, since according to cannon, they’re not fully corporeal. This is a “plot” point where fans who know the lore are more than willing to suspend disbelief.

I’m not a rabid Tolkienn fan by any means, but I do know enough to accept that Ringwraiths are wraiths, and not fully of the physical realm. Plus, Greek Mythos Heroes in Renaissance paintings are supposed to be Bathed In The Light Of Holy Goodness, sort of an inner aura spiritual goodness radiance-effect, I guess...? Either way, it’s symbolism, it indicates visually that the Light (Good) will shine through upon Heroes (& Heroines) when they are being their Most Heroic...and it’s very well done.

(...Another question if that’s her helm on the ground, where is the rest of her armor? Where are her clothes?? Or is this meant to parody the “sword and magic helmet!!” trope and the helmet was providing all her armor and clothes up until the point she removes it to reveal she’s a nekkid Not A Man? And really, are Nazgûl so far removed from their mortal lives that they need nakedness to be able to tell males from females of their own species...?)

If this were a story, it would be a crossover fanfic with awesome potential...but it falls a little short of what’s needed to successfully suspend the reader/viewer’s disbelief.

Why is it important to do a better job next time, to get these details a little more accurate? Because most Tolkienn fans I know are rabid about it, & willing to nitpick any mistakes or inaccuracies. Cast your minds back to the huge raging fandom debates around the Lord of the Rings trilogy movies about whether or not Peter Jackson & co were “butchering the mythos” of Middle Earth.

Also...I’m trying to figure out how the Nazgûl is standing, and on what if he is indeed standing, though perhaps he’s actually astride the fallen Fell Beast, and simply swung himself around while she was chopping off & somehow disintegrating that V-shaped wedge of wrymtail? I can suspend some of my disbelief for that, though it does add to the overall strain of that willing suspension, and obviously there were too many other issues that ended up snapping it.)

As an editor, if this were a story, I’d be telling the artist to fix the wing bones, to give the woman some shining chain armor with a Rohirrim tabard, or boiled leather armor and tabard--at the very least a tabard with the Rohirrim symbols on it!!. I’d also at the very least slap some Scandinavian knotwork on it, if not the actual Horse of Rohan. (I’d also suggest using the accepted colors for the Rohirrim banner, green and gold, though I might keep the majority of the tabard white and just have a gold-and-green knotwork horse centered on the chest, or something.)

I’d also request there be more chunks of hacked-off tail all over. (Bonus points if one of them looks like The Lonely Mountain! lol...)

Plus, I’d give her at least a tiny bit of blood spatters around her boots and on her thighs & a little on the lower tabard, to show she’s been fighting in battle all along. However, I’d actually hesitate to put the spatters any higher than belt-line at most (and definitely do something different than that cloak/sheet thing).

Why would I hesitate to get the chest area bloody? Because of the symbolism.

Renaissance paintings had blood & gore, but only up to a point. She’s the heroic figure who slays the 3rd Biggest Nasty of the entire trilogy (#1: Sauron, #2 Saruman, #3 chief king of the Ringwraiths, the one she stabs in the face-hole), so she needs the symbolism of still being Clean And Pure Of Heart, aka no muss, mud, tatters, or blood in the torso (chest / heart) area.

In fact, if you just replaced the cloak/sheet thingy with just a tabard (a white one with a little knotwork on it, and put Grecian sandals on her feet...that would seriously fix a lot in this image. You’d still get to paint the glorious three dimensional folds arrowing down between her thighs, “shielding her modesty.” and you could put some of the symbols of Rohan on the tabard (horse, knotwork, etc) to make her more clearly the Shield Maiden of Rohan, and not just a shield maiden, while still retaining that Greek Mythos feel.

(Plus, you could have a bit of Side Boob showing on the side closest to the viewer to make it clear She Is No Man, and still avoid the blasted censorship issues rampant in modern society, particularly on this site these days.)

...Definitely fix the dragon wing armbones with a bit of shadowing to remove the fact they look like they’re translucent with nothing along the upper/leading edge... ‘cause once unseen, I cannot un-see-it, and it’s creepy as-is... >.>*

I love the color palette. It’s very dusky, as in nearing-sunset-dusk, with lots of earth tones. It looks a bit dirty in its hues (as tragically poised battlefields should), and yet it has kind of a “Romanticism golden afternoon light” quality to it. These are all colors that I 100% believe Renaissance painters had access to and would’ve used. Excellent choices!

At a quick glance, it’s a good painting. When you look at it a little closer, however... the contrast between all the high quality stuff (lighting, three-dimensionality, focus versus unfocus, at least half the necessary symbolism is there, etc, etc) and the lower quality stuff (oy that lack of proper dragonwing armbones, etc) means it’s really not quite the artist’s best work, and it could be so, so very much better. Why?

Composition is as important as technical performance.

Seriously, the way she’s painted is gloriously done...except for her positioning. The dragon wings (I haven’t even touched on the odd angles of the metacarpal bones on the left-side one, just the right one, which is well done for the “finger bones” but there’s no way it should be pointing up lke that), those wings are too anatomically implausible, though I’ll admit they’re more about visual framing than being actual key features.

And lastly, if you’re going for a glorious Greek Mythos Renaissance Painting look to the art...go the whole hog. Paint it like it’s Second Breakfast, Elevenses, Lunch, Dinner, Tiffin, Tea, Supper & Midnight Snack all rolled into one.

Hell, paint a Loyal Dog (a staple of Renaissance symbolism), put it down at her feet (to represent the hobbit Merry, who was with her on her quests), and give it a little Rohirrim helmet and/or tabard! Go the whole distance with this. I truly believe this artist has that kind of quality in them!

If they did, I do believe all the old Renaissance Masters would totally thumbs-up this painting, if those flaws were fixed and the symbolism ramped up to at least a 9, if not necessarily a 10, rather than just doodling around down near a 5 or 6.

If this were a story and I was the editor for it (and presuming this was done on a tablet / computer, since if it’s an actual painting, that’s harder to fix), I’d definitely strongly suggest the revisions and rewrites listed above. And then I’d pimp the hell outta this painting.

(Oh, and to fix the weird positioning of her body, I’d give her a Radiant Aura Of Goodness with some golden streaks of light or something angling out at all directions, so it looks like she’s kinda floating, rather than wondering if she’s “suspended” by secretly sitting on a stick or a tail spike or something. That would help strengthen my suspension...as in the suspension of my disbelief.)

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aquaburst3 · 6 years

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Since I’m bored, I’ve been thinking about what kind of MAL rating I would give VLD if it was an anime. Granted, I normally only rate completed stories/seasons on MAL. But since we’ve finished the 2nd story arc and there’s only one more left, I want to make an exception.

At this point in time, I would give VLD a 8/10. For me, this goes to anime/series that are fantastic, but have some fairly major flaws that hold it back. Here’s why...

The Good

The series treats its female characters with a ton of respect. All of the female characters are complex and interesting.

Haggar is an amazing female villain, being ironically more complex and interesting than her husband. Her drive to find out more about the universe is what lead to her demise, not getting a man or getting her beauty back. To see that in a female villain in anything is awesome.

The action scenes are great

There were many “Fuck ya!” moments from the Shiro vs Keith fight to the story arc ender mecha battles

There aren’t any characters I flat out hate, especially in the main cast. Everyone is interesting in the own way

There were moments I cried. Okay, many times.

Characters are memorable

Foreshadowing is fantastic. Clues to what could happen next are set up far in advance and pay off, including minor detail you don’t focus on at first.

It’s engaging. I’m always invested and want to know what happens next

The lore and worldbuilding are great

The Bad

Pacing’s off. No surprise there.

Doesn’t focus on character dynamics and interaction enough. Most of the interaction is to move the plot along. A lot of the character interaction, especially between hero and villain...except in the case of Lotor, are glossed over with a few exceptions (Shiro and Keith, Pidge and Shiro, Pidge and Matt). The story never focuses on relationship development, seeing the team members growing closer together. Important character beats are often glossed over. Because of this, sometimes it’s hard to get a sense that the whole team is close other than the story says so. Hell, even people trained in screen writing pointed this out! Granted, a lot of this has to do with the pacing and the writers being forced to change their game plans, but still. (BTW, if you want to see a series that does this right, watch FMAB, Nana or Durarara. Or read Six of Crows)

Tendency to use shock value. This was especially bad in the last story arc (s3-6) with Narti’s death and the twist with Lotor’s character. To give the series credit, there was build up to these things and the actions serve the narrative, so they don’t come off as Edge Lord like GoLion did, but these things could’ve been handled a lot better. (While Lotor is an amazing villain, his motives and character arc could’ve been more coherent.)

Tends to pick favourites. Characters like Pidge, who the writers like more, get special treatment sometimes compared to ones like Shiro, who the writers like less...for whatever reason. Pidge didn’t loose either her brother or father and never gets punished for her actions. Meanwhile Shiro had a much rougher time, suffering a lot and even dying at one point. While I know character development will always vary character to character with side characters getting less, which is why I am not as miffed about Hunk not getting enough screen time as others because he is a side character, treating a character differently compared to the others in the story because you like them more is not a good thing.

There are of course some nip picky things and the odd baffling writing choice (Like not having the first episode be told in Keith’s POV instead of Shiro and Lance’s, making Keith come off as a reactive character for the first season, despite the show runners wanting him to be the main character. Also, I think the subplot about Allura being shocked about finding out that Keith is half Galra could’ve been much better if there was more focus on how she feels instead of placing it all on Keith. Also, Shiro and Pidge should’ve said they needed more alone time or something to balance things out more. Because realistically, the news should’ve been hard for them as well.)

Over all, it’s a great, but flawed series. I find that it’s sandwiched between Korra and ATLA quality wise. Better than Korra, but worse than ATLA. Considering ATLA is a classic, which I would give a 9 in MAL terms, that’s not too bad. The series isn’t complete yet, so the rating could change once it’s done.

#aqua rambles

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finchfeelsdump · 6 years

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Laziness in writing

I haven’t been writing as much as I would like these days. I have many projects that I don’t even have a title for, and some others that don’t even have a story. I don’t write much, but when I do, I try to be as detailed and meticulous as I can be. I want to check every nook and cranny and know that my job is impeccable.

Is that wrong?

I recently finished playing Danganronpa, a visual novel about murder and mystery, and it left me with a slight taste of inconsistency and plot holes. I liked it, in its majority, but there were these tiny moments in which I just felt something didn’t click. By the end, a lot of the questions that were planted remained unanswered. And the little bunch that was answered, was answered with an “it just is.”

Is that wrong?

Many people like to have a clear explanation to a question that the writer presents. I’m like those people. Well, it doesn’t even have to be clear, I just want an answer. But some other people feel that there’s some kind of intense charm to this mystery left unsolved, and that’s not wrong at all.

A writer is free to write whatever they want, however they want. Are they also free to decide what a reader should and shouldn’t know? Well, yes, but the true question is: how?

In Danganronpa, there was a question that I had, and the game responded with a “What does it matter? The outcome won’t change just because I tell you.”

I’ve talked about this and someone told me: “It’s true. It won’t matter if they tell you, because it’s not important.”

If it is not important, why write about it? Does it serve a purpose at all? If the author is so stubborn that the story MUST contain that piece of information, but they don't want to explain it, then I guess it isn't as important. If you're taking your time to write a whole story without the complementary information necessary, then it isn't whole.

That situation infuriated me because I think it’s lazy from part of the writer. It's lazy because you downgrade the importance of a point in the story so you don’t have to explain it. You say it’s not important, so that way you don’t have to think about it, don’t have to expand on it, you don’t have to put your mind into it.

There’s no other word for that, but laziness. It’s true. It’s just lazy behavior applied to writing.

But what if they explain it... later? Is it still lazy? They’re leaving information they could have explained earlier for later. Like a book and its sequel, many mysteries are solved in the latter. Could that be compared to procrastination? In this case, I don’t think it would. It would be unpleasant for a reader to receive all of the information at the very same moment; having multiple installments for a long story makes its digestion much more comfortable... that is, of course, when it is planned.

Allow me to briefly explain the game and my main concern with it (spoiler warning for Danganronpa): The story focuses on 15 prodigy students (each one is the Ultimate human around a certain attribute) who attend the most prestigious high school, but soon after, they are trapped inside and signed up unwillingly to a game of life or death, where each student, if they want to escape, must commit a murder against another schoolfellow and get away with it. So it's pretty simple, right? Throughout the game, especially later on, you get hints that these students are not so unknown to each other and that they were actually friends... they attended the school before normally but had their memories erased and put into the killing game. Why? Because the Mastermind of the game wanted them to experience ‘Ultimate Despair’ by having them kill each other as friends, but without them knowing it at first. Adding that prior to their original enrollment in the school, a catastrophe happened in the world where the planet fell into chaos, and they agreed to remain permanently at the school as refugees. Without their memories, they now feel trapped, and have a motive to kill each other and escape because they don't know the ruined state of the world. But here's the thing: almost at the end, confronting the Mastermind of the plot and asking them how they did what they did with their memories, they "answer what does it matter?" And then hardcore fans of the game (who, like any other hardcore fan of literally anything) defend anything the game could say, agreeing with it.

I'll tell you why it matters, at least to me: because it's an important part of the story. Even if nobody thinks it's important, it is part of the story. The writer clearly wanted to include it as vital later on, presenting you with multiple clues to it. The whole plot revolves around these students not knowing each other so that they could feel worse not knowing who they were actually killing and giving them a purpose to escape the school (or destroying the purpose to stay in it). So the writer had two options: keep the memory wiping plot and at least give a vague explanation for it, or forget about it. They surely didn't want to forget about it, so... they don't explain because they don't really care about it, they just want to have it. They could have gone to stupid lengths trying to give the most detailed explanation on how it happened, or could have been as easy saying "there are many more Ultimates than you think there are" or something like that, but they chose "who cares, it just is."

I’ve seen this many times, giving the “it just is,” and I hate it every time. Every time I see that I think “Oh, so the writer couldn’t think of any reason, huh? Or they just didn’t want to... that’s lazy”.

Or is it just me who is a perfectionist, never reaching even my own standards?

I was told this: “it’s not lazy because it’s not really important, so they can be free not to explain. It’s lazy when it matters and they don’t give an explanation.”

Again, diminishing the importance of the story. Was not the whole plot based off that idea? The whole game focuses on details, either for the general story or for the actual murder cases, so do you only not explain when it’s convenient?

If it moves the story forward, then it is important.

But they do explain it later, and it is... underwhelming. It is not the answer you expect and leaves you again with a sour taste. Here come the people that show the distaste they have for ruining the mystery, versus the people that are glad it was finally cleared up, and this second group divides between the ones that think it was a good explanation and the ones who do not... Later in the series (the third game and a prequel light novel, to be precise), it's cleared up that someone close to the Mastermind blocked off the memories of the students. How? Because they were the "Ultimate Neurologist" or something like that... so, couldn't that be said the first time? Or does everyone really prefers having another project to explain something that takes no more than three lines of dialogue? Or was it better left unexplained? Does it still seem lazy, even if you finally explain it? Was it the answer you wanted? Is it better not to explain the unexplainable? Which group does the writer focus on?

Even if you don’t want your reader to know exactly what happened, or how it happened, I think you should still give a tiny hint to it. Things don’t happen “just because,” everything has to have an explanation because that’s how the universe works. It’s cause and effect. Arguing “it’s just a fake story, it’s science fiction/fantasy, not everything has to make sense,” that’s not enough. I opine it does have to make sense because the coherence in your story speaks volumes about you and your writing. Even if you say “because magic,” “because nanomachines,” “because God,” that is still an explanation. Does it tell you exactly how? Of course not, but now you have an idea of how. Vague or clear, it must be explained.

The Dark Souls games and its surrounding family of software handle the mystery well, in my opinion. What you must truly know about the story (which is not much), is presented to you directly. Everything else, you must investigate and deduce on your own. Clues to the biggest mysteries are scattered around, with no real sense of progression to solving it, and even then, they are just clues. Still, everything can be answered right then and there. There’s no real need for a sequel to solve the mysteries you had planted in the first installment; these mysteries are new and let you expand on what you already have seen. If a player has the need for answers, then they are free to explore and deduce to their heart’s content, and even if they don’t find a direct, clear answer for a question, they at least get a clue. And the players that rather live in the blissful mystery are free to do so, too.

...But not everyone can pull it off.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of my favorite series of all time. It’s excellent down to the bone. Everything has a reason, everything is explained one way or another and the best thing about the explanations is that they work. They’re congruent, sensical, and doesn't matter if it took a whole episode to explain or just ten seconds, because all answers feel compatible and well thought out, like the writers (four writers, which is harder to coordinate) actually took their time to think them through... nothing feels lazy. The show doesn’t cut corners on what it has to do and say, yet it doesn’t overburden you with exposition and information. ...There’s just a tiny nitpick I have (spoilers for Avatar): The series first focuses on Aang learning the four elements so he can defeat the Firelord, and when he finally learns them all, he asks “I will not kill him, so how can I defeat him?” Five episodes before the series finale, Aang goes missing. In his sudden, involuntary departure, he meets a Lion Turtle, an ancient and wise being, the last of its species, who taught Aang very briefly about the energy of the elements. In his final fight, Aang takes away the fire-bending of the Firelord, managing to defeat him without him taking his life. So... hurray, right? Yeah, but there is one concern I have with this, and it has never stopped bothering me since: throughout the series, the Lion Turtles were only briskly referenced a couple of times since the beginning of the show through imagery and symbolism (as to imply their legendary existence), but they were never actually talked about. Having such a powerful being only truly shown at the very end of the series seems a little... rushed, and even convenient. The way they handled the situation was genius, in my opinion, but overlooking such an important detail about a character and his story just doesn’t quite add up. It’s like they forgot about Aang being a pacifist, so they introduce a character that never laid any evidence to had that kind of power to battle their own forgetfulness. It’s not necessarily poorly written or lazy, but, in contrast to the rest of the show, full of details and signs of power, the Lion Turtle doesn’t seem to fit this role. The way this could have been avoided would have been to mention ancient beings, or even the Lion Turtles directly, to have a tremendous amount of power, and that they were influential in the mastery of the elements and the cycle of the Avatar, all that early in the show. All of that is explained intensively in the sequel, The Legend of Korra, but, again, why would you wait to explain something so important so later on, when it is practically rendered irrelevant at that point? They were surely planning this since the beginning, so why does it feel like they weren’t?

I think it’s lazy not to explain. I think it speaks about the writer, diminishing the importance of their own story. But is it truly wrong to be lazy? Objectively wrong?

If readers are completely fine with living in the mystery, and they even like it, then it can’t be said it is wrong. And the same goes for the other side. Is the explanation stupid? Yes. Does it work? Yes. Is it still stupid? Yes, but now it works...

But, if you really want your readers to experience the mystery and the purposeful lack of information, then do it right. Do it intelligently; with passion. Having your lazy situation turned into a mysterious situation is clever, but it is still based on your laziness.

I don’t write lazily, or at least I try to, because that’s the kind of story I’d like to read. It's not the way I see the world, and it’s definitely not the way I see a story.

Everything has details, and everything has a reason.

“God is in the details” ...but so is the Devil.

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