15 KiB
[D][RST][RT]The Villain's Rise A contrast to the hero's journey.
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Author: u/Nighzmarquls *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3tje40/drstrtthe_villains_rise_a_contrast_to_the_heros/
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Score: 24
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Created: 2015-11-20T06:35:07
Post:
The post eliezer put on face book stating "A Yudkowskian mileu-oriented novel begins when the protagonist discovers a strange new world, and ends when they destroy it." brought a concept into sharp clarity for me just now.
I'm not writing stories about heroes or the conventional journey as seems to be the mold for a lot of popular fiction.
It's not about Resurrection allegories, or going out to find some nugget of magic to bring back to the mundane world.
The stories I write, and those I am constantly seeking to read are not about magical worlds that mundane people are dropped into.
I am not looking for the journey of a hero.
I am looking for the rise of majestic power.
I am looking for conquerors. I am looking for builders.
Rationalist fiction and munchkin-ing various fan worlds is fun for me because this touches so close to most of these things. But it's not really about the munchkin-isms for me. It's all about the attitude of using every advantage to win.
To reach into the bones of the earth and make it new and different and strange and wonderful.
To not be the mundane dropped into the magical world.
But to be the magical that is ripping open the mundane and dragging magic and power into the world.
The story of those that are spearheading magic into the world of the mundane.
Anyone have thoughts on this? interpretations? suggested reading based on this perspective?
Comments:
u/Abpraestigio [+7] (5 hours later)
That sounds awesome and exactly like what I am looking for as well, if put a bit more elegantly than I would be able to.
Sadly I can't think of something that fulfills all of those criteria off of the top of my head. The one that comes closest, in my mind, would be Fimbulwinter and its sequels. While the protagonist is technically a mundane dropped in a magical world he leverages the powers he gained in the transition into a rapidly expanding, and very ambitious, power base.
Have you tried looking/asking in the quest forums of SpaceBattles or SufficientVelocity? I think that the crowdsourcing of borderline insane plotlines that happens there is the closest you're going to get when it comes to already existing literature.
u/GaBeRockKing [+5] Horizon Breach: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6785857 (14 hours later)
I'll second this. Spacebattles is the confluence of /r/rational and military nuts.
u/celeritatis [+3] (a day later)
Fimbulwinter has the downside of shoddy writing, excessive self-insert (The author's pen name is E. William Brown, the main character's name is Daniel Black, could he make it any more obvious?), and some rather gratuitous sex scenes. This isn't to say I didn't enjoy it, but be aware you're reading male nerd wish fulfillment.
u/PeridexisErrant [+2] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (7 hours later)
Eh, I didn't finish Fimbulwinter but then I didn't find it that engaging either - it just felt like wish-fulfillment-as-the-"plot"-demands.
The best example of what /u/Nighzmarquls is looking for that I know of is Amelia - it's probably the best Wormverse rise-to-power I've read. Much drama, more escalation, and a
healthyrealistic dose of politics.
u/Abpraestigio [+4] (9 hours later)
Heh, funnily enough I stopped reading Amelia for similar reasons.
I guess our tastes simply diverge on this matter.
Though I can admit that the gratuitous sex scenes in Fimbulwinter are given an unusual amount of screen time. Which, of course, in no way contributed to my enjoyment of the novel :P
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+4] Roll the Dice on Fate (12 hours later)
The rise to power in Amelia is good, but once they have power the writer really seems to be at a loss as to how to make that interesting.
u/PeridexisErrant [+7] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (21 hours later)
Also, writing Thinkers is really, really, really hard to do well, because they're more alien than martian bacteria.
Seriously, is it even possible to write from Taylor's POV? I literally can't imagine what I could accomplish with a mere million concurrent, fully-focused, interacting streams of consciousness. Lisa's omniscience-on-demand is a kid's toy by comparison.
u/Uncaffeinated [+4] (a day later)
That's probably why it isn't done more often. Once the story has escalated that much, it's impossible to write. You have to plan for that to happen only at the end, and only if you don't care about sequels.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+6] Roll the Dice on Fate (a day later)
Well that, and the extremely cheap resurrection tech that they cooked up. Kinda killed the endbringer fights once dying only meant a weekend in time out. Didn't help that the writer viewed all attempts at constructive criticism as insults to retaliate against.
Unfortunate really, because there were many interesting things going on in that story.
u/xamueljones [+3] My arch-enemy is entropy (33 minutes later)
I'll read absolutely everything you write.
u/Nighzmarquls [+3] (45 minutes later)
Hum well Deeprise is done, and I'm working on converting it to an easier to follow format here. It is early work for me though and so things are rough and chunky.
OMGMG is much closer to this theme and still in progress.
I have a third project planned to come after the monster girls sci-fi fun which will probably end up being my first real foray into full magical fantastical fantasy. But I've got more character interaction/writing/dialogue/visual art chops to figure out before I think I can do that particular project justice.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+3] Roll the Dice on Fate (12 hours later)
Hey, thanks dude. I gave up on Deeprise because I didn't want to page through all those random comments. I'd recommend including a link to the easier to follow format into the first post of the Deeprise thread on the mspa forum.
u/darkflagrance [+3] (a day later)
Deeprise is pretty cool. I remember seeing you first building its world on the bay12 forums. Was the ending supposed to be ambiguous to the reader as to what was chosen?
u/Nighzmarquls [+2] (a day later)
Yes it was intentional for reasons I won't share until I figure out how to spoiler my posts on this subreddit.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+2] Roll the Dice on Fate (3 days later)
It's on the side bar under Other Information.
u/Nighzmarquls [+2] (3 days later)
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (10 hours later)
What you're talking about is a very specific part of the hero's journey. In its simple form, the journey is:
- Call to Adventure
- Crossing the Threshold
- Road of Trials
- Abyss and Rebirth
- Transformation
- Boss Fight
- Return, Having Changed
I feel like it's only that last part that you really dislike, and then only if it's handled in a certain way. There are many forms of the hero's journey where the hero returns back to his mundane life having undergone a personal transformation which nevertheless leaves him as mundane as he was at the start. Having saved the world, the hero then fades into obscurity.
But that's not the only way to handle the return. Sometimes the hero returns with the tools necessary to transform his world in the same way that he himself has been transformed. I feel like this is what you're talking about? The Matrix is one example that follows that version of the hero's journey very closely.
Or I might be misunderstanding what it is you really want in terms of structure and/or content.
u/JackStargazer [+7] Primordial Apologist (a day later)
Sometimes the hero returns with the tools necessary to transform his world in the same way that he himself has been transformed.
I sort of agree, but with a caveat.
Although the hero returns with strength to change the world, in almost all cases this manifests in one of two ways:
- The World was already ruined, the Hero returns it to 'normal', how it was before the Rise of Evil. Sometimes there is a suggestion that they will try to do some things better, but most of the time it's assumed 'normal' is good.
- The Hero understands that although they have the power to change the world, they choose not to for moral/ideological/personal reasons. Now that their adventure is over, they just want to lay down their sword and live in peace.
In the standard heroic narrative the story changes the hero. Maybe they learn something about themselves or about the world, there is a theme of acceptance and humility.
In the kind of conquering narrative the OP is talking about, the hero changes the story. Changes the world the story occurs in. Changes the society the story operates in. The theme is less of acceptance, and more of disagreement, and less of humility and more of confidence.
'The Villian's Rise' works as a swift explanation of this I suppose. Villains are the ones who normally take these kinds of positions. Villans act, Heroes react.
The best explanation of the difference I read was in Dire Worm, a worm fanfiction about a hamtacular Silver-Age style villain patterned after a (slightly nicer) Doctor Doom dropped into the clusterfuck that is Worm.
One of her monologues to the heroes when they ask why she's a villain explains exactly this: she plans to remake the world in her own image, and so she must be a villain, even though many of her actions are heroic.
u/Nighzmarquls [+1] (a day later)
this also touches even better on things that I find 'different' about the villain's rise then the hero's journey over even what I was able to put in as= my own response.
u/Nighzmarquls [+4] (11 hours later)
The key distinction for me is the story starting with the hero in "mundane" the idea of the call being a thing to be ignored, the inciting incident being external. I actually have tried following this structure before when I write. My current view is The heroes journey is in many ways a story of youth or inexperience. The hero is not yet tested or safe or any number of things.
But the story of life is not just about school, or college, or origin stories or frightening firsts. It's also about gradual builds.
The story of the rise can be shoehorned into the heroes journey monomyth. But it's not about that kind of perspective.
It's about what some one does after their journey.
It's about antagonists or mentors as the main perspective.
People who change the world or engage with wider views.
Or groups working together.
Or those that are threshold gaurdians.
Trying to tell the story of a god would not fit into the heroes journey very well.
Stories about shaping and building worlda don't seem to fit the overarching structure. And I feel it's a does a diservice to the potential of stories that people are always framing everything as the heroes journey.
u/PeridexisErrant [+2] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (4 hours later)
Can you copy the FB post here, for those of us who avoid Facebook?
u/xamueljones [+5] My arch-enemy is entropy (5 hours later)
He did; it's literally just the quote:
A Yudkowskian mileu-oriented novel begins when the protagonist discovers a strange new world, and ends when they destroy it.
Although, Eliezer made another interesting post earlier:
There are much more energy-efficient ways to swap the orbits of Earth and Venus than I would have expected to exist.
u/gabbalis [+2] (8 hours later)
And so we see the beginnings of Eliezer's true master plan.
u/xamueljones [+4] My arch-enemy is entropy (11 hours later)
Eliezer's true master plan.
Which one? You think a guy like Eliezer has only ONE master plan?
u/blechAAA [+4] (19 hours later)
Since when were you under the impression that he has only one master plan?
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+2] Roll the Dice on Fate (3 days later)
I am looking for the rise of majestic power.
I am looking for conquerors. I am looking for builders.
Well in that case you'll probably enjoy Cruel to be Kind, an extensive and pretty much daily updated fic about using dimensional jumping tech to build an empire from the ground up through 'acquiring' technology. It's at > 500 updates so far and so far as I can tell there is no other story quite like it. Or at least I've never been able to find one anyway.
u/Farmerbob1 [+2] Level 1 author (3 days later)
I poked through this thread, and didn't see any mention of the GEoM, God Emperor of Mankind, from Warhammer 40k.
Warhammer mostly concentrates on the aftermath, after the betrayal. The darkest, most horrible part of the history of mankind.
But before the universe was cast into chaos by a resurgence of the chaos gods, and later before some of his sons were corrupted by chaos and betrayed him, the Emperor led humanity to greatness.
And he wasn't very gentle about it.