37 KiB
[Q] Is my story Rational?
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Author: u/gmrm4n *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/4oftzh/q_is_my_story_rational/
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Score: 13
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Created: 2016-06-16T21:39:49
Post:
So around a year and a half ago, I started writing a web serial called Nowhere Island University. (Note: the link leads to first chapter.)
I try to make characters who are motivated by their values rather than just being evil (for instance, one character joined a terrorist group because of a drone strike, the main character is doing much of what he does because someone convinced him only he could save the world, etc.) but I'm not sure I've done a good job explaining that. The story also is definitely like a puzzle. I have a plan for how the story to end, and I think keep the rules consistent.
The thing is, not only am I biased (I mean, I did put a lot of work into this thing,) but I also have no idea what exactly to define it as. Anyway, if you took the time to look over my work, thanks for taking the time.
Comments:
u/TK17Studios [+10] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (6 hours later)
Yes, based on first chapter.
Although, to be fair, when I tried to describe the characteristics of the rational genre to my (intelligent, well-read) cousin, he kept replying "But you're just talking about good writing. Like, that's not new."
I wouldn't worry too much about boxes ... it's more about finding the story's audience than about tailoring the story to an audience (barring edge cases like a desire to promote thinly-veiled propaganda for worldchanging reasons).
u/FeepingCreature [+21] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (8 hours later)
"But you're just talking about good writing."
Not quite correct. There's lots of elements of good writing that run somewhat counter to rationalfic; for instance, symbolism, narrative causality, catharsis, etc. ... You can get those in rationalfic, of course, but only from the world's own causality. I guess it's a question of author skill, but the question is what's more important to sacrifice. Plus, regular good writing puts less limits on the things the author is allowed to do; Lord of the Rings is good but it's not rational, because it sets its problems up with undefined magic, which is good technique (Sanderson has a good article on that somewhere) but bad "reductionist worldbuilding". (And Orcs, of course.)
u/alexanderwales [+17] Time flies like an arrow (8 hours later)
I have a few ways of paring down what "rational fiction" means to me, and one of them is that there's no Rule of Cool: in rational fiction, it's not okay to suspend the rules of the world (or established characterization) in order to do something wicked sweet. You have to earn your wicked sweet moments. (Same goes for Rule of Drama, naturally.)
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (20 hours later)
I'm with you overall, but as a side note, Sanderson is a Bad Writer.
u/bassicallyboss [+2] (a day later)
How is being a Bad Writer different than being a bad writer?
u/TK17Studios [+5] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a day later)
In my head, it's the difference between being enjoyable-but-low-quality, and just plain bad. Michael Bay is a Bad Director, and so is Zack Snyder, but their movies can still be fun to watch. I know a lot of people who derive a lot of enjoyment out of Brandon Sanderson, and I'm not interested in doing something incredibly stupid like telling people they're wrong to enjoy a thing. But it's store-brand junk food; I think I'm a better writer than Brandon Sanderson, and I'm not even at the top of the writers on this one tiny subreddit.
As a concrete example, take the book Elantris.
(Spoilers below, not using spoiler tags b/c they're broken and truncating the text.)
The whole magic system in Elantris is based on runes, essentially, and the system is powered by the giant-city-as-rune ... the buildings and landscaping were done specifically to create a giant magical character. Then there was an earthquake, a giant crevice appeared in the city and gasp suddenly magic isn't working and all the wizards start looking like zombies. And the whole climax of the book revolves around you, the reader, swallowing the idea that FOR LIKE A HUNDRED YEARS, NONE OF THE ACTUAL EXPERIENCED EXPERT MAGICIANS WHO KNEW THEIR MAGIC SYSTEM THROUGH AND THROUGH AND KNEW THAT THE PHYSICAL SHAPE OF RUNES MATTERED EVER CAME UP WITH THE IDEA THAT HEY, MAYBE THE REASON THINGS ARE SCREWED UP IS THE EARTHQUAKE MESSED WITH THE MOST IMPORTANT RUNE. <breathes heavily, recovers from rant> The book has this young, ignorant Luke Skywalker-type Mary Sue figure make this realization decades later, after all the real wizards are dead and most of the lore has been lost, and has the audacity to play it as if that's somehow brilliant, rather than incredibly lame and also completely unrealistic.
It's totally fine for people to love books like that, just like it's totally fine for me to eat an entire party-sized bag of Fritos once in a while. But the fact that I derive enjoyment from the Fritos doesn't make them Healthy, and the fact that Sanderson can create experiences that some people enjoy doesn't make his writing Good.
(Wheel of Time)
In the final book, in addition to careless anachronisms like having Birgitte use the phrase 'anxiety levels,' he also just randomly shoehorns modern politics and social mores in, like when—for the first time in the entire series—he awkwardly drags a conversation around to THAT GUY LIKES MEN, THO just so he can have the two characters talking underscore that it's TOTALLY NOT A BIG DEAL, WHO CARES.
#OPINIONS
u/abcd_z [+8] (2 days later)
Ooh, then I know an entire genre of writing that's Bad. I've described the xianxia genre using the exact same metaphor you just did; eating junk food.
Main character does what he wants, bows to nobody, advances through the ranks of martial cultivation at a breakneck speed due to some artifact or bloodline or whatnot, causing everybody to look down upon him right before he kicks their asses. And all the female main characters eventually fall into his harem despite him showing social skills that are nothing impressive (and sometimes he's kind of creepy), and also everybody is a dick. Everybody in the entire world.
Probably so he can justify the aforementioned ass-kickings.
u/Nepene [+5] (11 days later)
The vast majority of the Elantrians were slain by the Reod due to riots after (people apparently didn't like them much), with the stronger ones who know more magic and theory being more prone to death or being disabled due to their strong connection with Aondor fucking them up. Ten years later Raoden reactivated it, not hundreds of years later. Knowledge of the connection of the land to the aons was fairly universal, although the city shape's connection was not in any of the books they read.
The magic isn't powered by the city. It's powered by Aondor, an invisible field of divine energy which the city helps people tap into. The shape of the city was done in the distant past, and may have been based on precursor magic from Dominion and Devotion, the source of the energy field, and may not be understood by the Elantrians.
The Elantrians may have fixed the issue in time if they had not been killed. After that it would have been very tricky for anyone to fix the city, as they'd have had to fight their way through multiple gangs.
This is fairly explicitly stated in the books (other than the precursor tech stuff), it's not some deep hidden theory. You should read the books more carefully. I thought it was a nice story to show the negative consequences of intellectual purges, something humanity has commonly done, and the value of books in enabling a quick recovery to high tech levels.
On the wheel of time- HPMOR was anachronistic. Historical realism has never been a key goal of rational fiction. And being supportive of gay people is good, I ave no objection to that.
u/TK17Studios [+1] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (11 days later)
I read the book plenty carefully at the time; I didn't bother to remember it very well, on account of the entire linchpin/keystone of the plot being so dumb (your defense addresses lots of the details I got wrong, but doesn't really show the core premise to be any less lame).
The problem is that the central thing is just completely unrealistic, in the sense that universes don't work like that. You said "The Elantrians may have fixed the issue in time if they had not been killed," which just doesn't hold up to the cold harsh light of reality. They would have realized what was going on immediately, and organized accordingly ... being "not very much liked" would not have sufficed to turn the whole thing into a mystery. Even if they'd all started getting slaughtered right away, the meme of "it's because the earthquake screwed up the aons" would have become universal almost right away, and would've been written down/remembered by lone scattered survivors, etc.
I agree that it's nice to have stories that show the negative consequences of intellectual purges, and the value of books in allowing people to climb back out of the pit, but Elantris failed to do due diligence in making such a scenario realistic.
As for the anachronism—first, I don't think "this other book did it wrong too!" is any kind of defense, and second, Robert Jordan managed to avoid any such anachronisms for some three million words; Brandon Sanderson was just sloppy. And being supportive of gay people is good; the problem is shoehorning it in for no other reason than to highlight that you, the author, are being supportive of gay people. There were plenty of places where that could've fit in with the plot that a decent writer could've found.
Again, I want to emphasize that there's nothing wrong with enjoying Sanderson's writing and stories. But defending their quality is going to be hard to do, and I don't think you've managed to shift me, yet, if that's what you were after (I also suspect the above post isn't going to shift anyone else, either, but ... typical mind). There are people who'll try to convince you that Michael Bay plots are good, too.
u/Nepene [+5] (11 days later)
The problem is that the central thing is just completely unrealistic, in the sense that universes don't work like that.
People don't respond in dumb, slow ways to disasters when infected with a painful disease?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_government_response_to_Hurricane_Katrina
Yes they do, and a dumb slow response to a crisis was a major part of HPMOR's plot too.
I've noticed this sort of odd optimism among /r/rational readers before. Did you consider all the potential failure points of such a plan?
They didn't know what had happened. They heard a loud sound. They didn't hear a voice saying there was an earthquake that cracked the land To find out what it was they'd need to send scouting parties out over dozens or hundreds of miles to map the land and find any land disturbance. It would be a major adventure that would take weeks or months.
And some of them may have written down that it was the land, those who were smarter. That doesn't mean that people actually cared to read their mad ramblings.
This attitude of /r/rational "Why are there problems, people immediately solve any problems" is really odd given that we were founded by lesswrong people.
As for the anachronism—first, I don't think "this other book did it wrong too!" is any kind of defense,
The use of anachronisms really isn't something that the average rational reader is obliged to care about. For a start, the books aren't necessarily supposed to be in english, it's probably a translation. For a second, the average reader isn't going to know well what is anachronistic and what isn't. For a third, as Brandon notes when saying how he intentionally does it-
I have gotten a little grief from readers regarding Kiin's family. Some think that the family as a whole feels too 'modern.' It is an anachronism that, to an extent, I'll admit. One of the quirks about the fantasy genre is how it generally prefers to deal with ancient governments, technologies, and societies without actually making its characters conform to more ancient personality patterns. In other words, most fantasy main characters are people who, if dusted off a bit and given a short history lesson, could fit-in quite well in the modern world.
I'll be honest. I prefer the genre this way. I don't read fantasy because I want a history lesson, though learning things is always nice. I read for characters—and I want to like the characters I get to know. I like putting characters in situations and exploring how they would deal with extreme circumstances. I just don't think this kind of plotting would be as strong, or as interesting, if the characters weren't innately identifiable to a modern readership.
My in-world explanation for this is simple. Just because our world placed a certain kind of cultural development alongside a certain level of technological development doesn't mean that it always has to be that way. In many of my worlds, culture has out-stripped technology. This does have some rational basis; I write worlds that involve very distinct—and often very prevalent—magic systems. Because of the benefit of these magics, many of my societies haven't been forced to rely as much on technology. There is more leisure time, more time for scholarship, and—as a result—the societies are more developed.
the problem is shoehorning it in for no other reason than to highlight that you, the author, are being supportive of gay people.
Shoehorning sex things in with minimal support is well within the traditions of the book. See the frequent bondage and rape scenes scattered throughout the books.
But defending their quality is going to be hard to do, and I don't think you've managed to shift me, yet, if that's what you were after (I also suspect the above post isn't going to shift anyone else, either, but ... typical mind). There are people who'll try to convince you that Michael Bay plots are good, too.
Most of your critiques of them are based off things which are obviously wrong based on in story things. No, hundreds of years didn't pass between the earthquake and the story. No, the city doesn't power the magic. No, people don't always have immediate and rational responses to disasters. You are free to believe what you want, but it's not necessarily going to be convincing to people who remember the story well.
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (11 days later)
Nepene, I'm not sure what your goal is.
If it's to convince me that Sanderson's a good writer, you're absolutely doing it wrong. If your goal is to convince others that Sanderson is a good writer, I suspect you're doing it wrong, but hey, by all means keep trying.
My goal was to blow off steam about a shitty popular author who a lot of tasteless people think is good at what he does. I've succeeded at that goal (and at this point, I'm certainly willing to bet ten bucks that a randomized sample of r/rational readers would side with the anti-Sanderson camp, rather than the pro). I was interested in hearing your defense, at first, but given that the above was mostly just you repeating yourself, only louder (e.g. reiterating specific and irrelevant corrections about Elantris that I already freely admitted I got wrong, and which don't bear on its central absurdity), I no longer have faith that you're going to say anything worth hearing on the topic.
How this discussion feels, from my end:
Me: "Thing sucks!"
You: "You're wrong, thing is actually awesome."
Me: "Er ... no?"
You: "Yes! You're wrong, thing is awesome. Besides, other books do thing just as bad!"
We agree on what happens, in the book. Sure, in my loathing, I retrieved exaggerated memories such as thinking more time had passed, etc. But given your corrections, we have basically identical models of what actually took place in the story, and what Sanderson actually does as a writer.
I posit that it's all deeply stupid and immature and that the basic tenets of realism have been twisted around to satisfy X or Y thing that Sanderson thinks would be cool. You posit that it's realistic and clever and good writing. At this point, we're talking past each other, not engaging—I feel like I've presented arguments for why it's deeply stupid and immature, and I feel like you've mainly just alternated between simply declaring that it's good (sans any actual model of why or how) and accusing my opinion of being hypocritical (because HPMOR and other parts of WoT do it just as badly, see!?). Your opinion doesn't feel particularly coherent, and I'm not interested in a third round of you saying the same exact things.
Since you don't seem to be interested in hearing a third round of me saying the exact same things, either, let's just call it a day, shall we? Personally, I feel like I've won this debate, and I declare victory. You should feel free to do the same—I'm not interested enough to contradict you, at this point.
u/Nepene [+7] (11 days later)
Nepene, I'm not sure what your goal is.
To correct factual incorrectness. I have no idea how you got me saying it was awesome from that.
If it's to convince me that Sanderson's a good writer, you're absolutely doing it wrong.
What makes a person or a good or bad writer isn't really something that either of us touched on. We could talk about the prose, the characterization of various people, the humour, the rationality or lack thereof of various plans in the book, stuff which generally determines enjoyment. Since the actual facts of what you said were wrong and that had no effect on your opinion your opinion of the book is probably more based on the feels it gave you, the central absurd feels it gave you.
I can't change a book making you feel shitty or whatever. My hope is more that any new people who haven't made an opinion don't base it on incorrect things.
I do like the book. Given that you immediately resorted to personal insults against the fans, and have here- "who a lot of tasteless people" or you earlier describing reading a fantasy book as unhealthy a fantastic discussion was unlikely.
If you want a good discussion, it's better to base it on things that actually happened, and to not insult people who have different opinions from you.
u/TK17Studios [+1] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (11 days later)
Except that none of the specific facts you corrected were relevant to what makes Elantris an objectively poorly written book. For instance, the difference between it being a hundred years vs. ten years is marginal, not fundamental.
I repeat that I did not, in fact, want a discussion—I was willing to enter one, once you seemed to be presenting a different opinion. But all I wanted—and what I got—was to air an opinion. The subsequent discussion was (and is) unsatisfying, and I believe you are misunderstanding yourself if you can say, with a straight face, that all you were trying to do was correct the specific facts I got wrong.
I stand by my assertion that people who say books like Elantris are good/quality are tasteless. That's orthogonal to the question of whether or not they're enjoyable—even people with excellent taste can enjoy Fritos. It's one thing to like Pacific Rim, and quite another to claim it's well-written.
u/Nepene [+3] (12 days later)
OR HUNDREDS OF YEARS, NONE OF THE ACTUAL EXPERIENCED EXPERT MAGICIANS WHO KNEW THEIR MAGIC SYSTEM THROUGH AND THROUGH AND KNEW THAT THE PHYSICAL SHAPE OF RUNES MATTERED EVER CAME UP WITH THE IDEA THAT HEY, MAYBE THE REASON THINGS ARE SCREWED UP IS THE EARTHQUAKE MESSED WITH THE MOST IMPORTANT RUNE.
Bolded bit, what yo cared about most-
For ten years, none of the non experts (for the experienced magicians were dead or disabled immediately after, and didn't know what had happened till weeks or months later) who knew the magic system ok based on a couple of books written by people who knew a lot but not everything about magic ever managed to recreate a complicated magic system from scattered documents.
Your core rant was incorrect. This sort of factual incorrectness and insensitivity to researching the story has pissed off authors before, when people here tell them they're irrational because their characters didn't do x improbable and unlikely to work scheme which ignores story canon, so challenging such arguments is important.
u/TK17Studios [+1] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (12 days later)
Fair enough. Rant corrected:
FOR TEN YEARS, NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THE HUNDREDS OF SURVIVING MAGIC USERS CAME UP WITH THE HYPOTHESIS THAT EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM SHOULD'VE ARRIVED AT IMMEDIATELY, EVEN WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE OF THE EARTHQUAKE: THAT THE AON POWERING THE WHOLE DEAL HAD BEEN DAMAGED. Nobody thought of it, nobody wrote it down as their final, dying act, nobody sitting on their butt squinting at the basic concept of magic runes ever came anywhere close to it, until Raoden Sue happened to use his brain once. Sanderson acts like this is believable because "but but but nobody really understood how the magic worked!" which is idiotic. It's not like a law of physics that was once known and then forgotten in a dark age—it's a deliberately constructed source of power that's driven by the same principles as the smaller magical works, and it's entirely inane and unrealistic to posit that the knowledge of, y'know, this GIGANTIC FRIGGING RUNE was completely lost prior to any kind of meaningful apocalypse.
Furthermore, the dialogue is stilted, the characters are dumb and erratically motivated, and the writing itself is childish, which opinion I arrive at having spent three years teaching and grading the writing of eleven year olds. If Brandon Sanderson reads my first, incorrect rant, I am entirely sorry for any degree of pissed-off he becomes, and abjectly apologize, and direct him to this more accurate rant instead, acknowledging any further inaccuracies as my own fault.
Thanks for helping me strengthen my core point by stripping out the tangential mistakes that were making my argument sound almost (but not quite) half as poorly-thought-through as the book Elantris itself.
The book sucks. I freely admit that, in my urge to unload my disdain for it, I didn't bother to go back and do detailed research to correct my impressions, which had drifted into inaccuracy in the years since I read it. My initial impression remains correct (confidence: 95%) and if I didn't have half a dozen better things to do with my money and time, I'd gladly go buy a paperback copy and assemble 30 concrete examples of its terribleness for you.
None of which would shift your opinion, because you like Fritos and that's completely okay.
u/Nepene [+5] (12 days later)
Your rant is still rather weak.
Principally, the core of the story is that all the 'scientists' got killed off or turned into Hoed. That's not going to change, all the smart people who knew enough theory got disabled or killed, most people only had a functional education in aons. The only one educated in how Aons worked outside in the story that we saw was Sarene, a noble. That's the basic premise of the story, it's an oldy time world without a great education system where the smart people died. We don't really know what exactly people tried in the past with regards to fixing the city. It's something to ask sanderson sometime, if anyone else tried to fix the Aon issue.
Generally from what I've seen, most see it as a fairly formulaic novel, with mostly fairly weak characters although some do like Raoden and Sarene- perfect characters do attract much love. Kvothe, Star Wars and Luke and Rey, Honor Harrington. Hrathen and Dilaf were liked by quite a few, with Hrathen being a fan favourite.
The action scenes were generally considered quite well written, as well as the scenery scenes.
and the writing itself is childish, which opinion I arrive at having spent three years teaching and grading the writing of eleven year olds.
It's a style that appeals to me. Not to you. It's very straight forward and easy to read. Makes the novel flow very well. Was pretty easy to get through. Calling it childish has been a fairly rare complaint though.
Some of the plotting was a bit childish in this one, like Sarene fixing the economic problems and the relatively easy winning over of gang leaders. It was his first novel. I'm not sure I'd use this as a general criticism against Sanderson. His later novels had much more complicated plots, much stronger prose.
Edit. And this continued into pms, with the person wanting to take the gloves off, insult me, and challenge me to a bet on the plotting and writing of Elantris, for any who were curious.
Edit 2. And that progressed into him blocking me because I didn't agree to his poll.
u/bassicallyboss [+3] (2 days later)
Thanks for clarifying. I felt pretty much the same way when I read Mistborn. (i.e., not terribly good, but an entertaining enough way to pass the time) I was somewhat disappointed, since my first exposure to his writing was through Wheel of Time, which I thought was pretty well done, overall, though like you, I had a few issues.
For what it's worth, I read The Way of Kings and found it to be both enjoyable and well-written. It might or might not be to your taste, but it's playing a league or two up from Mistborn. I've heard it suggested that finishing Jordan's work really helped Sanderson's writing. I can't say whether that's what happened, but the results are certainly there.
u/Nepene [+1] (11 days later)
In WoT book one p467 "As soon as the the sheep was alone... the one wolf chasing it became ten as if by magic."
Book 2, p41, knives appearing magically. It was a fairly common turn of phrase in the books.
u/bassicallyboss [+1] (11 days later)
Huh. I guess I'd never noticed. Thanks.
u/Roxolan [+2] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager (2 days later)
Posting in the Sanderson-bashing thread \o/
What struck me about The Final Empire was just how incredibly cliché-laden it was. The protagonist is ☑ an orphan ☑ with important secret parentage ☑ who gets rare magical powers (which, through no effort of her own, are ☑ the super rare, extra powerful variant, and ☑ also come with mysterious mystical extras), then ☑ her home gets destroyed by the bad guy and she's forced into adventure, etc. etc. all the stations of the hero's journey.
The tagline is "What if the Dark Lord won?" as if that's some bit of creative brilliance. Wow, your protagonist start out as the oppressed subject of an evil empire, I've never heard that one before.
I even gave volume 2 a try, because my rationalist friend was singing its praise (and back then I hadn't learned the lesson of sunk costs in fiction). But I got the complete lack of self-awareness thrown into my face so hard I finally managed to walk away.
u/TennisMaster2 [+2] (a month later)
Do you mean to say poorly plotted? When I see "bad writing," I think "low skill at the written word."
u/jesyspa [+3] (a day later)
Lord of the Rings is good but it's not rational, because it sets its problems up with undefined magic, which is good technique [...] but bad "reductionist worldbuilding".
Could you perhaps expand on this? I would call it rational, just set in a world with different laws. That these are often not directly explained in the books is, IMHO, not an issue.
u/FeepingCreature [+2] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (a day later)
There is a larger story there that is plausibly rational, and the setting may qualify, but the story is a story of Hobbits following their feelings and showcasing their racial qualities, while greater powers' greater plans move them like the pawns they are. Hell, the climax of the story is a morality play on the virtue of mercy, set up by God. Frodo is many things, brave, determined, even wise at times, but a rationalist hero he ain't.
u/jesyspa [+2] (a day later)
I admit that I can't really imagine how the Fellowship could be the optimal group of people to destroy the ring. I'll have to re-read the Council of Elrond and figure out how that was justified.
Hang on, do you find that a rational story requires all (main?) characters to be rational? If that's the case, I definitely agree rational and good writing neither contain the other.
Hell, the climax of the story is a morality play on the virtue of mercy, set up by God.
Could you expand on this? I don't recognise it in the plot at all.
u/FeepingCreature [+2] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (a day later)
Hang on, do you find that a rational story requires all (main?) characters to be rational?
No, but the story of Lord of the Rings is at its core the story of Frodo and Samwise; the rest of the characters are ... shall we say auxiliary? They aren't exactly part of the main story so much as they crossed it at some point, and then got their own B-track story to change up the monotony of "two hobbits go for a hike".
Could you expand on this? I don't recognise it in the plot at all.
"Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it. And he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many – yours not least. "
u/jesyspa [+2] (3 days later)
I get the feeling that most aspects of a "rational" story actually refer to the worldbuilding, rather than the book itself, with most of the actual content coming down to "good writing" (believable characters). I don't think characters not munchkining their way to the top means that a story isn't rational; I don't really see how Frodo or Sam could have used their wits better.
I definitely wouldn't call the rest a "B-track story". Frodo and Sam played a crucial role (perhaps the crucial role), but the tale is about the world as a whole, not just about them with some side conflict thrown in. For the same reason, I wouldn't call that the climax of the story, it puts too emphasis on something which is actually just part of a whole.
u/Roxolan [+2] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager (2 days later)
I can't really imagine how the Fellowship could be the optimal group of people to destroy the ring. I'll have to re-read the Council of Elrond and figure out how that was justified.
Frodo was first to volunteer and has the ring, it would just be too awkward for anyone to argue. Gandalf would back him anyway, since he knows of hobbit's resistance to corruption.
Gandalf + Aragorn is a no-brainer.
Gimli, Legolas, and Boromir, I don't remember the book well enough. The way the movie portrayed it though, after that flaming row, rejecting any of them would wound national prides and ruin diplomatic relationships right when they're most needed. Bloody politics. The Fellowship does need more than two competent members, but I'm sure Rivendell has its share of mighty elven warriors who are better at everything.
Sam, Merry and Pippin... Yeah, no, there's really no excuse. Frodo would stand for Sam, but they can be made to see reason, I'm pretty sure. The hobbits are all there to be protagonists, characters with room to grow, not for any rational reason.
u/narfanator [+7] (2 hours later)
On Chapter 3. So far, pretty good.
u/gmrm4n [+4] (3 hours later)
Thank you.
u/rineSample [+2] (a day later)
Unrelated, but "World Domination in Retrospect" is listed twice on your recommended links sidebar.
Edit: Also, minor nit in Ch. 3: in the "Arbiet macht frei" sentence, you have "should" twice.
u/gmrm4n [+1] (a day later)
Thanks. I'll fix that tomorrow.
u/jesyspa [+2] (a day later)
And it's "arbeit".
u/gmrm4n [+1] (a day later)
Fixed both issues.
u/rhaps0dy4 [+2] (a day later)
In chapter 1, "We don't really give a dam" is "damn", unless you're going for an odd pun.
In chapter 2, I can't parse Spoilering too much doesn't hurt Also, really like silly joke spoilers
u/gmrm4n [+2] (a day later)
Non-spoilered reason is fixed. Thanks for pointing it out.
u/Abpraestigio [+2] (a day later)
Gotta say, I really like the story so far (I'm in book three), to the point that it has cost me a night of sleep.
One thing I wonder is whether the Protag has either Precog, some kind of Luck-based power or an unconsious sort of defensive Telekinesis. Because the plot armour is strong with this one.
The one thing that is annoying is that the protag occasionally speculates about things he already knows. Like wondering whether a person is trans after learning in the previous book that they got gender reassignment surgery.
u/MoralRelativity [+2] (8 days later)
Thanks for writing this. Overall it's been quite enjoyable and I was disappointed a few minutes ago when I got up to date! How often do you publish new 'tracks'?
u/gmrm4n [+2] (8 days later)
Every Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. You can also subscribe via RSS feed or follow on Wordpress. I also have an automated update every time I publish a chapter via my twitter.
Anyway, I hope that helped and I'm glad to hear you're enjoying this so far. Thanks for reading.