14 KiB
[RT] [HF] [FF] [PGtE] Good, Evil and Shatranj
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Author: u/melmonella Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/5sauau/rt_hf_ff_pgte_good_evil_and_shatranj/
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Score: 17
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Created: 2017-02-05T23:58:21
Post:
This is a piece of fanfiction based upon Practical Guide to Evil. Original webserial wasn't written by me, and this is by no means part of the official canon.
Good was sitting at a table.
Well, not quite. It wasn't really a table. And he wasn't really sitting. And he wasn't really "he". And the "was" part was closer to "was/is/will be/never stopped", but what can you do - English wasn't designed to describe what cosmic manifestations of metaphysical concepts mortals call "Gods" did with their time.
In front of him, Evil sat, reading a pretty thick rulebook Good wrote just a couple days before. He already went through it three times, and Good was getting pretty impatient.
"How many more times do you need to read that before you give up? That ruleset is flawless. Just admit you lost the bet and let's get this over with."
Evil gave a non-committal "Mhmm" and kept reading. He really could be quite infuriating at times.
"I am telling you, there are no loopholes there."
"Hmmhm"
"Well, if you want to waste more of your time, suit yourself."
"Mm"-said Evil, finally putting the book down. -"Deal the cards already. Let's play."
"Really? Triumphant? That's your endgame?"
"Mmmmm"
"Come on, flying fortresses are good, but they won't give you total world domination. She'll get overthrown in less than a decade."
"Hmmh. Are you going to throw the dice or what?"
"Yeah, yeah, sure."
"Huh, my crusade got turned away."
"Mm"
"But Terribilis'll still die eventually. What are you playing at here?"
"Absolutely nothing. As a matter of fact, nothing on this side of the board, or in Praes in general is in any way relevant. My true endgame has always been situated right in the middle of Callow."
"Yeah, as if I'd buy that, Mr So-Totally-Not-Lying. We'll see."
Good moved his Prince forwards, finishing his battle preparations, and threw the moving stick back to Evil, transferring the turn.
"My army is larger. You know what this means, right? Fields of Streges will be covered in orc blood by tomorrow."
Evil smirked, stood up, and cracked his knuckles.
"Well, let's see about that."
And then he started his turn.
Good stared at the board. He blinked, hoping this bad dream would go away. It didn't.
"What the hell just happened?"
Evil raised an eyebrow.
"If you want me to go over the last turns in detail, I can certainly do that."
Good sighed.
"Rub it in, will you. Whatever, I can still salvage this, let me just get my Prince into position..."
"What Prince? You don't have a Prince."
"Yeah, right. He is right he-..."
"..."
"...where the hell is my Prince?"
"You had a Prince, until four moves ago, when he got his throat cut. By a lowly goblin, I think."
"..."
"I am screwed, aren't I."
"Yep. Callow will fall today."
"You know it will rise soon enough. Triumphant tried that, and look how it worked out."
"Mmmm. Do your turn already."
Evil wasn't smiling. That would be telling. However, he was quite delighted how events were unraveling according to his predictions.
His ability to directly affect the world was very limited, unlike that of Good. He wasn't able to summon beings of pure Evil into the world, or spawn his agents like Good spawned Heroes, or to even directly communicate and order pawns around. That has been the point of the game, after all-to see if humans without help would be able to break Fate while Good tried his best to counter their efforts. At best he could subtly influence someone important from time to time - there would be no posessing a Villain for him at a crucial moment. Not that he needed it.
Push a stone off a hill, and it will roll. Close your eyes, and you still know it will roll in that same direction, bouncing off roots and hubbles, until it stops at the bottom. If you know the shape of the hill, you can guess where the stone will end up without looking at it, and can control that location when you first push it downhill. And then there is no reason to adjust it after that first push. Pawns were taken by Rooks, stones pushed on stones, humans talked to other humans. Affect one crucial part of the system, and you affect the whole system a hundred turns from now. And all it takes is one little push.
Put a thought in the mind of a young sorceress, and she'll set off on a path to conquer the continent. Arrange for one young man to learn the tale of that sorceress and learn from her mistakes, and you will get a masterful tactitian a hundred turns from then. Pull here, shove there, a dozen others to mask the real moves, and the whole board moves where you need it. Villain gets born. He assembles a ragtag bunch of misfits. Those misfits do the impossible, setting up the board for still later moves.
Evil didn't smile. It was time to start his real endgame, for which he was setting everything up the whole time. It was quite simple in design, actually, but some things had to go just right for it to even start. You see, when Good wrote the rulebook, he didn't capitalise "Hero" in "hero's journey". And lowercase "hero"? My, that wasn't defined anywhere in the book, and thus was very much open for interpretation. Something Evil was quite good at.
Comments:
u/ivory12 [+1] (2 days later)
Neat. Thanks for the reminder this is back today, too.
u/melmonella [+1] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (2 days later)
I am a new writer, and sort of expected more feedback from this subreddit. Could you at least give some? I'd like to improve my writing, but without feedback I don't know how.
u/bvonl [+1] (3 days later)
On the story:
Good sounds a lot like someone whose moves revolve solely around being more powerful and having the advantage, whereas Evil is shown to be smarter (wiser?) of the two. I realize that the canon has this aspect as well, on the whole, and also that it is more probable that someone who has a lot of power at their disposal is likelier to be sloppier in their gameplay. But if Good can spawn The Wandering Bard, I imagine it can be a lot smarter? (yes, that's an open-ended question for you; I'm not sure myself)
I imagine that Good is the doofy friend who made up a game with unfair advantages for himself, so that he may finally win one against his smart-ass friend, Evil. Am I right?
On the writing:
I wish I could help you out more here but I'm not a writer. As a reader though, here's what I thought:
I liked the story and the writing did not cause any hiccups which would throw me off. For a new writer, I'd say that's a good start.
I'd have liked it if the story pulled me in more. I don't know how to achieve that... Maybe try reading the wiki at /r/writing or /r/writingprompts or get their input?
I don't know how rational the writing is but I liked the last section for how well it explained Evil's mode of thinking.
I hope this helped. Glad to have you here.
u/melmonella [+1] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (3 days later)
Good sounds a lot like someone whose moves revolve solely around being more powerful and having the advantage, whereas Evil is shown to be smarter (wiser?) of the two.
That was exactly what I was trying to convey, yes. Well, not quite, but close. Good can see subtler moves, but not nearly as good (badum-tss) as Evil, which lead to their original argument (Good thinking it can design a foolproof set of rules by just restricting everything objectionable, Evil disagreeing on the basis of Godel's incompleteness theorem)
I imagine that Good is the doofy friend who made up a game with unfair advantages for himself, so that he may finally win one against his smart-ass friend, Evil.
No, they both agreed on Good having all the advantages. Good is kinda playing as the GM, while Evil is playing as a munchkin who tries to break the game.
u/bvonl [+1] (4 days later)
Godel's incompleteness theorem
Cue insecurities about not being as smart as others
Ahem. So, is your story completely referencing canon? If yes, the Bard is Good seeing the subtler moves? If yes, can't Bard see the Story and how it plays out?
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
[deleted]
u/melmonella [+1] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (2 days later)
Um. Something like chapter 40-ish book 2, I guess? But it's more of a "you probably just won't get it until you read that far" thing.
u/ivory12 [+1] (4 days later)
Alright. New top-level comment for general feedback. This is pretty stream-of-consciousness stuff.
Contractions in the narrative. Some people will tell you that's a never-do, that it belongs only in dialogue. Tense shifts. Everything after:
Not that he needed it. is present tense. Purposeful? It's interesting, anyway. Passive voice. All over the place. Rocky constructions such as: Pawns were taken by Rooks and the first sentence of the entire piece, Good was sitting.
Directly addressing the reader -
You see, when Good wrote the rulebook
Your dialogue is clunky in general. Jumping all over the place time-wise and not identifying whose talking where. People talking inbetween paragraphs of their own actions. Structurally, you have a few missing periods and basic proof errors. There are long periods of back and forth with no identifying the speaker, rapid-fire... again, it's a stylistic choice. It's a purposeful thing, or at least it should be. It's very tough to make a new scene start with dialogue that flits back and forth like that. Give the reader an anchor.
Like an anchor, the reader needs a hook. Your opening's gotta grab 'em. This is not easy. But neither should it be abandoned whole sale. Bizarre and interesting is better than boring.
Good was sitting at a table.
This isn't boring. It's just not interesting, either.
The passive voice and describing with -ing words are sometimes touted as hallmarks of inexperienced writing. Some people will tell you to cut as much of it out as possible. They're not a cardinal sin. Nothing in English is. Later, you start a sentence with and...
And then there is no reason to adjust it after that first push.
Which some will also tell you never to do.
You have a couple sentence fragments.
It didn't. Well, not quite.
Again, you can write in fragments if you want. They can be excellent, emphatic punctuation on a scene. But these sentences can also jar when they come together too often.
The thing about writing is, you can do anything you want. You can be e.e. cummings and never write with a capital letter. Cormac McCarthy, and say fuck you to apostrophes, quotation marks, and proper structure in general. Blood Meridian is my favourite novel and it's a fucking chore to read some of McCarthy's paragraphs. Others are transcendent.
It's a general rule of thumb that before you go breaking the rules - or rather, conventions - you learn them. If you know why you're breaking a "rule" then go for it.
If you want to be a good writer there are only two things you need to do. Read a lot and write a lot. And not just derivative fiction. There's so many fantastic authors out there, even just in English.
In general I think, more and more these days, that fanfiction is a waste of time. Reading it is empty calories and easy dopamine. Like porn, or junk food, or Jerry Springer or daytime TV. Not terrible. Not a vice, per se, but it can fill your time without really giving anything back for it. Writing it, on the other hand, ingrains bad habits and lets one put the shutters over their own imagination in order to use someone else's sandbox as a shortcut.
Feel free to disregard everything I've written here. I'm not your typical /r/rational commenter, I think. I come from a different perspective than the norm in this sub. I care more for the edifice of a story, the narrative, the emotions a piece evokes in a reader and less about whether characters are acting "rationally" or the balance of a conflict, or if the twist is realllly interesting and clever. Few things bother me more than soapbox fiction, and I find a lot of things here have a story that comes secondary, written only to suit a message. That can be done well. Most things can. Often it's done clumsily, however. The Venn diagram of good web fiction and rational web fiction has a great deal of overlap, however, which is why I'm subscribed here.
Just keep practicing. Finish things. Edit them, but don't bog yourself down. The twenty-fifth edit might ruin something amazing you had in the tenth... but the first draft is never the best one, to shameless steal something someone more smart than I once said. Think about why you're writing what you're writing. It's a skill like any other: it just takes practice. Practice with intent, with a focus on improvement, with an eye towards your own flaws. And putting in the hours. Always putting in the hours.
u/melmonella [+1] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (4 days later)
Thanks for your feedback.
Your dialogue is clunky in general.
Yeah, that's an issue. No idea how to solve it aside from just writing a whole lot, though.
Jumping all over the place time-wise and not identifying whose talking where.
I tried to identify speakers through their mannerisms, with Evil using lots of "mmm"-s, as well as through various connections based on what each side would be saying. For example,
"Huh, my crusade got turned away."
Implies the speaker was the one with the crusade, which are a Good thing, which implies the speaker is Good. Likewise, I tried to connect two paragraphs by saying "Good moved his Prince forwards" in one of them, setting up the side on which Prince is, and then using Prince to identify the speaker in the next paragraph, and other similar things.
This isn't boring. It's just not interesting, either.
Aw. I thought first two paragraphs were the funniest part-contrasting something mundane like sitting at a table, reading books with something not-mundane, like not being human. I guess that didn't translate well.
Just keep practicing.
Well, I know that much, hence me asking for feedback.