Dragon Age: Origins PC Gamer preview out, tidbits...

[hiver]

Bah, high elves fail everywhere. Except in Eberron.

The Valenar are bad-ass motherfuckers who were former slaves of giants and are now a tribal society of warriors. Their main goal is to kick as much ass as possible to honor their ancestors.
The elves of Aerenal wants to conquer the world through necromancy. Living dead elves walk their Aztec-like cities.

Hah! What faggotry. Discusting shitty rippoffs of the real thing.

Indeed just yesterday I killed a woman for not blowing me then had sex with her corpse before I mailed it to her mother just for kicks. My wife won't be very happy about it. Oh who cares she was a nigger anyway. Most of my friends do the same thing from time to time.

Yeah, but i bet you would love to do just that if there was no punishment or anybody to catch you. You would rape monkeys too, only if you could.

Or would have been if they hadn't presented the "they're both fucking stupid" neutral path.

Which is, of course the correct path. And you get to kill all those fuckers.

 

[AzraelCC]

Quote:
Bah, high elves fail everywhere. Except in Eberron.

The Valenar are bad-ass motherfuckers who were former slaves of giants and are now a tribal society of warriors. Their main goal is to kick as much ass as possible to honor their ancestors.
The elves of Aerenal wants to conquer the world through necromancy. Living dead elves walk their Aztec-like cities.

Hah! What faggotry. Discusting shitty rippoffs of the real thing.

Ripoffs of what? The elves of LOTR or the original Celtic myths?

Elves in Tolkien are near immortals who are unable to change with the world because of their semi-deity status. They are bound by tradition because of their adherence to order, and they are the primary source of magic in the world.

This particular reinvention is well-envisioned, because the constant warfare in Khorvaire actually nullifies the near immortality of the elves, making them more adaptable. For the Aerenal elves, immortality is a curse, and so they continuously try to die glorious deaths. There's a hint of envy of humans on their part. Still, tradition defines their culture.

The Valenar, meanwhile, value immortality as a means of gaining more power, and would like to retain it, even if they die through violent means. Thus, their magics prioritize transformation into the deathless (positive energy undead).

Both are influenced by the world (the effect of constant warfare) yet still retain the core essence of elves in a fantasy world--a long-lived race attuned to magic and prioritizes tradition.

 

[hiver]

Elves in Tolkien are near immortals who are unable to change with the world because of their semi-deity status. They are bound by tradition because of their adherence to order, and they are the primary source of magic in the world.

What? What the fuck?
No, seriously.

Adherence to order? Where did that come from? Are you even familiar with real LOTR books and Silmarillion histories of elves?

Like that whole business of Feanor spliting elves in half when he decided to go against Morgoth to reclaim Silmarils. How his army attacked and killed a lot of elves that lived on the coasts of Valinor itself in order to get the ships they needed. And then proceeded into a war that lasted thosuands of years against one of the Valar, Dragons, Balrogs, Sauron and his werevolves just to name a few?

And to this you counterimpose some kamikaze elves who fought giants and whos primary goal is to get splattered in most amusing ways? You think thats "badass"?

Magic? primary source of magic? You must be joking since all of the Tolkien mythos avoided "magic" as much as possible. Whatever abilities elves had came from being connected to Arda and forces that shape the nature, the nature itself more then any kind of "magic".
Tolkien himslef and through many of his characters refuses that idea completely.
Its only that some like humans or hobbits mistakenly take some of the abilities of elves or their work (like rings) as magic because they dont understand them and see them superficially.


Its really annoying to me when people start to badmouth Tolkien without even knowing his work and in fact basing their dislikes on shitty ripoffs of his work.

 

[Andhaira]

Tolkien was racist. All white people were good and all non-whites/easterners were evil in his works. Ugh!

 

[Lesifoere]

Tolkien's elves as portrayed in LOTR are dreadfully boring fuckwits. They're a bit more exciting in the Silmarillion, but on the whole I'd still rather read the Poetic/Prose Edda.

 

[hiver]

On the other hand i think you are dreadfully boring fuckwit.
Compared to Tolkiens work that would actually be a compliment.

 

[MetalCraze]

LOTR is actually one of the most overrated shallow writings of the past century.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Tolkien's elves as portrayed in LOTR are dreadfully boring fuckwits. They're a bit more exciting in the Silmarillion, but on the whole I'd still rather read the Poetic/Prose Edda.

A bit? The difference between elves in LOTR and Silmarillion is as big as between heaven and hell.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

As a writer, Avellone kicks Tolkien's ass to the orbit and beyond.

 

[Lesifoere]

On the other hand i think you are dreadfully boring fuckwit.
Compared to Tolkiens work that would actually be a compliment.

Try that again in English.

 

[ArcturusXIV]

LOTR was a very creative effort, but poorly written as far as prose-stylings go. Still, I respect it better than 99% of the fantasy out on the market, which just ripped off the cliches of LOTR and transplanted them on a new world. If you want a really great and original fantasy work, though, I recommend the Gormenghast Trilogy. There's nothing quite like it out there today, and the prose is wonderful.

 

[hiver]

LOTR is actually one of the most overrated shallow writings of the past century.

:facepalm:

As a writer, Avellone kicks Tolkien's ass to the orbit and beyond.

:headbutt:

LOTR was a very creative effort, but poorly written as far as prose-stylings go.

:kickintheballs:

 

[ArcturusXIV]

LOTR is actually one of the most overrated shallow writings of the past century.

:facepalm:

As a writer, Avellone kicks Tolkien's ass to the orbit and beyond.

:headbutt:

LOTR was a very creative effort, but poorly written as far as prose-stylings go.

:kickintheballs:

Hah, I take it you're not a literature major. There were so many typos in the original print of LOTR that it makes most college essays look good by comparison. I never said Tolkien wasn't a genius. But he's certainly not an amazing linguist. His genius lies in creating a believable world.

 

[Lesifoere]

Never mind typos, his prose is pure sludge. Had LOTR been fed to a competent editor and, say, had about half its words taken out, then it might have been somewhat tolerable.

 

[Shannow]

Never mind typos, his prose is pure sludge. Had LOTR been fed to a competent editor and, say, had about half its words taken out, then it might have been somewhat tolerable.

qft

LoTR as well as the Hobbit retained a lot of their bedtime story characteristics. With the Hobbit there were enough to make the book strongly resemble a good bedtime story. With LoTR they just didn't work and made it unneccessarily long-winded..

Silmarilion stories were a lot more interesting than LoTR (and had more badass elves). But sadly the Silmarilion isn't written as prose but as a history book/ bible.

 

[Darth Roxor]

sadly the Silmarilion isn't written as prose but as a history book/ bible.

I actually liked that about Silmarillion. And I'd say it was more like a... hmm, how to say that. Folk tale, than a history book? I mean, the parts like 'no songs have ever been sang about them' or 'but they are not the subject of our story' are more as if some minstrel was telling stories at the campfire, than a historian lecturing people in a library.

 

[hiver]

Alright Arcturus i just included your quote for a fun, mostly. (you give him only 99%?? Die!!!)

Hah, I take it you're not a literature major. There were so many typos in the original print of LOTR that it makes most college essays look good by comparison.

Typos in original version? The printed one? By a professor of English literature and a linguist? Interesting.
Cant say that i know any details about that.

I never said Tolkien wasn't a genius. But he's certainly not an amazing linguist. His genius lies in creating a believable world.

Not an amazing linguist and he created a language on his own. Right-e-o.

His genius is not only evident in creating a believable world but also in his style of writing. Im aware that many people see it as something simple and expect "good writers" to write in style thats almost incomprehensible but thats a load of bullshit.

Tolkiens style of writing has that special very hard to reach simplicity of perfection. Ive never read any writers that can manage to paint a vivid picture of places, characters (yes characters!) and events as he can, in just a sentence or two. Though some are close, like Dan Simmons or George RR Martin who revers and deeply respects Tolkien.
And thats something very, very hard to reach in writing.

I like China Mieville and his style too, which i suppose would be more to your liking. I consider The Scar one of few perfectly written novels of all time. But his not even in the same league as Tolkien. (and yes i have read about his "opinions" of Tolkien which are superficial and misguided and simply wrong)

A bit? The difference between elves in LOTR and Silmarillion is as big as between heaven and hell.

Its not like those two are some separate works. Its all one great history isnt it? It makes no sense for remaining Elves in middle Earth to be on the level of ones in Silmarillion. It is more then sufficiently explained. After the death of Gil Galad there was no kings to unite the remaining few lineages anymore and even so Middle Earth is not their home at all, as those who read Silmarillion know, but a huge mistake of those who followed Feanor to it - which they payed for very, very dearly - for nothing, as it seems but pain, suffering and total destruction in many cases.

 

[Annie Mitsoda]

When I read LOTR, I see it less as "this was something written to be an action-packed novel" than something written to resemble - in structure and language - an "epic," written in the style of previous works from varying cultures (though I'd mention The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Illiad, I think primarily Tolkien was more likely drawing from Beowulf and other works of that age and location). I know I recall hearing that if it were up to him, he'd have written the whole thing in Elvish - he created that language to write the story in.

I know he was also somewhat inspired by Shakespeare - that is to say, he DISLIKED Shakespeare's work quite a lot, and thought that the 'Fear not, till Birnam wood / Do come to Dunsinane' (from Macbeth) being soldiers holding branches was a total cop-out, so you know - ents. Anyhow. When people say X is derivative of Tolkien, I kind of sigh a little, because he in turn DID pull from other sources to create Middle Earth. Fuck, even Shakespeare drew from classical and popular works.

I wouldn't scream about the reuse of a concept if they could really, genuinely do something new with it. So you have a situation where elves are all magic and shit - do you just have humans react to them with fear and suspicion, or do you find (like with any group wielding a great deal of power) human sycophants in their ranks who either kiss-up to try and gain their favor, or those who dream of finding a way to "ascend" to elvenhood (like they view it as a higher state of being or somesuch) or (more creepily) make themselves desirable to breed children? And as much as people loathed how Wizards of the Coast made elves look in D&D 3.0/3.5 (NWN2 actually had PRETTY elves at first, but their faces were rejected), they did look unique and somewhat alien. Pushing a concept of something far less "oh, behold, we are so elongated and beautiful" and something more unfamiliar and bizarre to human sensibilities (Stranger in a Strange Land, anyone?) - THAT I would find rather intriguing.

Anyhow. I can respect what Bioware's trying to do here, but I've said before that if you just flip a stereotype without adding anything to the concept, it just outlines the details of that stereotype even further ("Ah, I am a well-spoken and finely-dressed dwarf who dislikes alcohol! Alas, for I am so unlike the rest of my kind, oh woe!"). I'm willing to take a closer look at it, but - as I've bemoaned the fact before that publishers are like FANTASY = LOTR OR GO HOME - I'm not expecting a whole lot of SUPAR-newness.

 

[Azrael the cat]

The Witcher did the whole "non-humans are second-class citizens" way better, anyway.

The Witcher fails at moral ambiguity by portraying the humans as racist sexist cheating greedy murderous deviant vile sodomites at every turn. I almost laughed out loud the first time i finished chapter one and i was presented with the option to side with the witch or with the villagers. Gee, let me think.

The game wasn't bad, at any rate.

Just a couple of points:
- the humans are pretty immoral, but so are the non-humans. The 'resistance' is portrayed as having long ago crossed the line from freedom-fighter to angry-murdering-terrorists who don't care how many innocents get killed. Both sides had an interesting aspect to them: the humans are corrupt, but amongst them is the one genuinely noble character in the game - so you have the thing of whether to be loyal to a genuinely noble hero, but at the cost of the corruption that fills his organisation. The elves don't really have a genuine 'pure' noble hero - they are all happy to murder innocents and be the classic terrorist, but they do have an understandable motivation and a cause worth fighting for.

- I'm sick to death of idiots trashing the witch / villagers choice because they were too clueless to work out everything that was going on. Yes the villagers are corrupt, sexist, racist etc. But the witch is a murdering, thieving, manipulative evil swine....or at least there is a lot of evidence that she might be - most of the humans' accusations about her are borne out if you find all the evidence during the chapter, and quite a bit of the stuff that the humans 'may' have done isn't clear. They're as evil as each other.

 

[hiver]

Bioware newest ... whatever it is, has nothing to do with Tolkien and how he described elves and dwarves which were not the typical, stereotypical portraits widely known today as cliches.

All this stupidity of sexy beautiful elves that use "magic" came later on by constant recycling of his motives and dumbing them down to lowest common denominators for mass market to swallow.
Christ, even orcs are most often portrayed as some kind of macho body builders with green skin vomit.


Though i agree with you that just superficially trying to make elves and dwarves different then ordinary cliches wont amount to much.
I thought it pretty stupid how dwarves were shown in the Witcher despite proclamations of it different take on the theme. Scottish accent and all the rest of stupidities.

But considering that bioware is a mass market company making their games for teenage audience there is no sane reason why they should go into depth with any of their features, races, characters and so on, even if they could.

Oh, and Tolkien didnt have an intention of writing anything specific, epic or otherwise. The story wrote itself and grew on itself through him. From his first attempts at creating stories for his children to Hobbit and branching wildly into LOTR and Silmarillion (which is not a single intended work but collection of his unfinished works put together by his son).
Thats why its so... good.

 

[Serus]

Is bashing Tolkien popluar now ? People heard Tolkien is "bad" and they repeat it like parrots.

But he's certainly not an amazing linguist.

This is the most stupid thing i read on the codex for a long time... We are talking about codex where stupid and retarded is the norm.

 

[Lesifoere]

God, hiver's such a Tolkien fantard it's embarrassing to watch. It's like seeing someone defending the great social commentary and merit of Naruto or Inuyasha.

Im aware that many people see it as something simple and expect "good writers" to write in style thats almost incomprehensible but thats a load of bullshit.

Tolkiens style of writing has that special very hard to reach simplicity of perfection. Ive never read any writers that can manage to paint a vivid picture of places, characters (yes characters!) and events as he can, in just a sentence or two.

No, it's not a matter of "almost incomprehensible." It's of using language with wit and creativity. There's none of that in Tolkien; he just churns out a lot of words, and it's funny that you insist he can "paint a vivid picture" in a sentence or two when he does anything but--he force-feeds pages of that stuff down the reader's throat. Oh sure, his prose is transparent as anything, but it's as dull, join-the-dot flat as they come. Simple style? He has no style.

And hey, I'll trust Mieville's literary opinions over yours any time of the day.

- I'm sick to death of idiots trashing the witch / villagers choice because they were too clueless to work out everything that was going on. Yes the villagers are corrupt, sexist, racist etc. But the witch is a murdering, thieving, manipulative evil swine....or at least there is a lot of evidence that she might be - most of the humans' accusations about her are borne out if you find all the evidence during the chapter, and quite a bit of the stuff that the humans 'may' have done isn't clear. They're as evil as each other.

Exactly. I thought this was clear to anyone: there's plenty of evidence to support that both parties are scum. I still can't be sure whether that girl was raped by the guard or by those thugs.

 

[hiver]

And hey, I'll trust Mieville's literary opinions over yours any time of the day.

So why dont you just fuck off and bore somebody else to death with your fuckwit inane "opinions" that have as much relevance as musings of a lower intestine bacteria on tennis ?

 

[Lesifoere]

What makes you think your opinions are any more relevant or interesting?

 

[hiver]

Im having some bad weather here today so im in a good mood and ill just choose to ignore the simple nature of that retort as an insult so:
Because im better then you in every single thing imaginable?
R00fl!s

Or maybe because when it comes to Tolkien i atleast have some idea what im talking about. And still see it as separate work from endless sea of copypasted crapfests? Who knows? Its a mystary.

Because some things should be appreciated as they are, as a thing of beauty instead of taking them apart eh?
And then inventing craziest and often very stupid theories and "opinions" about each.

Maybe because fantasy has another purpose then being written in high literal prose and specific writing style?