/lit/ - Literature

>https://www.reddit.com/r/fantasywriters/comments/3hmcdc/what_would_you_like_to_see_in_the_fantasy_genre/

>Something where I can't read the list of characters and divvy them into good guys and bad guys. Something where I don't fear the hero dying, but falling. Something where the villain might be convinced otherwise, instead of being killed. Something where "good" and "evil" are functions of time, knowledge and interest; where you aren't good because you're from this country, or of this blood, or in this company, or fate's own, but because you make good decisions. I'm not that interested in personified good vs. evil, or grimdark evil vs. bastard either.

>Progress isn't evil, nature isn't gentle and good, the golden age isn't in the past, the ancients weren't wiser or stronger than us, the prophecies are not true, there is no guiding hand and the wise old sage has unfortunate blind spots re foreigners; the Dark Lord is defensible, and the young courageous heir of the kingdom set on fighting the Black God is an immature racist martinet.

>Make something new the fantastical element --- say a medieval-ish world with gender equality, or gays, or transsexuals. Take the people that we can assume have always been there, and give them a part. And maybe wings and green skin too.

>Take the old assumptions of fantasy and shake them up. They come from medieval literature, written by religious men who liked songs dedicated to hereditary tyrants, where Good God's partisans were destined to perfectly prevail and the evil hordes and their families would all perish in a fire. Meanwhile, outside the palace there was an undescribed historical cesspit of oppression, disease and ignorance. Don't take the old aesthetics, the old ideals, but think things again; don't write "all orcs are evil brutes" without thinking what that sounds like in the real world, today --- you could say that of plenty of nations and continents decades ago, but now we know that's an awful lie, and easily a very unfortunate fantasy to explore. (Being a race fantasist isn't bad like being a "race realist" is, but if you're careless the distance gets short.)

>Write a medieval democracy, and don't have the monarchist slur that it can't work because commoners are subhuman morons.

>Write lady knights (social justice warriors?), and don't have the muttering of gender muscle averages to muddle your individuals.

>Write weird love, strange marriages, societies informed by today's dreams and wishes, instead of ancient fears. Write something which scares and distresses you.

Is this attitude what is killing fantasy?

Is this pregnancy anonette?

>muh characters
>muh muh muh well-written 3d characters
>hurr this book didn't have interesting characters
>you need more engaging characters lol
>the book was good in x and y but the characters weren't good enough

Why do normies obsess over characters? Can't a book be good if it has an outstanding setting or message?

I feel that this focus on characters is preventing fantasy from being anything other than a commercial genre. Am I just autistic?

ENFJ reporting. The outcome didn't surprise me.

>>6858326
I feel like if I'm prepared to kill anybody in that situation, I wouldn't be able to live with it afterwards. So I guess the full answer I'm giving is switching the trolley to the single person and throwing myself on the track as well so that they don't have to die alone, to express the unbearable nature of the decision I just made. Really, that's the general choice in life, who to hurt? And as a sentient creature, I'm forced to play that game, but it doesn't mean I have to live with. Ultimately, it's a tragedy and the hand which puts it into motion must always become victim to it in the end. In other words, if I'm prepared to make a decision regarding the life and death of someone else, the only moral thing to do is to also subject myself to the consequences. I think all other options are hypocrisy.

>>6810805
>be 25
>reading in cafe
>Sorrows of Young Werther
>cute girl with short plaid skirt and knee high socks reading at table across from me
>make eye contact a couple times
>keeps adjusting her hair and clothes as she reads
>gathers her things and gets up to leave
>"hi, what are you reading" in super nervous voice as she passes me
>she hasn't real it but sits down at my table
>"what about you?"
>some YA book
>"how old are you?"
>"sixteen"
>mfw realize she's in an acadamy uniform
>mfw realize people in cafe looking at me like a pervert
>talk to her for a bit, give her reading advice, get the fuck out of there

1. The Bible: New American translation
2. "These were the sons of Bilhah, whom Laban had given to his daughter Rachel: these she bore to Jacob- seven persons in all." (Genesis 46:24)

This sounds horrible.

>Somewhere off in the far distance, a dying man was screaming for his mother. "To horse!" a man was yelling in Ghiscari, in the next camp to the north of the Second Sons. "To horse! To horse!" High and shrill, his voice carried a long way in the morning air, far beyond his own encampment. Tyrion knew just enough Ghiscari to understand the words, but the fear in his voice would have been plain in any tongue. I know how he feels.

>Favorite virtue:
Justice
>Least favorite virtue
Hope
>Favorite sin:
Wrath
>Least favorite sin:
Envy

>tfw you enjoy non-fantasy books for the first time

The Mysterious Stranger - Twain
Death of Ivan Illych - Tolstoy
Flowers for Algernon - Keyes