/lit/ - Literature

I was given that exact edition as a kid.
I remember enjoying the first book, and then it rapidly declined. Made it through book 2, had to give up at 3.

>>21832484
>>21832725
She had a lot of influence from Carl Jung early on, thus the first book comes off as pretty based. Then she became an insufferable commie.

>>21832484
Hows the Ghibli movie?

>>21832758
I remember she wrote an essay proud of having an abortion because she banged some dude in college. Funny stuff.

>>21832775
So, Ghibli actually hired Hayao Miyazaki's son, Goro Miyazaki, for Tales from Earthsea. Goro had a lot of personal connections to his dad's work and even had some issues growing up with him being absent. This had a big impact on the story. But, when Hayao Miyazaki saw the final movie, he wasn't really happy with it and only said "My son is still a child" after it was done.

I really loved the first few but I believe winds of earthsea iirc really inititiated me into the basedness (bad) of female desire but was also based (good) insofar as it prepared me for life

Tl;dr: you think men have it bad? Women do too

>>21832779
>Ursula LeGuin was some "Shout your Abortion" type of feminist
Are there non-insane female fantasy authors?
I re-read Charmed Life recently and enjoyed it quite a bit, please tell me Diana Wynne Jones was at the very least somewhat conservative.

>>21832775
Absolutely shit even when you don't compare it to the books. The characters are terrible and the plot is nonsense, the artstyle is pretty and even that is ruined by how the scenes are done. I don't know if had influence from suits or if it was the director choice but it relied heavily on action scenes.

>>21832861
Patricia A. McKillip

>>21832775
It never stopped confusing how come Earthsea can't get a good adaptation.

>>21832484
>>21832861
Learn to cope

>>21832484
I remember reading that edition and getting such tonal whiplash from the third to fourth book. Only later did I realise she wrote it several years later after going a little insane.

>>21832861
Susanna Clarke is excellent, and I'd even describe her as one of the best living authors around.

>>21832861
Robin Hobb?

>>21833220
>Only later did I realise she wrote it several years later after going a little insane.

i was a fantasy loving nerd growing up, so I had to give earth sea a try. my god, there was so much weird shit just interjected throughout the narrative i thought there was something wrong with MY brain. It's like reading a regular post on 4chan and all of a sudden some 'i hate the antichrist' schtizo starts rambling about the demons of babylon in the middle of a /ck/ thread. I hate the antichrist.

>>21832861
JK Rowling

>>21832861
Naomi Novik is the only one that comes to mind, and even that is only because she was writing Master & Commander fanfiction

>>21833728

>>21832906
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld sounds interesting, might read it later, thanks.
>>21833220
>Susanna Clarke
>Partner with Colin Greenland
Why "Partner"? Why aren't they married?
>>21833264
>Robin Hobb
>Through her writing, Hobb explores otherness, ecocentrism, queerness, and gender as themes.
No thanks.
>>21833978
>Pro-Abortion Pro-Open Borders Pro-LGBT Pro-BLM White-Guilt Marxist Feminist author
>"bUh mUh tRaNspHoBiA"
Her garbage drew in the troons in the first place for a reason anon.
>>21833996
>In 2020, Novik published A Deadly Education, the first in a trilogy set in the Scholomance, the retelling of folklore about a school of black magic. The main character, Galadriel "El" Higgins, a half-Welsh, half-Indian sorceress, must survive to graduation while controlling her destructive abilities.
Sounds like le quirky poc. Hard pass.

>>21832484
Le guin was always trash. She whined about not being seen as literary but couldn't write non-genre trash to save her life.

>>21834878
You’re trash. Shut up.

>>21832484
>>21832861
Kys

>>21832484
I haven't read the 4th book but I love the first 3. What happens to Ged lol?

>>21835032
His magic (balls) gets taken away from him and he gets lectured by a little girl about how to live his life

>>21832861
Jk Rowling is good
Jones' books are fucking amazing I have no idea about her politics

And Earthsea is really good, the 3 I read anyway

>>21832861
Marion Zimmer Bradley

>>21835038
lol please elaborate, why does that happen? The third book is seriously fucking good

>>21835038
Heeeeey I just read the plot summary of the 4th book and you lied to me. He loses his magic at the end of the 3rd sealing the door between the world's of the living and the dead.

>>21832484
>woman
>menstruating person
FTFY

>>21835080
Kek, she wrote all her main characters as brown but did nothing at all to separate them culturally in any way from typical European or whatever fantasy characters. They don't do anything recognizably brown people do, so they're just white people she painted brown for absolutely no reason. And when I read the books I just picture every character in my mind as white because they're all clearly white people.

The Left Hand of Darkness was good. Never read Earthsea and I'm not sure if I ever will.

>>21835104
>Never read Earthsea and I'm not sure if I ever will.
It's really good, at least the first book is. It's like Harry Potter but steeped in Tao Te Ching, and you can really see all the things Rowling stol--erm borrowed for HP.

>>21835039
>Jk Rowling is good
I just don't like Harry Potter anon, never have. The couple movies I watched I didn't like them but I could see why other kids my age did. There was one occasion in 7th grade that I ended up reading the first three chapters of the first HP book and honestly couldn't stand it. Feels like I dodged a huge bullet though; the "Dumbledor is Gay" and "Black Hermion" and the "Trump is Voldemot" crap just made me dislike the whole thing even more. The troons chimping out against her is funny though, given that a lot of them used to be the biggest fans of this franchise.

>Jones' books are fucking amazing I have no idea about her politics
>Earthsea is really good, the 3 I read anyway
Agree.

>>21835133
I seriously doubt JK is even heard of Earthsea like to "borrow" from it. Harry Potter is very clearly a mash up of The Worst Witch and Chrestomancy.

>>21834785
>>Robin Hobb
>>Through her writing, Hobb explores otherness, ecocentrism, queerness, and gender as themes.
I don't remember reading that in the farseer trilogy

>>21835158
>couldn't stand the first 3 chapters of HP
The first part of the first book is incredible. You were probably just a moron.

>>21835178
HP is it's own thing. She likes DWJ as far as I know but to say it's a Chrestomanci mashup is ridiculous. They're very different worlds, very different stories, written very differently.

>>21835213
Different tastes anon, that book was just not to my liking.
>>21835217
>They're very different worlds, very different stories, written very differently.
Reason why I liked one and not the other; same for Earthsea. People compare HP to Earthsea because both feature a "Wizard School" but the two are just not the same type of fantasy.

>>21835044

The first book is ok, especially the ending if pretty epic. The second is not bad but nothing happens really. The third book is uneven but the ending is amazing. The fourth book is didactic and uninspired. There are good feminist books (much of her SF for example. Her SF is way better than her fantasy) but this is not one.
There is a fifth book which is even worse - just reads like any cringe modern fantasy novel.
There is also a book of short stories a couple of which are good. The one with the mercury mines is quite good.

>>21832861
Diana Wynne Jones was silent on her politics, but she satirized the colonies of Britain breaking free and she nursed her husband while he was ill. She also approved of spanking naughty kids and loved the lectures of Tolkien and Lewis even though they were religious and she didn not believe in God.
That seems socially conservative in the least

>>21835158
Same here, Harry Potter never appealed to me. The first few books have a whimsical Roald Dahlesque fun to them but as it gets deeper in it just becomes a nasty political allegory

>>21835178
Creepy castle, bearded wizard mentor that summons child to school, hissing rival Jesper/Malfoy

>>21836626
You're really reaching. Ogion is nothing like Dumbledore besides their both being wise wizards. Jasper is nothing like Malfoy and Ged actually starts shit with him and not the other way around. Roke is absolutely nothing like Hogwarts. HP is set in modern Britain while Earthsea is set in a fantasy world far in the past.

>>21836636
Sort of. There's also the connection between the shadow scarring the protagonist and the scar on Potter's head. This is a connection other people have made not me. Jesper/Malfoy is more some fag comparing the speech pattern.

>>21836636
There's some superficial similarities; I would say that Earthsea is a beautiful, deeper book

>>21836642
That's true, both characters are notable for their scarred appearances as a result of dark magic. Jasper/Malfoy is the most reasonable comparison out of the three. I don't personally think the books are very similar in any way.
>>21836654
I would agree that Earthsea is deeper. The ultimate conclusion of the 3rd book is handled much better than HP and the Deathly Hallows/Voldemort. Harry Potter however is funnier and more charming. If I had to delete one from existence for all time I'd probably pick Earthsea. I am a pretty big HP enjoyer and I think it's better reading for actual children. It's more immersive with the day to day school lessons and longer mystery plots and personalized shit like sorting into houses and that type of thing.

>>21836673
>Jasper/Malfoy is the most reasonable comparison out of the three.
I see a better connection now that I thought about it. Both are hissy and snarky rather than the suave rivals of shounen anime, both are rich aristocrats and snobby about this, both challenge the protagonist to do something irresponsible in the first book, and neither amounts to much. Jasper didn't get his staff and Malfoy ends up a nurse to a terminally ill non-character (which admittedly could have been handled interestingly but wasn't)
Kind of annoys me that female writers don't write cool rival characters for their protagonists considering the concept is popular with kids.
For me Earthsea is better, just because I love the magic system and the writing style but I get what you mean about the school setting being elaborated on

>>21836707
>Kind of annoys me that female writers don't write cool rival characters for their protagonists considering the concept is popular with kids.
Actually I agree. Even as a kid I always disliked how characters' "power levels" didn't make much sense in Harry Potter (Molly Weasley killing Bellatrix Lestrange, for example) and I always wanted Malfoy to be a bit more competent/talented.
>ends up a nurse to a terminally ill non-character
I dont consider anything after Deathly Hallows to be canon including the epilogue. But it's definitely canon. I just choose to ignore it.

Earthsea magic system is very cool. The earthiness of the series sets it completely apart from Harry Potter and Chrestomanci. I've heard Rowling also took inspiration from T.H. White's The Sword in the Stone, the first book of his Arthur series and the only one that's actually for kids. It's incredible if you haven't read it.

>>21836728
>Actually I agree. Even as a kid I always disliked how characters' "power levels" didn't make much sense in Harry Potter (Molly Weasley killing Bellatrix Lestrange, for example) and I always wanted Malfoy to be a bit more competent/talented.
She never elaborates on her magic and though I don't mind magic being mysterious there's a "mundane" element to Rowling's magic that made me wish she explained
I mean its not like with Tolkien or Wizard of Earthsea where magic is this rare miracle, people use it to pour their tea
Malfoy and Jasper both being competent would have helped the character arcs of Ged and Harry by actually challenging them. Otherwise it feels petty and womanish to make the school rival experience failure in life. Reminds me of the way women delight to find out that the cheerleader that bullied them is now divorced and a chubby alcoholic.
I'm also not sure how much pity they wanted these boys to have. Jasper sounds like he was beneath Ged in the end, which fed into Ged's feelings of arrogance towards Jasper, but Malfoy just seems sympathetic and pitiable, like he would make a good gender-inverted waifu.
T. H White is on my reading list

>>21836707
>>21836728
And actually I've always thought the entire house of Slytherin wasn't written properly as rivals to Gryffindor. The house can have a negative reputation but she describes pretty much every single Slytherin student character as stupid, ugly, brutish, and troll-like. Which isn't even consistent considering Snape, Slughorn, and Voldemort aren't at all like that and all represent the traits of the house creed better. I have a lot of nitpicks with Harry Potter but I reread the books recently and really enjoyed them again.

>>21836761
The Slytherin thing seemed unintentionally cruel. One of the things that bothered me was that when Harry transforms into a Slytherin student he discovers the kid is being bullied but never has an empathy epiphany.
I feel like Diana would have been more nuanced and done that, she was oddly compassionate to her child characters.
There's also the weird homoeroticism with Harry describing the few attractive Slytherins as hot with more gusto than he does his love interests but that's just a consequence of a woman writer accidentally inserting her own traits into a male protag

>>21836755
Malfoy is well-written as an asshole. I remember being actually angry with him while reading the books as a kid. The one stupid thing though is how everyone reacts to the wizard n word, and I really don't like James Potter.

So far as I remember Jasper was competent though. Doesn't he not get a staff because he fucks off to take some luxurious post? As a kid I always had a bit of an issue with how Ged is constantly being weakened, losing his powers, etc. I don't know why but when that happens to characters, some progression setback, it always really bothered me and I'd like the story less until they regained their abilities.

>>21836778
Hmmm... I don't remember any of that happening anon. You been reading some of those fanfics?
>woman writer
How did JKR write dozens of believably male characters so easily bros?

>>21835091
>They don't do anything recognizably brown people do,
What does that even mean?

>>21836802
If they're not nigging and nogging they can't be brown, I guess.

>>21836802
Like shitting on the street or beheading those who insult Allah. You cant think of any cultural traits possessed by brown people that distinguish them from generic white fantasy race humans? Leguin is white. She speaks English. Her characters are culturally white and speak English. The only thing that makes them brown is she says their skintone is brown. That isn't the only thing that makes brown people brown.

>>21836786
My sister took issue with James Potter. She actually said that she thinks Lily was not crying when Snape called her an M-word but because she realizes she broke her friendship with him by dating his bully. It's like a guy calling his black friend a nigger because he abandoned him for other black guys who beat him
It's not the word, its the "you are dead to me" implication
>>21836794
>Hmmm... I don't remember any of that happening anon.
He repeatedly calls Tom handsome and doesn't call Ginny pretty enough times to seem believably in love with her.
There's also the scene where he is looking at Crabbe from across the hall and thinking how ugly he looks compared to Malfoy.
It felt a bit off to me somehow, like the way girls compare boys and separate them into virgin and Chad
>fanfics
Hilarious that anyone ships them since she briefly considered having Voldemort and Harry be related

>>21832484
The first three books were pretty good, but the fourth... She must've hit menopause by then, that book is a shrill, strident, anti-male rant. I really had to stop about half-way through, it was such a disappointment. What was it Crowley said about most women should be put down at 35? Certainly in this case she should have had her typewriter taken away after menopause.

>>21836810
Didn't the kid live in some Bedouin style village?

>>21835158
Harry Potter is loathsome amoral tripe with uggo prose. Every character makes me want to beat them and hurt them somehow. Except for Hagrid. He is a nice chap

>>21836810
By that logic, vikings, celts, and Gauls and Iberians are all Black

>>21836819
No, not at all. The geographical features are all European which is another aspect of it that runs contrary to her "actually they're brown ;)" bullshit. Arabic and Middle Eastern or Indian cultures and architecture, etc, exists in the world we live in and could have been used to typify the surroundings of her characters and make her choice meaningful, but instead they're all just brown skinned Europeans living in a Europe fantasy esque archipelago. Compare that to Tashbaan and the Calormenes in Narnia and how they're clearly contrasted with the Narnians and Archenlanders. Ged is not a Calormene, he's one of the former. None of the characters are Calormenes in any way, the religions are not middle eastern or Indian in any way and the fantasy setting is not middle eastern or Indian in any way.

>>21836846
No, not at all.

>>21836859
Yeah, the fantasy creatures of Dragons are more Europeans and Asian than African/Middle-Eastern
When I first read the book I though Ged might be Sicilian and that's why he is brown and lives a trad life in the mountains of Italy

>>21836778
Diana literally spanks her evil child wizards

>>21836813
>There's also the scene where he is looking at Crabbe from across the hall and thinking how ugly he looks compared to Malfoy.
I... don't think this happens, lol.
>Tom
Oh ya, well that's just part of his character I think. That he's handsome and successful before he becomes some weird reptile monster. And ya the Harry/Ginny relationship is a weak point. Actually it's sort of funny but she wrote a lot of annoying/weak female characters like Cho Chang and most of them besides Hermione. Whenever someone is silly or ridiculous it's usually Lavender Brown or some other girl.

>>21836862
>Human sacrifice, Rape, Pillaging, Street Shitting, brownland
>:(

>Human sacrifice, Rape, Pillaging, Street Shitting, EVROPA
:O

>>21836880
I remember that I think, its a brief scene and a little weird. Maybe he lets Crabbe burn to death for being such an eyesore.
>Actually it's sort of funny but she wrote a lot of annoying/weak female characters like Cho Chang and most of them besides Hermione. Whenever someone is silly or ridiculous it's usually Lavender Brown or some other girl.
My theory is that the more feminist a writer is the worse the female characters. Somehow feminist writers like to divide the world into girlbosses (annoying self-inserts) and women who don't listen to their ideology (girls they can demean and portray as stupid bimbos).
Even Malfoy's fate in the end, she gives him a terminally ill female to take care of and she is barely a person at all, its just a punishment for Malfoy

>>21836883
Literally everyone everywhere engaged in all of those things. Culturally, geographically, linguistically, personality, etc, is what I'm referring to and I explained pretty clearly why all the Earthsea characters are white with brown paint and the setting is literally just a somewhat atypical European fantasy setting.

See Calormene and Tashbaan for a middle eastern fantasy setting with realistically middle eastern inhabitants.

>>21836889
It's odd but Berserk has a cool India inspired evil Empire

>>21836887
Compare the characters of Martin (creepy male coomer) and Tolkien (trad Catholic); Brienne and Eowyn and Galadriel are wonderful characters

>>21836887
>Fleur Delacour and Ginny, Hermione, and Molly's reaction to her
Now that's a bad character

Also you are now aware that Bill Weasley and Remus Lupin are exactly the same character tonally and sound exactly the same when they speak about anything

>>21836899
I think its a consequence of having too many characters and having to write them all unique. After a while you just get tired. If I was her editor I would recommend she cut down the cast a little
Fleur seemed like an awful example, the poor girl does nothing wrong but be pretty and foreign. So much for feminism and anti-racism

>>21836909
Fleur constantly criticizes everything around her in comparison to her homeland, which is something that people actually do and is genuinely very annoying desu.

>>21836889
Again anon, what do you even expect a "truly brown" earthsea character to act like? They're not modelled on any real life race. The closest analogue would probably be the archipelagic southeast asians and the only thing those people share in common is eating rice and a strong knife fighting culture

>>21836914
I think it might be English insecurity; they are always worried and culturally comparing themselves to the Frenchies

>>21836915
Depends on the culture she chose to model them after. Since she didn't choose to model them on a real culture and instead left them as completely indistinguishable from regular European fantasy characters that's how they seem. In The Horse and His Boy, Lewis presents two distinct cultures, that of Archenland and that of Calormene, with the latter being recognizably modeled on the Middle East in a fantasy setting. She did not choose to do that. She herself is white and English speaking and all of her characters are clearly white and English speaking as well, culturally.

>>21836915
And well let's use the Phillippines as an example. The people from there have a strong and unique cultural vibe. They have a particular cuisine, they have their own language and mythologies. Is any of that reflected in Earthsea? No. How about India? No. How about the Middle East? No. How about Africa? No. How about generic European fantasy setting? Yes.

>>21836929
I love Wizard of Earthsea's first story but I somewhat agree. I just interpreted most of the characters not explicitly said to be brown-skinned as White because the old bearded wizard and the spoiled lord's son just seem like archetypes in a European story
If they added a turban or some kind of Arabic instruments in the background the effect would be stronger

>>21836952
It doesn't hurt the story. I just imagine all the characters as white because there's no reason for me to do otherwise. She says they're brown but they aren't.

>>21836959
I imagine the darker skinned characters as Spanish or Sicilian. Culturally European but with darker skin pigmentation

>>21836965
Ya that'd make sense too... that being said I just don't see Spaniards or Sicilians being wizards.

>>21836969
Sicily had its witchcraft too in the past, though it was culturally distinctive. Spain I associate with witchburnings too, because the Inquisition left such a mark on Western imagination.
Even the cover art usually had a character with light brown skin but Caucasian features, it seemed like tanned Sicilian boys to me
I saw most of the wizard students as White. Jasper sounds like a Euro name

>>21836887
Why would rowling do this when she's a Stacey herself?

>>21836975
>light brown skin but Caucasian features
That's why it's always seemed like they were supposed to be northern Indians to me, but since there's absolutely nothing Indian about any of the set pieces, character mannerisms, or mythology, it just doesn't make sense for any of the characters to look Indian.

>>21836977
Insecurity, the better Staceys bullied her when she was younger
All of the fucking Slytherins are also based on her past Stacey bullies
When you see her kill, slash, transform a Slytherin into an animal or otherwise humiliate them know that this is personal
>>21836985
I thought maybe Spanish, because some of the Southern Spanish could be part Arab and dark-skinned in the medieval period but still assimilated into European culture.

>>21836728
>the first book of his Arthur series
I read The Once and Future King years ago and never realized there was more to it. Is this just another way to talk about the first few chapterrs of that or are there separate Arthur works by TH White?

>>21836998
Sure but having her characters be "southern Spanish" isn't exactly the trope subversion she's pretending it is. Her stance that she subverted white cis male fantasy by making all the characters brown is just extremely flat and silly. She could have actually done that and chosen to write her fantasy setting as middle eastern or Indian or anything else, but she did not.

earthsea is comfy schizo kino, that scene of the Gebbeth luring Ged to the snow palace is pure insanity

>>21837009
The Once and Future King is separated into 4 books published together in one volume. The first one, The Sword in the Stone, details the youth of Arthur and his magical tutelage under Merlin and is the only one that's meant to be a kids book though it's equally enjoyable for adults. Merlin basically transforms him into animals and he learns things that allow him to be a good king.

>>21837019
It's the typical leftist problem. They can't step aside and let the brown people write their own stories so they just take stories from other cultures (usually their non-consenting White compatriots) and bastardize them with a dark-skinned paint job
I think Earthsea would have made better sense if the characters were on the border between Europe and Asia myself.
Then the Taoist themes and wise dragons fit the setting. She could have her multicultural school if she wished along the silk road

>>21836959
>>21836952
They are mediterranean, thought people from Ged's island are darker than the average earthsealing

>>21836728
>I dont consider anything after Deathly Hallows to be canon including the epilogue. But it's definitely canon. I just choose to ignore it.
Kek, I am glad I'm not a Potterfag. But I am curious, how would you end it? What do you imagine (without fanfiction wish-fulfillment) would be a logical end to her characters' lives?

>>21837023
What would happened if the Gebbeth killed Ged? :0

Also rip that little mink thing he had

>>21837051
Meds makes sense a lot more, I guess its the fact that she claimed that they are non-White that made me assume Arabs

>>21837054
he would take his body and use it to do evil shit

>>21837051
>>21837062
She explicitly states they aren't white. Unless she was making a pol joke that means they aren't supposed to be meds either

>>21837068
Some people who are English unironically don't think of meds as White. Though maybe we should just think of it as a completely made up race from scratch

>>21837066
More evil than black magic and being a horny brown guy who killed his teacher :)

>>21837068
I think the average person looks med (swarthy), people from Gonth are darker than the average person (very swarthy), then there are those asians slavers and the recluse pale white people from the edge of the archipelago (British people)

>>21837039
not that anyone asked but "A Shadow In Summer" by Daniel Abraham is a much better attempt at SEA cultural magic stuff

>>21837052
Well I definitely wouldn't have ended the series with a confusing nonsensical dialogue battle between Harry and Voldemort over who technically has possession over the elder wand (did it even matter? At this point all of voldemorts forces are defeated and he's surrounded by like... every wizard in the world anyway), but I can't really think of an alternative ending at the moment.

As for what happens after. I wouldn't have written a kid named albus severus potter for one thing. Aa for ending her characters lives I don't know that this needs to be done. I would definitely team up Hermione and Arthur Weasley in some sort of muggle advocacy role. There's a line she has when she's taking muggle studies and Ron asks her why she'd do that when she's muggle born and she says "studying them from a wizards perspective will be fascinating" so I think it would be cool if she researched muggle theories on magic from esoteric occultist societies to mythologies, etc, and brought that into the ministry to everyone's disapproval like with SPAT, and I think she'd be funny paired up with Arthur.

Harry should probably have become the defense against the dark arts teacher at Hogwarts.

I dont really think we need to know what all the characters ended up doing. But I could probably come up with something for most of them.

>>21837095
Thanks for the rec anyway, exotic fantasy is good in my book

>>21837098
The final battle sucked and the name of the kid was silly, I agree. Hermione being an activist seemed like what she was leading up to so Idk why she made her Minister of Magic instead
Malfoy could still have a terminally ill wife, but there should have been some lead up and it should have been handled better
Ron is just there

>>21837086
The white people aren't reclusive, they're savage backwards raiders. I genuinely think the only thought she put into this was "wouldn't it be totally flipsy flopsy if I made all the civilized characters BROWN and all the uncivilized savage characters WHITE? oh ho ho, delightfully devilish Ursula... that'll really show them" and then did nothing to establish any of it

>>21837106
>Ron
You are now acutely aware that Harry knew Ron's mirror of erised vision was himself as head boy since he was 11 and he still giga raged when he, Ron, was made prefect instead of him and acted all pissy about it

You are now aware that there are 6 prefects per house at all times in hogwarts and only like 4 of them are ever named or mentioned

>>21837128
Harry treats other people like shit a lot and Rowling never calls him out on it. This is actually why I love Ursula despite the flaws of her later novels. In the first one the main character has to grow up and become a man

>>21837143
He has "MY PARENTS ARE DEEEEEEAD" syndrome and often acts like a complete fag and when (usually hermione) explains to him simply what Ron might be feeling he's always like "OH SO RON WISHES HIS PARENTS WERE DEAD DOES HE???" and she's like *sigh* no, he doesn't wish *that*

>>21837148
Harry does seem kind of whiney. It's like she has him pull the orphan card every time he doesn't get his way. Whose supposed to be the spoiled one, Harry or Dudley I wonder, lmao.
Meanwhile Ged gets a great character arc where he faces his flaws and is healed in the process.
I kind of wanted a resolution where Harry defeats Voldemort by facing his flaws too, where we know for sure that Harry is the better person
We need evidence he doesn't grow up to be an arse who abuses his powers now that he is a war hero in his society's eye

>>21837159
He's pretty clearly a genuinely good person. She just had to write some teen conflicts or something. He's actually not realistically flawed and for the most part comes out of the box morally perfect. Ged, on the other hand, is a showoff who lacks patience and desires to impress people which almost kills him.

>>21837159
And were you the one talking about Chrestomanci before? I love the scene in Lives of Christopher Chant where Tacroy is being held prisoner and Christopher asks Flavian whether they need to put some sort of fetters on his spirit since he can Astral project and Flavian spazzes out and is like "of course *you* would ask something like that you horrible piece of shit we all hate you" and Christopher is like damn I never really considered it like that

>>21837173
Yeah, I think Harry's flaws are mostly unintentional implications from Rowling while Ged's are intentional and fixed through character development
I don't actually believe that Harry will be a crooked cop or that he murdered Crabbe for being an eyesore but I like to joke about it

>>21837184
Kek, yeah, she really has the other characters call Christopher out. In fact I had a lot of sympathy with Chris but it was nice seeing decentish characters (mis)interpret him as a brat because he is not perfect and that's the way life works.

>>21836859
Part of the fantasy these people have is that brown people are "just like" Whites, they simply need to be educated away from their habits of criminality and scholastic underachievement.

>>21837187
I dont know if it was intentionally written to evoke this but when I read Earthsea when I was younger I was totally in line with Ged. I also got impatient with Ogion and was very excited when he decided to go to Roke and I was similarly bored with the pace of his magical development and how little he seemed to be learning and I was probably like fuck ya show Jasper who's boss he can't insult you for being from Gont like that, also tell that qt (who turns out to be an evil sorceress spy) about all your magical powers

I think probably eliciting that feeling was intentional and if so she did a very good job

>>21837202
I remember sympathizing strongly with Ged even though I guessed the qt was evil and he shouldn't be talking to her.
It's kind of the anti-self-insertion story in that regard. HP kind of allows kids to self-insert and make believe that they are the hero while Earthsea is a bit rougher on the child reader

>>21837194
I didn't really get how when he's Chresromanci he fucks up the whole Cat/Gwendolyn thing so badly. Well I guess she wrote it first so it's a continuity error but it makes very little sense for the way he segregates and isolates the two of them when his own experience with the exact same situation in the same place was almost equally disastrous.

I really love pic related though, best book in the series imo, and another good one concerning character flaws. The weird twist at the end where they all lose their magic and Charles doesn't want to save the world if he has to suffer that is cool too.

>>21837215
>Charles doesn't want to save the world if he has to suffer that is cool too.
That's a twist for sure; a lot of the time heroes just select to be martyrs but not everyone is strong enough to make that hard decision

>>21837215
He does fuck up with Cat and Gwen doesn't he? I guess he forgot what it was like to be a child and confused

>>21837206
HP is all about the self-insertion aspect of truly desiring to inhabit the world. Hogwarts is comfy to the extreme and I think everyone at that age experiences the yearning to find out which house they'd be in and what kind of magiciaj they'd be, etc. It's all pretty tailored to grip and drag the reader into the world and I think she succeeds better than nearly any writer ever at doing so and at creating a world her target demographic desires to read about for sheer joy.

>>21837225
Yes he does completely and then the explanation given is he wasn't sure how much Cat was doing himself vs how much of it was Gwendolyn, but I forget why he didn't just ask or whatever. Maybe it was supposed to be dangerous because Gwendolyn was so evil. That book is awesome though. When her alternate universe duplicate shows up and all the hedge wizards and shit try to kill Chrestomanci for keeping them down.

>>21837229
It's all about encouraging that self-insertion aspect in HP, and I don't blame people for liking the escapism, but I think Le Guin is interesting for encouraging kids to feel along with the character and then grow along with Ged as well.

>>21837234
Gwendolyn is one of Diana's few truly bad kids. It's kind of interesting since she doesn't have many of truly bad kids, meanwhile Rowling has a whole House full of Hitler youth and Le Guin is more than a little harsh on Ged (though she admits that Jasper may have his reasons for disliking Ged beyond bigotry, which is a cool move)

>>21837237
Yes Earthsea is amazing. I've been meaning to reread it. It's funny I've read the first 3 twice but never got ahold of the 4th one. Does he have any flaws to overcome in the 2nd book or is he pretty much worked out by then? As far as I remember he's pretty giga wise in the third.

>>21837246
I think the second book is him on a quest and the flaws are mostly the second protagonist's to overcome
He is trying to convince a sorceress to abandon the worship of a false god or something like that
It's been years so I don't remember the details

>>21837241
There are a couple pieces of shit in the school in Witch Week lol

The Living Asheth is best girl
>>21837249
Oh ya hes actually barely in the 2nd book. He shows up trying to steal an artifact from their tomb or something but he isn't really a pov character. That's another one where I was very inpatient for them to meet and interact.

>>21837258
The goddess with all the cats was a fantastic girl. And yeah, she reads My American Girl and Harry Potter type literature and self-inserts going to a boarding school.
It's quite cute how she names herself Millie

>>21837258
>There are a couple pieces of shit in the school in Witch Week lol
Oh yea, the Witch Week kids have some bullies. But generally even bullies tend to grow up in Diana, its kind of fun to watch

>>21837263
>>21837263
Did you ever read Fire and Hemlock by Jones? I read it as a kid and had no idea what was going on, then when I reread it recently I understood what was going on until the end scene which is... very confusing.

>>21837275
>Fire and Hemlock
Never got around to reading that one though its apparently based on one of my favourite legends
I like the Dalemark Quartet

>>21837275
>Polly reads The Lord of the Rings and writes a long story in which her alter ego Hero bravely destroys a dangerous ring. She posts it to Tom and is crushed when he tersely writes back "Use your own ideas."
Based Diana Jones dumping on the Tolkien plagiarist genre

>>21836603
Been searching for that image forever

In repayment, name a kino and I shall read it

>>21837284
I'll order it on the internet. You should give Fire and Hemlock a shot it's really unusual. Not the same type of fantasy setting at all.

I am going to bed though, it's been nice talking to you, these are all very good books it's fun to talk about them ^.^

>>21837290
Hmm, I wonder if She Who Runs on the Waves is available in English yet. If so She Who Runs on the Waves by Alex Grin; its a weird mix of steampunk and magical realism.

>>21837288
He actually says "you stole that from Tolkien" lol. And there's another part where she's writing some elaborate scene that describes a person's back as silken skin over rippling muscles and he's like "this is retarded."

>>21834785
>The Forgotten Beasts of Eld
That wasn't the ones I was thinking of when I recommended her but alright, you can start with her first, though its not her best
Riddle-Master and Song For The Basilisk imo are much greater

>>21837292
Nice talking to you too; Dianafags are weirdly hard to find
>>21837298
Lmao, Diana knew how to satirize bad genre writing.
Based elf sacrifice funeral home dude basically dabs on fantasy authors who rob Tolkien instead of being creative and romance novels alike

>>21836878
Literally spanks the magic out of them lol

>>21834785
It's dumb to refuse to read books by authors you don't like. Most Christian authors basically said the author's personal views don't matter but whether the book itself is good. Flannery O'Connor, Tolkien, CS Lewis are some that come to mind. Some of their favorite books were written by anti-Christians. They then took what they found good and made it better in their own books. Why not do that?

>>21835091
>there's no way brown people would establish fishing, trading, academic communities of their own.
>What is Egypt, tigris, Babylon, Persia, Maori, Aztec, Toltec
Racism is a form of dementia. I'm sorry, but you're only going to get stupider.

>>21836889
>I explained pretty clearly
Try again mate. You just say the people in the archipelagos are indistinct from European fantasy tropes assuming those are really white tropes and not stories traded along with spices form the cradles of civilization.

It's your limited.perception that makes them white with brown face.

>>21837068
>You are now aware that from the longest time the Irish weren't considered white.
Whiteness has always been a social construct, not something defined by skin tone.

Just another way of saying god's chosen people.