/lit/ - Literature

>How come the villain rarely triumphs in [any work of fiction]

If the villain triumphs, he's not a villain but rather an edgy protagonist. The villain is not defined by evilness, but rather failure. The hero is the one who wins in the end.

because simpletons want books where the hero lives happily ever after and fantasy authors are willing to oblige because it sells well

>>6375111
Why is Jesus depicted as a tree in that pic?

Anyone watch the most recent Superman movie? I would've been fine with Zod winning

>>6375701
In that case, Zod would be the hero, and the movie would be badly placed for focusing on the antagonist up until the end.

The hero is the one who wins. The reason the hero is usual the guy we are introduced to in the beginning of the movie is because the audience would get confused otherwise.

>>6375713
>>6375411
What is this retarded proto-Joseph Campbell bullshit

>>6375411
>>6375713
What? No. You don't think Big Brother is the "edgy protagonist" of 1984 do you? Just because the party won in the end and Winston says he loves BB doesnt mean he isn't the protagonist

>>6375111
>How come the villain rarely triumphs in epic fantasy?

Epic fantasies are usually thousands of pages, so by stringing people along for that long only to have it end with the villain winning and the heroes dying would probably ruin your career

I don't see why fantasy stories couldn't end with villains winning. But I do see why it may apply to epic fantasy stories. The epic follows a certain pattern, it's based on the hero. Take that away and you've deconstructed not only the genre but the very genus of literature, the medium. You'll turn too much attention to the medium itself, you'll turn it into self-aware prose and it won't be epic fantasy.

Sure, you can take away the notion of a hero from, say, a mystery novel and it will still work. It will be modern, but not post-modern and deconstructed. It's just not the central trope of the whole construction. You can take away the narrator from a work of prose or the stage from the drama.

But deconstructing the hero in something epic is different. It's like a tragedy where pathos is replaced with indifference or a mystery novel where the detective doesn't solve the crime. It can work, but in post-modern fiction. And that's not what fantasy writers are usually going for.

>>6375847
What if you write an epic where the good guy and "villain" have opposing viewpoints and then at some point have the villian think he's killed off the hero. The next book or two follows him before the hero is resurrected either through the villains stupidity/serendipity/ allies and he snatches everything back? How's that for a twist?

>>6375887
>What if you write an epic where the good guy and "villain" have opposing viewpoints and then at some point have the villian think he's killed off the hero. The next book or two follows him before the hero is resurrected either through the villains stupidity/serendipity/ allies and he snatches everything back? How's that for a twist?

It's not about "the twist" not working with the narrative. It's about the fact that it's in the abstract definition of the epic hero to defeat the villain.

Besides, "twists" are stuff of drama, not the epic. It's GoT that makes us confuse the two, lel

>>6375905
Counterpoint. What if the villain gets what he wants by beating the hero and then leaves because he has better shit to do?

One of the Cosmere books is going to be about a traditional "dark hero rises up" story but told from the perspective of the dark hero. I'm really skeptical because I generally hate this type of story but I know he's gonna weave it into a clusterfuck of something.

>>6375713
"Hero" and "protagonist" aren't synonymous words, kiddo (see Paradise Lost). Neither does a heroic protagonist always triumph, which you'd know if you'd read any works of tragedy.

http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilogin_om_Frihetskrigen

Swedish only, but one of the books is from the perspective of a magican who pretty much kills everyone who cared for him in a quest for power, and at the end his only real regret is that they grew powerful enough that he had to kill them- or something, it was almost 10 years ago I read it.

>>6376858
>I know he's gonna weave it into a clusterfuck of something
I will read it simply for the hilarity of seeing Brandon's typical chaste protagonist being cast as the evil overlord.

It is fantasy, not non-fiction.

I've always thought it would be interesting to have a fantasy novel set in a world where the big bad evil dude has already decisively won, and the story deals with what would happen after.

>>6377653
I think that's Mistborn

I read a book years and years ago in which your good guy who you can't relate to at all ends up getting brutally slaughtered by the villain of the story and for the last two thirds of the book it follows his story which turns out to be much more interesting. I read it when I was a kid and I can barely remember it.

>>6375905
>GoT
>>>/tv/

>>6377669
it is

>>6377669
Yep, but in Mistborn he actually has a very good reason for being evil.

>>6376975
Are you a knight? Because that double-edged blade is too sharp for me.

>>6375912
Anyone?

>>6377865
The game will be set during the Final Empire. I wonder how that will turn out.

Isn't Mistborn essentially set in a universe where the villain won? The story itself doesn't describe the villain winning, but it's written as a sort of pseudo-sequel to a theoretical series where the villain won.

>>6375111
"And so, with the forces of God cast down and broken, Creation came to an end, and all was naught and naught was all, forever and always, amen."

>>6377962
>universe
fufufu