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/lit/ - Literature

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17504303 No.17504303 [Reply] [Original]

why is fantasy such shlock?

>> No.17504304

>>17504303
It's all copying Tolkien

>> No.17504314

>>17504303
think about the word fantasy. what a fantasy is. is it really appropriate for a grown man to be enjoying "fantasies" by himself? i think we all know the answer.

>> No.17504316

No boundaries, but I guess that’s also the appeal

>> No.17504319

>>17504316
if there's no boundaries how come so much of it is derivative

>> No.17504321

>>17504303
Not all of it is, but in general it appeals to childish instincts like power fantasies. I recently discovered there was a whole subgenre called "progression fantasy" which is about a protagonist going through a series of autistically pre-defined steps to become more powerful. It's like a video game without the interaction.

>> No.17504323

>>17504319
unbounded derivation

>> No.17504324

>>17504319
Nobody is creative

>> No.17504382

>>17504303
Fantasy is a retreat from the end of history. It isn't meant to be literary, it is meant to sate certain human impulses that find no outlet in the modern world, and it is meant to do so within an easily comprehensible, mythic, cosmology of the kind that the scientific world view has obliterated.

Tolkien more than anyone began this thoroughly modern process when he decided that an Island composed of multiple ethnic groups, with their own languages and mythologies, needed some homogenized Pan-English mythos.

>> No.17504403

>>17504303
Because it's generic in the true sense of the word, it's schlock like any self-labelled "literary fiction" is schlock.
For the most part it's a product that relies on copying the expected conventions of the genre to sell. When it's a work of passion that passion is typically about the genre itself, so even then you find the same trash that hack writers used recycled in the very best written fantasy.

>> No.17504407

>>17504303
it's anime for westerners

>> No.17504416

It's written by women for women

>> No.17504974

Tolkien is to creative literary genius what Martin is to hack pulp idiocy. They both so far surpass anyone else in their field that they will be remembered 1,000 years from now as a kind of yin and yang of fantasy, a Manichean duality of speculative letters. For every sublime, luminous beauty that Tolkien has gifted the world, Martin has cursed us with a tedious, banal ugliness. It is unfair to compare the two directly on any one point, because Martin is in every way the anti-Tolkien, patently sterile, parasitical, and inferior, but so much so that he becomes a monument in his own right, and counterbalances Tolkien. Could one exist without the other?

Tolkien obviously could. But it is only by the contrast that Martin offers that we can truly appreciate the full depths and heights of Tolkien. Our understanding of Tolkien would be incomplete if Martin had never set pen to page. It is through only the abject failure and futility of Martin that we can approach an apprehension of the true scope and scale of Tolkien's hitherto inconceivable greatness. Perhaps this is what Tolkien had in mind when he wrote about the Music of the Ainur. If Tolkien is a subcreator in the image of Eru, truly Martin is like unto Melkor. It is only reflected in the awfulness of the one that we can fully see the goodness of the other.

Whereas with Martin we have "Sunset found her squatting in the grass etc." to Tolkien we have “Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men, doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. One Ring to rule them all etc." and “Roads Go Ever On etc.", I wonder if future scholars will study the contrast and literary relationship between the two authors.

>> No.17505007

>>17504974
And standing above both of them, grinning, laughing, is Bakker.

>> No.17505024

>>17504382
But there are many races in his mythical world.

>> No.17505030

>>17504974
The more she drank, the more she shat

>> No.17505036

Its fun and it pisses off midwits.

>> No.17505059

>>17505007
b a s e d
a
s
e
d

>> No.17505232

>>17505036
the people who get pissed off at fantasy are fantasy readers in the first place. no one else really pay attentions to your genre.

>> No.17505434

>>17504974
I expect the only thing to survive by Tolkien are some of his essays.

>> No.17506555

>>17505024
So? I am talking about how his intent to generate a synthetic myth for a nation-state is fundamentally modernist conceit as it is a reversal of how myths come about. It tracts to a certain point in history, an shares the spirit of global-liberalism more than it does any ancient peoples.

Please do not take this as me saying his works are 'bad', I simply don't agree with some people who like to argue that Tolkien exists separately from other Fantasy writers and was not subject to the same cultural influence that has framed modern fantasy writing. He wasn't some Trad writing against the grain of time, his work couldn't have been more timely. He is simply a better aesthetician and prose writer than most of his successors.

>> No.17506636

>>17504303
I’m reading this now and it’s been fun.

>> No.17506842

>>17504403
>>17504416
>>17504304
>>17504314
>>17504974
>>17505232
>>17504303
you're dumb

>> No.17506872

This is mostly a problem in modern fantasy because the majority of it is just a genre cash grab which guts and hollows Tolkien’s world. The best fantasy and fantasy prior to Tolkien was not such, rather it was a kind of evolution of fairy tales, mythology, religious writing and depending on the writer had a titanic relation with the decadent/symbolism art movement and romanticism.

Someone like Dunsany is the opposite of schlock, his prose works ought to be considered poetry and his imaginative world feels like a look into another world’s religious system and folk tales.

But that’s the thing, older fantasy and the best fantasy authors today took their genetics from high quality material whether ancient or modern, the generic popular fantasy schlock takes its genes from recycling/recombining popular and wide appealing formulae and tropes.

Here’s a fantasy story from Dunsany for example, rather short.

https://pastebin.com/d67ck2CU

>> No.17506899

Everyone who's talented isn't going to waste it on fantasy. Fantasy authors are the hacks that couldn't make it in literary fiction.

>> No.17506915

>>17506899
Also this, there’s a huge stigma around fantasy in the first place. It’s a shame in my eyes because fantasy theoretically should be able to the most imaginative and radically different fiction possible. Since the basis of it is you creating a brand new world and being able to take anything from reality or just your mind you desire. It has such a high potential but it isn’t fulfilled really.

>> No.17506942

mutual fantasies are weird in adults?

>> No.17506983

>>17506915
I mean, it is pretty low-brow inherently, it's purely fuel for the imaginations of adults who like dragons, even sci fi has at least some big ideas once in a while. Weird to note that just like aasimov wrote chemistry into his work with a phd Im pretty sure tolkien had a degree so that he could write a language and thats where the book came from. Makes you wonder what side adventure salinger was on when he wrote catcher lol.

>> No.17507040

>>17506983
Eh, but it need not have dragons nor swords Nor even have basis in our mythologies. Again fantasy simply requires the creation of an entire imagination based world. I think it being so low brow is accidental and not essential to this. But even so, the highly imaginative mythological stuff is some of the highest brow classical and medieval works so why can’t we do the same? Ultimately it just feels like a waste of potential.

>> No.17507157

>>17504304

>> No.17507603

Does anyone agree that LOTR is literature? It may be a kids fantasy story but it’s still literature to me

>> No.17508530
File: 732 KB, 1242x797, 95A79F8A-F5D8-485B-902B-BF07B4D4BA9C.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
17508530

>>17504303
My theory is that it’s a kind of recycling effect. Tolkien drew a lot of inspiration from folklore and mythology. Modern fantasy writers are drawing their inspiration from *other* fantasy writers. As a result the genre has become a shallow pool with diminishing returns.

I think fantasy can return to its roots while still being innovative. Get out of the “Orcs and Elves” mindset and start reading primary sources, like the travelogues of 17th century sailors who all too frequently hallucinated sea creatures and bizarre landmasses.

>> No.17508741

>>17506915
>>17506899
Do you think there's an exception to the rule if you view fantasy as this vast genre of wasted potential?

I think literature can be good, without regard to its setting, as long as the setting, or as some call it, worldbuilding, is used wisely and not as a crutch for bad writing.

>> No.17508805

>>17504303
The element of magic provides a ready-made plot device for sloppy writers to use. No need for any logical plot developments when you can just pull random magical ones out of your arse.
Then there are all the ready-made genre tropes that writers can use off the peg, without needing any imagination of their own.
In a nutshell, fantasy is writing on easy mode. Which is why it's mostly trash.

>> No.17509136

>>17506555
This is the same Tolkien who railed against Vatican II and refused to recite responses in English, right?

>> No.17509209

>>17504321
Why are you exclusively reading Japanese light novels.

>> No.17509219

>>17504321
Sounds fucking stupid bro

>> No.17509234

Once my Proustian fantasy epic gets finished I will redefine what the genre can (and should) do. Just give me about 30 more years.

>> No.17509280

>>17504382
>Fantasy is a retreat from the end of history.
What are you even saying here?
>It isn't meant to be literary
It is
>it is meant to sate certain human impulses that find no outlet in the modern world
Never the goal, sometimes a fringe benefit.

Personally I like to read about people put into impossible / improbable situations as a thought experiment, and it reveals much about the nature of people. The best of them manage to move me emotionally too, which doesn't happen often otherwise. And then there's the childish sense that everything is new, that has long since died within me because everything is just more of the same.

>> No.17509316

>>17508741
The easy answer for me is to point to beauty of dunsany’s works which feel like reading the religious and folklore aspects of some foreign country. There’s the strangeness of Lewis Carroll, Tolkien himself is an example, Goethe’s green serpent and beautiful lily would be another example, but you can even really put any mythology and any epic fantasy of the past. There’s not really much difference between the fantasy genre in essence and the works of say, Edmund Spenser(faery queene) and other such romances. But beyond any of this, it’s because fantasy by definition can have within it any other genre or story and then more.

Example >>17509234

There’s no reason why the world of Proust, Ovid, Dante, Shakespeare, Linji, Cao Xueqin and anyone else you can think of couldn’t be integrated into a completely author crafted fantasy world as long as the generic fantasy aesthetic is removed and the heart of fantasy is maintained. All of these and more could exist in the fantasy novel if freed from its tropes, and this is where fantasy, decadence, surrealism, weird fiction and so forth begin to Blur but fundamentally it is still a fantasy.

>> No.17509341

>>17506555
>I simply don't agree with some people who like to argue that Tolkien exists separately from other Fantasy writers and was not subject to the same cultural influence
He didn't have to avoid being Tolkien.

>> No.17509344

its cool and has swords. fuck you. a wizard casting a fireball and smiting a goblin is fucking cool

>> No.17509356

>>17506872
>he majority of it is just a genre cash grab which guts and hollows Tolkien’s world
It's quite a minority with elves or orcs or soft magic.
We're in the Sanderson era now.

>> No.17509377

>>17504303
Because it's trying to tell a fun story instead of a pretentious metaphor for the human condition or whatever.

>> No.17509418

>>17509316
This is the real redpill right here. Once writers get some balls and realize they can write fantasy and not have to do limpwristed halfassed """""magic realism"""""" and """""surrealism""""" and dumb shit like that, then fantasy will flourish as a legitimate genre.
Also the Rothfusses and Sandersons of the world need to be gulag'd.

>> No.17509475

>>17504303
They're all too grandiose. They need to create small stories within a grand world.

>> No.17509524

>>17509280
>Personally I like to read about people put into impossible / improbable situations as a thought experiment, and it reveals much about the nature of people. The best of them manage to move me emotionally too

Any recommendation to read?

>> No.17509588

>>17509475
Agreed. The first Witcher short stories do this really well.

>> No.17509607

>>17504319
Fantasy is intrinsically linked to emotions and fundamental human myth. Good and evil as well as romance are the cornerstones of all classic fantasy, and people have lost the ability to ask themselves "why tell the tale," to figure out first "what is the purpose" of telling the tale and instead think it's "world-building" and "plot-weaving" and all other bullshit.
Like the old fables, the story has to have a goddamned point and that point has to resonate with those key themes of what fantasy always was—an idealized fable deeply rooted in morality and human relationships.

>> No.17509615

>>17504974
kek that was great.

>> No.17509639

>>17506555
If his creation is antithetical to how myths naturally come about, how would one interpret a modern myth that comes about in such an organic way, if any even exist at all? Then you get in to dissecting what a myth actually is (and was) at the social level.

>> No.17509657

>>17507040
But no, it feels like a waste of potential because people like you misunderstand what fantasy is and think it's just creative world-building, which is what you just said. It's about the deeper themes and emotions and how this connects to the human experience.

>> No.17509690

>>17509344
Here is the most direct feedback from the control-group majority normie. This basically explains it all.

>> No.17509773

>>17509657
The mythic and the emotional, the spiritual and so forth are not things reserved for fantasy. You’re fundamentally talking about the creation of Myth and motif which strikes at the universal aspects of human experience. I’ve contemplated this before and this is related to fantasy but not the sum of it.

The question is one of universality, we must admit the elder myths and folklore by their natures had characters who were more hollow, but this wasn’t a bad thing, their hollowness was intentional to produce abstract unity, that deeper shared common human experience and grand motifs creation, similarly simpler more universal themes are more essential and necessary to this. But fantasy if we go by the self defined definitions of its earliest phases while yes rooted in folk lore and mythology, it is not simply modern folk lore and modern mythology. Fantasy has as much root in the golden ass and Ovid as it does in Aesop, so also does it root in the faery Queene, midsummer’s night dream, Gawain and the green Knight, and yes while grant Macdonald is key to the beginning of what we call genre fantasy it is incorrect to say his highly moral works are more myth and fantasy with Pure abstractions in the sense of say, Aesop’s characters are.

There is nothing wrong with “deeper”(more universal abstract human experiences and truths) nor is there anything wrong with emotion, sentimentality or the like, nor is there anything wrong with the world building and crafting. If I look to Tolkien the key is Sub-genesis, if I look to Dunsany I once more see creation of an entire world dedicated to those same beautiful ideas. Fantasy is nothing more in my eyes than taking this entire world and submerging it into your imaginative powers and rebirthing it into the image of your imagination and all of the greatest fantasy writers have done precisely this. The world building isn’t bad, it’s world building for its own sake because it’s “cool” that’s bad. World building is literally Demiurgy, you can through the structure of the world you craft demonstrate any philosophical conception whether universe or particular, deep or shallow. You can claim fantasy is otherwise but that’s not really true to the history of it. Example I keep bringing up Dunsany, Dunsany never had an overarching good vs evil theme, he was a pessimist and some of his works could work as atheistic propaganda, other as explorations of entirely different religions, some moral lessons about the need of man to reunite with nature. He did this through his world building. Fantasy should be about the creation of a new world based on the ideas and imaginal fires that brew within you.

>> No.17510004

>>17509344
based

>> No.17510056
File: 163 KB, 680x742, 1504906412072.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
17510056

I only come to /lit/ for the /sffg/ threads. The levels of pretension, pseudery, and stupidity are off the charts in the main board; if I want to seriously discuss metaphysics or Ibsen, I won't waste my time with the opinions of a bunch of undergraduate incels. At least /sffg/ keeps it real and doesn't try to be something it's not.

>> No.17510123

>>17504304
It wouldn't be horrible if they copied the awesome parts of Tolkien(the meandering in books 1-2 of LotR, the derivative but very nicely laid out tragedy in Children of Hurin etc.), but instead they just kind of fail at copying the worse but more "epic" parts of it.

I think most importantly it's just the narcissism of the artist coupled with disdain for the genre as a whole, talented people just avoid writing it. The few that do, target younger audiences, so pretty decent books end up being underwhelming for an adult reader due to cliches.

>> No.17510184

>>17504303
you're just gay
>>17504304
wrong, it's a response to tolkien

>> No.17510201

>>17510123
this. it feels cool writing epic battles with brave people doing brave things and making sacrifices etc. too much wish fulfillment

it's harder to write a story of compelling characters and still have it pull at emotions

>> No.17510244

>>17504974
It's like a batman joker relationship amirite

>> No.17510258

>>17510201
The problem is they lose the actual point. Even if they have a theme, it's basic as fuck and has been recycled/told better a hundred thousand times before.

>> No.17510263

>>17510258
I wasn't supporting the practice

>> No.17510309

>>17510201
The important part is imo. that Tolkien worked on LotR for good 20 years and while most of the sweat went into the earlier parts of the story, you can assume that at least some went back to polishing the whole thing.

Now check how many books can typical, popular fantasy writer publish in 2 decades.

>> No.17510321

>>17510309
two, in the case of George R.R. Martin

>> No.17510346

>>17510056
I sincerely think that /lit/'s hostility and pretension contributes to its being one of the best places to discuss literature on the internet. Despite the presence of irredeemable pseuds on /lit/, every other board on the internet that discusses literature is filled to the brim with fans of Neil Gaiman, GRR Martin, Tolkien--basically any "pop" author in vogue. You make fun of /lit/ for being full of undergrads but those other places are at the level of high school.

>> No.17510361

>>17510321
kek, but his books are also giant bloated crap with bad prose yet mildly entertaining larger plot points that lift 98% of their substance directly from history. Fantasy being some shallow, disposable genre pulp fare killed it like it kills anything that shouldn't be in that format.

>> No.17510367
File: 55 KB, 577x382, R_CHAD_Bakker.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
17510367

just read bakker

>> No.17510508

>>17510346
this. our ability to segregate the genre-shitters to a single general is one of our crowning achievements

>> No.17510904

>>17509773
personally I find world building a fun creative exercise. I'll go on /a/ and try to come up with something from scratch whenever I see a "write your own anime" thread. But I can observe the faults with doing this. 9 times out of 10 my idea is gonna be a "cool premise" with no substance or perspective outlook in the direction of the story. Because I start with something like 'what if x, but with y twist on it" instead of "what if I wrote a story to make people think about x" or some other reason to tell the story, like >>17509607 mentioned.

>>17509418
I think you get a lot of people obsessed with "hard magic systems" because a large portion of people reading and writing fantasy are from the high functioning spectrum and NEED logic to always exist in all things. So the only way for them to accept a world where magic exists is for everything to be explained away, to the point where it can be studied as a hard science and not something with many interpretations like theology or philosophy. I'm not a person who likes having everything explained, but I can understand where extreme degrees of logic are a necessity to not just the audience, but the writer as well.

>> No.17510989

>>17510904
>I think you get a lot of people obsessed with "hard magic systems" because a large portion of people reading and writing fantasy are from the high functioning spectrum and NEED logic to always exist in all things.
this fits

>> No.17511014

>>17510904
That’s understandable Anon but I’m sure if you were writing seriously you wouldn’t do this. Perhaps I’m a bit bias because everything I write, I feel improperly if there is no hidden meaning, cryptographic aspect, spiritual allegory or the like. And when I read someone like Dunsany I find this is much the same case.

>> No.17511018

BAKKER FAGS GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, FUCKING HELL, JANNIES, JUST BAN THOSES FUCKING GAY ASS RAPIST MOTHERFUCKER, GOD I HATE BAKKER AND HIS SHITTY "GRIMDARK EDGY" PSEUDO SHIT.

>> No.17511057

It's right in the name. "Fan"tasy
Any writer that writes for fans and is a hack and probably post on /lit/

>> No.17511078
File: 32 KB, 200x300, The_Mask_of_the_Sorcerer.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
17511078

>>17504303
I implore you to read Mask of the Sorcerer

>If ever your heart has said, 'The great days are no more. The golden afternoon of golden tales has faded into night, and I came late, born out of time, to warm my hands at the embers that flicker and fade hour by hour' -- read this. . . Here are ghosts grim and gentle, red gold of Ophir, and fell weavings. Here is a tale to keep Scheherazade talking a hundred years.
>--Pringles Man

>> No.17511098

>>17504303
The way magic works is always shit. At least in LOTR it was very reserved and rarely used

>> No.17511141

>>17511098
>very rarely
no. it was very subtle, but it was extremely common. If you read LotR and actually count the number of times Gandalf being a wizard has a positive effect, it's hundreds of instances. Gandalf was just a subtleboy, as all good men are, and didn't flash shit unnecessarily.

>> No.17511150

>>17511018
Does it trouble you?

>> No.17511152
File: 933 KB, 1795x1136, does-it-trouble-u-2.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
17511152

>>17511018
>t. troubled

>> No.17511763

>>17504319
They aren't using their imagination to create a narrative, they're using it to wank about autistic worldbuilding

>> No.17511921

Nobody cares about the world-building unless the characters are good. Fantasy writers tend to be more concerned with their world.

>> No.17511937

>>17504304
It's either this or it's trying so hard not to be Tolkien that it just ends up being muddled shit

>> No.17511997

>>17509136
Sure, people are complex. Surely you have been around the internet enough to know that disliking V2 isn't enough to stop a person being completely modernist, what with the whole freakshow that is rightwing e-caths.

>> No.17512123

>>17509639
>come about, how would one interpret a modern myth that comes about in such an organic way, if any even exist at all?

In lots of ways the text is the end of myth, not completely, but it instantiates a significant stasis compared to oral tradition. A modern myth, if were force to choose one, would likely be found in the kind of broad highly mutable conspiracy theory that finds itself interpreting the world rather than any singular event.
Tolkien's use of the written word, singular authorship, and his son's tight control of his estate is akin to a dogma, rather than a myth.

>> No.17512215

A lot of modern fantasy is self insert wish fulfillment..see Rothfuss

>> No.17512223

>>17506842
You dont have to be offended. That's a choice that you make. Free yourself

>> No.17512232

>>17504303
Good writing is about the writing. Entertaining stories are about the stories. What makes it "fantasy" is the story. So if you're writing a fantasy novel, you're serving which: the writing, or the story? It's shlock by nature. And that's totally ok.

>> No.17512238

is Conan literary?

>> No.17512239

>>17509280
>>17509280
>>Fantasy is a retreat from the end of history.
>What are you even saying here?
Okay, simply but I agree with Bakker on fantasy, and his position on eliminativism, that the brain can't map itself, and therefore the experience of conscious states has an evolutionary purpose, survival and reproduction of the organism, not a truth seeking one. They call this The Introspection Illusion. Anyway, because of this there is no actual value to be found in literary fiction as it has absolutely nothing to say that is true as the mental states it seeks to explore as part of the human condition have no basis in reality, so we find fantasy more authentic in its obvious synthetic nature, and presentation of worlds where mental states can be attributed to some non-materialist explanation.
People find this immensely gratifying because the world that science is increasingly revealing isn't one that there was any evolutionary need to comprehend, so it doesn't check off the little heuristic boxes that a predatory savannah ape needs to easily orient themselves in the world.

This all runs in tandem with the geo-political concept of end of history.

>>It isn't meant to be literary
>It is
To its detriment, as explained above.

>>it is meant to sate certain human impulses that find no outlet in the modern world
>Never the goal
Always the impulse. And now it is becoming explicitly the goal.

>> No.17512284

>>17512238
Define your terms. Sure. Read books. A Conan novel will occupy the afternoon you were gonna spend watching porn and playing video games. Yes: it's a better way to spend your time. Go for it.

>> No.17512348

>>17512284
have you read them?

>> No.17512361

>>17504303
Fantasy, though it should be the genre with the most creative shit happening because you can literally have whatever setting you want, is instead the most narrow genre that requires a bunch of cliches to be adhered to. Homer, Dante, and Borges all wrote fantasy if we considered the genre in the broad sense, but because those books don't contain sword fights and magic and dragons we don't think of them as fantasy. So instead a book has to have a pretty inflexible subset of characteristics in order to be considered fantasy, despite how ironic and stupid that is. So the genre is stuck with the works of people that can't think of anything other than those most boring cliches, which leads to almost all fantasy works being sacks of crap. It's a genre that self selects for bad writers, and also for fans that are exceptionally stupid and undiscerning.

>> No.17512421

>>17512239
good post

>> No.17514007

>>17509524
Rigante.

>> No.17514082

>>17510904
>NEED logic to always exist in all things
There were never many complaints about "because magic." Those that existed were for the most part caused by an authors attempts at power rankings, etc when there are no predefined rules. And the real flaw there is not being character / plot focused, the cock measuring with pants on is a secondary concern.
There are complaints about direct contradictions of established rules, or as you see more often in scifi; attempts to dazzle you with bullshit.

It doesn't matter. Be a hack writer. But when your editor mentions plot holes, what you have to do is delete passages where rules are established. Ez pz.

>> No.17514088

>>17504974
>They both so far surpass anyone else in their field that they will be remembered 1,000 years from now as a kind of yin and yang of fantasy
>a Manichean duality of speculative letters.
Why do so many 4chan longposters tack on some cringe pretentious simile to re-describe what they just described?

>> No.17514117

>>17511921
>Nobody cares about the world-building unless the characters are good.
Wrong (wish you were right).

>> No.17514142

>>17504304
not really. it's all tasteless nerd power fantasies, tabletop gaming bullshit, and muh worldbuilding. could actually be well-done but it's almost always uninspired and boring, probably because the writers and readers are nerds. somehow what should be the most free genre is the most autistically tropey and derivative.

>> No.17514162

>>17512361
>and also for fans that are exceptionally stupid and undiscerning
That or you're stupid and undiscerning.

>> No.17514350

>>17514088
Why do so many cringe posters get intimidated by those with intellectual intelligence far superior to their own?

>> No.17514966

>>17514350
If he couldn't understand what you wrote it's a failure of communication on your part. Weak fundamentals combined with a shallow thesaurus granted vocabulary reveal an... emerging talent for writing. Which is right where pretentiousness occurs, to answer his question.

>> No.17515413

>>17506872
>https://pastebin.com/d67ck2CU
nice story soon ill read more dunsany

>> No.17515612

>>17504303
Cause super powered magical beings fighting eachother is fun you joyless faggot

>> No.17515741

>>17504303
>>17504304
This, without any of the groundwork or historical/linguistic/anthropological background

>>17506872
To the extent it can be good, it will be hybridized with other genres.

>> No.17516191
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>>17506555
>He is simply a better... prose writer

>> No.17516973
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My biggest gripe with the genre is that there are so many series. I understand the minutia of worldbuilding and character development but man is it ever a slog to see something like the wheel of time being 15 books and ranging around 1000pgs each