{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2616", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 2616, "subject": "NOW you've done it...", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2001-05-01T09:32:28+00:00", "last": "2001-05-01T13:24:10+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2001-05-01T09:32:28+00:00", "subject": "(urth) NOW you've done it...", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"John-Paul Wellcoat\" wrote (in response to me):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "'and don't get me started about Donaldson'" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Just keen to learn what it is exactly that you would wish of\nthe author when it comes to portrayal of evil characters." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Generally, I'd like to see an author portray a _character_, and\nnot a scenery-chewing melodram villain. I need to believe that\na villain has some reason for being villainous, a reason both\nplausible and proportionate to the villainy. Shakespeare's\nRichard III is an excellent example; so, come to think of it,\nis his Macbeth (who may be the protagonist, but not the hero)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "especially concerning Donaldson (Seeing as I am reading his\ngap series at the minute)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I haven't been able to bring myself to read those. I have \nstrong and very mixed feelings about the Covenant books, of\nwhich the two negative comments are (1) style and (2) the\neeeeeeevileness of the evil characters.\n\nLord Foul is a prancing, capering, moustache-twirling Snidely\nWhiplash from his first appearance on the pinnacle of Kevin's\nWatch to his anti-apotheosis at the base of Mount Whassis at the \nend of the second trilogy. Donaldson's hideous tin ear and \nobsessive use of distracting words and phrases (like the \never-popular \"fey and anile\") makes the matter worse, but the \nproblem is inherent in the character, or lack of a character.\nFoul is incarnate malice, and I simply cannot believe in him.\n\nThe Ravers are no better. They talk _exactly_ like their master,\nand have no motivation for their actions beyond liking to hurt\nthings. But they aren't plausible sadists, they're just sadism,\ncruelty not even for pleasure but simply because that's what \nthey are.\n\nGiving Donaldson some backhanded credit: I think the problem\nmight have been insoluble. In order to keep alive the \npossibility that the Land is a dream/hallucination/illusion \nand that Foul is the dark side of Covenant's own nature, it \nmay have been necessary to keep him a being of pure (nyaaaah\nhaaahahhahhhh) malice. But...\n\nTolkien, at least, had the sense to keep Sauron offstage. \n(Would he had done likewise for the Orcs!) (Well, okay; it \nwould have been hard to have a story that way...)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It must come down to which side you are on in the end. \nYou can't honestly belief in an inherently evil being.\nThey just don't stand up in life." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No, I cannot; you are correct there. But I can believe in a\nbeing eaten up with malice (Saruman, Weston-on-Perelandra);\nI can believe in a being completely amoral and believing that\nhis end justifies any means (Baldanders); I can believe in\na being to whom the sufferings of others are of no consequence\n(Typhon) or even a positive pleasure (Hierax: who is wisely\nkept offstage, as this is very difficult to portray plausibly)." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Kevin J. Maroney", "address": "kmaroney at ungames.com" }, "date": "2001-05-01T13:24:10+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) NOW you've done it...", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 09:32 AM 5/1/01 -0700, Dan'l wrote:\nGenerally, I'd like to see an author portray a _character_, and\nnot a scenery-chewing melodram villain. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I am often inclined to agree, but not universally. I was in a discussion\nrecently about Pamela Dean's _Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary_ where I took\nyour position--the malign character in there can be viewed as evil for the\nsake of evil or as having a reasonable and tragic motive, and I strongly\nprefered the latter. \n\nHowever, Lord Foul and the Ravers are not human characters, nor are we ever\nto mistake them for such. They are dark spots on the x-ray of existence;\nthey have, and need, no more motivation than a virus or a tumor. A better\ncomparison than Richard III is Iago, a one-note villain who produces\nconflict among the interesting characters because it's his nature to do so. \n\nWhich isn't to say that you're required to like Lord Foul, or Donaldson\ngenerally, but only that it's not necessarily reasonable to require every\nvillain to be Richard III. Sometimes it's reasonable for a villain simply\nto be a villain. " }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": " Kevin Maroney | Unplugged Games \n kmaroney at ungames.com | (212) 777-1190" } ] } ] }