Ryujin
Legend
I prefer to think of him as a massive walking (somewhat justified) ego."An naughty word who wrote like a dream." I wish Weird Tales had let that description of him go to print ...
The "I Didn't Comment in Another Thread" Thread
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overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
Harlan Ellison? Massive walking completely justified ego.
He didn't suffer fools gladly. The fools generally got upset by that. So a lot of people think he was a jerk.
Bedrockgames
I post in the voice of Christopher Walken
Harlan's Razor leads us right back to the issue I spoke about before, which is the tendency for gamers to seriously overestimate the stupidity of people they disagree with. The sentiment he is expressing feels good. But I don't think it leads to greater understanding. That doesn't mean people having uninformed opinions can't be an issue. But I think it does mean, thinking you are smarter than the other person in a disagreement because they are less informed, less educated, etc doesn't entitle you to be a jerk.
His ego was one of the things that made him a great writer I think. But it is also a mistake to confuse that with him being a great person or right about most things. I like Harlan Ellison. I think we need writers like him. But I think even he wouldn't confuse some of his more obnoxious personality traits as some kind of virtue.
Ryujin
Legend
He was a jerk. Didn't mean that he wasn't usually (almost always, in fact) right. James Cameron was an idiot for publicly bragging that he ripped off "Soldier" to make "Terminator."
Ryujin
Legend
He quite famously acknowledged his ego was massive, publicly, on several occasions.
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
He was a monumental ego who was right way more often than not. People on the wrong end of that perceive that as being a jerk. Perception does not make reality. This goes back to the feelings thing a page or two ago. Feeling that someone's a jerk doesn't make it so. Being wrong and being called out on it makes you think the other person is a jerk. Again, doesn't make it so. He wasn't perfect, hell no. Far from it. And he would be the first to admit it.
Thomas Shey
Legend
Well, because he was also often a jerk. They aren't mutually exclusive (a hard lesson to learn is that brilliant and talented people can also be jerks).
Ryujin
Legend
Yes, that was literally the rest of that post
Ryujin
Legend
Exactly. You can be right without being a Richard about it. Ellison couldn't.
Thomas Shey
Legend
And he wasn't immune to the common smart person's issue of thinking he knew more about topics he didn't, or things like his sometimes questionable interpersonal behavior.
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