Disdain for new fantasy

[Merlion]

I like the former and positively adore the latter (easily in my top five SF/F works), but they're both pretentious.

I'm not really a big believer in the concept of "pretentious"

Lain and Eva both deal with BIG major philosophic and pyschological concepts (quite a few of the same ones in fact), and they act accordingly.

It would be hard to deal with those things in that format without being what some call "pretentious"

 

[Clavis]

I would probably be happy if there was less emphasis on post-Tolkien and Lovecraftian fiction in D&D, myself. I would be very happy if there was less Star Wars and other science fiction in D&D (I see elements of that creeping up now and then).

Interestingly, D&D has had science-fiction (or in this case science-fantasy) in it from the VERY beginning. After all, before even Greyhawk there was Blackmoor, where magic was ultimately just misunderstood high technology. Expedition To the Barrier Peaks brought science fantasy to Greyhawk, and the First Edition DMG had rules for converting Gamma World and Boot Hill characters to AD&D stats, and vice-versa.

To be true to its own pedigree, D&D MUST have a place for science-fantasy ideas.

 

[WizarDru]

The disdain is for EQ-derivative MMORPGs and apparently for a Japanese animation style - and the disdain is strong because many people loathe derivative MMORPGs with very good reason. They're basically designed to hypnotize the stupid, and keep you mindlessly "advancing your character" forever. There's a lot that's "forced" and "fixed" about them - people don't want to see that in D&D because it's not fun.

I'm not sure I'd characterize 9 million people as hypnotized and stupid for enjoying a game and playstyle you do not, but that's just me. Clearly there's something that people enjoy about MMORPGs; whether that has any correlation to pen-and-paper RPGs is another question entirely. Does Second Life have anything to offer? A Tale in the Desert? Puzzle Pirates? Lineage II?

I'm not questioning that some people don't like MMOs or Wow in particular. I've never played WoW, though several of my players do. I wouldn't suggest that WoW is the route for D&D to go, but I also wouldn't suggest that WoW has nothing to offer D&D, either. I think it's a disservice to WoW to represent it as nothing more than a cheap knock-off of 'real games' and full of BadWrongFun.

Mind you, I've yet to see a concrete example of how D&D 4e is, in any way, being influenced by WoW. Every time someone brings up an example, it gets quickly shot down by people who've been playing RPGs for 30+ years. Just like the idea that power-gaming was invented by 3e.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Ruin Explorer, did you just insult .hack//SIGN as shallow? And praise Neon Genesis Evangelion as deep?

I guess I can say I really disagree with your opinions of anime, and find a lot of your comments about how people should "know better" to be very rude. You should pull back on the elitist attitude a lot.

Fantasy exists for one purpose: entertainment. If people are being entertained by what they watch, than you have no right to call what they are watching "crap". As such, for me at least, a lot of what you call "crap" has far more value than what you seem to favor.

I don't even recognize the names or titles of what you are claiming to be the "new" fantasy. It is obvious they are novels, at least, but that is all I know about them. Of course, I only know the names Moorcock, Lieber, and Vance because they keep coming up on these forums, and most fantasy novels are horribly boring to me these days, so I am probably not one to talk about fantasy novels...

All I cna say is that it is highly flawed to hold up such a limited set of novels which are not widely known, and call that the "new fantasy", disregarding the value of everything else.

 

[Mallus]

I'm not really a big believer in the concept of "pretentious"

Having been pretentious for most of my life, I am, since I firmly believe in believing in oneself...

Lain and Eva both deal with BIG major philosophic and pyschological concepts (quite a few of the same ones in fact), and they act accordingly.

Setting Lain aside for a moment... Evangelion can be summed up as 'it's the Apocalypse because I am sad (and lonely and indecisive)', which, for my money, is one of the savviest things ever said about the human condition in work of science fiction. The philosophizing and name-dropping are just decoration, IMHO.

 

[Clavis]

How would you possibly argue that? Gaiman is a genius who has contributed a significant amount to the fantasy genre, so yeah, completely with you there, Rowling, on the other hand, is an ignoramus regarding fantasy as a genre (literally, her conception of fantasy begins and ends with The Lord of the Rings - Practically from her own admission), and whilst her fantasy series was popular, she has both denied it is fantasy, and then later, claimed she's "revolutionized the genre", when in fact what she's writing is functionally identical to stuff written decades before, none of which was hailed as revolutionary (the "Worst Witch" books, for example). That she is popular does not mean she is "important" to a genre, especially when she's outright denied being part of that genre and denounced the genre on the basis of her own stolid ignorance.

By way of explanation, I wasn't addressing the literary qualities of Rowling's work. I was only making an observation of its importance for our culture. Derivative or not, badly written or not, Rowling's work is going to influence a whole generation's ideas about what magic is, how mythological beings "work", and what the great questions addressed in fantasy are.

Howard addressed the tension between civilization and the raw energy of nature. Tolkein addressed how human beings are corrupted by power. Rowling's work is ultimately about authority and its abuse. Whether or not she did a good job of it, my feeling is that a whole generation of new readers is going to read fantasy through the lens provided by Rowling.

Its like watching clouds....

 

[Merlion]

Having been pretentious for most of my life, I am, since I firmly believe in believing in oneself...


Setting Lain aside for a moment... Evangelion can be summed up as 'it's the Apocalypse because I am sad (and lonely and indecisive)', which, for my money, is one of the savviest things ever said about the human condition in work of science fiction. The philosophizing and name-dropping are just decoration, IMHO.

Yea, I hear that a lot. I dont really agree at all, on various levels, but I don't want to totally derail the thread over it.

To me "pretentious" is to pretend at, or feign something. Lain and Eva don't pretend to be about big stuff...they actually are, one way or other.

Pretentious would be DBZ trying to act like its philosophical.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Interestingly, D&D has had science-fiction (or in this case science-fantasy) in it from the VERY beginning. After all, before even Greyhawk there was Blackmoor, where magic was ultimately just misunderstood high technology. Expedition To the Barrier Peaks brought science fantasy to Greyhawk, and the First Edition DMG had rules for converting Gamma World and Boot Hill characters to AD&D stats, and vice-versa.

To be true to its own pedigree, D&D MUST have a place for science-fantasy ideas.

I am not disagreeing. Keep in mind, I listed Final Fantasy as something I think D&D should be like, and in Final Fantasy 1 there are giant war robots, talking robots, and a techological flying castle. Those elements keep coming back, too. Omega in FF5, the Tower of Babel and Lunarian civilization of FF4... Also, I listed Scrapped Princess as a good fantasy anime. If you havn't seen it, imagine a fantasy world which is entirely a construct of an advanced alien civilization which defeated mankind, and this world exists only to serve as a prison for humans, forcefully keeping them at a low technological level, and powerful technological weapon systems called "dragons" are trying to help humans break free.

So, I have no objection to science fiction elements as such expicitly showing up in D&D. I mostly have a problem with "alien" entities or elements found primarily in sci-fi being used as inspiration for the fantastic elements, rather than remaining explicitly sci-fi. Stuff like basing a new race on something you would see in Star Trek, rather than on something from a fantasy work.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Ruin Explorer, did you just insult .hack//SIGN as shallow? And praise Neon Genesis Evangelion as deep?

[snip]

Fantasy exists for one purpose: entertainment. If people are being entertained by what they watch, than you have no right to call what they are watching "crap". As such, for me at least, a lot of what you call "crap" has far more value than what you seem to favor.

I don't even recognize the names or titles of what you are claiming to be the "new" fantasy. It is obvious they are novels, at least, but that is all I know about them. Of course, I only know the names Moorcock, Lieber, and Vance because they keep coming up on these forums, and most fantasy novels are horribly boring to me these days, so I am probably not one to talk about fantasy novels...

I can call anything I like crap, matey. You like Days Of Our Lives? Doesn't stop it being trash You like Big Macs? Doesn't stop them being low-grade food that's basically bad for you. I don't criticise the enjoyment when I call it crap, I criticise the constant attempts to claim that it's not... crap... At least Days Of Our Lives fans aren't say "Wow it's deep man", yet Naruto fans sure are...

As for .//hack vs NGE, let me be clear - I've only seen the first series of .//hack - It was very shallow in that one, and full of unlikely angst. Does it improve? You tell me. Maybe it's just a slow start. Star Trek: TNG's first season was pretty awful, and Buffy's first season was one of it's weakest ones. So, if you're saying that .//hack LATER gets much much better, well, that's cool, maybe I'll give it a second chance - the first season though... oy vey...

You don't know anything about fantasy literature. Good for you. This puts me in a position of advantage over you, though - I've seen most of what you've seen, anime-wise, but you've not read the books I talk about. The ones I mention are ones that expand and improve the fantasy genre, not that mindlessly repeat existing tropes. Most JRPGs and anime fantasy is all about mindlessly repeating existing tropes. That's not necessarily a criticism, but it's quasi-post-modern wankery, not advancement, and it sure as hell isn't "new fantasy". Slayers is a good example of "post-modern-by-accident" self-aware fantasy entirely about extant tropes.

As for "fantasy exists only for entertainment", I disagree, it also exists to expand the mind's horizons, and to illuminate touchy situations that might otherwise be seen in completely political or historical terms without any deeper thought.

Hell, if you thought fantasy was REALLY just about entertainment, you wouldn't give two shakes of a lamb's tail about whether .//hack was good, just whether you enjoyed it personally. Which is it?

Clavis - I dunno, maybe. I suspect what will actually happen is that, in a way, Rowling will get her wish, and people will differentiate between "Harry Potter"-type stuff and "Swords and Sorcery"-type stuff, and that there will not necessarily be a cross-over. I would be willing to bet someone finding the latest edition of D&D in 2020 (if it still exists), even though they were raised reading Harry Potter etc. will find their vision of "fantasy" dominated by D&D, not Potter. Time will tell, though.

 

[Mallus]

I'm not sure NGE is as pretentious as it comes across to Western eyes, because all the Biblical stuff is comparable to us doing, I dunno, Greek Gods, and I wonder how seriously Japanese anime viewers took it - I doubt it was remotely as serious as some anime-fans over here.

That's a good point. The Biblical/Kabbalist/weird physics ('Sea of Dirac') stuff is probably better viewed as a more elaborate form of the decorative use of English words in Japanese branding. It's not really meant to 'deep', just pretty. However, the cumulative effect of all those embellishments in NGE initially made me think the show was mocking just about every other piece of speculative fiction with a philosophical/conspiratorial bent, effectively saying 'this is all a bunch of hooey, truth is, you're lonely and you don't want to be'. Which, having read F/SF all my life, made me love it even more.

At least NGE's teenage angst is genuinely stuff that stresses kids out (like Kenshi's sexual orientation confusion).

Kidding aside, it's one of the most honest pieces of entertainment I've ever seen. As is FLCL, come to think of it...

Hijack-mode off!