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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Set" data-source="post: 3462807" data-attributes="member: 41584">If by that you mean 'transformed over time from a one-dimensional cold war-era stereotype into something almost like a living species, as complex and contradictory and hard to pin a label on as human beings,' then yes, the development of Klingons has certainly gone off the rails.Ironically, had everyone who has written for Star Trek after their introduction stuck to some sort of worldbuilding story bible as to what Klingons were like, and not bothered to flesh them out beyond the 'dirty reds' cliche, *that* would, IMO, be an example of world-building as a straightjacket limiting creativity.Half the fun of drawing lines is then finding ways to cross them.  Elves are nice, except for this one, he's nasty piece of work.  1/2 Orcs are brutish, violent thugs, except for my Paladin / Monk / whatever.  Without lines, without definition, without someone coming along and saying, "Dark Elves are evil, run by a spider-worshipping matriarchy and live underground," someone else couldn't come along and say, "But *this* Dark Elf has run away from that society, and that conflict between his nature and his nurture is what drives him, and will end up turning him into the most insanely popular, intensely reviled and over-exposed property since Wolverine..."Without the 'world-building' that goes into creating Menzoberranzan, Drizz't is just some dark-skinned elf who whines a lot about how his mommy used to beat him.  By showing us the world he grew up in, his entire character suddenly gains meaning.Absent the world he grew up in, the history that informs him, he'd just be a weirdo who likes to complain for apparently no reason at all.  He's got a reason.  And by showing us that world that formed him, those events that drove him away from his homeland, we understand the man himself.Ultimately, it's a matter of taste.  I respect an author who cares enough about what he's writing to think about the histories that inform the characters, and the worlds they've grown up in.  If the author himself doesn't give a rat's butt about what he's writing, it's unlikely that he's going to be able to inspire me with the setting or characters that failed to inspire him...</blockquote>

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