Jump to content

No More Metagame.com?


Recommended Posts

at this point i dont care to keep up an argument.

tldr.

ill look into mistborn.

its not necessarily originality i seek, but simply good writing.

ever read george r.r. martin's song of ice and fire?

guys a d&d troll, he knows fantasy.

one of the reasons i prefer his writing is that there are no bad or good guys, and there is no main character shield. just when you think it will be predictable, its not. he also doesnt waste time describing things, and people seldom get saved by last minute heroes. aside from the fantasy plugs, its very realistic and well done.

hes my kind of fantasy author.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 58
  • Created
  • Last Reply

I'll have to look into him as well.

 

If your looking for the ever-shifting characters, have you ever read Asimov's Foundation series?

 

Also, it seems to me that you're contradicting yourself. "Just when you think it's going to be predictable, it's not."

 

Deus ex Machina is the sudden invocation of extraordinary circumstance. In other words, unpredictability.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

oh shut up you asinine little troll. your hypocrisy astounds me even now. i dont care to keep arguing because im arguing alone. all your doing is blatantly telling me im wrong and stupid. if you actually made a comment that didnt undercut me to feed your pathetic ego, i might actually consider discourse with you, but since you cant get off your troll-throne and stop acting like your jesus tap-dancing christ and better than everyone else, i honestly just dont care anymore. you spend your days looking down on the members of a funking forum for a childrens card game. where do you get off being so elitist?

 

@the person who can actually keep up an intelligent conversation

(teh dark one)

a deus ex machina, by direct translation, is a "god out of the machine"

it derives from old, ooold roman and greek plays where toward the end, some divine figure would be lowered onto the stage via some machine (pulleys?), and aid the hero, or even just solve his problems flatout.

 

in our literature, a deus ex machina is essentially some factor that trolls in with some ridiculously broken power and helps the protagonist. gandalf, yoda, etc, are examples. theyre broken deities that help the protagonist, but dont really take center stage.

 

an alternative viewpoint of it is that its less a character and more an event:

this alternate is simply that a deus ex machina, still derivative of the aforementioned, is an outside force that comes in solve a problem in a convenient fashion. a good example of this would be the eagles from lotr, who solve the problem of transporting frodo and sam back from mordor. a bit silly thar.

 

source:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeusExMachina

this site is pretty good for this stuff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, TV tropes is pretty good, I'll agree.

 

Deus Ex Machina originally wasn't considered a bad thing.

 

It was an event with little or no foreshadowing, that dramatically altered the plot. In other words, an unexpected act of God or some other powerful figure/event, etc.

 

It IS an acceptable plot tool, allowing a larger build-up of tension, if done properly. (In other words, treated as "in medias res", and the use of flashbacks or backwards storytelling covers the gap. I honestly can't remember about the eagles, did Tolkien give further explanation after the fact?

 

The TV trope is applied to bad TV show type things. (A specific example I remember from Star Trek involved something about some deadly virus being deployed by an enemy. It was the basis of the whole plot line for that season. Then the writers realized the pit they had dug themselves into. There was no good way to solve the problem. So they pulled some bull about the Transporter cleaning the virus out of their bodies or something in the last five minutes of the last episode relating to that. There was nearly no explanation of why it would work, or even why they were so retarded as to not think of it before. And then of course,in future episodes that dealt with virus's etc, the transporter was never used again. That is Deus Ex Machina in the negative sense.)

 

But the concept is not bad, if applied properly. Look at old works, like The Odyssey. There's another case of "the hand of God" practically every chapter.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

well yes, it can be used effectively, but eh. i dont recall how much tolkien covered his ass on the eagles. probably said something about the dark forces being distracted by the war and the dying of sauron or whatever. regardless, he dug himself into a hole and sent magical eagles to save the day.

its a bit of bad authorship at that point isnt it?

 

Michael Crichton's Andromeda Strain does something a bit like that.

 

the virus ends up evolving to a point where its no longer hazardous to humans

 

bit of a gimmicky ripoff, but the novel itself is still excellent.

Crichton is a writer i can respect. he does different stuff, ya know?

 

but Martin, the single thing i love most about his writing is probably the severe lack of main character shield. anyone can die on any page for any reason. its a bit silly, really, but at the same time much more realistic. i just wish hed get off his ass and finish the series. 4/7 books done and hes taking his own sweet time on the 5th. its even rumored he might not finish it >.>

the guys a series nerd, maybe hes busy trying to rebuild his jugijoh deck for the new banlist :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Bible is not meant to be a storybook. It is like saying the Encycopedia is a piece of literature. (well, in the past the bible is able to answer any question...like an encycopedia)

 

Personally any book that has the ability to capture my attention from the start to the end is good enough for me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bible is not meant to be a storybook. It is like saying the Encycopedia is a piece of literature. (well' date=' in the past the bible is able to answer any question...like an encycopedia)

 

Personally any book that has the ability to capture my attention from the start to the end is good enough for me.

[/quote']

 

don't necro-bump, it doesn't help. and most of us don't care about the bible here because THIS IS THE TCG AREA. go post this in the general area.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...