Okay I'm derailing this thread Authentic writing =! Realistic writing. Unrealistic writing = Events that can't happen the described way. 'Wrong authenticity' was simply my way to express that the authenticity doesn't exist (binary 0). Sorry, I still can't think of a word for the opposite to authenticity Yes, realism and authenticity are related, but, while unrealism is simply bad writing, authenticity is a specific 'style' to write (for want of another word, I'm still on the learning curve on how to do that). I hope I make sense... PS: I haven't read either Ryan or McNabb. Ryan's writing is not 'good enough' (yeah, I'm a snob!!), and McNabb.. let's say I don't approve of him personally. But there are authentic fiction works (I'm critiquing one of them at the moment); they are just exceedingly rare and can be riddled with the same kind of writing mistakes as everyone else wrestles with
Don't know a lot about them, but they seem like a revamped orc. I applaud the author for not just using orcs, but at the same time I'm personally tired of the enemy forces always being a horde of dumb, brutish "orc like" creatures. I think that in itself is overdone, and it's a copout to making a more intelligent enemy capable of having an army worth fighting. Killing an "orc", verses a normal, intelligent, enemy soldier on the battlefield are very different. Killing a thousand orcs/urgals has barely as much mental impact than killing ten normal people carries. Just my opinion.
In the third (or is it second?) book the Urgals join with the protagonists and become multidimensional characters. Their brutish behavior is explained, and they are revealed not to be mindless killing machines, but creatures with human emotions. Their culture adds to their humanization: Urgal culture is warlike and tribal, and vastly different from human culture so it's clear why humans would misunderstand them. It doesn't excuse their crimes, either; Nar Garzhvog, the chief who represents the Urgals, muses that Urgals may be too bloodthirsty for their own good, and that their culture drives them to atrocity and murder. He is genuinely sorry for the horrors Urgals have wreaked. (Such as the massacre of Yazuac.) Spoiler At the end of the series, dwarves and Urgals join the dragon pact with elves and humans and become Riders.
Plastic guns? No way, 1911 FTW! Chiseled out of pure steel... Right, fantasy thread, sorry. The thing that bugs me about most of the fantasy I've read is the unreality of it. Well, duh, but what I mean is you have the farmer race (hobbits, for example), the miner race (dwarves), the warrior race (orcs), the high-bred philosopher race (elves), anf then the humans, who are the only ones who can do more than one job as a species. I know that's Tolkien, but it's also the pattern too many writers follow. Specialization is one thing, but they never show much trade going on either. What the hell do the inhabitants of Mordor eat? Where does Hogwart's get its groceries? And if the answer is always just "magic", well, I guess I need too much reality to appreciate fantasy.
Well that certainly has more to it than goblins and orcs. I have not read the Inheritance Cycle, so I'm not familiar at all with them. If the Urgals join forces with the other races, then who is the true antagonist at that point?
My favorite approach is to have a Watson character who thinks the popular narrative, then has an expert in the field correct him Wormholes, for example, would not be flat circles that you fly through one flat side in one place and come out the other flat side in the other place – they would be spherical on each side – but every sci-fi story I found before Interstellar used unrealistic circular-wormholes for artistic convenience; I just resigned myself to the fact that every sci-fi story would get this one thing wrong (unless I wrote my own) and that I should try to enjoy the rest of the story. I loved the scene from Interstellar where Matthew McCounaghey was surprised that the wormhole was spherical and had to have the scientist explain to him that they're not supposed to be circular The tyrannical megalomaniac hell-bent on taking over the world. EDIT: And you know what all those Planets of Hats ("Klingons are warriors" "Vulcans are logical" "Ferengi are greedy") have in common? They were created by human authors. Our Hat is that we assign Hats more value than they deserve. The LotR universe itself was never a Planet of Hats, but it looked like one to the human who wrote the stories about it. Humans stereotype others instead of looking at everybody as individuals, and when we explore the rest of the universe, we humans not going to find Planets of Hats, but we're going to think that we did because that's how we look at the world: "Muslims are terrorists!" (The vast, 90%+, majority of the victims of ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Taliban have been Muslims) "Gays are pedophiles!" (Pedophiles are disproportionately likely to be straight) "Blacks are thugs!" (White people from bad neighborhoods are more likely to be violent than black people from good neighborhoods are) "Humans stereotype others instead of looking at everybody as individuals!" (... yeah )
Galbatorix of course. He was the one who enslaved the Urgals to his service in the first place. His soldiers and the Raz'ac still fight for him even though the Urgals have slipped from his grasp and seek vengeance on him. Also, there is some clashing in the Varden between the rebels and the Urgals as a subplot, so they are still antagonists on some level. For example, Roran offends one of the Urgals and is forced to duel him.
Well, technically it's not magic, and in Tolkien's books he does explain what they eat. If I remember correctly, they're said to be insatiably hungry, and they eat any kind of meat. I think they even eat other orcs in some cases. I know they eat other races for sure, and prefer humans I think. Yes, the human, orc, elf, dwarf thing is Tolkien, everyone that follows suit with no changes at all are merely copying. It's fine to use elements of it, and similar stuff because not everything is completely unique, but simply copying the races and not trying to make it different is what my original post here was about. There's a lot of fantasy that struggles with being different. As far as Harry Potter, it's pretty well known that the books themselves have a lot of plot holes. I've only seen the movies, but the plot holes are pretty clear. It's not exactly a good example at all, while I think it's still fun on some level, the entire series sorta' hurt the fantasy genre. I personally don't like the use of wands, it looks really stupid, just needed to be a staff, but personally I don't understand why magic always needs something to "channel" it. A staff is cool, and I don't mind the use because it serves multiple purposes (walking stick, weapon, and magic medium). A good fantasy will not ask you to stretch your imagination beyond the use of things like magic (which will come with rules so it's not just willy-nilly, I magically did this with no explanation).
I assume you're talking about the setting, not the story. (Also, really? People are judging Martin by the show now?) I just mentally replace words like Trollocs or Urgals with 'Orcs.' That sort of writing doesn't deserve the reader's respect (in my humble opinion, of course ).
Really? You didn't read from my post that first I referenced the original work, and then I segued into the TV version. Thought I was pretty pedantic in my explanation of first one and then the other.
Oath enslaved human beings. Who the "heroes" slaughter without mercy and without need and are deemed morally correct because the heroes believe it to be. Eragon butchers these people so brutally he aersolizes their blood. It's black and white, hero centered morality. The villains are bad and the heroes always right. The end.
But then the Urgals are humanize and we get a glimpse into their culture. They're not mindless monsters. (Though they were under the control of a Shade, so they may have been monsters when they were forced into his service.
Yeah, that's a little bland I think. There needs to be more to a story that "You guys are bad because we said so, and now our entire story revolves around killing you". I personally wish more fantasy books had politics and intrigue, rather than always going straight for the bloodbath, we must kill you before you enslave us, scenario. LotR did it just fine, and that's the only version of it we needed.
I feel like the big fantasies I get recommended often all feel very derivative of this swords & sorcery formula. I think it's just overexposure but I feel like if I were walking around Middle Earth and turned a corner and arrived in about 50% of fantasy novels, it could take me a good couple of days to figure out that those monster are Urgals, not orcs.
