indeed it can and if we take the OED at its word it does not need to be perpertrated by someone it can be a supernatural force all of its own I am inclined to go with it. Even the adjectives most of the definitions do not require human input.
David: I think you are right in that there are many things one can learn that would also be useful in fiction writing. These include world-building, plotting, and character development. The fact that these things happen within a framework of game mechanics when you're playing doesn't impair them. The only thing I would caution against is writing stories that are basically D&D sessions on paper. Beginning writers who are also gamers tend to do that, in my experience.
People use it as a noun because their are brain-washed by their religions. Even your statement shows this. Let's us consult the OED because it is the authority on English and we must never question authority. It evil is a noun, then show me this thing you call evil. You say I don't understand; it's not black and white but a scale of greys. And I say it's not that, it is full of colour. People are not rational beings; they are rationalizing beings. They do things, then make up a line of reason to account for their actions. If you limit your characters to good or evil, or even a scale between them, you are oversimplify them and they end up being flat.
I use it as a noun because I speak English, and it is an acceptable usage of the word, or are you suggesting that we shouldn't have consistant meanings of words? The OED evolves quite well frequently ahead of its time; noting changes in word usage, that 'purists' of the English language rail against them for doing. Of all the criticisms I have ever had thrown at my work - some quite unpleasant. I have never ever been accused of having flat characters - even people that detest my work acknowledge they are good characters. And yes my protagonists are noble and my evil characters unpleasant (my antagonist tends to be the situations rather than the character).
This is pointless. The point of this thread was fantasy tips, and this is entering flame space. I am liking Goldhawk more and more though. The point is that fantasy books must avoid what's been done to death, or perish themselves. I mean, really? What does it matter if a BOOK has the same spell-casting system as D&D? Good is not a noun, I don't care what Oxford says. I've never seen a "good" in my life. I've seen "good" things, but never A good. Elgaisma: This is true, what I've seen of your characters is quite good. However, you also don't take a good and evil stance, whether you believe that you do or not. A gay character is considered by many, evil. Is he?
Me thinks I will start new thread rather than continue to hijack Mallory's - I think the discussion of good and evil is important in fantasy as it is one of the cliche attacks - the idea that a character is very good or very evil.
No one said you limit them to that. You view on the use of the word "evil" is your opinion, and not one that corresponds to general usage of the word. You are welcome to your viewpoint, but the clear fact is that the word is used as a noun and adjective in the English language.
Goldhawk is of the view that if you don't do things his/her way, you're doing it wrong. A common, narrow-minded conceit unfortunately.
And it used wrongly. At one time, religious leaders (and not just christians) said the sun goes around the earth and the earth is flat. Did just saying something make it true? If you limit your characters to doing evil things because they are evil, then they are shallow characters. Consider for example, Darth Vader. He does things that work against his stated goals. He does these things because he is "evil". But the real reason he is doing these things is because the writer needs him to oppose Luke. If you think of evil as a thing, then most of your bad guys are going to end up doing things for your sake, not because it furthers their goals. You end up creating shallow, melodramatic characters. You can't afford the luxury of thinking of evil as a thing.
Both of these statements merely reflect your own subjective opinion. The viewpoints you espouse are no more necessary to good writing than are the opposing views.
Sit back and watch the flames. I should have brought marshmallows. seriously though, I'm completely with Goldhawk on this one. Black and white, good and evil conflicts are not always (only mostly) painful to read, but they are always narrow-minded and unrealistic.
I agree with you in the "real" world, our world, but in fiction evil can be a noun. It can even be a proper noun like, Evil, if it manifests in a being.
At the same time, Goldhawk's viewpoints in this thread are extremely narrow-minded, so if you're completely with him...
My main antagonist is actually called Lord of Evil/Great Skua - thinking of renaming The Evil One rather than Lord of Evil. As at least twice the Lord of Evil is female. My treachorous sea is called the De'il Sea - old Scots for Devil. It demands sacrifice to balance the universe.
What's Been Done: I got a tip from reading Moorcock's site about being creative. He writes most fantasy novels and he said that he never reads them and almost never has. With that said he coined the terms "Order", "Chaos", and "Multiverse" which I now see some scientists talking about. He also described a "black hole" before anyone else. According to him, he invents as he writes and just makes stuff up as he goes. That taught me not to worry about how good D&D, etc is but just sit back and let the creative energy flow. Thinking about someone else's work tempts you to lift ideas, or may create anxiety that stops you from creating because you aren't as good as so and so.
Narrow-minded? For saying that people are difficult (nigh impossible) to classify? For saying that people are neither good nor evil? I knew I'd stop agreeing with you eventually...
No not for saying that. Goldhawk took two positions: 1. An extremely limit viewpoint of a gaming alignment mechanic (for lack of a better word). Based on ignorance of the game, it seems to me. But nevertheless a very narrow-minded viewpoint of the game generally that led him to dismiss another poster's comments out of hand; and 2. On the word evil being a noun or adjective, Goldhawk took yet another narrow-minded viewpoint, which is that only his view is the correct one. The more open-minded view is that the word can be both because of the fact that there are plenty of people (perhaps even a majority of them) who do believe in the existence of evil as a thing. As an absolute of sorts. Whether you agree with that view or not it is narrow-minded to think English grammar should reflect only your own viewpoint. At any rate - the tit for tat is fun regardless
I like! On a humorous note, I used to think such names were silly, but then a couple years ago I was reading an article about this Russian mountain. People kept disappearing there, coming back sick, and so on. It was hypothesized that something radioactive is there on top of the heinous conditions. Anyway, the mountain was named someing Russian and I looked it up, the name meant: The Mountains of Death! If I saw that in a novel I'd be like, "Oh COME ON!" and think it cliched. But, as someone pointed out previously, many European languages have very simple naming systems. My wife speaks, French, Italian, and Slovak so she's always translating what sounds to me like exotic names, but really they're very mundane. For instance, pizza means "pluck" as in plucking it out of the oven. In English saying "gauche" is rather pretentious, but it just means "left" and there's a million like that. Because we speak English we have all of these great exotic words added to our language, but if we spoke French which I believe does not allow additional words, we would have simple and direct names that were part of our language and we'd have the mountains of death and Mr. Evil running around.
Hmm... And look what you've just done Goldhawk. As to the game, I couldn't care less, but I know several of the type, and although chaotic rarely means evil, often "chaotic evil" is the worst end of the spectrum in a moral sense. Anyway, I believe evil can be a noun in the sense of an idea being a noun. However, as to a "thing", not so much.
By a traditional judeo-christian viewpoint, chaotic evil probably would be on the worst end of the spectrum. But you don't have to adopt that view, or play with characters that are on the extremes of the spectrum. Most of the characters end up being somewhere in the middle, sometimes doing things that many might consider bad, often doing things people would be considered good, often conflicted. At least, if you have a good group of players. So it's a good idea to graph out a fairly expansive continuum in more than two dimensions and track the characters against that. Anyway, enough of the gaming, unless we're going to start another new thread I don't view evil as a thing, either. People do, however. A lot of people. There's no reason to say English grammar has to be restricted so as to preclude them from using the word in that way. I'll wager it has been used in that way for as long as there has been English.
