SPOILERS Disturbing Trend in UA and Snuff: **Major Spoilers**

[stripy_tie]

It remains a bit odd to see Sir Terry mention he has no thing for football, game or otherwise, in interviews (need to look up the exact quote) and yet have a book with just that topic (at leats in the frame works) come out in time for the worldcup (and it's movie version scheduled straight away for this year, in time for the european cup).
Many defend the book by saying 'it is not about football' to which I can only say, if it were truly just for how fans can be, why not pick a different sport, make up a new one or move from the topic of sports entirely.

On a further note, please, before anyone goes to say
-the orc is not a sue cause he hates himself/has low selfesteem/etc and that's totally a flaw-
If the self-hate, self-doubt, etc would actually hinder him to do anything and it would take a lot, and I mean a lot, to overcome it if only particular, then it could be counted as flaw.
But as it is it is a fake-flaw, something usually only bad authors put into a story to have something to point at and say -my character ain't no sue, he has this big flaw, see?-

If there is one thing the orc achieves then it is to be a character like every good author should avoid writing it.

Isn't he allowed to explore subjects outside of his comfort zone? i thought that was how writers got good in the first place, by pushing past the limits of their knowledge.

As for the book coming out in time for the world cup from a quick google search it says UA came out a full 8 months before the official start of the world cup.

Otherwise I have no opinion on Nutt. I found him a little irritating, he left almost no impression on me.

 

[Tonyblack]

I think she used to be a human some centuries ago, until some vampire bite her. And she did not forget it.
But there's also a fact that Nutt is a Black Hole Sue http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlackHoleSue and the whole story is bent to his will and needs.

Thank you, finally someone who does agree
(Why yes, I did come back to say this. Okay, actually I did come back for a different topic, but step by step)
The whole bit about M not killing the orc, left alone anyone sparing him, has little to nothing to do with her once having been human, but is rather another bit of the orc's sueishness.
I said it before and I say it again, there's so much Sue when it comes to the orc that I can't really believe Sir Terry is serious about the orc and did not write him that bad on purpose (possible as some subtle FU towards his publisher for demanding a book on football in time for the worldcup despite him not liking the sport)

You really do talk rubbish, don't you?


I was at an event in 2005 when Terry mentioned that he was working on an idea for a book about football - or rather with football as a theme. Do you really believe that Transworld would "demand" a book about football or any other subject for that matter from Terry? And that if they did that Terry would write it?

I'm not going to bother going through all this again with you as I and lots of other people here have put our points of view across and you just ignore them.

You are entitled to post your views of course - but we don't have to read them no matter how many times you repeat yourself.

Change the record! :hand:

 

[Anonymous]

I think she used to be a human some centuries ago, until some vampire bite her. And she did not forget it.
But there's also a fact that Nutt is a Black Hole Sue http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlackHoleSue and the whole story is bent to his will and needs.

Thank you, finally someone who does agree
(Why yes, I did come back to say this. Okay, actually I did come back for a different topic, but step by step)
The whole bit about M not killing the orc, left alone anyone sparing him, has little to nothing to do with her once having been human, but is rather another bit of the orc's sueishness.
I said it before and I say it again, there's so much Sue when it comes to the orc that I can't really believe Sir Terry is serious about the orc and did not write him that bad on purpose (possible as some subtle FU towards his publisher for demanding a book on football in time for the worldcup despite him not liking the sport)

You really do talk rubbish, don't you?
[...]

You are entitled to post your views of course - but we don't have to read them no matter how many times you repeat yourself.

Change the record! :hand:

Would be a lot easier if you people wouldn't have treatened me like a retarded, immature child just for saying I don't like the book from the very first moment on.
Shouldn't have come back after all.

 

[DaveC]

I'd never even heard of a Sue before this discussion, a character is how the author wrote them.

 

[Dotsie]

Would be a lot easier if you people wouldn't have treatened me like a retarded, immature child just for saying I don't like the book from the very first moment on.
Shouldn't have come back after all.

LilMaibe, if you were just saying you don't like the book, that wouldn't be a problem. And to use the word "retarded" is to behave like a child. Just accept that you don't like UU, and move on with your life - you'll feel happier.

Did you come back just to offend people all over again?

 

[stripy_tie]

Would be a lot easier if you people wouldn't have treatened me like a retarded, immature child just for saying I don't like the book from the very first moment on.
Shouldn't have come back after all.

LilMaibe, if you were just saying you don't like the book, that wouldn't be a problem. And to use the word "retarded" is to behave like a child. Just accept that you don't like UU, and move on with your life - you'll feel happier.

Did you come back just to offend people all over again?

I agree with Dotsie, everyone knows you don't like UA and your reasons for it so why do you continue making the same arguments again and again?

Nobody treated you like a "retarded child" (a word choice I find more than a little repulsive) they treated you like a person who was pissing them off. You don't listen to reason and you refuse to take anyone's arguments into account regardless of how much sense they make.

I can't speak for anyone else but personally I'm quite happy to bury the hatchet and get along.

 

[Anonymous]

Would be a lot easier if you people wouldn't have treatened me like a retarded, immature child just for saying I don't like the book from the very first moment on.
Shouldn't have come back after all.

LilMaibe, if you were just saying you don't like the book, that wouldn't be a problem. And to use the word "retarded" is to behave like a child. Just accept that you don't like UU, and move on with your life - you'll feel happier.

Did you come back just to offend people all over again?

Naw, I actually came back for the crossstitching thread, which I can't find for the sake of me (Help somehow isn't working)

And it would be easier for me to let go if I wouldn't constantly get the feeling people DO think me stupid or worse for not liking the book (and simply for that, not for anything else that came with it later)

 

[David Brown]

Naw, I actually came back for the crossstitching thread, which I can't find for the sake of me (Help somehow isn't working)

And it would be easier for me to let go if I wouldn't constantly get the feeling people DO think me stupid or worse for not liking the book (and simply for that, not for anything else that came with it later)

I'm sure no-one thinks you're stupid just because you don't like the book. That you have advanced some fairly odd reasons for not liking it might possibly have influenced people more in that direction. Mind you, they're really no odder than some of the other stuff I've read in this thread, but that's neither here nor there.

My advice, for what it's worth, is to stop justifying yourself, but simply accept that we don't all like the same things, and more importantly, don't take things so personally. It might also help if you accept that where there is a cultural difference of understanding of something that Pratchett has written, those of us who come from his culture, that of the UK in general and England in particular, might perhaps have a better idea of his intentions than someone not from there.

I hope we continue to see you, as I'm sure you have a lot to offer.

To think I joined this forum in the belief that Pratchett readers would be more thoughtful and civilised than the argumentative telly-watchers over on certain Doctor Who boards...

 

[Anonymous]

Well, all I can do is try.
But can I ask for people to accept that I don't like the book for mainly the reason that it doesn't read like Discworld to me? A feeling that is the sum of all the things in the book that shouldn't be there seeing whose name is on the cover.
Can I ask for that?

 

[stripy_tie]

Well, all I can do is try.
But can I ask for people to accept that I don't like the book for mainly the reason that it doesn't read like Discworld to me? A feeling that is the sum of all the things in the book that shouldn't be there seeing whose name is on the cover.
Can I ask for that?

Does anyone actually have a problem with you not liking the book? some of your reasoning seems a bit faulty but it's the incessant harping on about it that seems to be the main reason.

Can't we all just move on? why do you have to keep dragging us back to the same tired old issues? Quite frankly it's boring.

 

[David Brown]

Well, all I can do is try.
But can I ask for people to accept that I don't like the book for mainly the reason that it doesn't read like Discworld to me? A feeling that is the sum of all the things in the book that shouldn't be there seeing whose name is on the cover.
Can I ask for that?

I think we can probably all manage that.

Can't we all just move on?

Now, let's do that.

 

[high eight]

Many defend the book by saying 'it is not about football' to which I can only say, if it were truly just for how fans can be, why not pick a different sport,

Like what? Baseball? Totally unknown outside the USA and Japan. American football? Somewhat despised outside the USA (in Britain at least) and I doubt if Terry knows much about either. The only other option would be cricket and that wouldn't go down very well outside the cricket-playing countries, would it?

make up a new one

Why bother to go to all the trouble of inventing a whole new sport with rules and everything? Terry would need to be as obsessive/compulsive as Tolkien.

or move from the topic of sports entirely.

Into what? Dog shows? Horse racing? Monopoly? :doh:

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

I hope this is not going to develop into a SSDD scenario again it was boring enough the last time. :naughty:

 

[David Brown]

I don't know what "a SSDD scenario" is, and from the way you mention it, I think I don't want to.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, H8, since you ask:
It could be virtually everything.
Just something a number of people can obsess over.
And as there is little to no actual footballplaying going on in the book and the rules are a jumbled mess of various incarnations of the game throughtout time, why should it matter if it weren't football but just a random made-up game.
It is the framing for the fan-scene-substory, so 'inventing' a new sport would/could have likely been easier all together. It wouldn't even, as said, have needed to be a sport.
Just something a number people can obsess over.

 

[high eight]

Well, H8, since you ask:
It could be virtually everything.
Just something a number of people can obsess over.
And as there is little to no actual footballplaying going on in the book and the rules are a jumbled mess of various incarnations of the game throughtout time, why should it matter if it weren't football but just a random made-up game.
It is the framing for the fan-scene-substory, so 'inventing' a new sport would/could have likely been easier all together. It wouldn't even, as said, have needed to be a sport.
Just something a number people can obsess over.

Association football is the most popular game in Europe, Latin and South America and Africa. Any other game wouldn't have the impact.

And the rules of the match as played at the end of the book are pretty much the modern FIFA rules.

 

[David Brown]

This is meant as a rhetorical question, so please don't feel you actually have to answer it.

When football is such a convenient illustration of the tribal mentality, and it has taken so many different forms over the years, why should Pratchett pick a different sport, or make a new one up? As for an amalgam of several games, it might be justifiably said that that is exactly what he has given us, only instead of being made up from various games played now, it's a conglomeration of many types of football, all played in separate times, and even places. After all, Association Football, in it's earliest form, came about because you had to have one set of rules that everyone knew, not have one team playing to one set, the other to a second, and the referee trying to enforce a third.

 

[Anonymous]

H8, please go to the fifa page and read the rules.
If what was used in the book would have been anywhere near the fifa rules, even if we leave out the stuff the orc (of course him, who else could ever have any new idea) comes up with after the match, then
-Andy would have been sent off the field after he tackled Macarona (he admitted doing so, if a player actually does that it doesn't matter whether or not the referee saw it). (Why was tackling allowed in the first play in the book? Well, it goes with the rest of the world's perception of England not having yet gotten it into their heads they aren't playing rugby)
-If Andy, with his big boots would have been allowed in the game to begin with.
-There would have been the kick-off (term?) from the keeper after a goal, not having the team who scored get the ball.
-One of the goals would have clearly been off-side (the one where it's said that Macarona was the only one near the other team's goal, aside from the keeper)
-There would have been a clear definition of what a ball has to look like and not that very-plot-convenient-thingy.

In short: If the rules would have been anywhere near the Fifa rules, there would have been no game.

 

[high eight]

H8, please go to the fifa page and read the rules.
If what was used in the book would have been anywhere near the fifa rules, even if we leave out the stuff the orc (of course him, who else could ever have any new idea) comes up with after the match, then
-Andy would have been sent off the field after he tackled Macarona (he admitted doing so, if a player actually does that it doesn't matter whether or not the referee saw it). (Why was tackling allowed in the first play in the book? Well, it goes with the rest of the world's perception of England not having yet gotten it into their heads they aren't playing rugby)
-If Andy, with his big boots would have been allowed in the game to begin with.
-There would have been the kick-off (term?) from the keeper after a goal, not having the team who scored get the ball.
-One of the goals would have clearly been off-side (the one where it's said that Macarona was the only one near the other team's goal, aside from the keeper)
-There would have been a clear definition of what a ball has to look like and not that very-plot-convenient-thingy.

In short: If the rules would have been anywhere near the Fifa rules, there would have been no game.

I did say 'pretty much' and could have (But didn't, thinking it obvious) added 'except for vagaries as required by the plot' - Don't be so damned pedantic.

 

[high eight]

oh, and I am now leaving this thread. Again. I don't want to get involved in pointless argument. Again.