SPOILERS Disturbing Trend in UA and Snuff: **Major Spoilers**
- Thread starter windscion
- Start date
A
Agreed, Tony. Didn't perhaps pick the best scene there. Though, in any case it would have been nice of the text to allow us to use our imagination freely instead of, well, basically telling us what to think about the characters.
It's similar with the orc (i still hate him, but i'll try to be objective here):
Whenever he does something we get descriptions of how impressed everyone is by it. Everyone, (except the evil villain(s) of course) from Juliet and the bledlows up to Ponder and Vetinari How people are left speechless, how they are moved to tears and so on.
Where the story uses lists of clichés to paint Andy evil it uses lists of clichés to paint the orc positive and invoke pity in the reader.
Opinions vary of course, but I felt as if the story tried to give me a pre-made opinion.
By the way: Did H8 accept my offer of truce/peace? I put him onto ignore and the -display this post- doesn't work for me anymore. (must be my browser)
EDIT: On a further note on 'leaving things to the reader's imagination':
Something I always loved about Discworld was that Sir Terry left those things to imagination, that needed no explicit explanation, but explained those things that differed greatly from a realLife concept of the same name. In Snuff it's mostly back to that, but in UA it was rather in reverse, especially when it came to, well, toilet humour. Taste differ of course, but personally I would have prefered to see more of Andy living up to his reputation or even the training coming into actual effect or a little more explanation on how the game rules, old and new, differ from those in realf life, INSTEAD of the text talking about arses, soiled or burning underwear, digestion, people taking a piss etc.
It's similar with the orc (i still hate him, but i'll try to be objective here):
Whenever he does something we get descriptions of how impressed everyone is by it. Everyone, (except the evil villain(s) of course) from Juliet and the bledlows up to Ponder and Vetinari How people are left speechless, how they are moved to tears and so on.
Where the story uses lists of clichés to paint Andy evil it uses lists of clichés to paint the orc positive and invoke pity in the reader.
Opinions vary of course, but I felt as if the story tried to give me a pre-made opinion.
By the way: Did H8 accept my offer of truce/peace? I put him onto ignore and the -display this post- doesn't work for me anymore. (must be my browser)
EDIT: On a further note on 'leaving things to the reader's imagination':
Something I always loved about Discworld was that Sir Terry left those things to imagination, that needed no explicit explanation, but explained those things that differed greatly from a realLife concept of the same name. In Snuff it's mostly back to that, but in UA it was rather in reverse, especially when it came to, well, toilet humour. Taste differ of course, but personally I would have prefered to see more of Andy living up to his reputation or even the training coming into actual effect or a little more explanation on how the game rules, old and new, differ from those in realf life, INSTEAD of the text talking about arses, soiled or burning underwear, digestion, people taking a piss etc.
A
On a final note:
I came to the conclusion when I scratch the orc (I still can't type his name, sorry) from the story I actually like it. When he's gone (and you adjust some of the things that annoyed me which were caused by him) what's left is a decent (not the best, but without said character not the worst) story with a few minor, but excusable stumble bits
I came to the conclusion when I scratch the orc (I still can't type his name, sorry) from the story I actually like it. When he's gone (and you adjust some of the things that annoyed me which were caused by him) what's left is a decent (not the best, but without said character not the worst) story with a few minor, but excusable stumble bits
A
As someone bugged me to answer high eight:
Ponder would be the trainer and the game would unlikely look any different, except for a random character to replace the librarian in the goal, but as said, it needs only a few very, very small adjustments.
And who exactly is redeemed in the story that it is that important to you that you list it as a possible contra?
Ponder would be the trainer and the game would unlikely look any different, except for a random character to replace the librarian in the goal, but as said, it needs only a few very, very small adjustments.
And who exactly is redeemed in the story that it is that important to you that you list it as a possible contra?
A
high eight, I can only ask this of you:
If you truly believe, that Sir Terry is the first person in the history of fantasy fiction to go and try to redeem the race of orcs from the clichés people have of them, please, go and play the Warcraft RealTimeStrategy Games and, even if you might think the books that go with the series 'fanfiction', read them too.
Warcraft is only one example of people going and cast a new light on orcs. Maybe it is even the most popular example.
If you don't like RTS-Games, perhaps the book-series 'The Orcs' by Stan Nicholls is something more of your taste.
If you truly believe, that Sir Terry is the first person in the history of fantasy fiction to go and try to redeem the race of orcs from the clichés people have of them, please, go and play the Warcraft RealTimeStrategy Games and, even if you might think the books that go with the series 'fanfiction', read them too.
Warcraft is only one example of people going and cast a new light on orcs. Maybe it is even the most popular example.
If you don't like RTS-Games, perhaps the book-series 'The Orcs' by Stan Nicholls is something more of your taste.
Terry has said that as soon as he saw Stephen Briggs play Vetinari on stage, Vetinari had a beard because Stephen Briggs has one. I believe it is the same with the dark hair. Stephen was playing Vetinari long before Kidby began illlustrating Discworld.
Terry has said that he always imagines Vimes looking like a younger Pete Postlethwaite, despite how many other people (including Kidby) visualize Vimes as a Dirty Harry type. Neither of the descriptions, Vetinari nor Vimes, is in the books but I believe Terry's statements.
Terry has said that he always imagines Vimes looking like a younger Pete Postlethwaite, despite how many other people (including Kidby) visualize Vimes as a Dirty Harry type. Neither of the descriptions, Vetinari nor Vimes, is in the books but I believe Terry's statements.
