Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
I have seen the terms soft/hard magic system in TTRPG game design circles. But I mean... that crew is going to be people who swim in the same ponds as the Sanderson writers groups.
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
Lance845 wrote: I have seen the terms soft/hard magic system in TTRPG game design circles. But I mean... that crew is going to be people who swim in the same ponds as the Sanderson writers groups.
It probably helps that magic system design has a very long history in TTRPG circles and by its nature it needs rules of some kind to work on a table. Sanderson also doesn't see a big difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy in practice, and he's not really wrong. Fantasy looks to past norms, structures, and ideals as a way of commenting on the past and the present in the same vein scifi looks to future technology, cultural dynamics, and ideals as a way of commenting on the present and the future. Two sides of the same coin that use a lot of the same tools. From there it's an easy leap to talk about hard/soft magic in a similar vein to hard/soft scifi.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/06/19 02:04:27
What stuff is happening that doesn't fit the story being told today? What is not visually impressive?
The entire horror-movie-stalker scene that ends with obi-wan being dragged through fire to no lasting effect. No idea why that happened (beyond contradicting the New Hope implication that 'Vader is now the master' and will now win their duel, having never done that before), ...
I mean, they just spent an entire episode explaining how the 'When last we met...' speech fits in, with flashbacks and everything. It wasn't just about who was better with a lightsaber.
And Obi-wan being dragged through the fire did leave a lasting effect. That, along with Vader's treatment of civilians while he was trying to lure Obi-wan out into the open is setting up Obi-wan's belief that Vader is a monster who is completely beyond redemption.
What stuff is happening that doesn't fit the story being told today? What is not visually impressive?
The entire horror-movie-stalker scene that ends with obi-wan being dragged through fire to no lasting effect. No idea why that happened (beyond contradicting the New Hope implication that 'Vader is now the master' and will now win their duel, having never done that before), ...
I mean, they just spent an entire episode explaining how the 'When last we met...' speech fits in, with flashbacks and everything. It wasn't just about who was better with a lightsaber.
And Obi-wan being dragged through the fire did leave a lasting effect. That, along with Vader's treatment of civilians while he was trying to lure Obi-wan out into the open is setting up Obi-wan's belief that Vader is a monster who is completely beyond redemption.
You know, for someone who says SW basically is low-tier fiction and that people should stop having expectations, you're doing an awful lot of damage control for a mediocre show. You criticize me for having standards but you go out of your way to defend inconsistencies for something you yourself already say is based around inconsistency? No need to validate your enjoyment of a show by trying to justify bad writing/directing.
LordofHats wrote: All I know about episode 5 of Obi-Wan is that I totally called Reva's motivations at episode 1 of the show.
I think we all could kind of see that Reva, a completely new Inquisitor that is never mentioned in later shows, was going to have some garbage attempt of being a traitor to the Empire and people connected her to being one of the younglings in the flashback. They've done this bait and switch in the main story for the latest BF2 game, and Disney has prided itself on creating "misunderstood" female villains as their hallmark already with the live-action Cruella and Maleficent characters, as well as Wanda in MoM, so I'm not surprised at Reva pulling a very badly done heel turn at the end here.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/06/19 03:47:41
I don't think there's anything particularly misunderstood about her but that's beside the point.
For a bit after episode 4 I thought they were gonna go another way, but episode 5 gave me all the marbles when she ended up doing everything she did for the reasons I guessed she was doing them! And that admittedly took a bit of guess work and I didn't see anyone else predicting it so Ima take credit XD
What stuff is happening that doesn't fit the story being told today? What is not visually impressive?
The entire horror-movie-stalker scene that ends with obi-wan being dragged through fire to no lasting effect. No idea why that happened (beyond contradicting the New Hope implication that 'Vader is now the master' and will now win their duel, having never done that before), ...
I mean, they just spent an entire episode explaining how the 'When last we met...' speech fits in, with flashbacks and everything. It wasn't just about who was better with a lightsaber.
Uh... that face-off was never about lightsabers at all. Did... did you need context for that?
Kenobi walked into that 'fight' knowing he wasn't walking out again. Vader had no clue what was going on, and was completely distracted from what actually mattered in the moment.
And Obi-wan being dragged through the fire did leave a lasting effect.
No, it didn't. He was jogging back and forth between the door that needed to be poked with a lightsaber and the hangar multiple times. He was fine.
That, along with Vader's treatment of civilians while he was trying to lure Obi-wan out into the open is setting up Obi-wan's belief that Vader is a monster who is completely beyond redemption.
He got that message pretty well when he watched the video of 'Annie' murdering children. And killing his wife. And ultimately training his friend's son as a patricide. (and he would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those pesky questions)
In the moment he had followed up on that 'completely beyond redemption' when he took three limbs off. He just, like everybody else in this show, needed to make sure the body was a corpse.
The random murder walk was self-indulgent wankery. (on the part of the writers).
So 'soft magic' = any amount of bad writing and donkey-pulls around magic is fine. Gotcha.
Maybe a bit unnecessarily hostile.
Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Warhammer 40k would all probably fall under the soft side of the scale. None of them have particularly explicit rules for how 'magic' works. It's just a thing that happens. I wouldn't say it = bad writing. Mostly it'll only get bad if the audience decides to be really nitpicky, or the writers start bending credulity too hard because the setting they built wasn't built for what they're doing.
No, see, it isn't. It isn't unnecessarily hostile or nitpicking too hard.
We're at the penultimate episode of a series, and the heroes are barely getting away from the over powered villain in a climatic sequence.
And the answer to 'how did the manage to do that?' isn't drama, confrontation, excitement, suspense, or any of those things that would, you know, create an interesting story.
Instead, the opinion ventured is 'Oh, the main character just prayed it away off camera, because magic.'
Its really obvious that's a terrible answer, (and obviously not the in-universe answer. as force contests elsewhere in this setting tend to be intense, sweating, focused applications of willpower, even when they aren't showy), and if it was it would make for equally terrible storytelling.
This is (at least, it is supposed to be) a character drama. Popping out of scene for a private magic show where no one is watching doesn't and can't further anything the show is trying to accomplish.
So, yeah, 'soft magic' as an explanation is utter trash.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/06/19 04:13:05
Voss wrote: And the answer to 'how did the manage to do that?' isn't drama, confrontation, excitement, suspense, or any of those things that would, you know, create an interesting story.
Should finish reading my post cause that's what I'm pointing at.
Episode 5 jumped the shark for me in a lot of ways. Lots of stuff happens solely because the plot seems to require it and characters don't do obvious things. Even the directors didn't do obvious things and at least 1 of them is extremely bizarre to me.
Spoiler:
Why weren't Tie fighters deployed to patrol the sky? IDK. Why did the Stormtroopers forget about the super big gun they had when the fight actually started? IDK. Most bizarrely, they left Reva to live? Really? I mean, I know why she's gotta find the holo thingie and go after Luke for some big climatic fight at the end, but really? There's a lot of ways to get from A to B but in episode five the route chosen is consistently lazy and 'because the narrative needs it.' I remember seeing something somewhere about how Obi Wan was originally a movie and boy does episode 5 seem like the ending of a film that then had all the 'ending' parts cut out to justify 1 more episode for a TV series.
Grimskul wrote: You know, for someone who says SW basically is low-tier fiction and that people should stop having expectations,you're doing an awful lot of damage control for a mediocre show. You criticize me for having standards but you go out of your way to defend inconsistencies for something you yourself already say is based around inconsistency? No need to validate your enjoyment of a show by trying to justify bad writing/directing.
I think you're overestimating how much effort I'm putting into this discussion. I'm not 'going out of my way' for anything... I'm pointing out where I disagree with something.
The disconnect comes from the fact that you see the show as something bad that requires enjoyment to be justified, whereas I'm seeing the show as something that I enjoy that people seem to have completely missed the point of.
Voss wrote: Uh... that face-off was never about lightsabers at all. Did... did you need context for that?
Need it? No, not really. This entire series wasn't actually necessary.
No, it didn't. He was jogging back and forth between the door that needed to be poked with a lightsaber and the hangar multiple times. He was fine.
I think you missed what I actually wrote. I didn't say it had lasting physical effects. Most injuries in Star Wars don't.
Most bizarrely, they left Reva to live? Really? I mean, I know why she's gotta find the holo thingie and go after Luke for some big climatic fight at the end, but really?
I... don't think that's where this is going.
I mean, it could, but that would be weird and (even more) disappointing and she really has no reason to care about any of that.
Granted I don't know where episode 6 is going, because I think they've honestly spent all of their grand climatic confrontations (on basically nothing), but if I were to guess,
Spoiler:
she's going to slink out of this story and pop up as some sort of recurring, obsessed rebel agent that spends the next in-universe decade accomplishing not all that much.
There doesn't seem any use in spending screen time on watching her fail to kill someone again, and none of her potential targets are killable, even though two would be real easy for a trained darksider.
Honestly I'm expecting 40 minutes of various people going to the places they belong.
Most bizarrely, they left Reva to live? Really? I mean, I know why she's gotta find the holo thingie and go after Luke for some big climatic fight at the end, but really?
I... don't think that's where this is going.
I mean, it could, but that would be weird and (even more) disappointing and she really has no reason to care about any of that.
Granted I don't know where episode 6 is going, because I think they've honestly spent all of their grand climatic confrontations (on basically nothing), but if I were to guess,
Spoiler:
she's going to slink out of this story and pop up as some sort of recurring, obsessed rebel agent that spends the next in-universe decade accomplishing not all that much.
There doesn't seem any use in spending screen time on watching her fail to kill someone again, and none of her potential targets are killable, even though two would be real easy for a trained darksider.
Honestly I'm expecting 40 minutes of various people going to the places they belong.
The leaks of the original plotline for Kenobi have been pretty on point, so that's why I think a lot of people are thinking she's going to visit Luke and she's going to have a potential showdown with Kenobi before having a change of heart for some reason and leaving Luke alone to go off into the sunset looking for protection from Disney from the dismal job that was done with her character.
I think you missed what I actually wrote. I didn't say it had lasting physical effects. Most injuries in Star Wars don't.
Its pretty obvious I didn't from the next paragraph. But of the lessons he didn't need, some light fire non-damage was the very, very least important (as he's sorta sometimes the kind of person who cares when bad people hurt other people, but rarely himself).
Grimskul wrote: You know, for someone who says SW basically is low-tier fiction and that people should stop having expectations,you're doing an awful lot of damage control for a mediocre show. You criticize me for having standards but you go out of your way to defend inconsistencies for something you yourself already say is based around inconsistency? No need to validate your enjoyment of a show by trying to justify bad writing/directing.
I think you're overestimating how much effort I'm putting into this discussion. I'm not 'going out of my way' for anything... I'm pointing out where I disagree with something.
The disconnect comes from the fact that you see the show as something bad that requires enjoyment to be justified, whereas I'm seeing the show as something that I enjoy that people seem to have completely missed the point of.
I guess, usually apathy or indifference towards something doesn't normally garner this much of a response or engagement but I'm not you, so who knows. Also, is it weird for someone to expect some type of enjoyment from something that is literally made for entertainment, even if it's in the "so bad it's good" form?
I think you missed what I actually wrote. I didn't say it had lasting physical effects. Most injuries in Star Wars don't.
Its pretty obvious I didn't from the next paragraph. But of the lessons he didn't need, some light fire non-damage was the very, very least important (as he's sorta sometimes the kind of person who cares when bad people hurt other people, but rarely himself).
The only lesson I learned is that Disney needs to partner with some spas with SW Bacta branding with how much they've been pushing it recently with BoB and with Kenobi.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/06/19 04:48:55
Reva's shaping up to be a pretty sad waste of a character concept at the end of the day.
Spoiler:
Darth Maul already pulled this stunt (no seriously) in Rebels and better because Rebels was better written and Maul had a more dramatic history with Vader and Kenobi.
If she was supposed to be a character of consequence, the directors and the writers did her about as dirty as they did Christensen in the prequel trilogy. Plot points that feel like they should have been focused on her character ultimately weren't. They substituted bizarrely overdone action sequences for actual character development, then hinged a huge part of the plot on the character they half-assed developing.
And it's just a shame. Just going by her ability to play a very pissed woman who is constantly angry and scheming, Ingram seemed to be who they needed to play the character Reva is supposed to be. Reva just ultimately isn't that character.
So yeah. Hayden Christensen 2.0. Maybe she'll get another shot in 15 years like he did only to show up in one flashback that was itself sort of poorly utilized XD
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2022/06/19 04:58:33
I guess, usually apathy or indifference towards something doesn't normally garner this much of a response or engagement but I'm not you, so who knows
I'm not sure where you got the idea I'm apathetic or indifferent here. I grew up with Star Wars. As a teenager I could quote ESB word for word. I've read most of the EU novels multiple times, and regularly rewatch the movies. It is, and always has been, my favorite sci fi franchise.
But a big part of the reason I enjoy it so much is that I don't expect it to be something it isn't.
. Also, is it weird for someone to expect some type of enjoyment from something that is literally made for entertainment, even if it's in the "so bad it's good" form?
No, that's not weird at all. But, you know... Why keep watching something you're not enjoying?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/06/19 05:02:16
LordofHats wrote: Reva's shaping up to be a pretty sad waste of a character concept at the end of the day.
Spoiler:
Darth Maul already pulled this stunt (no seriously) in Rebels and better because Rebels was better written and Maul had a more dramatic history with Vader and Kenobi.
If she was supposed to be a character of consequence, the directors and the writers did her about as dirty as they did Christensen in the prequel trilogy. Plot points that feel like they should have been focused on her character ultimately weren't. They substituted bizarrely overdone action sequences for actual character development, then hinged a huge part of the plot on the character they half-assed developing.
And it's just a shame. Just going by her ability to play a very pissed woman who is constantly angry and scheming, Ingram seemed to be who they needed to play the character Reva is supposed to be. Reva just ultimately isn't that character.
So yeah. Hayden Christensen 2.0. Maybe she'll get another shot in 15 years like he did only to show up in one flashback that was itself sort of poorly utilized XD
Unfortunately, IMO they basically pulled a Finn on her, where their concept isn't inherently bad and is promising for a story on its own, but they get shoehorned into a story where they don't bother to spend enough time to develop her character like you said and they have no meaningful interactions with the main cast beyond being obsessed with one thing (Rey and Kenobi/Vader respectively).
Looking between the lines, you can see how Reva's character got sidetracked when Kenobi switched from being a film to being a series. She might have worked a lot better as is in a more compacted narrative, but they dragged things out and left a lot of the cast drifting in the wind without bothering to rewrite things.
I guess, usually apathy or indifference towards something doesn't normally garner this much of a response or engagement but I'm not you, so who knows
I'm not sure where you got the idea I'm apathetic or indifferent here. I grew up with Star Wars. As a teenager I could quote ESB word for word. I've read most of the EU novels multiple times, and regularly rewatch the movies. It is, and always has been, my favorite sci fi franchise.
But a big part of the reason I enjoy it so much is that I don't expect it to be something it isn't.
. Also, is it weird for someone to expect some type of enjoyment from something that is literally made for entertainment, even if it's in the "so bad it's good" form?
No, that's not weird at all. But, you know... Why keep watching something you're not enjoying?
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then, for me if you've experienced basically the best SW has had to offer and now you're offered basically garbage in a SW skinsuit that I would consider it a disservice to the franchise as a whole especially when Disney has gone out of it's way to establish what's canon or not. I've seen a lot of other franchises heading the same way (LoTR with the Amazon series coming up for example) and I feel like passively accepting its fate just incentivizes people to continue sub-par quality work. Also, for what it's worth, I mainly just watch clips summarizing the key points of the series since I'm not paying for something that's this bad.
Looking between the lines, you can see how Reva's character got sidetracked when Kenobi switched from being a film to being a series. She might have worked a lot better as is in a more compacted narrative, but they dragged things out and left a lot of the cast drifting in the wind without bothering to rewrite things.
Exactly, the pacing is definitely off and there just isn't a good sense of tension for Kenobi hiding out from the Empire with her looking for him when she's never really presented as a credible threat outside of her just knowing he exists somewhere.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/06/19 05:14:22
I'd also point out the essay literally describes how he came up with the terminology of hard and soft magic after 2005's Worldcon where no one agreed with his statement that magic should have rules. The literal phrases hard magic and soft magic weren't phrases you'd see used much until Sanderson came along (and I say that only because I can't prove definitively he invented them) and started his side-career in essays and lectures about speculative fiction. He's describing a dynamic that is older than him, but I don't think anyone was really doing that description until he came along and even if they were Sanderson is the one who popularized it.
You can just google it and see.
I can google flat Earth too. We can google anything. I can find fanart of obscure celebrities you've never heard of bouncing down a street on pogo sticks if I want to.
It is still on the "Magic System" Wikipedia, FYI.
It used to have its own article a few years ago (which is what I literally said). I was one of the people trying to save it. There just wasn't sourcing because this idea has not penetrated that far yet (it will eventually maybe, if only because Sanderson is going to inspire writers who will continue to popularize it). As a method for categorizing fantasy, it's just not something you're going to find very far from fan spaces and communities where Sanderson is a site-wide name.
Many of those spaces do have Sanderson fans
Case and point. To coin my own phrase, you're falling for a mirage of notability. How much people know what a soft/hard magic system on the internet is going to be directly proportional to the presence of Sanderson and his works in that space. Sanderson is prolific enough to have deeply penetrated fantasy and writing forums and boards, but step outside that wheelhouse and you're not going to see it get a lot of mileage right now. Even then, I'm in multiple writing discords for webnovels and serial fiction and maybe only a handful of the people in those channels know what this idea is. Most writers are too busy writing to toy with theory the way Sanderson does. Man's a damn writing machine we only see once a generation. The only comparable author living today IMO is Stephen King.
Who cares if they agreed with that statement? Most of them preferred Soft Magic systems, he acknowledges IN THE ESSAY that they weren't the people who liked magic systems with hard rules, like Orson Scott Card. The man whom he got the whole idea from. Also, just because it was IN the first article he wrote describing his First Law, does not mean it is directly extended from that. You even say that the idea existed before him. I knew it existed before I knew about him.
Okay, while googling Flat Earth you can google to see all of the authors and writers that use the terms now. Many people are talking about it and even expanding on the idea that there was sub genres of Soft and Hard magic.
I know you said that, that is why I said it is still on Wikipedia. Sanderson is a site wide name in any writing circles that involve Fiction. So not really sure what point you are trying to make with this.
I am in multiple writing discords as well and almost everyone knows about the idea of soft/hard magic systems.
So 'soft magic' = any amount of bad writing and donkey-pulls around magic is fine. Gotcha.
Maybe a bit unnecessarily hostile.
Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Warhammer 40k would all probably fall under the soft side of the scale. None of them have particularly explicit rules for how 'magic' works. It's just a thing that happens. I wouldn't say it = bad writing. Mostly it'll only get bad if the audience decides to be really nitpicky, or the writers start bending credulity too hard because the setting they built wasn't built for what they're doing.
No, see, it isn't. It isn't unnecessarily hostile or nitpicking too hard.
We're at the penultimate episode of a series, and the heroes are barely getting away from the over powered villain in a climatic sequence.
And the answer to 'how did the manage to do that?' isn't drama, confrontation, excitement, suspense, or any of those things that would, you know, create an interesting story.
Instead, the opinion ventured is 'Oh, the main character just prayed it away off camera, because magic.'
Its really obvious that's a terrible answer, (and obviously not the in-universe answer. as force contests elsewhere in this setting tend to be intense, sweating, focused applications of willpower, even when they aren't showy), and if it was it would make for equally terrible storytelling.
This is (at least, it is supposed to be) a character drama. Popping out of scene for a private magic show where no one is watching doesn't and can't further anything the show is trying to accomplish.
So, yeah, 'soft magic' as an explanation is utter trash.
Yeah, it is a pretty trash take. You are trying to make the show in to something it is not. It is a character drama, about Space Wizards who use The Force to solve their problems. Were you expecting Obi-Wan to convince Vader to just let him go away or something? I don't really understand what you are complaining about this time.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/06/19 06:06:28
Because it points out how Sanderson is talking about the topic in a way others weren't at the time.
You even say that the idea existed before him. I knew it existed before I knew about him.
To be unambiguous, hard scifi and soft scifi existed before either of those terms were coined. That's what I'm getting at. the hard/soft science fiction dynamic didn't appear as terminology until the 1970s, but stuff written before then already existed. Likewise, what we could not call hard/soft magic exited before either of those terms were ever coined. That Sanderson can point back at things written in the 80s and 90s has absolutely to do with how he coined and popularized the idea of the division.
Many people are talking about it and even expanding on the idea that there was sub genres of Soft and Hard magic.
Yes. And? I can find people talking about literally anything. It doesn't mean those topics are widely known or understood outside the people already talking about it.
You can find hundreds of sites where people discuss the optimum strategies for tic tac toe. Does that mean everyone knows what the optimum strategies for tic tac toe are? Or is that a topic really only known to people who frequent websites about tic tac toe?
So not really sure what point you are trying to make with this.
That Sanderson popularized the concept and it's not that widely known outside circles aware of Sanderson. I actually searched DakkaDakka for the phrase and basically all the results are our exchange. On this entire 20+ year old forum, most of the discussion about hard/soft magic ever uttered is you and me right now XD
I actually find that surprising >.> even a search for soft/hard or soft and hard + magic basically returns nothing. I could swear this topic has come up more than that, not that it's all that often. I'm pretty damn sure I've seen 'soft magic' used more than the search feature is telling me.
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2022/06/19 06:43:17
Because it points out how Sanderson is talking about the topic in a way others weren't at the time.
It shows that Sanderson was talking about a topic at a convention and the people on the panel didn't agree. It doesn't show that nobody else was talking about it. I mean, he brings up that Orson Scott Card, a prominent author, was talking about it. That is where he got the whole idea. A single panel at Wondercon in 2005 is not really a great cross section of the community.
To be unambiguous, hard scifi and soft scifi existed before either of those terms were coined. That's what I'm getting at. the hard/soft science fiction dynamic didn't appear as terminology until the 1970s, but stuff written before then already existed. Likewise, what we could not call hard/soft magic exited before either of those terms were ever coined. That Sanderson can point back at things written in the 80s and 90s has absolutely to do with how he coined and popularized the idea of the division.
That doesn't really back up your point. He is pretty much just putting words to concepts that already existed in the literary world.
Yes. And? I can find people talking about literally anything. It doesn't mean those topics are widely known or understood outside the people already talking about it.
You can find hundreds of sites where people discuss the optimum strategies for tic tac toe. Does that mean everyone knows what the optimum strategies for tic tac toe are? Or is that a topic really only known to people who frequent websites about tic tac toe?
Okay. And? You saying that does not refute that this point is being discussed in literary circles amongst authors. Where the entire argument began, you said it wasn't widespread within the genre. It is. There is proof. People that are new to the genre might not know about/understand the concept. But almost anybody that has been writing/reading for a while can tell you the difference.
That Sanderson popularized the concept and it's not that widely known outside circles aware of Sanderson. I actually searched DakkaDakka for the phrase and basically all the results are our exchange. On this entire 20+ year old forum, most of the discussion about hard/soft magic ever uttered is you and me right now XD
I actually find that surprising >.> even a search for soft/hard or soft and hard + magic basically returns nothing. I could swear this topic has come up more than that, not that it's all that often. I'm pretty damn sure I've seen 'soft magic' used more than the search feature is telling me.
Which is kind of crazy because we have had topics discussing Brandon Sanderson before. It is kinda odd it hasn't popped up if it only pops up in circles involving him.
Dreadwinter wrote: It doesn't show that nobody else was talking about it.
He brings up Card in a specific context and does not ascribe the terms hard magic or soft magic too card. He literally ascribes those phrases to himself.
He is pretty much just putting words to concepts that already existed in the literary world.
That's literally my point.
I've said this entire time Sanderson coined/popularized these terms. If he is putting a word to a concept that already existed, that's what coining means.
Where the entire argument began, you said it wasn't widespread within the genre.
It's not but I concede I can't really prove that. Both of us only have anecdotal or unconvincing reasons behind opposing claims. The best I can do is point out that the wikipedia article on the topic was deleted for lack of sources and that you won't find this phrase in many interviews with writers or scholarly articles on fantasy literature but that too I think is ultimately a weak basis.
Ultimately we're both mostly falling back on anecdotal experience there. I know lots of writers where this isn't a topic people discuss much, but that's mostly limited to Royal Road writers and Royal Road uses a lot of LitRPG and Wuxia concepts rather than anything relating to Sanderson.
Which is kind of crazy because we have had topics discussing Brandon Sanderson before. It is kinda odd it hasn't popped up if it only pops up in circles involving him.
Yeah that's my reaction. I guess maybe this particular aspect just hasn't come up before. I'm sure Stormlight Archives and Mistborn have come up plenty enough here in Geek Media but I guess the discussions never gone to Sanderson's lectures or non-fiction writing.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/06/19 07:33:09
Grimskul wrote: I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then, for me if you've experienced basically the best SW has had to offer and now you're offered basically garbage in a SW skinsuit that I would consider it a disservice to the franchise as a whole especially when Disney has gone out of it's way to establish what's canon or not. I've seen a lot of other franchises heading the same way (LoTR with the Amazon series coming up for example) and I feel like passively accepting its fate just incentivizes people to continue sub-par quality work. Also, for what it's worth, I mainly just watch clips summarizing the key points of the series since I'm not paying for something that's this bad.
Obviously you're entitled to like what you like, or not. I can't help feeling there's some rosy glasses tinting your view here, though. I mean, the movie commonly held up as the best of the series includes (just off the top of my head) ships traveling at sublight speed between star systems, armour that's too strong for blasters except when it isn't, Luke fortuitously just happening to crash his ship on an unfamiliar and largely uninhabited planet within walking distance of the person he's looking for, Stormtroopers who consistently miss their targets, a pursuer magically appearing at his target's destination ahead of them, and a major plot twist that contradicts the previous movie purely because the guy in charge thought it was a cool thing to do.
A fair number of which are pretty similar to complaints about Disney's SW offerings.
Don't get me wrong, there are certainly issues with a lot of Disney's offerings. I just don't think they're really that different from the issues with the original films, and (with the exception of The Book of Boba Fett being a bit dull) not enough to really limit my enjoyment of them.
So 'soft magic' = any amount of bad writing and donkey-pulls around magic is fine. Gotcha.
.
Uuh...so you claim that (among others) Tolkien was bad writer? Interesting take. Care to explain?
So I'm criticizing someone else's terminology (specifically a forum voice's take on someone else's terminology), explicitly dismissing it as garbage, making no mention of any authors at all, and you're assigning authors to that category and blaming me?
Interesting take.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/06/20 13:13:26
Has she turned on The Empire? Or, is she doing what every Sith does or does trying to do, striking down her superior?
Because those are not the same thing. At all.
Neither.
She doesn't and never did care about the Empire. Nor is she trying to strike down her 'superior.' (She sort of/kind of did that in passing because he was an obstacle and just generally kind of a dumb-face).
She has (apparently) been obsessed with vengeance on one specific person for the last decade, trying to get into a position where she could have her revenge and shot her shot because Kenobi talked her into suicide. Luckily for her, not checking the body is part of Kenobi's lightsaber form, and apparently made it instinctive while training Anakin (who passed it down to her, sadly).
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/06/20 13:32:33
This is the first SW product that's made me sit back and go: "Y'know, maybe Star Wars isn't really that good, and the good bits of Star Wars are the exceptions, not the rule."
In other words, we're not seeing bad Star Wars. We're just seeing Star Wars.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/06/20 13:36:18
Has she turned on The Empire? Or, is she doing what every Sith does or does trying to do, striking down her superior?
The Empire looks to be a means to an end to her, so I'd argue she hasn't turned against it because she never felt any allegiance towards it to begin with.
She's probably not doing a Sith thing because her motivation isn't a quest for power that is fulfilled by killing her superior and taking his place. Position of Grand Inquisitor is again just a means to an end on her quest for revenge on Anakin. That's the end of her ambition as far as her portrayal up until this point goes. We don't know what she intends to do if she succeeded. She might stay on if killing Vader gained her Palpi's favor, or she might retire and pick up farming.
From a judicial perspective a high ranking member of the military turning on the Empire is treason, which one assumes carries the death penalty.
From a Sith perspective, doing a Sith thing is fine but failing so miserably is not. Exhibiting so little power and cunning, one assumes, would prompt the higher up to question why he's wasting his time on her, whether that's Vader or the Grand Inquisitor.
Regardless of the exact circumstances, Reva shouldn't be allowed to walk away from that. From that perspective it really is the same thing.
Nehekhara lives! Sort of!
Why is the rum always gone?
