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08-31-2009, 03:47 PM | #1 |
Fair and Cold
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Fantasy Freaks & Gaming Geeks
Hi everyone,
I just published an interview that I thought might be of interest, since it touches upon our Tolkienite community as well. It's with the author of Fantasy Feaks and Gaming Geeks and it's a lot of fun, actually: http://globalcomment.com/2009/from-t...than-gilsdorf/ Hope you enjoy.
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~The beginning is the word and the end is silence. And in between are all the stories. This is one of mine~ |
09-01-2009, 06:36 AM | #2 |
Guard of the Citadel
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Oxon
Posts: 2,205
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Awesome interview!
Especially since I myself am both a fantasy freak and a gaming geek´, particularly Starcraft in case anyone here happens to be as well.
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09-01-2009, 09:43 AM | #3 |
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 5,996
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That's an interesting interview; thanks for the link, Lush.
I'll be musing over the idea that Science Fiction is about paranoia of the future but Fantasy is about something simpler. Sounds very much like the long march of Tolkien's Long Defeat. Myself, I've always been very wary of the past because I've always been very aware of those peasants--and the women who were chattel, at least in European history.
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09-01-2009, 11:18 AM | #4 | |||
Illustrious Ulair
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties
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09-01-2009, 01:46 PM | #5 | |
Curmudgeonly Wordwraith
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Ensconced in curmudgeonly pursuits
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Great article, Lush, particularly since I am an avid gamer in search of a decent game (I can't stand most of the current crop -- including Lord of the Rings Online and World of Warcraft -- vapid and unrealistic, really).
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09-01-2009, 02:03 PM | #6 |
A Mere Boggart
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: under the bed
Posts: 4,737
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I read just yesterday that somewhere around the sum of just three English Kings in the middle ages were spared having to go into battle at some point, so being a King was certainly no easy ride either.
Fantasy which makes use of the medieval world (and it usually does) isn't really looking at the true medieval world, which was a dirty and brutal place to live but an idealised version of it. Even the pulp of 'swords and sorcery' stories don't go into the truth of what life was like back then. Though I'd argue that such a simplistic definition of sci-fi and fantasy is all wrong these days anyway. How to account for Steampunk for example? Genres are collapsing like ninepins, and a good thing too!
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09-01-2009, 02:18 PM | #7 |
Illustrious Ulair
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties
Posts: 4,240
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I think its possible to argue that while Science-fiction is a literature that deals in hopes, or fears, of the future, Fantasy is a literature that deals in lies abut the past. Yet that is also a lie, because both genres really deal with/comment on the present. Tolkien's Elvish tendency to idealise the past comes through in his fiction (& to an extent in his letters). Middle-earth is a 20th century man's vision of what the past 'ought' to have been like - & no less worthy as literature for that. We just shouldn't believe that the Middle-ages were like Middle-earth, any more than we should believe that the future that awaits us is going to resemble the universe of Star Trek (or even Blade Runner come to that).
And of course, that is too simplistic as well - the Middle-ages weren't an age of barbarism - its just that there were a lot of 'barbarians' about, (though a lot of the 'barbarism' was deliberate, & was done for practical reasons - if you plundered, raped, mutilated & slaughtered your way through a city that had just fallen to your siege then you could be fairly certain that the next city would be less likely to hold out against you). They too produced their art, literature & philosophy - the great mystic Julian of Norwich wrote her masterpiece Revelations of Divine Love during the Hundred Years War, & died only a year after Agincourt. It just wasn't like the fantasy novels make it out. Fantasy is not about the past, & will tell you very little about it - but that's not its purpose. |
09-15-2009, 10:33 AM | #8 | |
Illustrious Ulair
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09-16-2009, 08:07 PM | #9 |
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 5,996
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I'm sure there's a wee bit of word play between gnome and genome there somewhere.
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I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. |
09-17-2009, 12:30 AM | #10 | |
Illustrious Ulair
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties
Posts: 4,240
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Its as if in some way these images are almost 'familiar' - as is all the Fairy Tale world, & encountering them is more akin to remembering than discovering something new. If that makes sense... |
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