Subject: Re: She did WHAT now?!
Author:
Posted on: 2010-06-11 23:40:00 UTC
Well, I suppose the whole mind-controlling parasite trope isn't anything new, but the basic premise of the book -said parasite doesn't wanna be evil anymore/ relates with its host- totally rips off both fandoms...
Seen 'em? Heard of 'em? Know 'em and hate 'em?
I am referring, as the subject suggests, to the phenomenon of real-life trolls. Authors who, for some inexplicable reason, have published literature, some of which may be popular. Extremely popular, in one case (I think we all know what I'm referring to. No offense meant to Twilight fans; I just have a healthy dislike for sparkly vampires).
Actually, in the case of Twilight, I'm almost certain it's an RLTroll, because The Host--also by Meyer--is a good book with solid, 3d characters and a decent plot.
Fact of life: Parasitic mindcontrol alien centipedes > sparkly vampires.
That aside, has anyone else come across notable RLTs? I recall a book--forget the title--in which certain people have "Gifts", denoted for some reason by mismatched eyes. "Gifts" quite often have no distinguishable difference between normal talent. Main character--a female "Gifted" with a "Gift" for killing. Her saw-it-coming-a-mile-off boyfriend/traveling companion: another "Gifted" who can distinguish truth. Their antagonist: Psycho-king whose "gift" is to make everyone love him. Objective is stereotypical world domination.
Much angsting about "my gift is for killing boo hoo," followed by a horribly contrived "But WAIT! It's not for /killing/! It's for /survival/! The court dude I killed when I was five was actually a pedophile!"
My personal distaste for that book aside, what else have my fellow bookworms seen in their perusals of that great jungle called Literature?
You have a point about the romance being obvious, but it was also quite cute, and for heaven's sake Katsa's a child soldier. She gets a little angst. I appreciated the idea of the "Graces" varying so much in importance (and what about the weather-discerning Grace from that captain, or the mind-reading young girl who had a cameo near the beginning? Or all the people mentioned in assorted armies who had various warlike Graces? They were pretty well distributed). I also thought the "survival" thing was decently set up, if not perfectly, and as for your "no-wait-he-was-really-a-pedophile" thing, that's a misreading of it. The impression I got was "no-wait-he-was-a-jerk-and-Katsa-was-a-panicking-kid-who-wasn't-thinking." He wasn't really a threat to her, but she was too young to have that kind of perspective.
Anyway, that's my two cents.
I can't say 'don't diss at all' because that would be completely unfair, but I can say "Please, please keep insults on other people's fandoms at a minimum. Please? Thank you."
I especially appreciated how the female lead goes through the entire novel without wanting marriage/babies, and having a rather antisocial personality. Hell, I thought the fact that she was actually *doing* something about her angst was rather unusual.
And what I loved especially was how she managed to create such a tough, I-refuse-to-be-restricted-to-gender-roles girl, and then in Fire she managed to show that a woman can like kids and violins and flower arranging and not be able to kill people with her bare hands, and that doesn't make her the downfall of feminism.
From what a friend has told me about the book, The Host is equally as Mary-Sueish and plotless.
I wonder what Meyer would do if a cameraman asked her THAT? Muahaha...
Your Mileage May Vary. Also, the plot elements ripped off were Older than Stargate and Animorphs. That said, I'm not buying that book.
As for Twilight, I read the first few chapters. I found Bella to be a whiny, ungreatful bitch, but all in all, it wasn't that bad (except for Edward).
Not to mention it seems to rip off the idea of the Tok'ra from Stargate SG-1 and the Yeerk Peace Movement from Animorphs...
Ripping off Animorphs... that just takes the cake. That series was part of my childhood, damnit!
*foams at mouth and looks for Sue on which to displace anger*
Well, I suppose the whole mind-controlling parasite trope isn't anything new, but the basic premise of the book -said parasite doesn't wanna be evil anymore/ relates with its host- totally rips off both fandoms...
The Talent,, My story » by Go-ruden Kiba reviews
There's a new Animorph: will she prove to be more powerful then any Andilight? Will she become too powerful? Will she be strong enough and use her abilities wisely enough to defeat Visser Three? recently edited.
Animorphs - Rated: M - English - Adventure/Angst - Chapters: 5 - Words: 15,858 - Reviews: 8 - Updated: 6-12-06 - Published: 6-3-05 - Complete
Admittedly, I didn't finish the series, but what the crap is an Andilight? -has a mental image of a centaur-thing with a giant lightbulb for a head-
There was never a 'dark side' aspect of morphing dammit. The downside was that you just might get stuck as an animal!
Does morphing even have degrees of power? How can one morpher be more "powerful" than another? There are degrees of skill, certainly, but that's just how quickly and easily you can morph. And being able to hold half-morphs for a few seconds, etc. Would someone please explain how morphers can be "powerful"? I really don't want to read that bad excuse for a fic to find out...
...someone really good at morphing might be able to mix the DNA of various animals to get a supercreature. But really, there's no combination of earth creatures that will match up to some of the things Visser 3 has transformed into.
But yeah. If you want "dark" anything, then there's enough about Animorphs that's already "dark". You don't have to go and turn morphing into something it wasn't meant to be. Morphing was always the *best* part of it for all of them.
We have cookies. -cough- Could not resist, sorry.
Anyway, being relevant, that's not so much a "dark side" as it is an "unfortunate side effect". You're switching species, you're going to switch sets of instincts. Although I resent the implication that animals are purely instinct-driven creatures.
There's an andalite that perma-morphs into a taxxon and he winds up joining the Taxxon resistance.
They're hungry, and they will cannabalize, but they aren't evil.
I didn't say "evil"; Having your mind taken over by the instinct to eat anything and everything, including your friends, is pretty dang dark, and for a human with a natural cannibalism taboo, it's downright traumatizing. It's no wonder the Taxxons were desperate enough to try that kind of alliance.
The human taboo on cannibalism is pretty weak. It's not instinctively ingrained like some others, it's more a social thing than anything else. Personally, I'd prefer not to eat human, but if there was no alternative I'd be perfectly willing to.
I hear we taste like pork...
I meant there's no Dark Side of the Morph (a la star wars).
Even the description has problems! It's spelled "Andalite," you, you- *incomprehensible noise* ...I admit the last book stank, but that's no excuse to mess around with one of my favorite childhood series like this.
Also, "recently edited." What. You couldn't even edit out the glaring error in the description?
That much is true. But her descriptive errors are hysterical. She refers to a hork-bajir's "rippling mussels," and--my personal favorite--the sentence "a tall boy steeped from the shadows." I get a mental image of a shifty teenage boy hiding in a corner, furtively pouring tea. While holding a packet of hot sauce, as the next sentence adds...
Having thought about this for a bit, a lot of what I have seen from the Twilight series is actually a decent start at a good story. There are quite a few things that need to be tweaked and reworked, but that is true of all of us (admittedly, we don't call it good and publish it at that stage).
I am not sure I would classify it as a Troll.
Different views on vampires...I can live with that. It's overly dramatic a lot, but I can live with that as well.
The only major problem that I have seen in the whole deal is Bella. She has no redeeming qualities and, as far as I can tell, no real thought process. She does things without ever thinking about anything. If she were to be a more real character, we might not even be having this discussion.
I suppose my closing thoughts on this would be: It is possible for a good writer to write something that is sub-par, that doesn't necessarily make the literature in question a Troll.
I suppose the Twilight reference was uncalled for. I can't deny it seems to have potential, but as you say, it would need a great deal of tweaking.
I realize that writers do occasionally write below their full ability. On the other hand, there are certain works that are so /bad/--cliché, Sued, boring, or just plain badly-written--that you can hardly believe they were even published. Not specifically accusing authors of being trolls, but works that you could see as having been trolls--you see what I mean? They may be serious, they may be a troll. I think I'm failing to convey what I mean...
The second book, the one of which I forgot the title, is a better example. Plot-from-a-box, flat characters, powers that are generally lame except in the case of main characters, who are overpowered.
...what you can attribute to laziness.
If Meyer has written better stuff, it's more believable that Twilight was more of a fetish piece for her, written with less thought put into it.
Trollers have a specific target in mind: in a forum, the target is the entire community. Well, for a book that wound up getting hugely popular that simply can't be the case. So who is left to be the target? Intellectuals?
When you get down to writing something with the sole intention of pissing off a specific group of people, I don't think it's a troll that did it - I think it's an artist.
You have a point. My definition of trolls appears to be a bit off; I think of trolls as not particularly malicious, more practical-jokers. Extremely irritating practical jokers. The kind of practical jokers who throw your shoes over telephone wires...
Anyway, I don't see trolls are particularly evil, though they're certainly annoying--more of "Hey, will this actually get /published/? Holy crap, it did! And people /like/ it!"