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I didn't mean to come off as foaming-at-the-mouth enraged. I wasn't. Like hS said, I was more responding to the entire page/forum, the whole debate. It really, really, really irritates me when people take two-second fan-crazes and make them out like paragons of culture and talent. You'd get much the same rant with someone trying to compare Linkin Park with U2, or Fallout Boy with The Beatles, or Eminem with Jimi Hendrix, or, for that matter, Bono with Johann Sebastian Bach, or, as you've seen, Stephanie Meyer with William Shakespeare. And I tend to ramble on about subjects that irritate me-- because internet arguments so often turn into irrational flame wars and demonstrations of Godwin's Law, I prefer to try and make my point as clearly as possible. Repeat after me, now: wordiness does not make things clear. Quite the opposite. You cannot reason with tweeny idiots. High blood pressure is a bad way to die.

(Man, that's incredible. It would be -awesome- to study Old English. I hope someday I can, as well.)

Honestly, I didn't mean to say that you weren't giving Shakespeare enough credit. It's acceptable to not like him, and hypocritical to assume or demand that everyone should. Eating my words? No, no, I never have to do that. That's for the foolishly proud, dontchaknow?

The rant wasn't aimed at starting a fight with you. Believe it or not, I don't like or enjoy flame-wars, or angry arguments. I was just peeved after reading the whole Graphjam page, and kind of found myself with uncontrollabe word-vomit. I stand by what I said, but it wasn't aimed at you, and I'm sorry it... was aimed at you? By position, not intent.

I'm glad you've read, and liked, the Don't Panic series. It's on my top ten favorite fanfics list, and definitely the two of them meld together as my favorite LotR fanfic ever.

I rather like this one, though it does remind me of a point that I don't recall ever being adressed. Doesn't voyager have the macrovirus cure as of the end of the first and possibly only cannonical appearance of the macrovirus? If so, why did it take so long to create and deploy it?

then cry, is the people who bash Shakespeare and Tolkien using terms or phrases from the actual authors.

I will not say that the serise are good or bad, that is and opinion that one has to make for themself. What these books have done though is change the way of thinking in society.

Shakespeare: New words, phrases, terms of general knowlege (who doesn:t know the `To be or not to be` line, even if they don:t know where in Hamlet it is from (I was convinced that it was in Act 5 for the longest time (I blame Bugs Bunney for that)) or that it is even from Hamlet.

While I agree that Shakespeare has been over analized to the point where the results really don:t make sense (I sometimes wonder what the poet himself would say at the conclusions made) it has shaped the way we think, and it will forever will.

Tolkien: What Tolkien wrote was pure escapism. When he was planing and writing The Silmarrion (a book that reads like a history text, by the way) he was fighting in the Second World War on the front lines against an enemy that felt like it could not be beaten. It was only through greater mistakes done by the `evil side` that alowed the `good side` to win.

Tolkien`s books took the `good side/bad side` plot line to a level that was not seen before in fiction. The reason if became a standard of mesurement was because it covers almost all aspects of human (or race of choice) life, from daily chores to death in grusome battle. It also didn:t glorify battle, it gave descriptions of how horrid it can be, what commanders and generals don:t want their soldiers to know. What person would join an army if he knew that he was more likely to die a horible death then to come home with spoils of war?

These writers give readers things to think about, they don:t give you an answer, they let you make up your own mind.


Now I am finished rambling, and will go to bed. Hope someone likes this, and sorry for no specific examples. I am in an area without my books (ie Japan). I tried to explain without a bias, but as a prof once told me, there is always a bias. (The bias I was tring to avoid was one of personal preference, not merit of cultural change)

Leto

... VM wasn't really replying to you so much as to the whole realm of Shakespeare-Tolkien-Rowling-Meyer comparisons. :P

Personally -- as a non-literary-critic -- I don't enjoy reading Shakespeare but like watching/acting his comedies, love Tolkien's worlds but don't tend to read his books much any more, didn't get past the first few chapters of Goblet of Fire but have watched all the films, and read the first three Twilight books (and watched the film) for pretty much the sole purpose of understanding all the mockery.

Shakespeare's works are probably immortal. Lord of the Rings will probably always have a cult/sporadic following. Harry Potter may end up the same, it's too soon to say. And Twilight probably isn't going to last.

But who knows? We may all be dead long.

(When it comes to Old English, I always loved the story of Tolkien's lectures on Anglo-Saxon poetry -- as I recall, he began the course by reciting the opening lines of Beowulf in the original, without telling the class what he was doing. ;))

hS

I got it working on another (even more out-of-date) public computer! Run! Run for your lives, little pink dots!

I'm not going to have a fight with you. I have my opinions and I stand by them; I don't like it when people compare things because I think it creates more problems than solutions. That said, it's still just my opinion.

Sorry if I offended you, but I just don't enjoy Shakespeare's work as much as it's 'all hyped up to be' - I don't know why; I just don't. I've liked some of the film adaptations, and I'm certainly not against giving him the credit he's due, but his stories just aren't ones that I personally can sit down and enjoy.

(And no, it wasn't Old English - it was closer to Middle English. I studied Old English a few years ago and believe me, it is hard. I hated it, to be honest, but it was fascinating to see how English evolved - Shakespeare's influences included.)

Also, it seems I confused you - sorry about that. I was referring to the fanfic part of the LotR "craze", not the stories themselves. Reading back, I can see where I didn't make it clear. too bad these posts can't be edited.

And yes, I've read "Don't Panic" et cetera. I liked them.

I've read a lot of Shakespeare, in school and out, and all the Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and other Tolkien works, but I couldn't force myself past the first few pages of Twilight. I skimmed ahead a few chapters, but it looked pretty horrible all the way through, and given that pretty much everyone whose literary opinion I in any way trust told me it was horseshit, I didn't care to find out personally.

Shakespeare was a literary genius. Even if you don't like his material, you have to give credit where credit is due; he invented many, many words in the English language, his wordplay was witty, funny, and very beautiful. It's hard to read, because we don't speak that sort of language these days. (NOTE: It is NOT Old English which he wrote in. That is a separate language entirely, with, I believe, an entirely separate alphabet. My favorite English teacher taught us that in Freshman year, telling us that if she caught us referring to Shakespeare as "Old English," she would make us write our essays in -real- Old English, and we would probably cry. Or something like that.) I got lucky in that my parents raised me on the Old King James, which is written in very similar language; I get the dirty jokes, and the metaphors, pretty easily, because the language isn't as much of a barrier. But, no matter whether you -like- his style or not, he was a literary genius. (Did you know that "nothing" referred to a woman's... yeah... back then? When I learned that, it gave a lot of his lines sudden new, hilarious meanings.)

As for the "LotR craze," no, it isn't dying down. The movie craze is. But the books? Were written... circa 1954, 1955. That's about fifty-five to fifty-four years of popularity. When a student teacher saw me reading The Silmarillion in History, he remarked that they seem to come back with a bang every twenty, thirty years or so, since they'd been fairly popular in the fifties (I think), huge in the eighties, died back down a bit, and then became huge a few years back, when the movies were made. Twenty-five years or so from now, people will suddenly rediscover them, I'm sure if the world hasn't ended by then. It's not a passing craze. Tolkien was also a genius, in his own right. (As was Lewis, given that The Chronicles of Narnia also come rushing back fairly often.)

Harry Potter? Who knows? I think it'll be something along the same lines, though personally I prefer Lord of the Rings, Narnia, or, in fact, Shakespeare. HP is good, though, very good, and, as you pointed out, it's now a part of culture. Also not a passing craze.

Twilight? A passing craze. In twenty, thirty years, people who read Twilight and Eragon might remember them, might still enjoy them, but they won't be huge things like LotR and Shakespeare and possibly Harry Potter will.

The comparison thing isn't that ridiculous, as far as who stands the test of time. Honestly, it's not that ridiculous as far as quality is concerned either. Somewhat ridiculous, yes, because Shakespeare was a playwright, not an author, and because he wrote at a point when language was changin drastically (though, I suppose, given the sudden veer we've taken towards babble like "Obvy, FML," and oh my God I can't think of any right now but I meant the craze of abbreviating every single word, even in conversation, you could consider this language in a transition phase as well), but all told, I think he still wins on sheer awesome. His sonnets are awesome. But Stephanie Meyer? Oh good grief no. Her writing is purple prose, and at best, angsty melodrama. (Shakespeare, by the way, also gave us realistic acting. Back then, acting was nearly always incredibly melodramatic, the sort of thing you'd see in a bad soap opera today. Shakespeare was the one who started the whole thing with acting like real people onstage.) JK Rowling wrote well, if not as well as Tolkien, and Tolkien wrote well, and invented NEW LANGUAGES AND AN ENTIRE WORLD COMPLETE WITH FULL GEOGRAPHY HISTORY AND MYTHOS AND BASICALLY INVENTED TODAY'S FANTASY GENRE, but Stephanie Meyer? Wrote a story which ignored all previous vampire lore, a story in which the main character was a whiny brat and the other main character was an abusive jerk. And, because the characters were described in urple prose as the ultimate hot, tween fangirls ate it up. And some other people. But you know how you see those fanfics that are just horrible, horrible stuff, and somehow they have thousands of reviews of "ZOMG I LUVV U THIS ROXORZ" and, more mind-bogglingly, here and there, well-written reviews that actually point out good things? That's like Twilight, in my mind. Yeah, she got published, and she's got a thousand fangirls who fawn over her and are prepared to flame (and call a flamer) anyone who doesn't. But at the end of the day, give me Don't Panic, Okay NOW Panic, any day of the week. And if you don't know what those fics are, and you have ever typed "Where is all the goodfic?" then slap yourself upside the head for me, and then go read them. Please.

(Rambling is a key trait. Nourish it well. :D)

http://chelonianmobile.livejournal.com/77472.html

My agents are at the OFUR at this point in time, some time around January 2008 HST, and Hemlock is making his first public appearance. More will be done on this storyline later, but I wanted to get this bit up now.

my computer is like that. *looks around* *swears* zombies!!!

Let me see if I can find the chat where Cassie and I were discussing train times... Nope, she didn't actually say which one she's getting.

I think our plan's to set off from here about elevenish; journey time is dependent on a) manoeuvring through Leeds's evil one way system and b) how recklessly Steve intends to drive.

Unless Cassie's gone for a particularly early train, she's probably getting in just after half twelve, so quarter to one should work fine. As for leaving, she's got herself booked on the 9.08 so I went for the 9.05, if you want to work round that.

blue screen of death-ed cell phone

Need to look up timetables for when buses and trains leave, but I can arrive whenever. Say quarter to one? I'll bring a big sign like Cassie did last time.

... my transcription of the second line on the caps (the first full line):

Valinorean mode -- Ndthindngfvldwss wincldndcf ndfengnd

Mode of Beleriand -- Dthdgfnlhoss oshlhdcf dfgd

Dutch mode -- Dsiddjfrljss jzjildtjf dfedjd

Cat-on-the-keyboard mode -- Wedontunder standawo rdofth

I'm going to concur with the "random" idea, here. Unless the Dutch are inordinately fond of dsiddjfrljss.

(Other evidence is the presence of a double esse halfway down the page. Esse is already used for 'ss' wherever it appears, which means that word would begin 'ssss'.)

hS

that I can't stand fashion. I am immune from Twilight disease.

You mean... the LotR craze is ending? The Pit might be safe to tread again (at least until The Hobbit is out)?

And don't worry about rambling. Rambling is fun.

The bi-lingual message at the start of all their vids on YouTube looked to be in German and English. My bad.

Now I just need to get it running. Stupid out of date public computer.

For a reason(s) I'm extremely curious to find out, the German band Within Temptation has a book with some Tengwar in it make an appearance in the vid for their song Stand My Ground. If you're interested, I have the caps up in my LJ.

Okay, it's going to cost me quite a bit, but I was going to make an order from Amazon.com soon anyway...

:D!

I liked the longer format. I also like FicPsych's interactions with all the canons.

By going to the Main Page and clicking the 'add image' link in the sidebar, on the right, directly under the menus and above the 'random page' link. This will take you to a screen which will invite you to browse your hard-drive for the file you like. Then you can either give it a new filename for the Wiki or not, as you like, and give a description for it. And then click 'upload file' and you're all done!