Of Dragons and Sues
Jul. 13th, 2006 12:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magedragonfireSo I started reading the lastest Pern-book last night, and I've been noticing a few things.
Firstly, I was hit by an odd realization whilst reading on the SkyTrain. The book switches back and forth between two time periods - one close to when the settlers landed on Pern, and the other about five hundred years after that.
So I was comparing the two times in my mind, and found myself to be surprised that so much knowledge had been lost, that society had devolved so much, in such a short time.
Apparently I think five hundred years is a short time.
Five hundred years ago, we were experiencing the Rennaisance, Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa, Magellen started on his quest to circumvent the globe, people were wearing really funny clothing (:D), colonization of South America was occuring...
Society was a bit different five hundred years ago, and a hell of a lot of things have happened and changed!
And yet I found myself thinking it was a short period of time. Only, what, five modern lifespans? Seven to nine generations? It's really not that much. (Of course, people lived much shorter lives back then, which might throw some perspective back into things.)
All things considered, it's a really short period of time, considering how long the planet itself's been around. Or the universe, for that matter.
And five hundred years is only half of a kitsune's lifespan, right? :D It must be short!
But yeah. So five hundred years, half of a millenium, a period in which tons of things can happen, has shrunk to the size of 'pretty small' in my mind.
What's next? A millenium gets to be 'pretty small'? (Kitsu lifespan, meh.) Two? Three?
A billion?
Geez. Who says it's hard to grasp infinity.
And therein ends philosophy for the night. Back to the book!
It immediately becomes clear to me that Mr. Todd has inherited something from Mrs. Anne (more than just a last name and apparently the rights to writing about Pern, anyways).
The parts told with the last few Pernese settlers and the first generation after them are told primarily using Wind Blossom Ping as the main character. Sorka's in there (croaks), M'hell's there, Peter Tubberman comes back for a small cameo (his son plays a more important role), but Wind Blossom carries the show, pretty much.
Now, these parts are pretty nifty. I always wanted to see what happened to the settlers after they abandoned Landing. We get to find out a bit more about the Eridani ways, heaps more about Wind Blossom herself (who was pretty inscrutable in Dragonsdawn), more about the watch-whers (yay!), and see how things started to devolve once the supplies that the settlers had brought began to run out (or in the case of some useful medical equipment, etc, did run out). Interesting stuff.
But.
The sections occuring at the end of the Second Interval, five hundred years after Landing, is where the problem lies.
Hey, Kindan (once of Kisk) comes back! Cool. He was a neat kid. Nuella shows up for a cameo. Eh, whatever. There's a few dragonriders here and there. One old bluerider seems pretty cool. Oh wait he dies. Whoops.
But not before his dragon homes in on this gal.
Guess what she's like?
If you guessed that she's quietly determined, a survivor of trauma (mother and sibs died in a plague), talented, and can hear all dragons, yep, you got it.
We have a Sue on our hands, ladies and gentlemen!
Lorana can draw beyooooootiful pictures, is oohed and aahed over by this skill - but that's not all! She's a very good healer, too, even though she's had no training at all. Splints up her firelizard's broken wing and everything so well that he can fly again, keeping him from going between from an injury that would normally kill him as such. Loses her father about a week before we meet her - some beasty kills him, or something. She's all quiet and stuff, but doesn't really show any grief. Yup, she's a strong girl. Carries death on her shoulders like nothing (especially when dragons start dying off in the hundreds due to both a dragon-afflicting disease AND the restart of Threadfall - but even though she can hear 'em all, feels every death, she bears it with dignity). Oh, and she also almost gets raped by a seacaptain, but escapes from his ship before he can get her into a position to and nearly dies when she falls overboard the skiff during a storm instead, but of course, she lives.
She's a troooooper! :D
So because she's this great healer and everything (even though she's untrained), she's allowed to stay at Benden.
There's a clutch on the sands, yay!
Yeah, I don't have to tell you the outcome of this.
I will anyway.
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL
I mean
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD
.
So, she's basically like every other Important Female Character that Mrs. Anne has written about. Speshul and what-not.
Enough about her. Let's move onto the 'villians'!
Because, aside from Threadfall and this mysterious disease, there's also a couple of Bad People to watch out for.
The junior queen at Benden, Tuella (or something equally strange), is a bitch. A big one. And apparently no one has bothered to kill her for being a bint yet. Pity. She's kind of like Kylara, but without any of the... realisticness that Kylara had. She's just mean, and nasty, and gloaty, and has to get her own way about everything. She pretends to listen to her weyrmate (later the Weyrleader, once she becomes Weyrwoman - sadly), and goes off and does her own thing that endangers people. She appears to not have an ounce of intelligence in her head.
Oh, once or twice she (or others) expresses the sentiment that she 'didn't used to be this way', and that she regrets becoming what she has, and that she's all torn to pieces, but it's halfhearted at best, both in character, and in the way it's written.
The other Bad Person seems to be the Weyrleader of Telgar, D'gan. He's this gung-ho warrior-type person who seems to have the need to prove that he's the best IN EVERYTHING. (To do with Weyrs, anyways.) In fact, he's so gung-ho on being the best IN EVERYTHING that he fails to realize that maybe, just maybe, sick dragons should not be flying in Threadfall. He sends 'em all out anyways because a stupid line in a stupid song says to, without any thought to the consequences. Repeatedly.
As expected by everyone but himself, he loses a whole hell of a lot of riders. Very stupidly. I haven't seen what happens to him in the end, but I can guess that Telgar's population is going to wind up decimated and/or nonexistant by the end of the book.
I cannot believe that any war-leader would be quite so dumb (oh wait a second WWI and WWII trenches yeah sorry). If going by the thing in the parentheses there is true, okay, maybe it's a little believable.
Except that the generals sending out the men to be killed in stupid 'over-the-top' trench manuevers WERE NOT WATCHING THESE BATTLES. They just gave the orders, dumb as they were. I have to assume that the esteemed Weyrleader has been flying with his men/women and actually knows the sort of carnage and casualties that are occuring, and then have to assume that he's an absolute brick to keep doing it, knowing that the dragons are just going out there to be killed.
Not. Believable. These are cardboard cutouts, not people.
Seems like Mr. Todd has (more than) a little more to learn in the ways of the dragonrider, yet.
Anyways. Enough of the book.
Since I'm in a dragonish mood tonight, I will now take my vitriol to DRoP roleplayers.
Sadly, for some reason, I have stopped having inspiration for Kithkanan... (Hope it'll come back. Lyrané and Ilsa and Dae deserve my attetions!)
But. I have an incredible urge to play in a canon Weyr. Or something like it. Maybe PernMUSH again or something. Y'know, at a time when dragonriders still fought people with swords, and had none of this technology business.
(As an aside, I wonder how things would've turned out had McCaffery not decided that 'OMG PERN IS TOTALLY SCI-FI'? Really. Dragonflight completely fit in with fantasy novels, and the rest of the series... Well, I don't mind it myself, but it was such a dramatic spin from where it had been, and... Yeah.)
The only thing that stops me is because I know what it is that awaits me. Denia just showed me herself, actually, a few nights ago, in the guise of her own character in a PBeM canon Weyr.
The characters.
Oh my god, the characters that people play.
First, they're all beautiful. I have not seen a single character that could be classifed as 'ugly' within RP-Pern. No, wait, one, but it was by a pretty terrible player. (Most of mine are rather average looking; some are pretty, admittedly, but nothing drop-dead gorgeous.)
Second, the terrible tragic backgrounds. Rape, disease, Threadfall; these characters have seen it all. Some are played realistically. Half of them are not, and wallow in despair. (But with quiet strength, of course, half the time. Half are outwardly wangsty, and the others are all dwelling on 'secret hurts' on the inside - not just now and then, which can be expected, but ALL THE FUCKING TIME.) I'm guilty of it myself in some of my earlier characters, I do admit, although Rydia had a pretty well-adjusted life before dragons.
Third, they're all fucking Harpers or Healers. (Or the local Lord Holder's brats.) Has everyone forgotten that, y'know, other professions exist on Pern? Who the hell keeps the bloody dragonriders and folk of the BEYOOTIFUL VOICES and OMG EXPERT SURGEONS EVEN THOUGH WE DON'T HAVE SUTURES fed? The farmers and herders, that's who! The fisherfolk, too!
Then there's the minor craftsmen who make the damn furniture for the weyr! The weavers, the vintners, the smiths, the beastmasters and beasthealers, and -
Oh, god, no. Judging by the population in the RP-Weyrs, all of Pern is made up of Harpers, or Healers, or Dragonriders.
Or Harpers who are actually ASSASSINS but don't tell anyone! (Agh, please, don't get me started on that one.)
It's ridiculous. Oh, and of course, every female in the Sands will be after the gold - and all posturing, or singing to the hatchling, each trying to prove that she's more PRETTY and SPESHUL than the other twenty girls there who are doing just the same damn thing.
I, personally, love greens. They aren't broodhens, and the riders don't get tied down to a Weyr to do nothing but mate and occasionally give a few orders here and there concerning the injured or ill or housekeeping. Gah.
But everyone seems to think that the greenies are worthless, dumb, short on stamina (which, admittedly they should be - although I would think that the gap would be less and less in the later clutches than the ones laid after Landing). How could they be good for anything?
Yisith could outfly any of those broodsows you call golds, and she'd do it while sniping at them mercilessly, and Rydia's innovative enough to find solutions for problems that would have your doltish goldriders scratching their heads for weeks. And I'd like to see any decent Weyrleader try to take up a Threadfight with twenty golds and not a green in sight. They'd be crying for the 'worthless' beauties.
Feh. Bunch of superficial pussies.
No more of this! My fingers are tired.
Firstly, I was hit by an odd realization whilst reading on the SkyTrain. The book switches back and forth between two time periods - one close to when the settlers landed on Pern, and the other about five hundred years after that.
So I was comparing the two times in my mind, and found myself to be surprised that so much knowledge had been lost, that society had devolved so much, in such a short time.
Apparently I think five hundred years is a short time.
Five hundred years ago, we were experiencing the Rennaisance, Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa, Magellen started on his quest to circumvent the globe, people were wearing really funny clothing (:D), colonization of South America was occuring...
Society was a bit different five hundred years ago, and a hell of a lot of things have happened and changed!
And yet I found myself thinking it was a short period of time. Only, what, five modern lifespans? Seven to nine generations? It's really not that much. (Of course, people lived much shorter lives back then, which might throw some perspective back into things.)
All things considered, it's a really short period of time, considering how long the planet itself's been around. Or the universe, for that matter.
And five hundred years is only half of a kitsune's lifespan, right? :D It must be short!
But yeah. So five hundred years, half of a millenium, a period in which tons of things can happen, has shrunk to the size of 'pretty small' in my mind.
What's next? A millenium gets to be 'pretty small'? (Kitsu lifespan, meh.) Two? Three?
A billion?
Geez. Who says it's hard to grasp infinity.
And therein ends philosophy for the night. Back to the book!
It immediately becomes clear to me that Mr. Todd has inherited something from Mrs. Anne (more than just a last name and apparently the rights to writing about Pern, anyways).
The parts told with the last few Pernese settlers and the first generation after them are told primarily using Wind Blossom Ping as the main character. Sorka's in there (croaks), M'hell's there, Peter Tubberman comes back for a small cameo (his son plays a more important role), but Wind Blossom carries the show, pretty much.
Now, these parts are pretty nifty. I always wanted to see what happened to the settlers after they abandoned Landing. We get to find out a bit more about the Eridani ways, heaps more about Wind Blossom herself (who was pretty inscrutable in Dragonsdawn), more about the watch-whers (yay!), and see how things started to devolve once the supplies that the settlers had brought began to run out (or in the case of some useful medical equipment, etc, did run out). Interesting stuff.
But.
The sections occuring at the end of the Second Interval, five hundred years after Landing, is where the problem lies.
Hey, Kindan (once of Kisk) comes back! Cool. He was a neat kid. Nuella shows up for a cameo. Eh, whatever. There's a few dragonriders here and there. One old bluerider seems pretty cool. Oh wait he dies. Whoops.
But not before his dragon homes in on this gal.
Guess what she's like?
If you guessed that she's quietly determined, a survivor of trauma (mother and sibs died in a plague), talented, and can hear all dragons, yep, you got it.
We have a Sue on our hands, ladies and gentlemen!
Lorana can draw beyooooootiful pictures, is oohed and aahed over by this skill - but that's not all! She's a very good healer, too, even though she's had no training at all. Splints up her firelizard's broken wing and everything so well that he can fly again, keeping him from going between from an injury that would normally kill him as such. Loses her father about a week before we meet her - some beasty kills him, or something. She's all quiet and stuff, but doesn't really show any grief. Yup, she's a strong girl. Carries death on her shoulders like nothing (especially when dragons start dying off in the hundreds due to both a dragon-afflicting disease AND the restart of Threadfall - but even though she can hear 'em all, feels every death, she bears it with dignity). Oh, and she also almost gets raped by a seacaptain, but escapes from his ship before he can get her into a position to and nearly dies when she falls overboard the skiff during a storm instead, but of course, she lives.
She's a troooooper! :D
So because she's this great healer and everything (even though she's untrained), she's allowed to stay at Benden.
There's a clutch on the sands, yay!
Yeah, I don't have to tell you the outcome of this.
I will anyway.
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL
I mean
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD
.
So, she's basically like every other Important Female Character that Mrs. Anne has written about. Speshul and what-not.
Enough about her. Let's move onto the 'villians'!
Because, aside from Threadfall and this mysterious disease, there's also a couple of Bad People to watch out for.
The junior queen at Benden, Tuella (or something equally strange), is a bitch. A big one. And apparently no one has bothered to kill her for being a bint yet. Pity. She's kind of like Kylara, but without any of the... realisticness that Kylara had. She's just mean, and nasty, and gloaty, and has to get her own way about everything. She pretends to listen to her weyrmate (later the Weyrleader, once she becomes Weyrwoman - sadly), and goes off and does her own thing that endangers people. She appears to not have an ounce of intelligence in her head.
Oh, once or twice she (or others) expresses the sentiment that she 'didn't used to be this way', and that she regrets becoming what she has, and that she's all torn to pieces, but it's halfhearted at best, both in character, and in the way it's written.
The other Bad Person seems to be the Weyrleader of Telgar, D'gan. He's this gung-ho warrior-type person who seems to have the need to prove that he's the best IN EVERYTHING. (To do with Weyrs, anyways.) In fact, he's so gung-ho on being the best IN EVERYTHING that he fails to realize that maybe, just maybe, sick dragons should not be flying in Threadfall. He sends 'em all out anyways because a stupid line in a stupid song says to, without any thought to the consequences. Repeatedly.
As expected by everyone but himself, he loses a whole hell of a lot of riders. Very stupidly. I haven't seen what happens to him in the end, but I can guess that Telgar's population is going to wind up decimated and/or nonexistant by the end of the book.
I cannot believe that any war-leader would be quite so dumb (oh wait a second WWI and WWII trenches yeah sorry). If going by the thing in the parentheses there is true, okay, maybe it's a little believable.
Except that the generals sending out the men to be killed in stupid 'over-the-top' trench manuevers WERE NOT WATCHING THESE BATTLES. They just gave the orders, dumb as they were. I have to assume that the esteemed Weyrleader has been flying with his men/women and actually knows the sort of carnage and casualties that are occuring, and then have to assume that he's an absolute brick to keep doing it, knowing that the dragons are just going out there to be killed.
Not. Believable. These are cardboard cutouts, not people.
Seems like Mr. Todd has (more than) a little more to learn in the ways of the dragonrider, yet.
Anyways. Enough of the book.
Since I'm in a dragonish mood tonight, I will now take my vitriol to DRoP roleplayers.
Sadly, for some reason, I have stopped having inspiration for Kithkanan... (Hope it'll come back. Lyrané and Ilsa and Dae deserve my attetions!)
But. I have an incredible urge to play in a canon Weyr. Or something like it. Maybe PernMUSH again or something. Y'know, at a time when dragonriders still fought people with swords, and had none of this technology business.
(As an aside, I wonder how things would've turned out had McCaffery not decided that 'OMG PERN IS TOTALLY SCI-FI'? Really. Dragonflight completely fit in with fantasy novels, and the rest of the series... Well, I don't mind it myself, but it was such a dramatic spin from where it had been, and... Yeah.)
The only thing that stops me is because I know what it is that awaits me. Denia just showed me herself, actually, a few nights ago, in the guise of her own character in a PBeM canon Weyr.
The characters.
Oh my god, the characters that people play.
First, they're all beautiful. I have not seen a single character that could be classifed as 'ugly' within RP-Pern. No, wait, one, but it was by a pretty terrible player. (Most of mine are rather average looking; some are pretty, admittedly, but nothing drop-dead gorgeous.)
Second, the terrible tragic backgrounds. Rape, disease, Threadfall; these characters have seen it all. Some are played realistically. Half of them are not, and wallow in despair. (But with quiet strength, of course, half the time. Half are outwardly wangsty, and the others are all dwelling on 'secret hurts' on the inside - not just now and then, which can be expected, but ALL THE FUCKING TIME.) I'm guilty of it myself in some of my earlier characters, I do admit, although Rydia had a pretty well-adjusted life before dragons.
Third, they're all fucking Harpers or Healers. (Or the local Lord Holder's brats.) Has everyone forgotten that, y'know, other professions exist on Pern? Who the hell keeps the bloody dragonriders and folk of the BEYOOTIFUL VOICES and OMG EXPERT SURGEONS EVEN THOUGH WE DON'T HAVE SUTURES fed? The farmers and herders, that's who! The fisherfolk, too!
Then there's the minor craftsmen who make the damn furniture for the weyr! The weavers, the vintners, the smiths, the beastmasters and beasthealers, and -
Oh, god, no. Judging by the population in the RP-Weyrs, all of Pern is made up of Harpers, or Healers, or Dragonriders.
Or Harpers who are actually ASSASSINS but don't tell anyone! (Agh, please, don't get me started on that one.)
It's ridiculous. Oh, and of course, every female in the Sands will be after the gold - and all posturing, or singing to the hatchling, each trying to prove that she's more PRETTY and SPESHUL than the other twenty girls there who are doing just the same damn thing.
I, personally, love greens. They aren't broodhens, and the riders don't get tied down to a Weyr to do nothing but mate and occasionally give a few orders here and there concerning the injured or ill or housekeeping. Gah.
But everyone seems to think that the greenies are worthless, dumb, short on stamina (which, admittedly they should be - although I would think that the gap would be less and less in the later clutches than the ones laid after Landing). How could they be good for anything?
Yisith could outfly any of those broodsows you call golds, and she'd do it while sniping at them mercilessly, and Rydia's innovative enough to find solutions for problems that would have your doltish goldriders scratching their heads for weeks. And I'd like to see any decent Weyrleader try to take up a Threadfight with twenty golds and not a green in sight. They'd be crying for the 'worthless' beauties.
Feh. Bunch of superficial pussies.
No more of this! My fingers are tired.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-07-13 11:03 am (UTC)I despised that book. And not only was Lorana a Sue, but Todd's writing is completely underwhelming, and nowhere near enough to redeem his characters.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-13 07:05 pm (UTC)And I unfortunately just found how how the Sue magnifies. Ye gods. As a friend of mine said, "Ah, DRoP. Great setting, but terrible, terrible characters."
If he was somehow able to humanize these monsters (both 'good' and 'bad'), then perhaps we might have an interesting story on our hands. But that would be asking too much, wouldn't it?
no subject
Date: 2006-07-13 07:50 pm (UTC)Yeahhh. I didn't know that her son continued the series. Is she still alive? o.o;
no subject
Date: 2006-07-13 08:31 pm (UTC)She is, but she hasn't written a Pern-book by herself since The Skies of Pern. She and her son did a collaboration - Dragon's Kin - and are doing another one called Dragon's Fire, apparently, but the torch has halfways been passed, I guess.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-14 04:05 pm (UTC)Oh lord, it seems the Sue gene liiiiives! I never managed to find a decent DRoP fantasy board/group/site/etc, as most of them seem to follow with the books in the sense that everyone is uber speshul, rides golds (They've actually outpopulated greens on half the sites I looked at >
no subject
Date: 2006-07-14 09:38 pm (UTC)The other one was really, really good, but it too eventually fell inactive, and there was much sadness in the world.
I mean, I like non-canon Weyrs - hell, had my own - but every now and then I just like to go back to the world itself... And if it could exist without the Sues and Stus, I would be more than happy. This, however, seems a rather impossible combination.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-14 09:40 pm (UTC)And now I can't remember what I wrote, other than it had to do with me reliving an old urge to start my own DRoP rp, and snarky comments about fan characters with the ability to hear firelizards.
*sigh*
-samepersonusingherrpjournal
no subject
Date: 2006-07-14 09:44 pm (UTC)I... vaguely remember something about hear-all-flitses, actually. Never understood why the hell you'd need to bother; they weren't exactly grudging about throwing around their mental images in the first place.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-14 05:58 pm (UTC)I love DRoP. One of my favorite book series. Though I must admit I'm a bit underwhelmed by the stuff her son's doing.
And stupid people only wanting to be goldriders. Personally, though I've never RPed DRoP (though my brother was trying to organize one a while back), I'd rather be a greenrider :P
no subject
Date: 2006-07-14 09:41 pm (UTC)I still read it just out of... loyalty or dumb hope or something, but I think it's jumped the shark for the most part. If Todd doesn't improve some kinda quick, I probably won't be paying much attention to it. There's only so much of this canon Suenattery that I can stand. D:
no subject
Date: 2006-07-15 07:32 pm (UTC)Yes, I feel compelled to share with strangers D:
And so this character popped up into my head, without a name and only currently being a concept of an OMGFEMALECANDIDATE and very much wanting to Impress a green, while vehemently not wanting to go after the gold that nearly everything else with tits is waving at.
Except Murphy comes along and goes "HI, I'M GOING TO RUIN YOUR HOPES AND DREAMS, LOL!!1". Guess what happens.
Said candidate person is very displeased at this, because now the most she gets to do is sit around doing nothing while occasionally going out with a flamethrower to set things on fire. Which isn't making her happy. But she's too nice to tell the thing to bugger off and die, so now she's stuck with a gold. OHnoes D:
...then the plotbunnies went on to a Plot Twist of Random in which the gold dragon gets the "HAY, I WANT TO DO SOMETHING D<" mindset from her rider, and essentially steals some firestone. All Hell Breaks Loose as people go "OMGWTFBBQ?!"
And then the plotbunnies didn't leave me anything else to go on. Though I imagine it would involve a lot of shouting, arguements and WTFing.
...my subconsious needs a better hobby D:
no subject
Date: 2006-07-18 12:17 am (UTC)Korivaris, a character of mine, is best described as an anarchist. She royally fucked things up for the mining hold she was in by trying to spark the drudges to rebellion, was outcast, got searched, growled at people (particularly the Weyrleaders, who were government and therefore must be oppressive!!), was about to be booted out from there, but ended up impressing a gold. Was very disappointed about the whole deal. Her gold, Elerenth (I think her name was, anyways), snuck into the firestone sheds during training, because she couldn't stand to have Kori disappointed in her.
The rest is unwritten, because the Weyr fell inactive at that point. XD
no subject
Date: 2006-07-18 11:37 pm (UTC)Though that probably would've been very interesting to read, if the Weyr hadn't died :ono subject
Date: 2006-07-19 05:44 am (UTC)Maybe, but it was a Neo-Weyr with some whacked-out colours and a few clutchers who could chew or not if they wanted, so it wasn't that special. In other words, it maybe hasn't been done yet in a canon Weyr! :Ono subject
Date: 2006-07-19 08:00 pm (UTC)...ARGHTHEY'REBACKNOOOS D:no subject
Date: 2006-07-20 03:35 am (UTC)Ahahahahahahaaaaa~And no, I'm totally not lazy for writing this in a character journal 'cause I don't want to sign out, no.