But Why
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@Aria Ooo, documentation. So hot.
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@De-Villefort said in But Why:
@STD
In those dark dystopias you fight the corporations to make the world a better place for everyone. In the dark ages, it was a struggle to survive just being a human.Think about the fantasy genre and the themes it has.
Lord of the Rings - Take the ring of power, resist it’s call to make you all powerful and destroy it.
Game of Thrones - Kill everyone and take power for yourself.
Beowulf - Kill monsters and take power for yourself.
Robinhood - Kill the nobles and take power for yourself because you think you can do a better job.It’s all about selfishness. It’s an entire genera based on the idea that getting what you want is the only important thing. You are just replacing one self-important jerk with a nicer self-important jerk and nothing ever gets better for anyone else in a dark ages fantasy. Look at Lord of the rings, all those books, all that adventure and the only thing that really changed was 1 ring got destroyed and one human village got roasted by a dragon. Then life pretty much went back to normal.
Sci-fi is for the most part a more collectivist endeavor. You don’t take down the mega-corp to replace them, you take them down to collapse a system of oppression. There is a reason to fight. A better future to aim for. I don’t see that happening in a lot of fantasy stories.
decolonize your bookshelf
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@GF i’m pretty sure that on the game people DON’T just want to play hot babes in costume. but yes, reduction to that is a common tactic used to be dismissive of people who enjoy any particular genre.
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@mietze You’re right. I was trying to be dismissive of the silliness of the concerns, but I came off dismissive of the game and its players. I apologize.
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@De-Villefort said in But Why:
Plus one out of three women survive child birth on average so if you are married you have to live with the fact you might kill your wife every time you have sex.
The Firan compulsion is real, innit?
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i find myself curious as to what is on @De-Villefort’s actual SciFi bookshelf. And I did not think that you really were @GF but i also wanted to point out that this dude kind of came in hot implying just that in many ways. same ‘i don’t play at this place i quit mushing years ago but why would anyone ever want to do this horrific thing that probably most of them actually aren’t doing at all but i need to score some points’, different day.
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this thread kind of made my day, ty
I have been pretty down lately but a ridiculous argument will always cheer me right up
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honestly, same.
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@moth If I could eat popcorn, I would have made popcorn. Somehow, this thread evokes that same kind of ‘things are bad, but at least they aren’t THIS’ as watching Jerry Springer when you were home sick used to inspire…
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Low-magic fantasy games allow you to wear cool outfits and fuck princesses.
Basically, it’s the closest any of us will ever be to being Mario.
As someone who has spent his whole life stomping turtles and hoping to grow a raccoon tail, this is close enough.
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I think that might be the one to get through to him. Well done.
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@Aria Anyone who calls Ruth Goodman as backup in a historical daily life argument gets my vote.
The past wasn’t as bad as we’re all led to believe. Sure, it wasn’t a bed of roses, but it wasn’t all bad.
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@Vulgar-Boy said in But Why:
As someone who has spent his whole life stomping turtles and hoping to grow a raccoon tail, this is close enough.
Now this is an answer that I can appreciate.
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@De-Villefort said in But Why:
@STD
In those dark dystopias you fight the corporations to make the world a better place for everyone. In the dark ages, it was a struggle to survive just being a human.Think about the fantasy genre and the themes it has.
Lord of the Rings - Take the ring of power, resist it’s call to make you all powerful and destroy it.
Game of Thrones - Kill everyone and take power for yourself.
Beowulf - Kill monsters and take power for yourself.
Robinhood - Kill the nobles and take power for yourself because you think you can do a better job.It’s all about selfishness. It’s an entire genera based on the idea that getting what you want is the only important thing. You are just replacing one self-important jerk with a nicer self-important jerk and nothing ever gets better for anyone else in a dark ages fantasy. Look at Lord of the rings, all those books, all that adventure and the only thing that really changed was 1 ring got destroyed and one human village got roasted by a dragon. Then life pretty much went back to normal.
If this is what you took away from the fantasy genre, I pity you. If all you see about you is selfishness, then perhaps you should look beyond the mirror.
You know, maybe you really ought to try actually doing some reading, given that Lord of the Rings has no dragons in it and Robin Hood is actually a name attached to a legend which wasn’t actually about taking any power at all. Beowulf isn’t even fantasy, it’s an epic poem told a millennium and more ago, and Game of Thrones was a specific reaction to all the fantasy novels about honourable people with good and selfless endings.
Reading can broaden the mind!
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@Evilgrayson said in But Why:
@Aria Anyone who calls Ruth Goodman as backup in a historical daily life argument gets my vote.
The past wasn’t as bad as we’re all led to believe. Sure, it wasn’t a bed of roses, but it wasn’t all bad.
I have an enormous soft spot for enthusiastic nerds who are just really enamoured with their area of interest and who want to share it with people in a fun and accessible way.
I also recommend Ben Crystal for Shakespeare lectures, Albert Lin for real life Indiana Jones-ing but with technology (with bonus representation for both the Asian and the disabled communities), and Sister Wendy for adorably wholesome art history. They are all just the cutest and I want to pinch their cheeks.
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i find myself curious as to what is on @De-Villefort’s actual SciFi bookshelf.
These days, mostly LitRPG books, I had a giant robot phase, a Star Trek phase, a DC/Marvel comics phase, enjoyed some of the books about the Sith in the Star Wars universe. Read the Ravenloft books. Went on an A.I. bender after I.Robot came out in theater’s.
Took a break from Sci-fi and read the Dragon Lance series, then the Anita Blake series. Some of the Dragons of Pern but it petered out for me. Had another cyberpunk phase and read a lot of the Cyberpunk RPG adjacent novels.
Some random space related sci-fi between. I like books with realistic ship combat. James Corey is a great author if you ever get a chance to pick up any of his work.
Most recently I switched to audio books and picked up a series called Super Powereds by Drew Hayes (It seems like a really stupid name until you read the setting of the story then it makes sense.)
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@Evilgrayson
If Elon Musk had all his billions stolen by Jeff Bezos then raised a mercenary army of criminals to kill Bezos and steal everything he had, would you consider that a heroic story?Well that’s the story of Robinhood with the names changed. He was the son of a nobleman who had all his wealth taken by the corrupt Sheriff while the king was away fighting a war. He only became an outlaw because he was suddenly poor. He didn’t give a wet squirt about the poor people until he was one of them.
In some versions of the story the Sheriff killed his father, in some versions he was a knight who returned from the crusades to find his home had been plundered, but the one thing that holds true is that the start of the story is rich-guy-on-rich-guy violence and the rest of the story is all about taking back what was stolen from him.
Disney may have romanticized it with adorable foxes but make no mistake, this was a story about a wealthy lord standing along side a band of thieves to take what they felt they were owed.
Even in the Disney version he didn’t start giving away money until the Sheriff started squeezing the peasants and offering high rewards for Robin’s head. His generosity was a move made out of tactical necessity, not out of kindness.
