[ SECRET POST #3238 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3238 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 043 secrets from Secret Submission Post #463.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Writers: World-building and character designing

[(Anonymous)]

"but you don't have people plowing the corn field with a dragon."

But what if you're writing a story about people who tame dragons and use them as draft animals?

Like I'm gonna admit, I thought you were talking about internal logic and consistency. But now it seems like you basically have an arbitrary cut-off point between what fantastical elements are "okay" and "make sense" and which ones don't.

Re: Writers: World-building and character designing

[tabaqui]

If you're writing a story about people who tame dragons and use them as draft animals, then you're writing a story with a *whole lot more magic* and fantastical elements as the main point of the story.

But, once again - Middle Earth does not *run* on magic. It's a special element. It *is* logical - magic is rare, and fading, and not everyday. Therefore - Bill the Pony and not magical packs that weight nothing, or a palatial tent conjured out of thin air.

If Tolkein hand written magic as everyday as a match, then the story would obviously be completely different. It would be a Harry Potter kind of story, where magic is every day.

But he wrote his story as if magic was *not* every day, and made it clear the world didn't run on magic. So a random 'dragon in the cornfield' kind of thing would jar with the rest of his world.

Re: Writers: World-building and character designing

[(Anonymous)]

NA

But, see, I agree that a dragon in a cornfield would jar with the rest of his work. But I think the problem is that it is a tonal inconsistency - it does not work aesthetically with the rest of what he is trying to do. The problem is not that dragons in cornfields would revolutionize agriculture in the Shire; the problem is simply that it is not Middle-Earth and it does not make sense for the story as a story.

Re: Writers: World-building and character designing

[tabaqui]

And to me, it's because it's a dragon in a cornfield, when there is nothing else remotely *like* a dragon in a cornfield anywhere else.

So, however we arrive at it, we both arrive at the same conclusion. Dragons in Bilbo's cornfield (which, i know, he didn't have) do not work.

:)

Re: Writers: World-building and character designing

[(Anonymous)]

Well, but the reason it doesn't work is important when it comes to judging other instances of things.

For instance, take a knight in armor swimming through a river. To me, that's only wrong if it doesn't make sense tonally for the story - so if, making up an example completely hypothetically, you were writing some kind of heroic fairy-tale-esque romance drawing on things like the chansons and chivalric fable, perhaps that makes sense tonally. So that's where there is a difference.

Re: Writers: World-building and character designing

[(Anonymous)]

But it isn't necessarily about it making sense in Tolkien. It's about you stating things that "don't make sense," and arguing that the fantasy worlds that have been brought up work because they contain real world elements. The question is: why does a fantasy have to follow the rules of the real world? It should have rules, sure, but why can't those rules be completely novel?

Re: Writers: World-building and character designing

[tabaqui]

They can be, but if the work itself has already established certain rules - Muggles can't do magic - suddenly having one special muggle who *can* doesn't make sense. The story has it's own framework, and to just randomly toss stuff in that doesn't fit that framework just...doesn't work for me.

The story has to follow it's own rules, which is what I'm talking about and apparently not getting across. Any random fantasy novel can have as much or as little magic as it wants, but to arbitrarily break those rules 'just 'cause' makes the story not make sense, and makes me, personally, irritated and unsatisfied with the story.