No elves in this one. Hardly any magic, mostly sex and violence and court intrigue. It could almost be about the Hundred Years War or something (crossed with Dragon age).

It's more like medieval Deadwood. Think of it that way.

I wonder how oswaldtheluckyrabbit feels about this.

Hey Oswald, what other books that you haven't read do you have extremely specific opinions about?

I need to know so I can go around telling people how mature I am, but I wouldn't want to have to accidentally read anything that might adversely affect my maturity level.

Ugh. The thread system on this site is a farce.

With lots of raep, so you KNOW that it's serious and mature and for adults and not retarded shit for gay babies like every fantasy book ever written ever.

I tried hard to think of a way to mock that statement, but honestly there's nothing I can think of that could make you look more foolish than suggesting an entire genre of literature is "retarded shit for gay babies". It's the sort of thing I'd expect to hear on an angry overweight Juggalo related submission.

Knights who say "fuck" really deserves to be some sort of tag.

also "swords that have names"

WEAPONS ARENT SUPPOSED TO HAVE NAMES!! US GROWN UP MANLY MEN DONT GIVE WEAPONS NAMES!! WE JUST CALL GUNS "BIG GUN" "MEDIUM GUN WITH BROWN HANDLE" and "MY PENIS IS BIGGER WHEN I HOLD THIS"

supposed to be a response to post above. Oh well. I'm sure we'll get to hear about how all the sex and violence makes this somehow "mature".

I know, its all the same old stories about magical spirits and heroes in epic quests against monsters using magic swords. And the sex and violence appeals to the most base and prurient of interests without adding anything to culture and art. Not to mention those lazy deus ex machina moments. I mean, what contributions have books like The Odyssey, Beowulf and Gilgamesh made to literature and art? None!

That's like if you said romantic comedies suck and I responded with WHAT ABOUT "TWELFTH NIGHT"?

You know exactly what kind of fantasy literature I'm talking about (aka stuff written within the last fucking 400 years) and don't pretend that the Odyssey is the same kind of thing.

It's clear from what you're saying that you aren't actually criticizing the medium or themes, but simply grouping a number of books you've deemed to be bad and using it to dismiss all works in that genre. If you are trying to say "most popular fantasy books are unimpressive", I'd gladly agree. I personally don't read fantasy books outside Tolkein, Pratchett and Gaiman, although I'm sure that are other worthy authors I simply haven't discovered.

"Fantasy" describes nearly every piece of art or story during most of human history that wasn't a literal representation or instruction manual. We lived in a world that, until fairly recently, couldn't be conceived without magic, Gods, and a narrative used to define what constitutes a story since literally before civilization. While the field has diversified, those works are now less valid today, and there is no reason why modern fantasy speaks any less to the human condition. Fantasy is now primarily defined by the setting used to explore a story and its themes. But the setting is just a tool, with which authors use to impart a message. Often the only difference between fantasy and science fiction is time period and the language used to describe deviation from reality. You can look upon the dreck to dismiss all that is good in the field, but I really don't know why you would.

I don't know what it is in you that makes you so angry and dismissive at work that children enjoy, but I'm sorry that so much great work is closed off to you. Maybe you are right and I am wrong. But I don't think it was stupidity or immaturity that lead me to love The Hobbit or Watership Down as a child, and when I read them today nothing in my experience changes that joy. I've met many people who will vehemently dismiss science fiction, or philosophy, or fiction in general, or even reading. That's fine. I draw meaning and pleasure from this knowledge and art, and don't demand that you agree.

OH SHIT, OSWALD JUST GOT SERVED!

This is absolutely the right place to get on your high horse about the nerd hierarchy.

FANTASY IS FOR ALCOHOLIC BABIES

COMIC BOOKS ARE FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE SEX WITH BROOMS IN THEIR MOTHER'S PANTRY

VIDEO GAMES ARE FOR oooooh is that the trailer for the reboot of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri? This gets me almost as hard as videos of cops beating people up.

It's like most anime: awful entertainment for immature people who lack the cognitive ability to engage with entertainment appropriate to their age level so instead they content themselves with an amalgam of nostalgic childhood memories peppered with sex and violence to remind them that they're still adults. It's grown men treating things like Avatar: The Last Airbender as something else than shiny bullshit for children, which is what it basically is, and it's pathetic.

And these are the same people who usually bash Twilight if given a chance, which is funny because it's all the same thing--adults consuming products made for a child's age level.

I'm just going to sneak in here and posit that Harry Potter is an another one of those trashy fantasy trope amalgamations and flee away into the night before I get attacked by the bearded masses...

Instead, you're a coward.

Did the one star rating obscure the fact that I was being totally sarcastic and making a guess at the real reason certain people are so dead-set against this and stuff like it? :(

In my rush, I have hurt the innocent!

Does it make you feel ignorant that you dismissed this show out of hand so early on even though it has formally ascended into the pantheon of Mad Men/Breaking Bad/Sopranos/other shows PoETV is far above?

Yes... look at all these pathetic comments, heaping derision on stuff & saying "shit" in order to appear more grown-up. It makes me sick.

If hating books where the swords have their own names and women get raped every 50 pages makes me an elitist asshole, then so be it

I didn't call you an elitist asshole.

You don't even deserve that much.

I'm a history student.

Women really do get raped every fifty pages.

Also people totally gave swords names.

The past was silly. Why shouldn't our fantasy be? How is this much more ridiculous than Deadwood or Walking Dead?

Well, I kind of dislike Walking Dead too. I feel like there's only so much you can do with zombies and George Romero already did 95% of it with his first three zombie flicks, and the remaining 5 percent was covered by 28 Days Later.

And Deadwood is working in an entirely different genre--the western. Granted, the idea of "The Western" is just as disconnected from "reality" as fantasy is, but that genre has consistently given us greater work than anything high fantasy has put out.

There's nothing INTRINSICALLY wrong with fantasy, just as there's nothing INTRINSICALLY wrong with any genre. Each genre has to work within a series of tropes. The problem is that high fantasy, as a style, is so disconnected from real life that its ability to comment on anything in an intelligent manner is diminished. Like superhero comic books, it has a central stable of ideas that have become so codified and set-in-stone (swords/castles/kings/elves/wizards/princesses) that it can no longer be really altered. Thus its disposability, and its popularity among unwashed goons of all stripes.

Try to think of some good fantasy outside of the obvious "classics" (Lord of the Rings, Gormenghast, John Crowley's "Little, Big"). I could name a hundred awesome science fiction novels and films, and another hundred awesome western novels and films (although for westerns it's admittedly mostly films). What does fantasy have?

I would honestly love to hear about some great fantasy novel I've never heard of. I read Gene Wolfe and the first two books of this Martin series and both were just awful, but if there's great stuff out there that I've missed I will happily admit my wrongness.

Robin Hood.

bitchtits

Adding to that, Pans Labarynth

And anything Myazaki made, which has the bonus of being good anime and good fantasy

I was so overwhelmed by this hilarious comment page I didn't even know where to leave this. Psychological projection is an absolutely hilarious thing, especially on the internet. Holy crap (some) people.

"I feel like there's only so much you can do with zombies and George Romero already did 95% of it with his first three zombie flicks, and the remaining 5 percent was covered by 28 Days Later."

lol

(also, glad there's something that WWD and oswald can agree on now ^____^)

Oswald posts, like, all the Tim and Eric videos here.

Excuse me sir. If you had read Oswald's fine post, you would clearly see that these books are horrible tripe, with conventions so codified that nothing interesting or new could possibly happen. I eagerly await Oswald's explanation for the fact that new & interesting things happen in these books.

Look at what you did!

I liked it but all the Mother of Dragons bullshit has really destroyed my interest.