Makes sense to me.wayfriend wrote:At another point, he calls griffins "a tactical error". I think the general nature of this tactical error is in weakening the dream/real paradox, at least in his view.
--A
Moderators: Savor Dam, Menolly
[/quote]In the Gradual Interview, SRD wrote:denny: Mr. Donaldson,
[heavily pruned with denny's permission]
Why were 'Gryphons' (Griffins ??) introduced to the Land via your pen ? I always thought they felt a little out of place, these beasts from Greece (as it were), taken from a mythology that didn't really mesh well with the Land's rich fabric .. any comments or thoughts on Gryphons (a 'geeky' question I know, but a lot of the good stuff has already been covered hehe)
Actually, I agree with you--retrospectively. By the time I was well into "The Second Chronicles," I had already begun to feel that "griffins" were a, well, let's call them a tactical error. The rationalization, of course, is this: if Covenant is dreaming, than anything he knows can serve as an antecedent or source for something in the Land. But rationalizations don't matter when the results don't *feel* right. And like you, I now find that griffins don't feel right for my story. I look back on them as a failure of imagination.
Sadly, I don't have the option of correcting miscalculations which occurred that long ago. So I'm going to fall back on the tried and true gambit of Blaming Someone Else. <grin> This is all Lester's fault. He was my editor: he should have been perceptive enough to realize that griffins didn't belong in the same company as ur-viles, Cavewights, and the like.
But seriously: I just screwed up.
The interesting question is: why don't Giants suffer from the same flaw? After all, like griffins they arise from the mythologies of our world. The answer, I think, is that I reinvented Giants thoroughly enough to make them fit, whereas I didn't reinvent griffins at all.
(04/05/2007)
They could only be shot down with the right combination of bleu cheese dressing and hot sauce, obviously.Savor Dam wrote:Thanks for the deep-archives quote, CH!
Naturally, I would be a fan of reimagined griffins in the eagle / bison mold...but on reflection, I would be wary of the potential for buffalo wing references.
Sorry, completely off-topic but I just noticed your sig...another Harry Chapin fan? Nice.BannorsUnknwnBrother wrote: ↑ Or at least a few times longer than Gilden-Fire.
I mean, that one is good, (also the only reason I know Scranton exists and is in Pennsylvania, and what I think of every time I hear the name of the town) but for humour it has to be the Six String Orchestra...