Murrin wrote:Whatever we've yet to learn from future novels, whatever perspective we learned things from--that doesn't change the fact that the reader is not supposed to perceive obvious auctorial manipulation of events (as occured for me in a number of places in FR). The flaw is perceived in a meta- sense, not one internal to the story, and so no future information can change the substance of that flaw.
Excellent point. The problem isn't so much that unbelievable things happen. I understand that this is a fantasy novel. The problem is that the author's hand becomes visible. Authorial manipulation. Great phrase, there, Murrin.
If this were the complaint of only one person, then the people on the other side might have a point. But many people keep repeating the same points. The same exact issues are eliciting the same responses across a diverse group of people. Perhaps there's some merit to the "whining"
after all. BYW, that word, "whining" is another way to make it personal . . . as if the complaint arises out of a personality trait of the person complaining, rather than a valid interaction between text and reader. But, as I've shown, this characterization of the complaints doesn't hold up, because the complaints are coming from a diverse group of people with many different personalities. I've been reading the thoughtful posts of these people for three years, and I've never noticed a penchant for whining. This is a mature, thoughtful group of people here. Stick around for a while, Paranoia, and you might change your mind about us.
paranoia wrote:
I don't think so. But only because we're talking about time structure. I might be out on a limb here, but plots that deal with time lines and traveling always make people respond the way they have. If, for no better reason, our own ignorance. If you suddenly bring in time travel in the middle of a story, then I'm going to have all kinds of questions and suspicions - because of my own human lack of intuition on the subject, not the author's exposition shortcomings.
First of all, I've never complained about the time travel. I think it makes perfect sense to have time travel in a place where its fundamental laws are being threatened.
But again, this illustrates your tendency to blame the
reader rather than the author. I don't get it. The author's job is to communicate with his audience. He has chosen this particular medium and genre, so it's his job to make it effective. Obviously, we are a receptive and generous audience. It's not like we've never read fantasy or s.f. before and we're turned off by fantastic occurances.
We are SRD's fanbase. Us. There are no bigger fans of this man anywhere else. For many of us here, he is our absolute favorite author. To blame our reactions on ignorance is just dismissive. If a technique or plot line requires information that we don't yet have in order to appreciate it, then in some sense the author hasn't done his job. Withholding knowledge is another tool in a writer's bag of tricks. Suspense can't happen without it. You can't blame it on us if it's not done effectively. Again, I point to the number of people having similar reactions.
Sure, you've got numbers on your side, too. But your position, as you've described it here, rests on faith in the author. Since you don't have this knowledge either, you're just guessing. You don't know if some future knowledge in the last two books will negate our complaints. You're just giving the author the benefit of the doubt. That's fine, if you want to do it. If you want to have faith, I applaud your loyalty. I expect to be blown away, too. And if I'm proven wrong in my complaints, I WELCOME the opportunity to come here and admit that I'm wrong, because that will mean that my favorite author has redeemed himself and produced a work that is completely satisfying. I'd love to have that experience, and I'd gladly accept being wrong in order to have it.
However, we're not there yet. At this point, with what we know, the complaints are valid. After all, this thread is called "First Impressions," not "impressions after the entire series is over." Perhaps the issues don't bother you, but I'd argue that
this position is more an issue of personality than ours. You are arguing from a place of faith in the author in to later make up for these current problems. That position is fine, but it arises out of your own temperament, rather than anything on the page so far (or if it resides in the pages, you haven't brought that evidence to bear).
I think the Insequent would have worked better if SRD hadn't tried so hard to fit them into the past. It's as if he was perfectly aware of the problem of adding a new class of characters, and felt so self-conscious about it, that he was determined to infuse them within the Land's history in order to validate them. But this is what creates the problem: the Insequent are added into crucial events in Land's history in such a way that these new characters become ubiquitous. I can accept that something new on another continent may have escaped the notice of readers or simply not had an effect on the story in earlier books (like the Sandgorgens). But to accept that we've never noticed or heard of something that is ubiquitous is the problem. Reinforcing this impression is that fact that not merely one Insequent is introduced, but we've got three of them, in different times, and at every crucial point in FR. They lose their effectiveness by overuse. Perhaps if he had introduced the Harrow in Runes, it would have moderated this effect. But not only do the Insequent feel "tacked on" to the Last Chronicles, they feel like he invented them after the LC had started. Indeed, he admitted that the Mahdoubt was conceived late in the development, and added into Runes as an afterthought. Well, that's exactly what she feels like: an afterthought. Just like all the Insequent.
