whatever, provided it helps you to change your mood from "sad" into something more positive
you'll always be Brother John to me anyway
whatever, provided it helps you to change your mood from "sad" into something more positive
you'll always be Brother John to me anyway
Ask not what bears can do for you, but what you can do for bears. (razz)
When one is in agreement with bears one is always correct. (mae)
bears are back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
First of all, that's laden with debatable interpretation. Secondly, I'd argue that it's not the only time that Roland's motivation changes. We're deconstructing canon already? I can't wait to see what happens by Day 19!
Even dividing the ka-tet enough to pick a favorite is proving rather hard for me. All of the protagonists are great. On the one hand, I'd agree that Roland is the most complex, but it's equally fascinating what King does with even so simple a character as Oy.
(couple)
Not deconstructing anything. All I said, is that personally, the books aren't canon to me. It kinda peeves me off when someone tries to tell me, "but that's explained in issue 5 of The Gunslinger Born!"
Same goes with the Buffy comics. I like them, but not canon.
"So many vows. They make you swear and swear. Defend the King, obey the King, obey your father, protect the innocent, defend the weak. But what if your father despises the King? What if the King massacres the innocent? It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or another."
Just making a joke of whether canonicity is currently on-topic. We can analyze the whole series to death... but maybe we should save some for tomorrow.
"So many vows. They make you swear and swear. Defend the King, obey the King, obey your father, protect the innocent, defend the weak. But what if your father despises the King? What if the King massacres the innocent? It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or another."
Maybe this one will be less taxing, Path?
Favourite anatgonist and why.
I want to say Flagg, but I don't feel he achieved his potential in the series as much as he did in say The Stand or Eyes Of The Dragon. I think I'm going to pick Roland, even though he isn't truly the protagonist of the story, his obsessional behaviour was and is so detrimental to his journey that he is his own worst enemy. I love him dearly, I think he's one of the most fascinating characters ever written.
Favourite anatgonist and why.
The first name that came to mind for me was Marten Broadcloak. Man, I just hate him. He's evil. He does nothing but manipulate everyone.
( or course, that could be because I recently listened to Wizard and Glass, but still )
The Man In Black Fled Across The Desert...
...And The Gunslinger Followed.
“I’m always on the Batman rule, sir.” - Kate Kane / Detective Comics 857
"It is the story, not he who tells it." Except to us collectors who have to put limits somewhere. - jhanic
Remember, Remember, The Fifth of November, The Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot.
Yes, Marten was an awesome manifestation - brilliantly awful bad guy!
Oh yes, Marten is a good example of a truly bad guy!
Cannot really say I have a favorite antagonist, but the one whose backstory I'd be interested to know is The Good Man, John Farson. There really isn't much said about him, other than that he is evil incarnate with his own agenda (however simplistic or complex it might be) disguised as a fight for democracy. So he is kind of flat as a character - but every coin has the reverse, and it could be sickeningly fascinating to see the other side of TGM, what's going on in his mind, how he came to be what he is, and how he perceives his place in the bigger game.
This interest might stem from being born and raised in the USSR - I'm curious to know what the driving force is behind this so-called "revolution" leader.
If you are going through hell - keep going
Yeah, I've always wondered about Farson too. He never actually meets Roland, if I remember correctly, so they don't even describe him physically, not to mention his backstory and motives. Then again, I think that was completely intentional on King's part, making him more of a faceless representation of the forces of evil, rather than an actual character.
Back on topic, I thought the Big Coffin Hunters, particularly Jonas, were interesting villains. Again, they could have developed them a lot more, but I thought they still made good opposites for young Roland's ka-tet.
I don't and have never considered Farson to be a bad guy. Antagonist surely, but not bad.
Maybe some of his men were bad, some of their methods were bad, but (again, based solely on the books, no comic stuff) all he wanted was the kind of government we have now in our day and age, not the pseudo-aristocratic baronies they had in his when.
That being said, my favorite antagonist is Pimli Prentiss. His self reasoning and thinking astound me, as it shows how some normally good people can justify to themselves doing some very bad things. I think Paul Edgecome, a character 99.9% of us love, could easily have become like him, in slightly different circumstances.
"So many vows. They make you swear and swear. Defend the King, obey the King, obey your father, protect the innocent, defend the weak. But what if your father despises the King? What if the King massacres the innocent? It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or another."
I have a feeling the idea that "it's not them, it's their men" (when taken to the extreme) is exactly the justification for actions used by most of tyrants, etc. to take the responsibility for what happened off themselves.
My take on this is such: if someone fancies him/herself to be a leader, who wants to make some drastic change, they have to be very careful with who they choose for associates/allies. It is up to the leader to make every effort not to let their cause become synonymous with a bloodbath. (Slaughter in Cressia is mentioned somewhere in DT4, if I'm not mistaken. And that plan to poison an entire town in DT1... brrr!) The leader is accountable for most everything that is done in the name of that cause, they cannot just wash their hands of it all.
So yeah, to me John Farson is a villain.
Pimli - I feel revolted every time I read about him. Just can't stand the guy.
If you are going through hell - keep going
Interesting take. Have you read the Bean series by Orson Scott Card? There's a part where Alai becomes Caliph, but his people (although in agreement with him over goals and methods) are a little too enthusiastic to control. It will happen in any real life war situation, IMO. No matter who the "good guys" are, it's impossible to control all your people 100%.
"So many vows. They make you swear and swear. Defend the King, obey the King, obey your father, protect the innocent, defend the weak. But what if your father despises the King? What if the King massacres the innocent? It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or another."
No, I have not read it -is it good? I've just looked it up on wikipedia - looks like it has strong ties to Ender's Game (which I never finished - perhaps I should revisit it).
I know what you mean - but what I was driving at is that even though 100% control is unachievable, one of the "good guy" leader's aims should be to keep as tight a grip on their men as possible when it comes to violence, at least towards civilians, and not to encourage, promote or outright order it (as it was in the planned town poisoning case).
To me, that's one of the measures of whether someone can be considered a "good" or a "bad" guy - is this someone trying to limit violence to what is absolutely necessary/unavoidable (this definition is debatable, of course), or do they actually see it as the primary vehicle for achieving their goals?
If you are going through hell - keep going
In my opinion the Ender's series, besides the first one, suck. The Bean books are MUCH better.
I understand what you're saying, but in a realistic situation a "General" can order whatever he wants, but for the people in the field with no supervision to heed it is a long stretch. I agree they should TRY to keep a tight hold on the reins though.
One thing that gets me about these books is how all the good guys were uniformly "good". i can't believe there were no trigger happy Gunslingers out there, Barons who took advantage of their status, anything like that.
"So many vows. They make you swear and swear. Defend the King, obey the King, obey your father, protect the innocent, defend the weak. But what if your father despises the King? What if the King massacres the innocent? It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or another."
Mmm, I'll see if I can find these books - not even sure if they've been translated or if the library has English ones.
I think for Farson's ideas to take such a firm root and to lead to overthrowing of gunslingers there had to be enough questionable or perceived questionable behavior on their part.
If you are going through hell - keep going
Estoy seguro que ya los traducieron al Espańol.
But it's not referenced anywhere in the books. And that's my point exactly, if the Good Man's ways are so bad, and the Barons are so good, why are the commoners flocking to him? Servants that have been loyal for years joining his cause?
"So many vows. They make you swear and swear. Defend the King, obey the King, obey your father, protect the innocent, defend the weak. But what if your father despises the King? What if the King massacres the innocent? It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or another."
Hate to butt in the conversation, but people joined Farson's troops for the same reasons people have joined every dictator's group: because a man is evil, that doesn't mean he can't engaging!
It's as simple as making yourself - and your mission - seem less evil than it is. It may have been the case, even, that he believed his mission was the right way. Isn't that the case for all people? Why else would you join? It's all about perspective.
Tons of people have joined organizations, whether they be weak-minded or easily persuaded, and found it wasn't what they thought. Do you think Farson went to the baronies and proclaimed his plan was to kill everyone, in various and increasingly nasty ways? Somehow, I doubt it. Now, I'm not calling all the aforementioned servants simpleminded, mind you, but people get caught up in these sort of things. As soon as the idea gets into peoples' heads that they can be a part of something important -which I'm sure was made evident by Farson - they seem to forget morals, or seem to ignore them until it's too late.
Just my two cents. Hope that made sense...
"So many vows. They make you swear and swear. Defend the King, obey the King, obey your father, protect the innocent, defend the weak. But what if your father despises the King? What if the King massacres the innocent? It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or another."
Not saying that was his main goal. But that seemed to be a product of his action.
Yes, it was probably a poor choice of words. What I'm trying to get at is, when people joined him, they had no idea of what was going on behind the scenes. It was a revolution of sorts. And, like all revolutions, it was probably quite glorified. And that is why people joined him. Not because their own antagonistic views, or because of Farson's lack of antagonism.
Also remember....he was written to be an enemy to Gilead and the gunslingers. Ergo, an antagonist to our protagonists. King/Roland - our storytellers - probably had quite a bit of bias. Hence the implication that he is bad. hell..the word antagonist implies evil to most people these days...But within canon, we will probably never know his true intentions. Just my own personal opinion on the guy..
Oh I totally understand what you're saying about the way he was written and about storyteller bias. All the storytellers were quite biased, POV stuff. i understand he was written as the bad guy, but Roland was written to be a good guy, and he killed a shitload of people too. One time an entire town.
Well then again, I'm not sure if Roland was WRITTEN to be a good guy, more an anti-hero than anything.
"So many vows. They make you swear and swear. Defend the King, obey the King, obey your father, protect the innocent, defend the weak. But what if your father despises the King? What if the King massacres the innocent? It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or another."
But, then again, Roland was defending himself. Not his fault, right? And I agree about the anti-hero. I personally see Roland as the quintessential anti-hero myself. The rest of his newer Ka-tet were more the heroes. And Patrick Danville. He was certainly a hero in all senses of the word.
It's not easy to draw the line... what I always say is that "All wars are defensive." As RIS said, definitions of necessary violence are debatable. The Gunslingers may have been too harsh, and they proved vulnerable to TMIB's corrupting influence, but whether their people believed it or not, they did need a force to protect them in that world known to sometimes suffer open rampages of supernatural creatures. (Demons, vampires, etc.) If, if, Farson had good intentions, it didn't prevent TMIB from also corrupting him fairly easily.
Anyway, my own favorite TDT antagonist is Blaine. The supposed threat of technology was not as well represented by the others, IMO. The themes got muddled and the plot meandered. I feel that the conflict with Blaine brought out the best in the characters and in the author.