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SwampLord
Supreme Hero
Lord of the Swamp
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posted March 17, 2009 02:22 AM |
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Quote:
Then both fail 
A perfect book/game would have both interesting protangists and antangonists
It just seems to me that Sauron has no real goal except killing everybody he sees while the Lich King wants to unite Azeroth in undeath to challenge the Burning Legion.
Also in Warcraft nobody is super good all the time, which characters seems to be in LOTR most of the times.
In Warcraft there is a big political conflict between Thrall, Jaina, Varian and Garrosh (two of those are rather new characters).
Jaina is seen as an traitor by the rest of the Alliance. Thrall wants the best for his people while Garrosh thinks the Horde should return to the old ways and challenge the Alliance. Varian saw his family and kingdom die by the Horde and still sees them as savages.
...
Arthas isn't interesting, he's your typical "O NOES I AM GOOD BUT NOW I R EVIL! RAAAGH!" character. In true Blizzard fashion, he's basically ripped off of Darth Vader. I don't find Arthas interesting at all, to be honest. 
Plus, since when did he *not* kill everyone he met? That's all he ever did through WCIII and TFT at any rate.
Furthermore, I really can't feel any compassion for Sargeras and the Legion, and I will also add a +1 to those who have stated that Sauron is for all intents and purposes inscrutable. But comparing Sauron to Sargeras isn't really fair as Sargeras is not the main antagonist of his series. Rather, maybe comparing Sargeras to Morgoth? That seems more appropriate.
Characters in LotR are not in absolutes, see Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, GOLLUM, Frodo, Sam, GOLLUM, Boromir, Gandalf, Bilbo, GOLLUM...you get the picture.
If anything, WCIII's Thrall, Jaina, and every single Paladin or Demon are far more black and white.
Sauron's also a very interesting villain IMO, but that's just me. He actually doesn't want to kill everyone he sees; *exactly like* Arthas, his goal is total domination over his plane of existence.
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They can take my swamp, they can take my town, but they will never take my FREEDOM!
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phoenixreborn
Promising
Legendary Hero
Unicorn
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posted March 17, 2009 03:21 AM |
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Another point is that Tolkien did not write only Lord of the Rings. He wrote literary studies as well even on some medieval works.
Edit: the tvtropes link is making examples of robots that are intended to be satirical, also that is tv, not literature.
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Bask in the light of my glorious shining unicorn.
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TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
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posted March 17, 2009 04:12 AM |
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Quote:
Edit: the tvtropes link is making examples of robots that are intended to be satirical, also that is tv, not literature.
Does it matter in what media it is put as long as it's still a story? It could just as well be talking about books, of course it's about TV, but they explain "tropes" in general, and this one applies to any kind of story. In fact many robot Sci-fi stuff was at least inspired by books.
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The above post is subject to SIRIOUSness.
No jokes were harmed during the making of this signature.
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SwampLord
Supreme Hero
Lord of the Swamp
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posted March 17, 2009 04:23 AM |
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TV comes from books, it counts.
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They can take my swamp, they can take my town, but they will never take my FREEDOM!
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phoenixreborn
Promising
Legendary Hero
Unicorn
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posted March 17, 2009 04:49 AM |
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It depends. Bender is a cartoon character, I don't recall that the comics came first. Marvin is a character from a book that is a satire. That is an important point to consider when lashing out at human behavior in robots.
It also doesn't stand up under close scrutiny of actual science fiction stories.
Asimov's robots follow strict rules and act according to them, it is inhuman. Or take the story Fondly Farenheit which is a very subtle story which has something to say about both robots and humans. But I doubt anyone here has read that story. The genre is much too wide to fit such a narrow definition of a sterotype.
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Bask in the light of my glorious shining unicorn.
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SwampLord
Supreme Hero
Lord of the Swamp
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posted March 17, 2009 05:00 AM |
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I mean, TV as a whole derives from books, it counts.
Asimov does defy the stereotypes but much of science fiction's robots do indeed fit this description at one point or another.
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They can take my swamp, they can take my town, but they will never take my FREEDOM!
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Mytical
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Chaos seeking Harmony
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posted March 17, 2009 06:44 AM |
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Edited by Mytical at 07:46, 17 Mar 2009.
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Hmm the Elves want to leave everybody to fend for themselves.
The Dwarves locked their doors, leaving the Elves to face their fate alone.
Gandalf doesn't comes and goes as he pleases, and doesn't reveal any more then absolutely necessary. (And he is called "Gandalf the White" go figure)
Everybody and everything has their own agenda..yeah very black and white here.
((pardon my spelling in the next bit))
To me it sounds like somebody has watched the movie, and judged the books by what they saw in the movie. The ONLY 'person' that comes close to black and white in the book is Sauron. Even Saramon (bad spelling ftw) was once a member of the Council of White, and its most respected member at one time.
Even the purest of the group, the Hobbits, have their own issues. Bilbo would do anything to get his ring back.
Frodo would do anything to keep anybody from getting the ring.
Samwise is only helping at all because he cares for Frodo like a brother.
I think you need to read it again if you think things are black and white in these stories. Nothing is black and white. Heck the 'good guys' make a pack with undead spirits for petes sake. How much more 'black' can you get?
Friends betray friends, allies betray allies, even 'Tom' (Please don't expect me to spell his last name) would rather protect his own area then help the rest of the world. So .. what exactly is black and white?
And what about the Scourge (spelling) in WoW? Talk about black and white. They are just undead bent on destroying all life. While intelligent undead did come forth and have more grey motives, they themselves remain pretty basic. If you are not one of them, they will make you one..period.
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JollyJoker
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posted March 17, 2009 09:56 AM |
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Before you even start talking about THE STORY of LotR, it's all about writing style. Like Stephen King said (correctly), the story comes later: you may have a monster of a story, but if you cannot tell them it will just die. And you can have a dozen story, but if it is told like nothing else it will capture.
Tolkiens writing style is definitely open to discussion. You'll find pros and cons - everything has that, basically -, but the bottom line is, you have to like the style. If you don't, you are lost anyway.
Me, I definitely don't like it well, and once you don't like the style the story is just not enough to make up for what I don't like in style.
I don't like "epic". I mean, if it was the only book and the only story available, okay, but it isn't. If I want to read an "epic" story with overstated archetypes of behaviour I can always read the Bible. Or The Stand. (EDIT: The Stand is meant as a joke.)
And Fantasy doesn't have to include Elves. Why compare Warcraft with LotR? I know, I going to get fire for this, but consider the story of The Dark Knight (the latest Batman movie). First thing is, I'd consider this a piece of fantasy. Second, look at the story: Evil (Joker) is trying to CORRUPT everything (not destroy or kill) to become corrupt and evil as well (the other "evil" guys are "just" criminals, motivated by greed and so on). This is as fine a motive for evil to be evil as it gets, and it's lightyears ahead of destroying everything. Then the good side: Harvey Dent, "The White Knight", the symbol of good, in dazzlingly shining armour. That is, until evil succeeds in corrupting him (by killing his dearest), so that White becomes Black, and just when evil looks to finally triumph the Dark Knight takes all the blame and saves the day with it. That's what I call a STORY. Ambivalent. A mixed ending. Very archetypical as well, overstated, sure, but - in my humble opinion - if you just put away the layers of "epicness" and just look at the archetypical story of LotR, in terms of a plot LotR is just plain simple as a bread with a layer of butter.
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Doomforge
Admirable
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Retired Hero
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posted March 17, 2009 10:21 AM |
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I agree with JJ.
And The Dark Knight was rather good. I liked it.  The Joker was a good villain.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Mytical
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Chaos seeking Harmony
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posted March 17, 2009 10:30 AM |
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Well not to be off topic, but the Dark Knight was not very good imo. Though the the Joker in it was indeed of top quality, the rest of the movie was just not that good. I ended up watching it twice, but just to see if there was something I missed the first time (Because everybody was saying how great it was, and I just could not see it). Then again I didn't like the new Hulk movie either. Iron Man was pretty good though. Sorry STS again, back to Dark Knight. I do have to say I liked how the Joker was portrayed, even though I thought I would not. Had many more layers then I expected. Just wasn't enough for me, however, to save the whole movie.
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JollyJoker
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posted March 17, 2009 11:09 AM |
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I'm not talking about the movie as a general piece of art, I'm just comparing the basic PLOT of it with LotR. You can compare it, simply because the "Batman world" (the DC universe) with Gotham City and its Gothic style and stuff has, of course as a lot of epicness itself, since it's something like a universe as Middle Earth. (For the movie the same is true as for the book - you have to like the style, but that's subjective: I hate dolby 5.1, for example, with sound effects and music blasting you through the ceiling while you have to strain to catch the dialogues, so that's basically a minus for all action sequences.  ).
No, it's just the basic plot of something so trivial as this Batman movie I want to compare with the LotR plot.
Let me add something for TheDeath. Interpretations are one thing, but Tolkien himself wrote that he'd loathe allegories and just wanted to tell a good and entertaining story. Period.
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 17, 2009 03:46 PM |
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Atleast the Scourge has more interesting motives then Sauron who is just "Destroy all intelligent and humanoid speices!!!".
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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Lith-Maethor
Honorable
Legendary Hero
paid in Coin and Cleavage
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posted March 17, 2009 03:49 PM |
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hrm
Quote:
Arthas isn't interesting, he's your typical "O NOES I AM GOOD BUT NOW I R EVIL! RAAAGH!" character. In true Blizzard fashion, he's basically ripped off of Darth Vader. I don't find Arthas interesting at all, to be honest.
...and here I thought Arthas was just Kerrigan with better hair and complexion (but not her lovely figure)
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You are suffering from delusions of adequacy.
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xerox
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posted March 17, 2009 03:52 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 15:54, 17 Mar 2009.
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No, Sylvanas is Kerrigan 2.0
Except that Sylvanas is on the "gooder" side (I cant say that anyone is evil, because the Scourge motives are for the greater good).
Also Arthas fall is very detailed in the book "Arthas: Rise of the Lich King".
He was Jainas boyfriend for a while for example.
SPOILERS
Also he banished Ner'zhul in the end of TFT. They are not one. Its only Arthas the Lich King now.
And thats why the Scourge are so dumb in WotLK.
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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Lith-Maethor
Honorable
Legendary Hero
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posted March 17, 2009 04:00 PM |
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uh...
according to everything i have seen and read (including official WoW lore) he didn't banish the Lich King, he freed him, merging with him (and by now, its debatable if there is anything left of Arthas)
as for Sylvanas... yeah, first she dies and her body is destroyed, then she is brought back as a banshee
and because the forsaken need a cool leader with a nice ass, she somehow gets her own body back... huh?
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You are suffering from delusions of adequacy.
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Elvin
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Endless Revival
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posted March 17, 2009 04:20 PM |
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I heard that she possessed the body of another elf, I was wondering about that part myself.
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Cepheus
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Far-flung Keeper
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posted March 17, 2009 04:35 PM |
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Quote:
Also Arthas fall is very detailed in the book "Arthas: Rise of the Lich King".
Which... er... doesn't exist yet.
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Keksimaton
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posted March 17, 2009 05:08 PM |
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@The off-topic thing about Sylvanas: I thought it was retconned .
On the subject of Tolkien.
Overrated? Yes.
Bad? Absolutely not.
Middle-Earth is a very imersive, inspiring and detailed land; mostly thanks to Tolkien's great story telling skills and all the ground work he did for the world he created.
I have been led to understand that it is common in the fantasy (and sci-fi) genre to have more emphasis on the world in wich the story takes place rather than the characters involved in the story. No wonder why I didn't find the characters all that deep.
The thing described above is propably the movie adaptation's most apparent of flaws. The books mostly consist describing the world and creating atmosphere while the actual story would fit in a much smaller set of books. The story is very cinema friendly, but creating the atmosphere isn't. The movies did have propably one of the most awesome and memorable soundtracks and the movies were visually stunning, but it still misses that little something that the books had. Cowbell.
Even with it's many flaws The Lord of the Rings books are fine pieces of literature and the more time we spend in analyzing them the more Tolkien spins in his grave in the likes of the Tasmanian Devil.
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Asheera
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Elite Assassin
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posted March 17, 2009 05:10 PM |
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Quote:
No, Sylvanas is Kerrigan 2.0
Not really, Arthas fits a lot better.
I mean seriously, you don't see the similarity between Arthas and Kerrigan and actually the whole campaign story between Warcraft and Starcraft?
Human -> Terran
Undead -> Zerg
Night Elves -> Protoss
Orcs -> no similarity
First, we have the human (terran) campaign, with a hero turning evil at the end (Arthas -> Kerrigan). Now, let's continue. The second campaign is obviously about the evil minions we faced in the first one, the Scourge Undead (Zerg for Starcraft). The third campaign is a filler, the Orcs, in Starcraft we don't have any of that. The fourth one (third for SC) we have the final race, who is threatened by the Scourge (Zerg) and has to ally with the others in the end (Jim Raynor for Starcraft, and Jaina, etc for Warcraft) to destroy a powerful creature of the Scourge/Zerg.
Now let's go on with the expansion's story. Obviously, the first campaign is the Night Elves (Protoss). The second campaign is Humans/Blood Elves (Terran), and the last one Undead (Zerg), where Arthas (Kerrigan) manages to gain power in the end. Heck even the last cinematic is named "The Ascension" in both games!
So it is at least a 50% similarity between WC and SC campaign story.
Face it, Blizzard are too unoriginal, they just had to make the Warcraft campaign story almost the same as Starcraft's.
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Doomforge
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Retired Hero
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posted March 17, 2009 06:01 PM |
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Yeah, the similarity between SC and WC3 is rather obvious, plot-wise.
Blizzard likes to turn one of the heroes evil and make him dominating.
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