What is the vidya equivalent of the Book of the New Sun?
>>735809990Superman 64
Dark Sun Shattered Lands
>>735809990morrowind
>>735809990We've already been over this, it's Demon's Souls / Dark Souls.
>>735810049Is Book of the New Sun that good? I like Dune.
>>735810107Yea, wolfe style of writing is influenced by proust and borges
I hate lord of the rings and dune. But loved hyperion. Will I like book of the new sun?
Every character you meet in the story turns up again, hundreds of miles away, to reveal that they are someone else and have been secretly controlling the action of the plot. It feels like the entire world is populated by about fifteen people who follow Grimm around wherever he goes. If the next three games continue along the same lines, then the big reveal will be that the world is entirely populated by no more than three superpowered shapeshifters.Everyone in the game has secret identities, secret connections to grand conspiracies, and important plot elements that they conveniently hide until the last minute, only doling out clues here and there. There are no normal people in this world, only double agents and niggermen in disguise. Every analysis I've read of this game mentions that even the narrator is unreliable.This can be an effective technique, but in combination with a world of infinite, unpredictable intrigue, EMMM's story begins to evoke something between a soap opera and a convoluted mystery novel, relying on impossible and contradictory scenarios to mislead the audience. Apparently, this is the thing his fans most appreciate about him—I find it to be an insulting and artificial game.There is simply not enough structure to the story to make the narrator's unreliability meaningful. In order for unreliable narration to be effective, there must be some clear and evident counter-story that undermines it. Without that, it is not possible to determine meaning, because there's nowhere to start: everything is equally shaky.At that point, it's just a trick—adding complexity to the surface of the story without actually producing any new meaning. I know most sci-fi and fantasy authors seem to love complexity for its own sake, but it's a cardinal sin of storytelling: don't add something into your story unless it needs to be there. Covering the story with a lot of vagaries and noise may impress some, but won't stand up to careful reading.
>>735810439Yes.
>>735809990Bloodborne
>>735809990I have a hard time picturing this book in my head due to its mixture of scifi and medieval fantasy elements. Usually I end up picturing something like Caves of Qud.
>>735810439Why did you hate LotR and Dune?
>>735811467Bad worldbuilding and clearly not having thought through the consequences of the concepts introduced in the story. To quote George r r martin: "what do they eat, what is their tax policy".
>>735811467Probably because they're really fucking bad. Movies carried LOTR hard. Bookfags aren't ready for this hard truth.
>>735811467Nta but they aren't fun books. They are like starwars mediocre shit with unhinged fanbase pretending it's the second coming of Jesus.
>>735811815>he actually takes the meme quote seriouslyit’s a fantasy series with a very clear good vs evil story. Who gives a fuck about market trading and tariffs. >poor world buildingTolkien literally made up an entire langue for ffs, there’s literally books dedicated to the lore of middle earth.
Nothing is that similar to the New Sun booksMorrowind is kinda similar with the expansive, weird world but it has no scifi space techDemon's Souls / Dark Souls 1 ignoring the gameplay entirely matches the dark atmosphere, the complex, lengthy history and dying world>>735812179>>735811815Dune is mid but LOTR has to be seen in a historical context. You can't compare the FIRST fantasy epic to everything that came after. That's like saying SM64 is bad because Odyssey exists
>>735812546Divine Cybermancy.
>>735812546You're allowed to say that it doesn't hold up anymore. We do it with games all the time.
>>735812607hmm yeah I guess the story has some similar ideas>>735812757games age like milkliterature is eternal
>>735812792I tried reading The Iliad a while back and hated it.
>>735812757>doesn’t hold upJust started reading Two Towers, Boromirs last stand got a cry out of me
Caves of qud is directly inspired from book of the new sun
>>735813315HE DIES????????
>>735813408no…
>>735811815>muh worldbuilding zoomers think LotR would have been improved in Tolkien had spent several pages explaining how the agriculture system in Gondor workedTolkien kept his worldbuilding relevant to the story, and that was a good thing. Ironically, he actually DID go into how agriculture worked around Dale in The Hobbit because it explained why the wood elves regularly sent barrels down the river to Laketown and served as part of the reason why the people of Laketown would be excited to see the return of dwarves.
>>735809990Soulsslop if coursehttps://youtu.be/A9sMKlF5MK8?si=HJVDdPCUDzA48BhD
>>735812432The world building is shit, he can make up a language but not even think about how mordor fucking eats.
>>735813750is this bait? Is the Mordor diet that important? Look mate, they have one of those spud trucks parked right next to Barad-Dûr
>>735813750Tolkien actually DOES talk about this. Frodo and Sam talk about it directly>‘Bless me, Mr. Frodo, but you’ve gone and made me that hungry and thirsty! I don’t know when drop or morsel last passed my lips. I’d forgotten it, trying to find you. But let me think! Last time I looked I’d got about enough of that waybread, and of what Captain Faramir gave us, to keep me on my legs for a couple of weeks at a pinch. But if there’s a drop left in my bottle, there’s no more. That’s not going to be enough for two, nohow. Don’t orcs eat, and don’t they drink? Or do they just live on foul air and poison?’>‘No, they eat and drink, Sam. The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own. I don’t think it gave life to the orcs, it only ruined them and twisted them; and if they are to live at all, they have to live like other living creatures. Foul waters and foul meats they’ll take, if they can get no better, but not poison. They’ve fed me, and so I’m better off than you. There must be food and water somewhere in this place.’And then he goes on to explain how Mordor has extensive slave plantations in the south in the subjugated lands of Harad, and food is shipped up into Mordor from there.
>>735813337Isn't there a furry OC in that game?
>>735814560It's full blown furfag/troon fantasy
>>735809990Vidya equivalent of this epic?
>>735810460Stop shilling your RPGmaker slop game ffs
>>735814560is there a fish in the sea?
>>735813593I don't see how it could have inspired Dark Souls honestly. There are so many other Dying Earth stories and many of them do have the protagonist sacrificing themselves to 'rekindle' life in the end.
>>735814701Gay rape video games?
>>735815228/sffg/ pls
>>735815346Oh you were banned, right? kek
>>735815360Banned from where? Not been to /lit/ for ages because of the Bakker fags.
>>735815491I've been on /lit/ for years and I've never encountered Bakker fags.
>>735815559Do you post in /sffg/?
>>735815594No.
>>735815618That's why you haven't encounters the Bakker fags, I only went to /lit/ for the /sffg/ generals.>>>/lit/25168407
Video Games aside, Severian has to be one of my favorite protagonists. I normally don’t like “unreliable narrator” but Severian is so poetic and philosophical that he’ll say or gloss over some heinous thing he did but immediately rope you back in.
>>735815729Severian is a grimcel
>>735814701Death Stranding or Crusader Kings
>>735815729he’s so petty too lol, refusing to rescue a family from a alien bear attack because the mom was too scared shitless to help is funny.
>>735815491Ok, bakkerfag
Sev prime was such a gigachad
Wish one day I could write like wolfe and and spurt all women-hate I feel in a beautiful poem-like prose.From Kazakhstan, with love.
>>735816292She did only not help, she pulled the stair up so he could not escape too.
The setting being bleak and uninteresting aside, Pringleman prose is literally unreadable.
Not even worth a (You) but you do you i guess
>>735816580>this again
>>735817580I mean sure, but it was literally a single mom with her son and her old and decrepit father in law, how do you expect her to react?
>>735809990Torment: Tides of Numenera tried to be but it tried too hard.
>>735818446Wait for him to go up.
>>735818446In the very next chapter he refuses to resurrect the old man because he doesn’t want to play god and he will die alone in a couple of years anyway
>>735818912>goes on to play God at every turn
>>735818908>>735818912at least he liked Lil Sev enough to take him under his wing.
>>735819464Until high comedy struck
>>735814701There are plenty of games about cuckoldry starring Mary Sues.
>>735819961>There are plenty of games about cuckoldry starring Mary Sues.
>>735814701How gay are these books? I heard a lot of talk about unwashed anuses
For me its the black company
>>735813963>The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its ownThis is so dumb.
>>735813963Why do they import food into their barren shithole instead of just moving into the place they grow it in?
>>735809990overrated shit praised by npc's and critics? Last of US, RDR2, BG3 etc
>>735810439Same but I like DuncAfter discovering the son of Tolkien was a pedo priest while his other son Michael was also sexually abused, made me question about him and his friend C.S Lewis. I suspect there was a Mists of Avalon type of situation there.
>>735820860Because Mordor is the force of industrialisation encroaching on the shires.Where do city-dwellers get their slop?
>>735809990Wooden Ocean
>>735809990E.Y.E
>>735820961>comparing Wolfe to literal slopMaybe your just a seething Martin fag who couldn’t get past the first chapter of Shadow because too much big words
Dominions
>>735809990>>735810281Idk if I got filtered or if it was just overhyped but I read shadow of the torturer recently and wasn't all that impressed. I enjoyed it but it felt more like a YA novel than "the best dark fantasy ever". Do the sequels improve upon it a lot?
>>735823275Literal a series that unravels the more you read. Everything becomes clearer on a second read. I’d say at least read Claw and see if you like the weirdness
>>735810049entire book is some zanzibar vagueposting? sucks honestly
>>735823275Giga filtered. I think you went in with wrong expectations, because it's not dark fantasy at all. It's not even genre fiction really.
>>735809990Thief the dark project. I can't explain why. They feel very similar.
>>735824278Kind of. The books literally end with "read again."
>>735820513I was wondering if someone would bring this up. I love this series, I find it kind of enjoyable how important characters will just kind of die in retarded anti climatic ways
>>735820378>How gay are these books?It has evil monk-wizards that mind control and seduce anyone to further their own goals, and there is some violent gay rape. I've only read the first trilogy so I don't know if it changes in the later books, but everything gay just feels like part of the violence. >I heard a lot of talk about unwashed anusesThat's more about the miserable state of the soldiers during a crusade and how bad the camp smells.
>>735823885>Literal a series that unravels the more you read. Everything becomes clearer on a second read. I’d say at least read Claw and see if you like the weirdness>i-i-it gets good the 75th hour of the third reread I SWEAR!Fuck you.
>>735810107Overhyped, but insecure nerds love their unreliable narrator trope.Style is good tho.
>>735821614Im reading the pedophile priest you referred to is the only that claimed to have been molested. Michael just had a shell shock from ww2
>>735809990There is none. People saying Souls are wrong. The world has sort of the similar feel of having been many things in the past, but it's not even remotely similar with regards to anything else, not even the time period or technological advancement or anything about the characters. >>735823275>I enjoyed it but it felt more like a YA novel than "the best dark fantasy ever".You didn't read it then. I don't even think someone who typically reads YA is capable of reading BotNS.
What is the vidya equivalent of Neil Breen?
>>735809990>Gene WolfeWhy are Catholics such good authors?
>>735821614>misinformation and liesstop trying to slander a dead man’s name.
>>735825784Hideo Kojima
>>735825123>>735820378We have maybe a dozen main PoV characters over the course of the seriesOut of those, only two or three of our main characters don't get raped, rape, or do both at some point in the storyJust to put it in perspective.It's not always gay, but it is always rape
>>735813593growl growl growl
>>735825790What confuses me about Wolfe, for such a devout Catholic his Christ stand in (Severian) can be such a dick
>>735825848His pedophile priest son was a factI'm not slandering him, just voicing my opinions and suspicions about him. Don't you like it, too bad
Severian raped lil' Severian
>>735823275Take the opening:>It is possible I already had some presentiment of my future. The locked and rusted gate that stood before us, with wisps of river fog threading its spikes like the mountain paths, remains in my mind now as the symbol of my exile. That is why I have begun this account of it with the aftermath of our swim, in which I, the torturer's apprentice Severian, had so nearly drowned. "The guard has gone." Thus my friend Roche spoke to Drotte, who had already seen it for himself. >Doubtfully, the boy Eata suggested that we go around. A lift of his thin, freckled arm indicated the thousands of paces of wall stretching across the slum and sweeping up the hill until at last they met the high curtain wall of the Citadel. It was a walk I would take, much later. >Still wet from Gyoll we waited. In the recesses of my mind we stand shivering there even now. Just as all that appears imperishable tends toward its own destruction, those moments that at the time seem the most fleeting recreate themselves - not only in my memory (which in the final accounting loses nothing) but in the throbbing of my heart and the prickling of my hair, making themselves new just as our Commonwealth reconstitutes itself each morning in the shrill tones of its own clarions. The style alone puts it way above YA novels. Is it Melville/Gaddis-tier? No, but by fantasy/sci-fi standards it's brilliant. Though for me it's Dukaj:>Beneath feather quilt, beneath three blankets and an old gabardine overcoat, in fustian long johns and wool-knit sweater, in socks pulled over socks – feet only protruding from under quilt and blankets – thawed out at last after ten or more hours of sleep, curled almost into a ball, head wedged under pillow in its thick pillowcase, so that sounds reached me already mellowed, warmed, wax-coated, like ants trapped in resin: slowly and with great effort they forced their way in, through sleep and through pillow, little by little, word by word
>>735810107It's not very good. It's obscure enough to attract a specific kind of pseudo-intellectual morons that think it's super deep.
>>735826135up for debate, Severian though, with his picture perfect super human memory insures the reader that he did no such thing.
>>735826467Yeah, exactly like the priest at the ziggurat. These are things you tell people out of the blue
>>735825172nta but he is unironically completely correct here. And the payoff is quite satisfying.
Severian raped no one, not even Jolenta.
>>735825090>I find it kind of enjoyable how important characters will just kind of die in retarded anti climatic waysIt's one of my favorite parts of the series, I think of all the 80s/90s that were going for that more edgy realistic fantasy feel the black company really was the one that nailed it the best, the company being full of a bunch of random assholes with nowhere else to go who die in horrific battles over and over, they know its a meat grinder but keep going because that's just how mercenary work is, it's a feeling that no other series really captures as well
>>735826152Beautiful. It gets even better in Book of the Short Sun.
>>735826908Lil Sev I 100% believe he did nothing to him, Jolenta however is very debatable lol
>>735810107Read it last year and it’s become my favorite fantasy novel.
>>735824539>>735825712>>735826152Prose wise definitely much better than your average YA, I just meant in terms of the overall story it reminded me of the books I read as a kid with the whole setup of the guilds and he's in the edgy one that everyone respects but is afraid of and he gets kicked out for falling in love but is gifted an awesome super powerful sword and cloak and he takes it along for crazy adventures where he meets more hot girls and quirky characters. I enjoyed it and will definitely read the other books in the series, I guess I just went in expecting something that felt less like a fun power fantasy based on the way people talk about it here.
>>735827149He raped lil' Sev he got he bussy gaped
>>735827149She never complained either.
>>735827210It should be clear that he's an unreliable narrator and may be making shit up to make himself look good. Or is perhaps being manipulated to genuinely think that way, who knows.
>>735822473He says he likes it on the back of mine though
>>735827149You didn't feel uneasy when he explicitly explained that he did not, in fact, rape the boy? The interaction with old man in the jungle prison basically confirms it
>>735814701Blow the brains out of your head, Bakkerfag.
>>735827507My dude, Severian is a Christian figure. He did not rape anyone, that wasn't the intention, simply because he never repented for such a sin later.
Book of the short sun is even better by the way
>>735827780>Christian >rapistSeems legit even for the bible
>>735827507according to Sev, he’s a James Bond tier womanizer. He enjoyed the Lil Sevs company so much that he considered sending him to the Torturers Guild, we also know that the Torturers view rape as a form of torture and consider it dehumanizing. Given the information we are given, I believe Severian.
>>735827917Ah, I see your problem now.
>>735810107it's complicated in a way that isn't literary (time travel and shit) and written to be enjoyably read many times
>>735827780So Christian figures can torture and execute people but not rape?
>>735828054Pynchon has a giant adenoid, a sentient light bulb, a talking dog &c
>>735828065t. did not read the books
>>735828065It's not about what they do, it's about what they learn. The point is that Severian at the end never acknowledges that sin, so to fulfill the book's message, it means he didn't commit them. Remember, Severian is not real, he's a character within a book and a book is written with a purpose.
>>735827918Nigga I ain't trusting Sev one bit, he deffo raped peepoo
>>735814761self-reporting as a newfag retard zoomer
The coolest imagery someone had point out to me is that Severians heavy sword,Terminus Est, is shaped like a cross, literally his cross to bear.
>>735823275Whatever you opinion is, you're wildly misapplying YA as a label.
>>735827210>I just meant in terms of the overall story it reminded me of the books I read as a kid with the whole setup of the guilds and he's in the edgy one that everyone respects but is afraid of and he gets kicked out for falling in love but is gifted an awesome super powerful sword and cloak and he takes it along for crazy adventures where he meets more hot girls and quirky charactersYou must also remember that Severian is an unreliable narrator. Is every girl he meets super hot? Well, one is at least, and there's a reason for it. Is he actually fucking every girl he meets? Is his sword actually super powerful? (I actually don't remember him saying that, but it's been a while since I've read it). The people he meets are real, but to what degree? You should be constantly questioning the truth of events. Also, you said "dark fantasy" earlier. It's not really dark fantasy. It's scifi/fantasy.
>>735820513>>735825090>>735826970based black company enjoyers
>>735810107It’s actually written well, which already puts it leagues in front of most fantasy/sci fi drivel.
>>735823275>Do the sequels improve upon it a lot?The sequels (eventually) completely recharacterize the entire foundation of the narrative.
>>735828941It's fucking dogshit though. It goes extremely downhill after dejagore and becomes utterly retarded.
>>735823275>>735829005Actually, the entire foundation of the narrative is completely recharacterized multiple times, now that I think about it. There are at least 2 massive "revelations" that I can think of.
>>735810107It's an incredibly well written series that is also complex enough that rereading it is an entirely different experience than reading it for the first time. Personally, I think the prose reads a lot like Nobokov prose might, which I consider high praise.
This "unreliable narrator" meme has gone long enough. Stop listening to Azabou Soup for Christ's sake. Severian is NOT an unreliable narrator. That's not how unreliable narrators work. Severian doesn't know some of the things he sees (he doesn't know what an antenna is for instance) but he never tells a lie or a falsehood or purposely misdirects the reader.
>>735829592unreliable =/= liarthe term "unreliable narrator" doesn't imply that the narrator is actively lying. for instance I doubt that the guy from L'Étranger is trying to lie to the reader but he definitely is unreliable.
I started re-reading it recently, and happened to pick up and skim a copy of that new Hunger Games book.I encourage any anon that thinks BoTNS is "YA" to do the same, because it felt like I was reading the scrawlings of an ape in comparison.And not one of those smart apes, either.
>>735829736Yet what is unreliable about Severian? Didn't you get that Agia was fucking her brother? Didn't he rightly tell you that Dorcas was his own grandmother? Didn't he explain in detail the mechanics of the Alzabo? The Altarch's plan? The nature of the universe? The he is the Conciliator? What is unreliable? The fact that he describes you the moon landing without saying "Oh that's Armstrong over there" doesn't make him unreliable.
>>735829736Lying by omission is still lying.
>>735826843Urth of The New Sun was fucking fantastic: recontextualises a lot, and makes a second read-through all the more satisfying. Reading Talos' play with Urth in mind is a lot of fun.
>>735830054What did he omit and how did you know he omitted it?
>>735826083>"I don't think of Severian as being a Christ figure; I think of Severian as being a Christian figure. He is a man who has been born into a very perverse background, who is gradually trying to become better."- Wolfe
>>735829986NTA, but I don't think Severian is ever really trying to deliberately lie, but I do think there's a difference between the story he's trying to tell and the story that actually happened. Severian tends to paint with a broad brush in his favor, not enough to color but enough to recontextualize an event. His perfect memory can also work against him, because he's so consumed by details he can't make generalizations. Sometimes he'll miss out on a revelation right in front of him and fixate on a detail that doesn't really go anywhere. Even more occasionally he'll faithfully include a detail from his memory that contradicts the framing he was trying to create.If you take everything Severian says at face value, you do end up missing on a lot of stories happening in the background, because Severian himself didn't notice. He's not intentionally deceitful, but he is flawed.
>>735829592After reading through the series, and being on the lookout for instances of unreliable narration, this is my view, too.He's unreliable in the sense that he doesn't know how to properly describe things he encounters, but he's not deceptive.
>>735830609What are some examples? Because yes, I noticed that St Katherine was an android. He is wrong that Dorcas was in love with Jolenta and that is plain. But what else? What are the great revelations not told by Severian himself? I'm honestly curious.
My favorite thing is when Severian does a complete 180 when he realizes his childhood hero and his band of misfits are literally a group of degenerates, also makes the first chapter in Shadow comical.
It's been like a decade since I've read this series, but one of the instances of him being an "unreliable narrator" is: talking about his relationship with Thecla, obviously you can see it's not exactly going the way he paints it exactly, but that he loves her or whatever, then later on when he leaves the tower, I think it's one of or maybe the first time he's recounting his experience with Thecla, and he describes this time that either she fought back and was choking him, or he fought her and was choking her, something like that please forgive me it's been a long time since I read it. Anyway, that for me was the first time it really clicked that he was an "unreliable narrator". Even though he does "correct" himself later, what is described the first time is not necessarily 100% accurate.
>>735813593So annoying because The Warlock of Firetop Mountain is more of an influence than other Western work as stated by Miyazaki himself.
>>735830926>I noticed that St Katherine was an androidHuh, I never picked up on that, but it makes perfect sense.
>>735809990a real rubik's cube of a book. anwyway, I like the wizard knight better.
>>735828851All swords are shaped like crosses anon.
>>735830926Well the big one I can think of off the top of my head is that the end of the series, when Severian is wandering the desert and is confronted by the aliens who essentially lay out their entire plan with him, and that the claw was really just a plant. Rather than connecting the dots and realizing his entire life was a gamble engineered by extraterrestrials traveling through time, and that he has essentially been manipulated throughout his journey, he instead has a religious epiphany and becomes fully convinced of his divine significance. Of course this one depends on your own read of the metastory going on, so I understand if you don't accept it. He also seems to never really piece together what Baldanders and Dr. Talos are getting at. There's other, smaller things, but that's what I remember right now.
>>735831000He also says he never fucked her but then later when he has 'her' inside is head it's made clear that he did.
>>735831347/lit/ is dead and while these books may (Blood Meridian being for manchildren is a meme) not reach the heights of like fuckin' Joyce, Proust, and Melville, they're still far beyond what most gamers will ever touch. These people will likely never read anything more complex than a Harry Potter novel.
>>735830205Read the fifth book then where Wolfe writes that Severian writes the bible using time travel.
>>735831505>These people will likely never read anything more complex than a Harry Potter novel.Bro, I don't think zoomers even read anything anymore. If you write more than 3 sentences you get called out for being "ChatGPT". If it's longer than a Tweet, zoomers can't read it. Their lives would actually be enriched if they were to read Harry Potter.
>>735831000I read Thecla trying to choke him as her having some kind of stress-induced mental break because of the fact that she's sitting in a torturer's dungeon waiting to be excruciated, never knowing when they would come for her.Sev being the only person she she can take it out on, but him being able to easily overpower her.
