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Fantasy series that are both character-driven and with great worldbuilding


Pilusmagnus

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On 4/28/2016 at 11:58 PM, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

It's not self-pity (well, not just self-pity). It's self-aggrandisement. Kvothe may or may not be the Best Man Ever(TM), but the story you have to read treats him as such, so from a practical point, it doesn't make much difference.

Rothfuss has some awesome worldbuilding (most notably the Evil Tree and the magic system), and his prose is a delight to read. Shame about the characters (which consist of a Gary Stu, some characters who exist to have sex with the Gary Stu, and half the cast of not!Hogwarts). And the all-too repetitive plot.

And then the never to appear third volume. 

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On ‎6‎/‎6‎/‎2016 at 10:22 AM, Jo498 said:

I wrote "except 80s trash". And I admittedly have not read most of the ones mentioned because by now I try to avoid the more trashy stuff.

you cannot be serious naming Hitchhiker's guide as a positive instance of the farmboy trope.

The hobbits are actually closer to upper class if this can be said to exist at all in the Shire. They are independently wealthy gentlemen in middle age (although because hobbits are longer-lived they would be more like humans in their mid-30s than early 50s). They are also underdogs, not Gary Stus.

On of my main complaints is actually that incredible and unrealistic badass stuntmen apparently still sell better than sly picaresque underdogs although there are some mixtures of those.

From the point of view of a lord or knight of Gondor, even the richest hobbits are probably no more than well to do peasants.

But, Roose Bolton is quite right, that from the hobbits' point of view, the only working class character is Sam.

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On ‎6‎/‎8‎/‎2016 at 5:41 PM, polishgenius said:

 

 

Regardless of what you think of the quality of the writing, I don't think Rcollins is wrong about the themes of The Hunger Games, to be fair. As the series goes on it very much becomes a deconstruction of the hero's journey and stereotypical Mary-Sue tropes.

Personally, I thought the Hunger Games Trilogy was rather good.  Having a heroine who ends up being nothing more than a pawn in other peoples' schemes, and pretty much failing in her efforts to do good is certainly not a typical hero's story.

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On 7/19/2016 at 3:06 AM, SeanF said:

Personally, I thought the Hunger Games Trilogy was rather good.  Having a heroine who ends up being nothing more than a pawn in other peoples' schemes, and pretty much failing in her efforts to do good is certainly not a typical hero's story.

What I liked about Hunger Games was that the winning tributes suffered after winning the games.  They went home and found out that being the winner was a PTSD hell along with no longer having a life of their own but as a show pawn for the Capital.  They didn't just kill their last rival and strut off, which happens in much of fantasy.

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  • 1 year later...

Steven Erikson's Malzan Saga.  A series that is extraordinary in many regards.  Erikson does everything so well . You have great  story telling ,  a world of many races and characters and time scales going back not just mere centuries but many thousands of years. B)

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17 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Awww shucks.

 

Edit: Well great now you got me interested in the origin of the word shucks.

One of the funniest things I've read all week!  So, what have you found out?

I'm new here too, so please forgive me if I have repeated someone else - I've only made it through 2 pages of this thread; I will eventually read all of them - but has anyone suggested The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan?

Also, I saw someone say that ASOIAF is character-plot-theme-world driven.  Could someone give me an example of a theme from ASOIAF?  I'm having trouble putting my finger on that at the moment.

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