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Post by manderspuppy on Aug 20, 2012 19:13:26 GMT -5
I think that's kind of the point of Famine actually. He's at least partly there to show the... ridiculousness/horribleness/? of starving oneself being 'in fashion'. He doesn't even have to work that hard. People are voluntarily doing to themselves something that was/is one of the most horrific things that can befall humanity. ...er? Not really sure what I'm trying to say exactly. XD if it doesn't make sense please ignore me. LOL.
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Post by screechthemighty on Aug 20, 2012 19:19:36 GMT -5
As for Famine, he's doing his job and it's especially disgusting considering today's socially accepted standards of what "beauty" is and that people feel the need to starve themselves to be a twig in order to be accepted. It really is discomforting. Agreed. I think that's kind of the point of Famine actually. He's at least partly there to show the... ridiculousness/horribleness/? of starving oneself being 'in fashion'. He doesn't even have to work that hard. People are voluntarily doing to themselves something that was/is one of the most horrific things that can befall humanity. ...er? Not really sure what I'm trying to say exactly. XD if it doesn't make sense please ignore me. LOL. No, I totally understand what you're saying! I just find it terrifying that a guy who, back in the day, would probably just cause droughts and such, is now actively encouraging people to starve themselves. This is why he's my least favorite of the horsepeople, because of all of them he seems the most deliberately malicious (with Pollution being in second and War sliding into a debatable third because, while she did sell arms and such, she also had fighting just break out around her when she was having a drink in the middle of nowhere). At least, he does to me.
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Post by manderspuppy on Aug 20, 2012 19:23:53 GMT -5
He is rather horrid. I like him as a character but if I think of him from a human standpoint, he's just chilling. It's kind of... interesting that Death is actually the most likeable of the Horsepersons.
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Post by screechthemighty on Aug 20, 2012 19:26:15 GMT -5
Same.
Death is the most likable because he's basically Death from Discworld, and Death from Discworld is secretly a big softie with a steed named Binky and a love of cats. At least, that's my explanation. xD
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Post by notsoholymarie on Aug 21, 2012 22:41:14 GMT -5
Death is a cat lady with cats that don't die. End of story.
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Post by moderntrickster on Aug 22, 2012 11:55:01 GMT -5
I have a hard time saying this because of my lingering fondness for Death, but I think the problem with War being hard to relate to is that writing women (particularly well-rounded women) isn't really Gaiman's strong point. Basically isn't not a flaw of the trope - because the femme fatale trope can be done very well (see: Irene Adler, Baby Firefly from House of 1000 Corpses, Talia al Ghul) - it's a flaw of Gaiman's lack of an ability to write the trope. He can write very good, complicated characters who are incidentally female, but when he tries to write "sexy" character, his less-than-fantastic maleness tends to come out. It's just not a strength of his. But then again, I'm not a fan of Gaiman's with the exception of the aforementioned graphic novels, so maybe I'm just being too harsh a critic?
Personally, the problem is that it doesn't make sense for War's attractiveness to be focused on at the expense of more suitable development. Obviously, no one's saying she can't be pretty, but that seems to be the only thing that we get out of her. She's so pretty that people will start wars over her; literally. I guess in that respect it's less a femme fatale trope and more a Helen of Troy trope? Anyway... The fact is that we miss the opportunity to explore the psyche of war by instead honing all our attention on this one detail, forsaking all other opportunities. We ought to be focusing on the fact that she is (or should be) cunning and ruthless, and has a singular goal in mind that might oftentimes be insignificant compared to the damage done to attain it. She's territorial, she holds grudges, she thinks she's always right about everything and anyone who disagrees with her is wrong. This is the War we should have seen.
I think it would have been interesting if we had to see her retrieve her sword (I know, I know - wrong section to be talking about the sword), and having to mow down everyone who gets in her way to get it, instead of just lounging around waiting for it to come to her - that's not how war works.
In the end, I still believe that the fault for War's lack of decent characterization should be laid at Gaiman's feet. He got too wrapped up in that one detail (he's only human) and neglected the opportunities that writing a character like war could have permitted him. If we're doing a satire, especially one that involves as much social commentary as this one does, it's sort of irresponsible for a writer to touch on everything on the large-scale with some subtle degree of seriousness, and neglect arguably the most important factor of the four. I just mourn for the opportunities lost here, it really is a shame.
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Post by Kaytara on Aug 26, 2012 21:43:01 GMT -5
Tropes Are Not Bad, y'all. On a serious note, I actually... didn't mind the depiction of War, and here's why. See, war is *not* cunning or ruthless or territorial. People are. The people that start wars are cunning or ruthless or territorial or pig-headed or all of the above, or sometimes none of the above, when they bring it about completely by accident. But by the end of the day, they will have started a war, and that's what matters, because war, by itself, is a very separate, one might even say 'alive' entity. Once you've started a war, it's pretty much like letting a forest fire flare out beyond your control. It doesn't matter what your motives were, or what you were trying to achieve - you've created war, and it does as is in its nature. War is simple. War rages wherever there is opportunity, and creates opportunities where previously there were none, simply by virtue of existing elsewhere. War feeds off of itself, in a vicious cycle, because the more it takes away from people, the more reasons they have to keep the war going - to avenge those who died, to make previous sacrifices worth it, or simply because it's the only thing they have left anymore. And at the end of the day, you have people looking at war from far away, and thinking it looks pretty. That it's romantic. That it will bring you honour, or that you can use for your own ends, or to become appealing to women, or otherwise prove your worth as a human being. Until you come closer, and realise that you *don't* actually want this, that it doesn't look so pretty now up close, but by then it's too late and you're just another sucker war has lured in to sustain itself. ...So, yes. I think the simplistic way War has been handled fits the theme quite well, actually - as a potentially appealing-looking but dangerous and uncontrollable entity that really only exists for the sake of destroying. The bit about War being a hot woman that men find appealing enough to kill each other for is, to me, a perfect commentary on the historical tendency to heavily glamourise war that persisted with raging intensity until only 20th century-level journalism, and still hasn't been completely abolished, if you look at how many people enlist in the army under the impression that they're doing something inherently praiseworthy or noble.
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Post by aliceapproved on Aug 26, 2012 22:54:19 GMT -5
You took the words right out of my mouth, because I was actually thinking about this the other day. The reasoning behind why War was so perfectly beautiful is that "War" itself is so glorified by so many people it's appealing and glorious, just like the "forest fire" quote in the book.
Also, it really depends on the trope of whether or not it's good or bad. This one is just very overdone in my opinion, so she's still fairly boring to me, personally, but she does fit the concept well. Then again, this book is over 20 years old, so it probably wasn't that overdone back then, so I don't blame them really.
I find Famine probably the best character out of the four because he's the most human out of all of them. And not just a human, a jerk human who knows what he is, what he represents, is full of himself and does his job very well. Along with enjoying it immensely from the looks of it. To me, those are appealing villain qualities that make me smile.
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