Compiling Thoughts
Just another Friday for the most part. Actually, it's pretty nice outside, but I won't see much of it now that I'm at work. Hmm. Maybe time to go for a bike ride this weekend or something...
I read Iron Kissed this week. Quick read and decently entertaining. I seem to be reading more and more of the "modern supernatural" genre lately just by virtue of borrowing books. Still, a couple things about the book bugged me that I don't recall being issues in the previous ones (being third in a series).
First, the heroine spends much of the book trying to avoid deciding between two guys because (at least in part) she's afraid of losing her own independence. She snoops, sleuths, and pokes her head into things she's told not to in order to get to the bottom of things, and when the shit hits the fan she scrambles back to her werewolf guys to protect her from the big nasties roused by her actions. Now, I have to grant a certain amount of realism there because the main character isn't a supernatural powerhouse, but it doesn't speak well of her "independence" that she has to hide behind pack politics or send someone badder than her at all the confrontations. I almost felt like it would have been more satisfying to be reading a book centered on one of those other characters instead just so the protagonist didn't have to have his/her tail pulled out of the fire by other people so often.
Second, something about the whole "multiple love interests who are supernaturally beautiful, but she can't decide between them because she doesn't want to hurt anyone" situation is feeling very cliche to me. Honestly, I don't know if I've seen that as much as it feels like (maybe the Anita Blake books I read overloaded me on that)and I suppose romantic interests are a part of the genre, but... ugh. I'm starting to feel about that setup the same way I feel about the "mostly-loser high school boy is somehow beset by a 'harem' of women interested in him for reasons that defy logic" cliche in anime. In the end, she does decide, so I probably shouldn't actually hold it against this series.
I think I can sum up my view on predestination in reality as: If some being/power determined how my life was going to play out in advance, it could have done a better job and really needs to find something better to do.
In fiction, particularly in roleplaying, I find the concept somewhat offensive because the idea that events and choices are laid out in advance cheapens anything any of the characters (or their players) choose to do. It's a form of "railroading." If you're going to take the power of free will/choice away from players, you may as well write a story. If you're going to take it away from characters, I'm not sure it's even worth being a story.
Fate is usually introduced along with some way to perceive it - seers or oracles who can see the future. And that's a whole 'nother can of worms when no one at the gaming table is likely to know exactly how things will play out. Even if the GM knows that Villain X is set up to be killed by the PCs at a particular encounter they can rarely predict exactly who will strike the final blow (the odds-on favorite could roll a string of critical misses for all anyone knows). Thus, any predictions of the future tend to come with degrees of (in)accuracy or they have to be made vague, and that's just a pain to deal with most of the time.
Prophesy, on the other hand, I actually sort of like. What's the difference? Well, a prophesy that's motivating heroes of villains should (in my mind) be vague and sometimes questionable. Ancient prophesies are great because they can be wrong, mistranslated, total bunk, or simply self-fulfilling. "And lo, a hero shall rise to slay the dragon" may well come true, but it can come true without any global tapestry of fate - simply because someone wants to save the town from a dragon and they manage to succeed.
This set of thoughts came up in response to some Exalted in-game discussion. It annoyed me, so I went a-reading. The game manages to avoid my ire by having fate laid out less strictly than I had thought. It didn't seem right that the very beings that are supposed to save/protect/rule the world are all slaves to fate, especially when things didn't work out so well the first run-through. But, in fact, the exalts of the world (which players almost inevitably are) are the very ones who are wild cards in fate. They use essence freely and the use of essence tweaks and changes the future, so their own destinies are all but impossible to predict precisely more than a very short stretch out. And when you consider that these are the same people who are likely to build and alter the course of nations, the future overall becomes less and less fixed.
But, in general, taking away free will (or the convincing illusion thereof) is bad.
I read Iron Kissed this week. Quick read and decently entertaining. I seem to be reading more and more of the "modern supernatural" genre lately just by virtue of borrowing books. Still, a couple things about the book bugged me that I don't recall being issues in the previous ones (being third in a series).
First, the heroine spends much of the book trying to avoid deciding between two guys because (at least in part) she's afraid of losing her own independence. She snoops, sleuths, and pokes her head into things she's told not to in order to get to the bottom of things, and when the shit hits the fan she scrambles back to her werewolf guys to protect her from the big nasties roused by her actions. Now, I have to grant a certain amount of realism there because the main character isn't a supernatural powerhouse, but it doesn't speak well of her "independence" that she has to hide behind pack politics or send someone badder than her at all the confrontations. I almost felt like it would have been more satisfying to be reading a book centered on one of those other characters instead just so the protagonist didn't have to have his/her tail pulled out of the fire by other people so often.
Second, something about the whole "multiple love interests who are supernaturally beautiful, but she can't decide between them because she doesn't want to hurt anyone" situation is feeling very cliche to me. Honestly, I don't know if I've seen that as much as it feels like (maybe the Anita Blake books I read overloaded me on that)and I suppose romantic interests are a part of the genre, but... ugh. I'm starting to feel about that setup the same way I feel about the "mostly-loser high school boy is somehow beset by a 'harem' of women interested in him for reasons that defy logic" cliche in anime. In the end, she does decide, so I probably shouldn't actually hold it against this series.
I think I can sum up my view on predestination in reality as: If some being/power determined how my life was going to play out in advance, it could have done a better job and really needs to find something better to do.
In fiction, particularly in roleplaying, I find the concept somewhat offensive because the idea that events and choices are laid out in advance cheapens anything any of the characters (or their players) choose to do. It's a form of "railroading." If you're going to take the power of free will/choice away from players, you may as well write a story. If you're going to take it away from characters, I'm not sure it's even worth being a story.
Fate is usually introduced along with some way to perceive it - seers or oracles who can see the future. And that's a whole 'nother can of worms when no one at the gaming table is likely to know exactly how things will play out. Even if the GM knows that Villain X is set up to be killed by the PCs at a particular encounter they can rarely predict exactly who will strike the final blow (the odds-on favorite could roll a string of critical misses for all anyone knows). Thus, any predictions of the future tend to come with degrees of (in)accuracy or they have to be made vague, and that's just a pain to deal with most of the time.
Prophesy, on the other hand, I actually sort of like. What's the difference? Well, a prophesy that's motivating heroes of villains should (in my mind) be vague and sometimes questionable. Ancient prophesies are great because they can be wrong, mistranslated, total bunk, or simply self-fulfilling. "And lo, a hero shall rise to slay the dragon" may well come true, but it can come true without any global tapestry of fate - simply because someone wants to save the town from a dragon and they manage to succeed.
This set of thoughts came up in response to some Exalted in-game discussion. It annoyed me, so I went a-reading. The game manages to avoid my ire by having fate laid out less strictly than I had thought. It didn't seem right that the very beings that are supposed to save/protect/rule the world are all slaves to fate, especially when things didn't work out so well the first run-through. But, in fact, the exalts of the world (which players almost inevitably are) are the very ones who are wild cards in fate. They use essence freely and the use of essence tweaks and changes the future, so their own destinies are all but impossible to predict precisely more than a very short stretch out. And when you consider that these are the same people who are likely to build and alter the course of nations, the future overall becomes less and less fixed.
But, in general, taking away free will (or the convincing illusion thereof) is bad.
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