McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Unrealism In Books
Abstruse:
Most mythologies have demons and devils that are human/animal hybrids. Egyptians, Sumerians, Greeks, Romans, Norse...men...anyway...Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Shinto, Hindu, Aztec, Mayan...hell, every culture and religion on earth uses anthropomorphized animals as a demon of some sort.
And big swords just look COOL. Why do you think it is that no one uses Greek or Roman swords in movies? Why is it that rapiers used in movies these days look very little like traditional rapiers but very thin broadswords? Is it realistic? Well, the Scottish used Claymores which I can vouch are as tall as most people (I'm 6'3" and my roommate's claymore comes to my eyes). The Japanese developed a sword about 8-10 feet long. The problem is that historically, these big swords were meant for attacking mounted opponents, chopping the horses' legs out from under them. They're not meant for person-to-person combat...
But come on, they look awsome!!
The Abstruse One
Darryl Mott Jr.
Dom:
Re #1, half-whatever demons...the examples you cite are actually something I see as taken from asian mythology. For example, there is a Japanese spirit called a kitsune, which will sometimes appear in human form and have one or many fox tails. People borrow from mythology a lot, so the kitsune, and other "half human" characters show up in stories because people base some aspects of their stories on mythology.
Re: #2, absurdly-large swords...this is something seen in anime, not SFF fiction, and I believe they do it because in art form it can look pretty cool. It's just an art style.
Do I use these in my stories? I do use half-human creatures, yes. I don't use extra-large swords, though, because I'm a writer, not a visual artist. It doesn't make sense in written form.
The reason I use half-human creatures is twofold...I like to explore ideas of what exactly makes us human. What human is, and what it isn't. Octavia Butler is one of my favorite authors, and many of her books dealt with part-humans, and explored what makes us human--I seem to have a very strong leaning in that direction myself. Secondly, if I have a part-human character, he or she is an ambassador between human and non-human. So I have a narrator which bridges the gap between something human and known, and something inhuman and unknown. I'm not forced to use an entirely non-human narrator and dilute their alienness so folks can understand him/her.
It also makes for interesting characterization sometimes. I have an urban fantasy where I have a faun character--he's half human, half minotaur. The way he dresses is affected by how he looks...he wears a hat all the time to hide his horns, and he's very body-shy and won't go swimming with people or disrobe in any way around them. If he was a purely human character, he'd seem eccentric or shy, but with a part-human character you can see there's a reason in his life he does this. You can also explore bi-racial themes without actually having a half [insert race here] / half [insert other race here] character, and one of the bonuses of SFF is that you can explore real world issues in this way without touching on Hot Topic Real World Issues hard enough to taint the viewpoint you're trying to give someone. (IE, people hear about the hot topic issues so often that when someone touches on it in mainstream fiction or the news, people react one way or another automatically. If you approach it very subtlely in a sideways manner in SFF fiction, you can discuss it without the reader realizing at first that it's a Hot Topic Issue. Some of these issues being racial, which touches back on the half-breed character thing.)
So yeah, I have a reason for half-human creatures. :)
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Velkyn_Faer on January 25, 2007, 12:37:25 AM ---1. Cat/fox/monkey/cow/anything else -demons. Uh-uh. I don't see why so many people were/are fascinated with a dude that has a tail growing out of his rear. While some people will certainly think differently, I don't see the huge deal about it. Why cross a human with a fox, what's the point?
--- End quote ---
What this immediately suggests to me is an Ancient Evil that's slowly seeping back into the world, and that finds it easier to take and warp animals than sentient beings, and the different ways that could work and what they would mean about which animals you were most likely to see being affected. The only premise you really have to grant for it to make sense for them to become more humanoid is that hands are rather useful, which I do not think is a stretch.
--- Quote from: Velkyn_Faer on January 25, 2007, 12:37:25 AM ---2. Insanely big weapons. Why do people think swords that are taller than them are cool? And, how come almost all the people I talk to about this are willing to defend it vehemently, saying it's just really big, and we could use them in real life if we had them?
--- End quote ---
Maybe you talk to too many people who don't know squat about swords.
The situation in which a long heavy sword actually makes sense is if you're riding a heavy-cavalry sized horse and you need to be able to hit the infantry you're charging through before they cut you down or get close enough to disable your steed.
The other place where "it's cool" is kind of a defence for really big swords is ones that are more for display than use; I've seen executioner's swords that nobody in their right minds would try to actually fight with, you'd swing once, miss, and get killed half a dozen times while trying to stop the blasted thing and bring it back for another swing. But if all you have to do with it is chop the head off some poor wretch kneeling in front of you in a showy fashion, one stroke is all you should need, and it needs weight enough to go all the way through on one swing unless you want to stand there hacking and looking like an incompetent.
terioncalling:
--- Quote from: Velkyn_Faer on January 25, 2007, 12:37:25 AM ---1. Cat/fox/monkey/cow/anything else -demons. Uh-uh. I don't see why so many people were/are fascinated with a dude that has a tail growing out of his rear. While some people will certainly think differently, I don't see the huge deal about it. Why cross a human with a fox, what's the point?
--- End quote ---
Usually because its interesting to come up with something. I have two races of the like in a big fantasy world I'm currently writing in. One is a set of cat-people and the other are sort of wolfish humanoids with horns that spawned from a failed attempt at drawing my Tauren Druid from WoW. Both are races affected by magic, though, so they were originally human.
I'd explain more on them but that would give away thing's that will come up in the stories in that world that I'm not willing to tell people. Would completely ruin things if you went and read them.
--- Quote from: Velkyn_Faer on January 25, 2007, 12:37:25 AM ---2. Insanely big weapons. Why do people think swords that are taller than them are cool? And, how come almost all the people I talk to about this are willing to defend it vehemently, saying it's just really big, and we could use them in real life if we had them?
--- End quote ---
The really insanely big weapons are more seen in anime (Samurai Deeper Kyo or Bleach) or games (Cloud and Sephiroth from Final Fantasy 7) than anywhere else. Large weapons in reality are really only useful when on horseback or attacking someone on horseback - in a regular old swordfight you'd die trying to use one. The insanely big one's are just always seen as more cool than regular old weapons.
Sometimes the overlarge weapons make sense - there's an actual explanation for the big weapon used by the main character Ichigo in Bleach - but usually they don't. Sometimes it just goes with the character.
Valkyrina:
just a quick note on point #2.
Would you want to bring about the apocalypse with a butter knife...?
...
Thought not.
Sharon.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version