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NeilNjae
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- NeilNjae
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Comments
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I think the idea of winning fights, and having that reputation, is part of how martial artists earn prestige. If they can demonstrate that their fighting style is superior (by defeating other masters) they can attract students, both for profit and i…
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Guo Jing's unusual flaw is that he's not very bright. Ignorant POV characters are needed so that people can explain things to them. But often POV characters are somewhat aspirational, and I'm not sure how many people will aspire to being a bit thick…
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(Quote) I think my original point wasn't clear, as your "objection" seem to be in agreement with my point! In Europe, blood-family obligations often overrode all others. The book presents a setting where non-blood obligations are at least …
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(Quote) I don't know for sure, but I believe the serialisation was by chapters, and the division into volumes now is a somewhat arbitrary split for publishing logisitics. Saying that, I think the end of this book was pretty thrilling and a decent pl…
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(Quote) What about Qin do you think supports the wuxia style of play?
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(Quote) Or scripted combat in Burning Wheel / Mouse Guard. (Oh, the debates the players had when choosing actions in Mouse Guard...)
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Yes, there was a distinction drawn between righteous people and the corrupt government, and a strong flavour that "a fish rots from the head." If the emperor is unfit or illegitimate, all levels of the state end up self-serving. The other…
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I've posted some questions about A Hero Born over in that category. I'm looking foward to your thoughts!
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(Quote) Couldn't you say the same about almost anyone? People rarely have just one goal, one agendum, one desire. People are multi-faceted, as was Whatsitsname. It's easy to project your own feelings and desires onto someone as an explanation of the…
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Thanks for the review!
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(Quote) That's sort of my understanding as well. I think of "natural justice" as a combination of both: the expectation of a fair, unbiased assessment of the facts, and everyone getting their "just rewards", whether positive or n…
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(Quote) That's one reason why I like playing "story games" rather than "trad" ones. The focus is more on interesting characters, and the character-defining choices they make, rather than effectiveness and "winning".
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(Quote) I agree that "vengance" was more central to the book than "justice", as there's more to justice than retribution and punishment. What do you mean by "natural justice"? I think it's a term that gets used in diff…
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(Quote) I agree with this. The book was more "valuable" and "rewarding" to read than "pleasurable" or "fun".
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Good observation! There was one couple, Abu and Umm Salim, but that was it. Another symbol of the fractured society?
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(Quote) Interesting! I had the opposite reaction. I was drawn into the story before that (it took a few chapters for me as well), but I thought that chapter was too disconnected from the rest of the book.
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There's a lot in the effect that the stories we tell ourselves can shape how we feel about things. But I don't subscribe to the idea that stories, fiction, are the only way we can know things. I come from a science/maths background and there's a lot…
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(Quote) So was Whatsitsname dispensing legal, divine, or street justice? It's certainly not legal (state) justice. Is Whatsitsname an agent of the divine? I don't think so, despite the connections to St George. It's street justice, as you say. In f…
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(Quote) By that measure, the story of the events in Dora is allegory, as none of the characters have names, only traits. Given that everyone else has names, I must consider the difference to be deliberate. The question is, why do it?
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What is the point of executing a murderer? It doesn't undo the deed. Why are two grieving families better than one? What is the point of punishment? Is it to put right the wrong (restorative justice, or paying damages)? Is the punishment so the cri…
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It's a window into a great setting, but one that I think needs a fair bit of effort by all concerned to do it justice. These clearly historical games need to be treated with respect, to respect the real people the game is about. (I recall the prep w…
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I'm not sure what the naming is saying. There are characters that have names and peripheral ones who don't. Is that just an attempt to keep our attention focused on the characters in Bataween, by making all the others ciphers? (I did like the commen…
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And I forgot to add the reference to (Quote)
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Stories, and storytelling, and stories within stories, are a tradition ever since the Arabian Nights. The structure in this book could be genuinely following that tradition, an intertextual reference to the Arabian Nights, or a deliberate ploy to di…
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Good question. For me, the book is all about justice and everything about it: who decides what is "just", what is done about it, what should happen to criminals or sinners, and what should happen to victims; when are crimes justified, or w…
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A quote from the book: (Quote)
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This wasn't a big part of the book for me. I think the references to magic and djinni served to make the magical seem mundane, just another tool. That meant that the act of animating Whatsitsname wasn't the focus of the story, and we could instead g…
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(Quote) I don't know. I know that news reports, by necessity, simplify situations from what they really are. But the book doesn't end on an optimistic note.
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I agree with Richard, and I think the book succeeded because it concentrated on the people and their very human reactions to the violence and their need to continue living in the face of it. In many ways, the bombings were kept outside what they con…
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I liked that it raised the diversity. Why shouldn't Baghdad be as diverse as London, New York, or any other global city? As for the distinctions no longer mattering: I wonder how much they ever mattered. In the quote above, I get the feeling that bo…