Although I’m a sucker for things like true love – it’s better than anything but chocolate, after all, for me, it’s more a matter that when stories strip away any illusion they’re about real life, they can still be about real emotions and struggles. I lost my mom as a kid and the book that felt the most “real” to me was the Lord of the Rings” because it was about loss and the characters were at this weird intersection between raw determination to keep moving and deep doubts that anything they did was going to matter and the only occasionally spoken fear that the task they’d taken on was beyond them. So it didn’t matter that the story was set in Middle Earth, because it was the journey I connected with. So I think for me fantasy works when it’s a combination of escapism and shoving things under my nose (lol).
I saw your question about heroes and villains and free will, but I think that's something that can go either way. One thing I have to fight against rolling my eyes at is when heroes win because they're the heroes - that has a pre-determined feel to it. For me, it's one thing when heroes have a flaw or do something wrong and it's acknowledged as such, it's when this is shrugged off or treated as heroic that I stop believing in the hero's hero-ness. The main change in The Two Towers I hated from the book to the movie was that twice at pivotal moments (meeting Gandalf and at Helm's Deep) Aragorn tells everyone to show no mercy. It seems like a small thing and it definitely didn't take away from they're being the heroes but it bothered me because the main point of The Two Towers was that the characters were struggling to hold on to their beliefs in the face of danger and fear. In the book, Aragorn tells them (paraphrasing here) "We can't attack an old man, alone and unarmed, whatever fear or doubt is upon us." It's not that I mind that the movie chose the opposite course - it's that no one recognized that they did so. I don't mind when heroes fail to hold onto their ideals, if anything that makes them more sympathetic - but I mind when the story acts like that never happened.
I also agree with a discussion below that for me, what makes a hero a hero is that he offers redemption. To switch to Yu-Gi-Oh! for a moment, (you knew that was coming) that's what makes Yugi the hero of the story.
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winterfish
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Date: 2012-05-22 11:37 am (UTC)I saw your question about heroes and villains and free will, but I think that's something that can go either way. One thing I have to fight against rolling my eyes at is when heroes win because they're the heroes - that has a pre-determined feel to it. For me, it's one thing when heroes have a flaw or do something wrong and it's acknowledged as such, it's when this is shrugged off or treated as heroic that I stop believing in the hero's hero-ness. The main change in The Two Towers I hated from the book to the movie was that twice at pivotal moments (meeting Gandalf and at Helm's Deep) Aragorn tells everyone to show no mercy. It seems like a small thing and it definitely didn't take away from they're being the heroes but it bothered me because the main point of The Two Towers was that the characters were struggling to hold on to their beliefs in the face of danger and fear. In the book, Aragorn tells them (paraphrasing here) "We can't attack an old man, alone and unarmed, whatever fear or doubt is upon us." It's not that I mind that the movie chose the opposite course - it's that no one recognized that they did so. I don't mind when heroes fail to hold onto their ideals, if anything that makes them more sympathetic - but I mind when the story acts like that never happened.
I also agree with a discussion below that for me, what makes a hero a hero is that he offers redemption. To switch to Yu-Gi-Oh! for a moment, (you knew that was coming) that's what makes Yugi the hero of the story.