I intended to have this counterpart to the previous thread posted tomorrow, but I figured why not now.

I am a lifelong fan of the Dune series, from the Lynch 1980s movie to the book (that I read years later and loved) to the unfinished works in the Path of Dune collection. Some of the post-Frank Herbert stuff isn't so good to me, but the setting and story and worldbuilding as a whole were always an inspiration for me. It lead me to believe that science fiction didn't have to always be stuffy, that it could be loaded with powerful pathos moments and compelling complex characters.

I admired Isaac Asimov and his overall body of work, but characters in his stories were almost like walking talking plot devices leading to what he really wanted to talk about, by contrast.

It went over a lot of people's heads, but the message that messiah figures and chosen ones and Great Man Theory in general was a dangerous and even ruinous concept was quite a novel message to weave through Dune's themes, especially in its Frank Herbert-written sequels.

Some of Dune aged very poorly, especially stuff like the gender essentialist woo about what women could do versus what men could do in the Bene Gessarit versus the Mentats, respectively. It also has a sort of "the gays are evil" old people bias, as presented with Baron Harkonnen. Even so, I'm a full believer in the idea that it's possible to accept criticism of things we enjoy without going full treat defender against such criticisms.

  • UlyssesT [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Will also add I didn’t care for the increasing horny that Frank put more and more of into the later books, you nasty old man.

    I'm glad you mentioned that first. I had a bad feeling that if I did, some Hexbear people that have spent weeks, even months, just sort of tracking my posts and regurgitate their old grudges would jump on me saying anything about sexy sex treats. Most of their ire for me stems from :awooga: criticism, which I guess shouldn't come as a surprise. Yeah, even if I liked Frank Herbert's work to the point of it being a definitive early experience in literature that inspired me for a lifetime, the later stuff approaches dirty old man territory and detracts from his older work.

    Orcs = innately evil is I think okay for the world he set up, even if it is a bit lazy, considering they’re a constructed minion race constantly under direct control of evil gods.

    The Thermian Argument ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxV8gAGmbtk ) can be invoked here, where just because something is said to be divinely ordained or even (super)naturally normal in the canon doesn't mean that it's ideologically a good thing. I really like Tolkien's work and also the first three Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies and I especially like the Rankin Bass animated ones from the 1970s (Studio Ghibli was once called TopCraft and got their start there!), but I believe but could be wrong that Tolkien himself at least briefly explored the idea that orcs had song and culture and weren't fundamentally evil as much as lead by evil. For fun, I'll link to this too. https://existentialcomics.com/comic/175

    (and also Gary Gygax was absolutely racist, with his fukkin “nits make lice” lawful good paladin should kill orc babies bullshit).

    I speak as a D&D player and dungeon master with decades of experience when I say fuck Gary Gygax categorically. In my opinion Monte Cook established the spiritual roots for how D&D is best played, not "lol you see an elf in front of you. Fight/Talk(Charisma roll to see if he lets you pass)/Run?" :d20-ah-fuck:

    Of the elves, nothing is directly stated

    I personally would get a kick out of a Tolkien treatment where the majority of the elves were black, maybe even with African aesthetics in their costumes. It wouldn't really contradict the canon and the chud meltdown would be legendary. :d20-fuck-ya: :yes-hahaha-yes-l:

    • Eris235 [undecided]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Generally agree. The horny in the later books striked me as absurd enough it mostly just elicited and eyeroll and a chuckle, but I also very rarely like 'on screen' sex/romance in fiction, so I wouldn't be the target audience even if it wasn't weird.

      And yeah, fuck Gary Gygax. But, I didn't mean to completely handwave away the orc problem in LOTR, its more that I think that its less of a problem in LOTR than it is in a lot of later fantasy, where orcs are just tribespeople for you to slaughter. Tolkien had some issues, especially the whole "dying mad about vatican 2", but he feel like he was generally less racist and sexist than a lot of his contemporaries. Which, isn't an excuse, since he did still misstep with their depiction, but considering how contradictory and conflicted his different notes are about orcs and the possible origin and makeup, reads to me as someone who knew he wrote himself into a corner, and couldn't really find a good solution to make it right, and chose to just ignore the problem. Which, isn't great, but could be worse I guess.

      Speaking of Chud meltdown, like how all the gods were all kind of genderfluid, in that they explicitly wore myriad forms before settling on their favored shapes?

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Speaking of Chud meltdown, like how all the gods were all kind of genderfluid, in that they explicitly wore myriad forms before settling on their favored shapes?

        I don't think the chuds have melted down about that one because they don't know about it in the first place. :shrug-outta-hecks: