You explained it much, much better than I could have.
I need either more sleep or more coffee.
Or a endless bucket of money so I can make my own stuff and rub it in AAA peoples’ faces …
I do want a holodeck but I’m not sure it’ll happen in my lifetime. I was playing around with this recently
https://play.ht/ultra-realistic-voices/
Which is one of the better versions of ai voices I’ve ever heard and it still sounds identifiably like a robot 9/10 times, and text to voice is a tech we’ve been trying to get working for like 30 years now.
Midjourney has no idea how to draw a male draenei
Stuff like AI dungeon is fun too but becomes incoherent (or just repetitive/dull) easily.
Maybe all these technologies will work in 10-20 years but I kinda think they might wind up being like text to voice, or voice recognition tech: stuff that gets pretty impressive very quickly and then stagnates for a very long time, never quite reaching what a human can do.
But if it does go faster than that then farewell reality I’m just gonna generate video games all day
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100% untrue.
It’s just the original ideas and fresh concepts lack the audience reach and budget to really make them happen.
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I agree with the latter half of that statement.
Original ideas will grab the audience if they’re not buried under front-loading the setting, and they’re couched in a broader theme or trope.
The Hero’s Journey, The Call, Vengence Will Be Mine and To Bold Go Where No-One Has Gone Before are the staples of every beloved story, be it fantasy, sci-fi or modern/current era novels, movies and games. They’re trope that are broad enough to be able to grow in almost any direction the creators want, they’re broad enough to have mass appeal across various ages and groups, and they’re so common that they’re literally the bedrock of most fiction that has been produced.
The problem we face is that every company, be it a production house, printing group or game studio, all want to ‘Do The Marvel’. And it is just simply not a sustainable model for a business, in any field. You will fail. You will incur losses. You will mis-step. But if everyone is walking the same path without fail, for fear of failure, eventually the path becomes so well-worn it becomes a ravine, and nobody can get out.
Maximum profits. Market saturation. Completely overshadowing and dominating their competitors and cross-platform appeal from movies, shows, comics, novels and video games.
And it is simply not possible. Marvel sank a horrifying amount of money into this, only because they knew that their comics were on top of the market, they had brutal control over their IPs, and they were more than willing to body anyone or anything that threatened that.
And it worked … up until a point. The current Marvel pickings are hit and miss, the actors are burnt out and embittered because they’re not even acting anymore, they get wheeled in, their contract shoved into their faces, they do a scene and then they get wheeled out. They’re props, not actors now, under Marvel. Whatever else we can say about Downey, he had to go and threaten to boycott doing any further Iron Man movies because the other Avengers actors were getting paid a pittance for their work. Most of the other Avengers only got $200,000 American for their work. Downey got $50 million.
We’re all aware this is a business. We’re all aware a business has to make money, and the easiest ways to do this are cut corners, minimise costs and maximise profits. The problem I have with modern design for movies/games/novels/comics/etc is that they always follow a formula, so even if you’re picking up a fresh franchise, unless somebody has the Moneybags junk in a squirrel grip … the journey might be fun, but its predictable.
Unless Corporate is evicted from the story-room and design team, the plot will be A-B-C-D-E-Failure.
These are the same people who insist on color-by-numbers story-telling and design, who will not deviate from the report of the survey, despite the fact said survey is only ever targeted at the same small group of people because they give the ‘right’ feedback, and will constantly bully and short-change the people beneath them to earn a bigger bonus for themselves.
I encountered this back when I was trying to break into the author industry. The kids who grew up on D&D with our support group are trying to break in and have had to self-publish because they ran into this.
The protagonist has to be White Every-Teen. They must be male. They must have a love interest. The love interest must be a bombshell. They cannot be gay. Trans does not exist. They cannot be black. They must have christian roots or thematically similar. The enemy must be black, or middle-eastern, or inhuman. Everything in the plot must bend to aid White Every-Teen. White Every-Teen must always be in the right.
It has taken three years for those kids to push, and push, and push and get past the local manager to the lady above him … and it was only worse. And her demands included White Every-Teen be hung and ‘cute’ and ‘like older women’.
…
The original protagonists were a black teen, her Half-Orc gal-pal and their parole officer, an ace paladin who served as both a supportive guardian/father figure and the voice of wisdom when they wanted to set fire to whatever was pissing them off … by informing them of the best ways to do it with minimum casualties to the prisoners.
Bring on the AI Creator Revolution, because it literally cannot be worse than the greed-driven nightmare that we have today.
maybe you don’t hate women but mocking autistic people with the “ree” garbage is also a pretty bad look
but on topic I’ve been enjoying House of the Dragon despite S8 destroying my interest in GoT media in general. the actors are all phenomenal and I enjoy GRRM’s world well enough, plus I already know that Fire & Blood has an actual ending and D&D aren’t involved to write the show into the ground again so I’m not as worried this time around
I’ve been meaning to get around to the Rings of Power but the initial discourse around the show was seriously off-putting. valid criticisms aside, the racists really came out in full force and reminded me what kind of embarrassing people I share my interest in fantasy with so bleh
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I don’t expect the D&D movie to be good, but I expect it to be fun. And if you’re fun enough, I’ll give it a watch in spite of the objective quality.
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People whining about Rings of Power is becoming tiresome. No one is making you watch it. Its existence does not harm you in any way whatsoever. The LoTR movies and to a lesser degree The Hobbit films are fantastic and they take numerous liberties with the lore. You can still enjoy Tolkien lore and enjoy this show and the movies or don’t whatever who the eff cares.
I can’t watch House of the Dragon since GoT burned me so badly, but I’m not about to write an essay nitpicking a show I have no interest in watching or insult others for enjoying it. LORD WOOPDEDOO FROM HOUSE ZIPPYDOODOO DIDN’T WEAR LEATHER THONGS IN THE ACTUAL LORE who the hell cares it’s a stupid tv show don’t watch it.
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Being blunt, I still can’t fathom how people are giving House of the Dragon the time of day given Game of Thrones, its associated novels, and especially its author is all garbage tier fiction.
Rings of Power probably wouldn’t be as bad to those who dislike it if Martin hadn’t decided to squat over Fantasy and take a big ol’ steaming dump all over it to “subvert expectations”. I know some think I’m giving him far too much credit, but ever since Game of Thrones first released back in the day (and I read it back then) the entire genre of Fantasy has been severely damaged.
GRRM’s works are far from garbage-tier fiction and the “subvert expectations” meme is specifically about the showrunners doing nonsensical garbage and then using those exact words as their justification
it’s totally fine to dislike the show and the books, especially if you’re a fan of the more traditional stuff in the genre. a big part of the appeal was that GRRM focused on what came after the stopping point for most fantasy books (the heroic rebellion wins and deposes the evil king, the new king is crowned, and they all live happily ever after) and added a gritty, human element with a major focus on power dynamics, medieval politics, and consequences. show aside, I can’t imagine disparaging the quality of his writing. if people didn’t want it it wouldn’t have become even a quarter as popular as it ended up and people sure as hell wouldn’t still be waiting a decade for the man’s next book
like I’m interested in your perspective here - what’s been damaged by exploring a different facet of fantasy? do you have the same opinion of other dark fantasy works?
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I don’t like Galadriel but I don’t like ANY of the human and elf characters lmao.
If it’s not Disa then GET OFF THE SCREEN!
Nah, actually this last episode I’m liking the boring human and elf characters more. Also I wouldn’t call Galadriel a villain though, just an a-hole. I think in this latest episode she’s learning to not be such an a-hole. Yet it’s just all the human/elf characters are sorta blah. The actors are doing a fine job but I think the characterization could be better for them.
Dwarves and Hobbits, immediately great.
Humans and Elves are all like blah blah blah, drama drama drama, sauron!
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I think you might be overstating his impact on fantasy. I like asoiaf to an extent (I read the books, did not watch much of the show or this new one) but yeah, I do not want his brand of grimdark low fantasy to be the only type of fantasy out there.
And I don’t think it has become the only type of fantasy! We’ve got this other Tolkien fantasy show now that is hobbits and dwarfs and orcs having adventures like there was only ever one fantasy author with two Rs as his middle name.
What works do you think were influenced by asoiaf in a negative way?
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Gestures to WoW
You think we’d have gotten tone deaf, brain dead ideas like Warlords of Draenor or Battle for Azeroth were it not for Martin’s overhyped Slaughterfest? Not to mention the plethora of Dark Fantasy novels that have been released in the wake of the novels undeserved successes that start leaning hard on excessive, meaningless cruelty merely for the sake of it. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten the name of the book at this point, but I recall reading circa 2010 a novel that was for all the world like your “typical” fantasy story up till about 2/3rds in where the hero dies and the villain legit serves them as the main course at a victory banquet. I know, it’s a villainous thing to do but the novel then proceeds to veer into the territory that “Oh. No. The villain’s actually been the good guy all along and this is just cultural differences.” nonsense.
I don’t begrudge anyone who does like Martin’s work, but I vehemently, wholeheartedly hate it to an irrational degree. It’s the War of the Roses, but with Martin pulling the heads off the historical figures out of a malicious sense of spite. Not to mention Novel Sansa is legitimately too stupid to still be alive but Martin shields her with plot armor specifically so he can do absolutely heinous things to her as so to subvert typical fantasy tropes. Like just kill her you sick bastard.
Don’t forget, Jon Snow dies in the novels because Martin got mad everyone guessed his super-secret super-special origin despite Martin delivering all the subtle hints of a sledgehammer from the character’s introduction.
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err, absolutely. Game of Thrones erupted into popularity in 2011… a year before Mists of Pandaria came out. By that point Blizzard had demonstrated that they had no clue what they were doing with the story or the faction war through the Broken Front and 75% of Cataclysm’s narrative. Warlords was a desperate ploy to regain subs lost to the (frankly undeserved) backlash directed at Mists because a bunch of weird neckbeards couldn’t stop shrieking about Kung Fu Panda and “pandering to China”.
it seems like quite a stretch that either GoT or ASOIAF directly inspired anything in WoD considering that by Blizzard’s own admission the entire premise of the expansion was rooted in the weirdness of Warcraft 2, hence its edginess and general stupidity. and just a solid reminder that WoD is generally despised way more for its lack of content than for its lackluster narrative
I can see a better potential point in your criticism of BfA since we know that steve danuser liked GoT, but again, it was just a continuation of Blizzard’s already well-known inability to write a faction conflict with any nuance which was known for nearly a decade before BfA even came out. furthermore, it’s the same expansion where we learned that the lead writers have a dojo that they hide from any and all criticism in which is certainly more responsible for the atrocious storytelling WoW’s been plagued with for most of its life cycle than some of the head writers enjoying what was, at that point, a cultural phenomenon.
and yes, GRRM has definitely influenced the conversation and some of the direction on dark fantasy as a whole, but blaming another bad dark fantasy book on him is akin to blaming a bad traditional fantasy book on Tolkien - just because he pioneered a lot of the tropes doesn’t mean he’s directly responsible for the flood of garbage tier high fantasy, and I think that same courtesy should be afforded to GRRM
I won’t really touch on the massive book spoiler in your post besides saying that we had quite a different reading of that scene which is unlikely to even be a permanent thing considering a bunch of foreshadowing about the dead character’s role in a prophecy. plus… GRRM has never indicated any concern at people figuring out that character’s parentage. it’s literally one of the questions he asked the showrunners during their negotiation for the HBO adaptation
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I think this is the 2nd or 3rd or nth time you’ve managed to frame things with a greater understanding of how ish works for dummies like me and I genuinely thank you.
Personally, save a handful of shows or movies, my TV/movie-watching self has been tuned out for literal decades.
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I’ll say the only real harm I think GRRM has done to all media, not just fantasy, is make this weird drive for creators to make it so “ohhh none of the characters are safe!! anyone can die!! ohhh, the stakes are so high!!”
like, no it isn’t. shut up. there’s still plot armor flying out of many character butts and you’re not being edgy or interesting, not all stories have to be All or Nothing risk.
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GoT was impossible to ignore. It was everywhere. I’m not sure at my age, I’ve seen a TV show catch so many by storm. My son started watching, so I figured I’d join him.
I could have done without the “who is getting killed in off this episode” game. He got caught up in it and his friends would come over to watch. I found it more annoying than it was entertaining. I also had trouble keeping up with all the characters.
I spent most Sunday nights getting called lame and told to catch up.
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I personally think most of the ‘damage’ is from other writers trying to copy that ‘anyone can die’ feeling without putting in the work to show why the characters die.
When hero X gets shot from the shadows and dies right before an expected story beat, the effect works best if the reaction is ‘Oh no! It must have been because of that earlier scene where Y happened!’, not ‘Oh no! I guess people just die in this setting!’
Even if it’s a plot twist that X dies, it still has to be supported by the previous story - even if the links between plot Y and character X’s death are only apparent in hindsight. Otherwise the story isn’t as fulfilling, and humans will notice and react to that even if they can’t articulate why it’s unfulfilling.
I read the first 4 ASOIAF books (while the show was pretty new) before quitting because I didn’t like the gloomy setting, but I felt that GRRM did a good job of showing why the characters died. It was based on a much grittier and pessimistic read of humanity than most storylines use, but the logic was there.
I’d hoped that GoT’s popularity would mean that complex and meticulously interconnected political maneuvering plots would become more popular (so that there could be chance for a show more to my tastes, with the same political intrigue but less violence and the three-letter word that the mods might not like), but I feel like a lot of writers looked at Game of Thrones and thought ‘characters can die suddenly = good’ and left it at that.
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Personally, I’m just tired of the drama and the bs that came a long with it. The same thing happened with Star Trek/Wars in the last few series. Not Juspion’s comments, but elsewhere.
You can’t go a day in lotro without some ultra-hardcore-super-fan blowing their stack because how dare they be inclusive!
I love the series, bad anime-editing and all… I just wish the hatemongers would go back to the caves and stay there.
Yeah, that’s because Martin made it popular… GOT got super successful, and much like other game studios trying to reinvent wow, other tv studios are trying to cash in on the grimdark bs. So it’s Martin’s fault. It’s why I am sick to death of all the grimdark fantasy (all media).
I’m waiting until all the episodes of Rings of Power are out before I watch it, because I’m gonna get a free trial and binge. XD
But man, what struck me is how people were ranting about how awful it was going to be, months before it was released. I’m reserving judgement until I actually see it, but I’m skeptical when someone says something sucks before it’s even out.
I genuinely enjoyed Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Hobbit Trilogy, even though they weren’t perfect adaptations of Tolkein’s work, for the same reason that I enjoyed the Warcraft movie even though it was not a perfect adaptation of the First War. It’s a different creative lens. You can take a slightly different direction from the original. I love WoW lore. The existence of the Warcraft Movie does not diminish that lore. The same is true of Tolkein’s books vs film/tv adaptations. If you love Tolkein’s work as written, they’re not going anywhere. They’re not diminished by the new.
I’m all for honouring Tolkein’s work. He was a creative genius who laid the groundwork for the fantasy genre, which arguably contributed to the fact that we’re all here on this WoW forum lol. But being puritanical and fundamentalist about Tolkein’s work seems silly to me. The man regularly retconned his own lore, to the point that characters like Galadriel are actually really hard to pin down in history, because he kept altering her backstory. Of all people to be slightly off in interpretation, Rings of Power probably picked the best candidate in Galadriel. Again, she was regularly retconned by Tolkein.
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There was also a story, where he retconned one of his Man races I think, because they were too heavily a Jewish stereotype or something.
Exactly, they act like the movies and series are replacing the books or something. 
Super fans just need to stop being a thing.
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