Fiction tropes that annoy

[trixtah]

So, I've been attempting Kushiel's Dart again, because I have had too many people whose judgement I trust say it's way too good to miss.

I tried reading it in hardcover a few years ago, and couldn't get past the first hour's reading (so, less than 100 pages). I'm liking it a bit better this time, since I perhaps can see that the lead character isn't as unbalanced (in terms of not fully fleshed-out) as I initially thought she was.

However. One thing that I really hate in fiction - and fantasy is particularly prone to it, including this one - is the One True X who is "destined" for something or to do something. And because they're "destined", they may resist, but they will eventually accede to their Perfect Fate. Oh, whatthefuckever.

Perfection is a concept I find terribly dangerous. Perhaps that's why various religions make a point of saying only god is perfect - unfortunately, they leave off the corollary "so, as a human, relax and enjoy the fact you are not perfect". No, they seem to expect we try an emulate god in striving for perfection. Since, according to them, we can't succeed anyway, I find that kind of carryon pointless.

So, the cheesier the fantasy, the more blatant the plot that shepherds the Perfect (but often Ignorant of his/her True Destiny) Hero onto his/her Fate. You know, jewels light up, magic swords appear from nowhere, a bunch of companions show up who just happen to have the right skills for getting him/her out of the stickier parts... *yawn*

The best fiction writing doesn't resort to that crap. And I find the idea of Perfect Destiny terribly demeaning to humans as a whole. We manage to create the most beautiful, most compelling, most amazing things out of imperfection. Most of us are generalists. We can do a number of things reasonably well. Some few are geniuses, but perhaps they're useless cooks, or can't sing.

So human endeavour is a vast pool of people combining their creativity and insights into making things which approach perfection. Einstein may have come up with the Theory of Relativity in a (fairly protracted) flash of insight, but it took Ernest Rutherford years of plodding in a fairly uninspired way to be able to split the atom.

The fact that we can get together and do such things, either working together or building on someone else's work is a fairly good example of human society being more functional than not. So what if the vast majority of us are mostly plodders, most of the time? We all have occasional flashes of insight - some more than others, to be sure - but most of achievement is to do with experimentation. Oh, and the willingness to try again when the experiment doesn't work, which they mostly don't. That doesn't necessitate perfection or genius. Just the ability to try and learn.

Otherwise, if we truly believe that only the gifted few create or contribute, just what are we bothering for?

Anyways, one of my favourite SFF authors, Lois McMaster Bujold, doesn't fall into the Perfect Hero trap - her heros are worthy because they work through their imperfections. The best piece of advice one character gives to another is: "[There's no trick to success.] You just go on." Her best quote, and a philosophy (not to mention fiction inspiration) I can get behind:

I don't confuse greatness with perfection. To be great anyhow is…the higher achievement.

Comments

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

This makes me want to read LMB even more, and I'd already been curious.

(We had an incident a while ago that was international in scope in that it occurred at the Olympics, but possibly only memorable to Canadians, as it was a Canadian athlete. This guy, a Canadian, won the gold in snowboarding. Later, it was stripped away because it was revealed that he tested positive for marijuana use. The whole thing seemed ridiculous to me because, first, the drug testing was originally supposed to be for performance-enhancing drugs, not as a punitive morality thing. Nobody even tried to argue that marijuana was performance-enhancing -- they all just on this, "He's supposed to be a role model! Think of the children!" trip. However, to me, it seemed that if this guy can manage to nail the gold medal in the Olympics *WHILE HE'S HIGH*, then hot damn, he must be amazing!)

One of my best friends in the world recommended Kushiel's Dart to me for years upon years and tries heartily to get all of her friends to read it. Finally she just up and mailed me a copy one day. I tried really hard, but I couldn't get past 200 pages. It was like putting hot pokers in my eye. (And since I don't have the little red fleck that indicates that I'm the ONE TRUE MASOCHIST who actually *likes* pain in the entire world for the last few generations but for whom they still maintain an entire fabric making trade producing a specific colour of fabric that only I can wear, that's not an appealing concept.) I'm glad it's going better for you this time around. :)

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

See, not being able to persevere shows you're NOT WORTHY. I haven't got page 150 yet, so there's plenty of time for it to still hit the wall. I think I like the religion stuff a bit better this time round, which helps.

As for your pot-smoking skiier, yeah, I don't get that either. One of the NZ cricket teams touring South Africa had about 6 of their players sprung for smoking pot a few years back. No-one got arrested, but they had to do major penance for a while. In the meantime, the rest of the NZ population who weren't on the ICB or over 60 yawned and went WTF?

Getting back to reading, YOU HAVEN'T READ BUJOLD??? OMG!!! *ahem* Really, I do recommend her thoroughly. Both her SF and fantasy feature excellent world-building and convincing characters who grow. I never thought I'd like space opera, but I got sucked in. Some of her earlier books are a bit "eh", but her version of "eh" is about 5000 lightyears past that guy who writes the Honor Harrington stuff. IMO. Of course.

Also, while the SF books are interlinked and sequential, they stand happily by themselves. But here's a taster - one of her short stories (http://www.baen.com/library/1011250002/1011250002.htm) featuring the main SF protagonist, Miles (there are plenty of ships and battles in the books if you like that too). < /pimping>

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Ships and battles are not a downside, per se, but not something I really look for or require. :) But the main problem was simply that before I heard everybody talking about her in the lead-up to Wiscon last year, I had never heard of LMB.

I was a big sci-fi and fantasy junkie when I was very young, because those were the books that I found tucked away mysteriously in our house library. (This is actually more of a mystery than it might seem on the surface -- neither of my parents reads sci-fi or fantasy, nor do either of my sisters, and there are a whole lot of weird artifacts that I pulled from the family home that became very formative for me but which nobody in the family seems matched to or will claim ownership of.) However, I mostly just read along established lines, buying more and more of the books by the authors I already knew. I didn't have any friends who were into sci-fi and fantasy and had no connections to the fannish folk. I expanded a little by joining the Science Fiction and Fantasy book club briefly, but that didn't get me that far, surprisingly. They tended to also feature the same authors over and over. Just before highschool, I started to get more into existential writing, general stuff filed under "literature," and so on. It was easier to explore because I knew more people who talked about it, the books were more likely to reference each other or make comparisons to other authors on the jackets, you heard references to them in public discourse more often, the presentation and jacket art are more likely to be themselves appealing, the slip cover blurbs are more likely to identify the major themes. It's still my meat-and-potatoes, but I've become over the last several years interested in reading some sci-fi and fantasy again. After such a long hiatus, though, I walk into the sci-fi and fantasy sections and find that there's just an overwhelming array of choice, very little way to tell what's going to be good and what's not, and mostly that I've never heard of anybody.

firecat has been making suggestions which have been helpful. :) I'm in the middle of reading, "Little, Big," which will occupy me for a while. (That's where my aversion from experimentation in reading comes from -- I love new things and surprises, but I read very slowly, so picking up a book totally at random is a significant commitment in terms of personal time.) When I'm done that, though, I believe I will be reading some LMB, because my curiosity has been growing. :)

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

That's interesting. I grew up with no-one around me interested in that kind of reading material either. I got into it from reading excellent kiddies' stuff (and I still love Diana Wynne Jones), and then the library near where I lived as a teenager had a surprisingly good SF/F section. I wonder if I can track down who was responsible for Juvenile Fiction in the 80s there, and shake their hand.

I can count on one hand the lovers or friends I've had who've also read SFF. I don't consider myself to be a "fannish" person at all, although I have attended the grand total of two SF cons now. One for 5 hours and the other for 2 hours. I'm Not Worthy either. :-)

But yay for having people around doing recs. That does help with the plunge into the new, because while I'm a fast reader, I don't want to waste my time on a POS.

I'm on the LMB mailing list (as is kikibug13, which is why she's in pimp mode too), and the listees are excellent for all kinds of recs. And other things, like explaining what "polyamory" means (that was a big DAH-DING moment when I was 30), and putting people onto time-sucking sites like L/J. :-)

Well, I hope that when you get to the LMB books, they'll agree with you. It's good you're not wildly excited by spaceships and gunfights, because while that goes on in some of the books, it's really action to fill in the gaps to move the real plot on. IMO, again. Heh.

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

I can just say I join in with the recommendation of Lois McMaster Bujold. Heartily. (My starting point was Barrayar, although on re-reads I start with Shards of Honor.).
Enjoy (there's no reason not to :) )!

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

:) I got a little more into the weird situation for me with LMB in the comment above, but the net result was that I've been living under a rock and had never heard of her until the last year or so, but that I've had enough recommendations by now that I'm fairly set on taking a go at some of her stuff as my next book once I've finished the one I'mr eading now. :) Thanks for the specific recommendations, though!

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

Think of it as a starting point, instead of recommendation. (Of the mainline Vorkosigan books, Shards of Honor is the first).
Meaning, my favourites of Vor are Memory and A Civil Campaign (with SoH comming fast behind, though) - they are quite a bit further, though.

If you like fantasy - the Curse of Chalion is as good a starting point (although, chronologically, Hallowed Hunt is first, the picture is clarified better if you start with CoC).

[msss.livejournal.com]

You can also try the first three chapters of her new book here:

http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780061137587/The_Sharing_Knife_Volume_One/excerpt.aspx

[khavrinen.livejournal.com]

However. One thing that I really hate in fiction - and fantasy is particularly prone to it, including this one - is the One True X who is "destined" for something or to do something. And because they're "destined", they may resist, but they will eventually accede to their Perfect Fate. Oh, whatthefuckever.


Have you read David Brin's Salon article, ( here (http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/1999/06/15/brin_main/index.html) ) contrasting "Star Wars" and "Star Trek", in which he expresses a preference for the latter because of a similar distaste for the formers reliance on the same "destiny" themes. It's obviously a tad old, as he starts out explaining why he was boycotting "The Phantom Menace" ( at least as long as he could hold out ), but I think he eventually makes some really good points.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

No, that's an awesome essay! If I'd known about it, I would have just pointed and said "Wot he said". Cool, I might have to do a burble about that one too now, since it's excellent food for thought. Thanks!