Comments on: Warriors who don’t make war http://nkjemisin.com/2010/01/warriors-who-dont-make-war/ Author N K Jemisin Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:45:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: [M]etabrain [E]ntry [L]og » Blog Archive » view source, knife fighting, and canaries http://nkjemisin.com/2010/01/warriors-who-dont-make-war/#comment-2783 [M]etabrain [E]ntry [L]og » Blog Archive » view source, knife fighting, and canaries Tue, 02 Mar 2010 07:02:03 +0000 http://nkjemisin.com/?p=275#comment-2783 [...] And that feeling I get sometimes of “oh, I’m not a real engineer, never really was”? Yeine is a warrior who never makes war. Or at least, she doesn’t do it in any conventional sense. That’s the point. Yeine comes from a warrior culture. In her land, serious disputes are resolved in a straightforward and efficient manner: with a knife-fight. She’s pretty good at it, though we never see this… this must be intensely frustrating to most fantasy readers,  who are used to warriors making war, magicians making magic, thieves being all thievey, and so on…. in future novels, if I force a character to act against her habits/background, I’m going to give her at least one chance to use the old habits before she has to stifle herself. That, I think, will make it clearer that she’s choosing to play by new rules — that she could kick ass if she needed to, using the methods with which she’s most familiar, but she’s purposefully chosen a different path. –“Warriors who don’t make war” [...] [...] And that feeling I get sometimes of “oh, I’m not a real engineer, never really was”? Yeine is a warrior who never makes war. Or at least, she doesn’t do it in any conventional sense. That’s the point. Yeine comes from a warrior culture. In her land, serious disputes are resolved in a straightforward and efficient manner: with a knife-fight. She’s pretty good at it, though we never see this… this must be intensely frustrating to most fantasy readers,  who are used to warriors making war, magicians making magic, thieves being all thievey, and so on…. in future novels, if I force a character to act against her habits/background, I’m going to give her at least one chance to use the old habits before she has to stifle herself. That, I think, will make it clearer that she’s choosing to play by new rules — that she could kick ass if she needed to, using the methods with which she’s most familiar, but she’s purposefully chosen a different path. –“Warriors who don’t make war” [...]

]]> By: Max Gladstone http://nkjemisin.com/2010/01/warriors-who-dont-make-war/#comment-2432 Max Gladstone Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:43:44 +0000 http://nkjemisin.com/?p=275#comment-2432 That gap between a character's capabilities and the situation in which they find themselves mired makes for interesting stories. Og the Barbarian, Slayer of the Skitterspider, maybe not so fascinating. Og the Barbarian, Slayer of the Skitterspider, who in order to track down the Idol of Odegra must join a traveling 3rd century BCE slapstick comedy troupe? That's entertainment. I'm also reminded of the Greek stories about Achilles cross-dressing in order to escape going to the Trojan War... It occurs to me that the expectations you're talking about (warriors make war, theives steal stuff) might come as much from fantasy role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons as from fantasy books: a 10th-level fighter character in such a game is very good at fighting, but very poor at doing anything else. Which, of course, means that a good GM will require such a character to think / talk her way out of situations as much as possible. Of course, if a character never gets to do something they're introduced as being quite good at, then it can feel a little like one has left the gun hanging over the mantel without ever firing it. That gap between a character’s capabilities and the situation in which they find themselves mired makes for interesting stories. Og the Barbarian, Slayer of the Skitterspider, maybe not so fascinating. Og the Barbarian, Slayer of the Skitterspider, who in order to track down the Idol of Odegra must join a traveling 3rd century BCE slapstick comedy troupe? That’s entertainment. I’m also reminded of the Greek stories about Achilles cross-dressing in order to escape going to the Trojan War…

It occurs to me that the expectations you’re talking about (warriors make war, theives steal stuff) might come as much from fantasy role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons as from fantasy books: a 10th-level fighter character in such a game is very good at fighting, but very poor at doing anything else. Which, of course, means that a good GM will require such a character to think / talk her way out of situations as much as possible.

Of course, if a character never gets to do something they’re introduced as being quite good at, then it can feel a little like one has left the gun hanging over the mantel without ever firing it.

]]>