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[PA Comic] Monday, September 30, 2013 - Sanderfuge
Geth
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
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though it's nice to see the classic pa back, gotta love tycho in his fancy chair needs his bourbon but he had alot to say in the 1st panel
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I was a huge fan of the Wheel of Time series under Robert Jordan and had to sit through the fan base pretending to like it when Sanderson took over and fan-fictioned all over the last few books in the series (though, to be fair, he was put in a difficult place to begin with in that situation. But he still writes fantasy with all the complexity of an 8th grader).
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I swear, Jordan came up with some great stuff but he was really a shit editor. Sanderson may not be that great, but he at least was capable of making the books considerably less boring than they'd become under Jordan. Feeling like I had to skip through 5 chapters to get back to the interesting (and sufferable) characters all the time was getting old.
The rest of Sanderson's work is pretty trashy though.
Though Elantris was kinda mixed and had some real slow points where it was just 'wait for some shit to happen to push the plot into action'.
I really enjoyed Mistborn, and what's more, I probably would have loved it in 8th grade too. Harry Potter was a "kids book," too.
If "complexity" is your palette, then don't read his stuff. I like sushi, but I also like pizza.
I also really enjoyed this comic.
Duality, bitches.
I think you meant to say palate, but either way the first half of your analogy doesn't work.
Don't get me wrong, I loved Sand, I loved Lookouts, I even love Rothfuss's "Name of the Wind", which you exonerated as the very definition of good fantasy, even though I know how horribly it'll turn out for the main character in the end of the series (but I'm still going to have fun reading it along the way).
Tycho, go read "Legion" or "The Emperor's Soul". Both are short works written by Sanderson that are some of his best despite how short they are (each is less than 100 pgs). Legion is about a private detective that gains cognitive power from the multiple personalities floating around in his head. Emperors Soul is about a thief that that uses the exact description of an object written in the small space of a wooden stamp in order to change the very physicality of it to her whims. This is the type of shit you love!
I'm honestly surprised you don't like Sanderson though. Reading Sanderson I saw very little difference in reading Rothfuss. Both build worlds that have their own ebb and flow with magic systems that have rules and flaws. Maybe that just means that I have absolutely no idea how to tell the difference between good fiction and bad fiction. But is that really a bad thing?
I think that honestly I'm blessed in the fact there is very little fantasy I don't like. I love The Name of the Wind (Rothfuss) and The Books of the Shaper series (Fultz) just as much as much love the Stormlight Archive and Mistborn (Sanderson), as much as The Wheel of Time (Jordan), as much as the Black Company and The Empire Unacquainted with defeat (Cook), as much as The legend of Drizzt (Salvatore). I love all sorts of stuff and that's fantastic. I even loved the First Law series even though I despised what happened to all but one of the characters in the end. I even read works from the Black Library, fanatically. I eagerly await new releases even though I know half of them I'll never read again. Abnett and Demski-Bowden for the win.
I'm positive I'm even going to like the lookout book when you write it.
I don't care that you don't like his books. What I care about is how you take eager steps to use a public forum to SHOUT about how you dislike his books. Take a page from your friend Burnie Burns and the Rooster Teeth crew. If you don't like something, DON"T TALK ABOUT IT. Exonerate the stuff you like, Ignore the stuff you don't.
I can still vent god dammit...
Yikes.
You are very probably more upset about this comic than mister Sanderson.
But my real objection to the comic is that he doesn't list any actual tips. He said he had tips and none were given. None. It's like they forgot to write part of the comic in.
The joke literally has nothing to do with Sanderson's work. The joke is on the fan-base around it and two very cliche quotes they use to describe Sanderson's work. It doesn't even express an opinion for his work past 'some people don't like it'.
Seriously dude, chill.
Also Mist-trench coats are lame.
Nah you can't go giving away the tips before the cash comes in.
It's like those weird tips to lose twenty pounds. They'll show you the results but before they show you how you need to take two surveys and provide your bank information to verify you're human.
Amusingly, Tycho admitted he had a harder time insulting game designers once they tried making their game.
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Maybe if you're a dick to him he'll change his opinion.
In tangentially related fantasy news, Scott Lynch's The Republic of Thieves is finally out in eight days! Here's hoping it'll be worth the wait.
way of kings is actually not half bad but pretty predictable if you've read most of his other stuff.
This is a vastly disproportionate reaction to a comic by a couple of guys that write comics that are meant to be funny (unless otherwise stated, with things such as Sand, Lookouts, etc).
It could also be that they are making fun of the entire situation of people who don't like Sanderson's books trying to make out to their friends like they do, and the absurdity of doing that rather than just being honest about their feelings? Maybe that's a comedy about people doing that for any author?
C'mon man, flipping out over a comic like this is staying a bit too far into the realm of the ridiculous.
Also bring up the Trigun thing kinda makes me wonder if you were already unhappy with Gabe & Tycho and just wanted to vent at them for whatever reason.
I read it as Tycho being a fan, but not Gabe (because his taste is so bad on account of being an illiterate beast-man, and all).
I really like the part where Charger347 uses a public forum to criticize that PA use a public forum to criticize something. Very funny stuff.
The first was LobotomyBot who loved The Wheel Of Time but hated what Sanderson did once Jordan died, calling it fan-fiction. I'm honestly surprised by this. "The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass," so accurately describes that series while Jordan was writing it. The first three books were good, then he just spun his wheels. That series would never have finished if Jordan were still writing it. And after the second or third book it just started to become the fantasy of a sexually repressed, nerdy teenage boy and became fairly misogynistic, with about 95% of the female characters being unlikable shrews. Then he just kept adding piles of extra crap instead of ever resolving anything. I made it through 8 or 9 books before I couldn't take it. I love Sanderson's work but even he can't bring me back to that series, despite the general consensus seeming to be that he vastly improved the series and wrapped up most of the loose threads fairly quickly. And as far as I know, everything he did came straight from Jordan's notes, with the final chapter of the series having already been written by Jordan, so I wouldn't exactly call it fan-fiction.
The second is regarding Patrick Rothfuss and The Name of the Wind. I liked this book but I don't understand where the love for it comes from. People have been saying that Sanderson's stuff is plain or generic but The Name of the Wind didn't feel like it was some revolutionary work, either. The world was pretty standard and I honestly found the main character to be a complete Marty Stu, to the point where it was getting ridiculous. Did Kvothe ever really fail at anything? Everything that happened seemed to be him accomplishing some feat that had never been done before or just plain being better than everyone else. I'm all for my heroes being exceptional but it should never be that easy and they should have some serious weaknesses and failures. I have yet to start Wise Man's Fear but even the blurb on the back of that seems to continue the trend, essentially just saying, "Kvothe does this impossible thing and then this impossible thing and then this thing that everyone thought was super impossible and nobody had ever survived an attempt at but Kvothe does while half-asleep!" Say what you will about Sanderson but at least his characters screw up and feel like actual people and the world and magic are well defined and thought out.
Crap, this turned into a rant. Whatever the case, both Sanderson and Rothfuss are good writers and I've enjoyed both their output. I think the only fantasy author I've had real issue with is Brent Weeks. His Night Angel trilogy was so all over the place but rarely rose above average and often sunk into really bad. But you don't have to take my word for it. Reading Rainbow!
I hope the news post acknowledges the hilarity of Gabe's words immediately following PA's own The Tithe. If that's unintended humor, it will be... disappointing.
I.e. using a public forum to SHOUT about how you dislike this comic?
agreed.
And you are the bigger man for it.
So what your saying is that I shouldn't be offended by the comic because they don't like the Sanderson but because they don't like me on principle because of the reasons I like Sanderson. And also most of their own work... Explain that one to me...
And how is "you read one or two pages and then threw up" not an opinion on the quality of the work?
Also, yes the mist-cloaks do look lame. So do the fantasied Boyscout uniforms in Lookouts, but that's part of the charm isn't it? It's not the cloths that make the man it's the little girl in the funny looking cloak that magically fling metal shrapnel at you like buckshot and rip you to shreds.
Right now I am chill. You want to see jackassed and opinionated, you should have read the review I wrote for Halo Legends that amazon.com refused to post because of the profanity. I made an ASS out of myself on that.
If they were trying to make fun of the abject reasoning of fan basses being bias then they shouldn't have picked out a specific author then. They could have just as easily written the whole comic without mentioning a single author and it would have been just as funny.
(In a moment of self gratifying speculation) Do I really sound like I'm flipping out over this? I only cussed once, I didn't use any specific insults to the quality of their work (I critiqued yes, but not insulted), I admitted that I liked their work too though I don't think its perfect. Hell, I was and have been more Self-deprecating than insulting to Gabe and Tycho. I guess that's just how it is. (Dry Laugh) I guess everyone else misread my intent the same way you say I misread their intent in the joke of the comic.
Also, Sands plot is similar to Trigun's plot. It is what it is and I was just pointing that out as something someone might see as a flaw, which just goes to show how deep I had to dig to keep my analogy going of how Sand has it's flaws too. If I was unhappy them for having a similar plot to something else I'd have to hate Sword Art Online (which I love) for being similar to .//Sign.
Keep in mind that I hadn't read Tycho blog post about the comic at the time I made my original post and now I feel like an ass for doing so... Let that be a lesson to you that being early can also mean being very, VERY wrong...
I appreciate the Hypocrisy myself looking back... See above about the possibility of me being very, VERY wrong.
One thing that I can never seem to get my head around is how people take a statement about someone not liking something they do as a personal attack. Relax people, I don’t expect anyone to like what I do, everyone has different tastes.
I loved the Mistborn series and I approve of this comic.
And one last thing....
I have heard of something called "a joke", perhaps you know about them? I understand that they can be quite subtle however.
Well, perhaps the opinions of Sanderson are rather divisive and dramatic? That makes it excellent material for a joke, if you ask me. Nothing is above satire after all.
Well, you did open your post with a heavily emphasised 'fuck you' and then continue to write several paragraphs detailing why this comedy comic made you say that...
As for the Trigun thing? There were a ton of people who popped up and were all 'omg PA ripped off trigun lol terrible', so having someone just suddenly bring it up again did make my eyes roll pretty hard.
When I read it I saw it as all his flaws being in his personality. No matter how great Kvothe was at everything he did he still couldn't overcome the fact that hes still a conniving little bastard that did horrible things to get what he wanted and was consumed with revenge for his family. He lived his entire life building mental walls around his heart to stop himself from being hurt again so he hurts others instead. He's built a complex around himself that because he is a victim and he is better than everyone else that means that he is right about everything no matter what he does or who he hurts in return. I'd say someone with that type of personality is severely flawed.
Also, Wise Man's Fear was, as you put it, a "fantasy of a sexually repressed, nerdy teenage boy". Felurian is not subtle. Gabe and Tycho even made a comic on how not subtle it was. It involved sex with two ninjas. Still loved the book though.
And yes Wheel was a clusterfuck. It was ridiculously complex. How could a story about how the very fabric of the universe had a infinitely detailed plan spanning over millennia against its exact polar opposite force not be needlessly complex. But everything that he wrote had a purpose, everything he wrote fit, and everything he wrote came around back to itself in the end. Yes it was long, yes it was confusing, yes it was self gratifying, but what 15 book series from the 1990's isn't.
Fair enough. I submit I over reacted. And that's a phrase you will never hear coming form the internet ever again.
I admit I took it as a personal affront that they didn't like the thing I liked. I admit that I projected undue prejudice against their opinion because other people have tore me a new one before for liking something that they didn't. I admit that there is the possibility that there were layers to the joke in the comic that I did not catch and missed the point of.
I am sorry.
But I stand by that I argued in an intelligent and respectful manner though. You have to give me that.
Yes. Because that is what venting is, isn't it? Yelling at someone that probably doesn't deserve it for something that I should have just let go in the first place.
I have a bad habit using ALL CAPS as a form of deadpan emphasis instead of SHOUTING like everyone else uses it... My bad.
Hm.
No I'm saying the actual joke actually has nothing to do with offending anyone or saying anyone is wrong. It's a joke on quotes used to describe his work constantly that are actually rather vague and uninformative (and therefore could just as easily come from someone who hasn't read the books). You're attributing malice and spite where there is none. It's just as easy to apply Poe's law to the comic if you want and read it as them actually taking the miccy out of people who genuinely think those sort of lines are super serious stuff or the summary of the books.
Implying that some people did not like the book is not expressing an opinion of the work. This is just like saying some people don't like Nutella. I can say some people don't like Nutella without in anyway imply whether I liked the product or not.
Mist-cloaks are awesome, Mist Trenchcoats from Alloy of Law are dumb.
I'm still seeing jackassed and annoyed that someone dared make a joke on the internet about an author you like.
EDIT: Accusing the PA guys of lying to your face before going on to tell them to never use something as the butt of a joke again might possibly count as respectful to some people. It certainly comes off as absurd if nothing else to me.