I'd question the purpose of trying to entertain the male gaze in a novel in the first place. Reading novels for their erotic content simply isn't a thing that men usually do. If you really wanted to include something erotic in a book, the target audience should be women.
More importantly, how does fabric tear "with an echoing sound?"
you haven't read many fantasy novels have you? I guarantee you if the author is a man he is going to get one of his female characters topless in some erotic manner at least once in his book. The Sword of Truth series in particular was REALLY bad about it. Even in the first book, there was questionable stuff, but like, I couldn't finish the fourth book. The sexual content and violence against women got to be WAY too much. Like it got worse with each book, it was horrible. A real shame too, because I was totally invested in the story by the time it went from "annoying fanservice" to straight up disturbing.
but like even with just like sexual stuff? It is in most fantasy novels. Heck its in a lot of Forgotten Realms fantasy novels, ESPECIALLY if it's one by Ed Greenwood. And believe me, as a lady who's been into D&D and a lot of related fandoms near her whole life, I have met a LOT of guys who get their jollies while reading these kinds of books. Sure, they're also in it for the story, but that doesn't mean they're not also out to get their jollies because they know they got sexy stuff to look forward to at least once in that new fantasy book they picked up.
In fairness to Sword of Truth, it's equally violent in dark sexuality perpetrated by females against males. I had to stop reading after the umpteenth bondage scene with a woman torturing the male lead character. I realized the whole tone of the books was taking my mind and mood to very unpleasant places, and I had to stop reading and ask "Why am I spending my leisure time reading this?" My answer was, "This is foolish, I'm going to stop and do something else."
A few years later, the TV series based on the books came out, and I actually liked that show, because they removed all the dark and violent stuff.
Min 1HP items should never be used. Ever. Not least because RAISE DEAD EXISTS. If it's really, really important that arbitrary villain #7 be alive, just have them be raised for the next scene, or have their body be taken from you and raised in a hellish dungeon. It's lazy, sloppy writing and there's no excuse for it.
All the above about Jaheira is as nothing compared to the RE mod. There is rarely anything romantic about it except in regard to other party members. It should be called LE not RE.
I'd question the purpose of trying to entertain the male gaze in a novel in the first place. Reading novels for their erotic content simply isn't a thing that men usually do. If you really wanted to include something erotic in a book, the target audience should be women.
More importantly, how does fabric tear "with an echoing sound?"
you haven't read many fantasy novels have you? I guarantee you if the author is a man he is going to get one of his female characters topless in some erotic manner at least once in his book. The Sword of Truth series in particular was REALLY bad about it. Even in the first book, there was questionable stuff, but like, I couldn't finish the fourth book. The sexual content and violence against women got to be WAY too much. Like it got worse with each book, it was horrible. A real shame too, because I was totally invested in the story by the time it went from "annoying fanservice" to straight up disturbing.
but like even with just like sexual stuff? It is in most fantasy novels. Heck its in a lot of Forgotten Realms fantasy novels, ESPECIALLY if it's one by Ed Greenwood. And believe me, as a lady who's been into D&D and a lot of related fandoms near her whole life, I have met a LOT of guys who get their jollies while reading these kinds of books. Sure, they're also in it for the story, but that doesn't mean they're not also out to get their jollies because they know they got sexy stuff to look forward to at least once in that new fantasy book they picked up.
In fairness to Sword of Truth, it's equally violent in dark sexuality perpetrated by females against males. I had to stop reading after the umpteenth bondage scene with a woman torturing the male lead character. I realized the whole tone of the books was taking my mind and mood to very unpleasant places, and I had to stop reading and ask "Why am I spending my leisure time reading this?" My answer was, "This is foolish, I'm going to stop and do something else."
A few years later, the TV series based on the books came out, and I actually liked that show, because they removed all the dark and violent stuff.
A fair point, but even the bondage scenes unnecessarily sexualized the women more than they did the men, and were clearly still written in a way to cater to the male gaze, though in this case, males with a masochistic bondage fetish specifically. And like, the sexual violence against men never got quite as bad as the stuff against women, as far as I read. Like, I would hardly call it equal. I mean, in the fourth book we got treated to a villain
whose entire thing was torturing women, sexually assaulting them in excessively graphic detail, then cutting both their breasts off before murdering them in the most bloody way possible. He does this to multiple women throughout the book and is given WAY too much space in the book dedicated to his acts of sexual violence against women. You can't really say the books were equally violent against men when the worst thing that happened to a guy was getting tortured against his will in some Evil Hot Chick's sex dungeon (which is still bad but), and the worst thing that happened to women was similarly intense torture followed by rape, mutilation, and murder.
And, this was a MAJOR plot point and a huge part of the book. In fact, it was pretty much part of the MAIN PLOT. And, why I stopped reading the series. Oh, did I mention he was totally treated as a fairly decent guy before it was revealed he was the one perpetrating these acts? And there was still an attempt to make him sympathetic afterwards with some sob story about a tragic past that made him crazy? Please, give me all the bondage scenes ever, they are nowhere near as bad as this.
@LadyEibhilinRhett It makes me glad that I never read such stuff as it can affect your mind set if you are not very careful. Anything non-consensensual in the sexual realm is plain yukky.
I read all the sword of truth novels in high school and loved them. Then later when I tried to reread them I realized it’s just the same general plot each book and that I sort of hate the main character >_>
And the author overused rape a lot to show how bad the villains are.
@LadyEibhilinRhett , That's horrible. Luckily, I stopped reading long before I got to any of that. I think I made it about halfway through the second book. It sounds like I made the right decision to stop reading it before it got even worse with the dark stuff.
@LadyEibhilinRhett It makes me glad that I never read such stuff as it can affect your mind set if you are not very careful. Anything non-consensensual in the sexual realm is plain yukky.
I try to avoid anything that gets too far into that, yeah. Honestly, the only reason I managed to make it into book four was because after the first book, which was really good plot-wise, I was super invested in the story. But once it got to that point it just wasn't worth it to continue, because I really can't stomach that kind of stuff and if it gets to the point where it's so prevalent I can't just skim over it and skip to the 'safe' parts and/or so disturbing that even catching a sentence or two of it by accident is something I don't want to do, like, it's not the experience I signed up for anymore.
That, and, well, I had convinced myself it couldn't get TOO bad because my middle school teacher had been the one who recommended the first book to me, and my teacher would not recommend me an inappropriate thing. That, and I hadn't really picked up on the sexual undertones until stuff got super explicit. The Kinky Sex Dungeon scenes? To my innocent preteen mind that was just "oh no the bad guys have captured the good guy and are hurting him, but I know he's gonna find a way out of this bad situation because he is the good guy. Go go good guy I'm rooting for you!" Unnecessary nudity? Skipped over those sentences because they made no sense, imagined it with everyone fully clothed and totally forgot they were naked. When I later confronted my teacher about the fourth book, she was appalled - it turns out she was a slow reader and was still partway through the second book and had no idea about the serious downturn the series took.
Honestly, after that, I tend to turn away from a lot of media if there are signs of it starting to get gross, because like, I'm scared it will go the way of the Sword of Truth novels, which scarred poor 13 year old me for life. I much prefer good clean fun, no unnecessary sexual stuff involved. Which is why nowadays I start giving stuff the side-eye even when something as relatively benign as the Spider Boob Scene shows up.
75. Every time someone goes "dual-wielding is unrealistic, warrior should be able to use dagger in second hand at best!", or "why barbarian's rage blocks magical effects like imprisonment, it's stupid, being angry shouldn't make you immune!" or "wizard slayers should just be able to disrupt spell-casting as their special technique, there is no reason for magic resistance!" fraction of my divine essence gets lost in the Abyss and feeds the Father. C'mon. Warriors are pretty sad as they are. 76. I think most people get alignments wrong. Alignment =/= motivation (they are closer to something like "motivation to choose motivation" - so some higher-order disposition); most alignment can have similar or even identical motivations. 77. Having alignment doesn't mean being embodiment and perfect avatar of good/neutral/evil and law/balance/chaos. People can and do have shortcomings, flaws and inconsistencies. So no, Keldorn does not stop being LG because he's fine with burning Viconia, nor Korgan stops being CE because he says "kidnapping children is bad!". 78. NWN OC is... fine. Really. I don't get the hate, because it's pretty standard - intrigue, terrible danger, ancient evil, and you noble hero, to save the day. It's not that different from any other cRPG and it's definitely not worse than, let's say, Dragon Age: Origins. 79. I dare to say NWN OC has better pacing and structure than SoA. 80. Also there are likable and memorable characters there. Grimgnaw may be favourite dwarf after Varric from Dragon Age 2. 81. Time Stop and Wish should be HLAs, both power-wise and narrative-wise. Ruling over reality and time seem more impressive to me than summoning energy blades and illusion of dragon head. 82. Time Stop is not overrated. 83. Romances in SoD are bad and can't work because expansion is way too short. Corwin and Glint are obnoxious and awkward, and Safana seems desperate.
84. Dragon Age: Origins is so painfully cliche it almost seems like some elaborate parody of high fantasy. Chromatic Demon from Watcher's Keep is better villain than Archdemon.
85. The most natural moment to do Ulgoth's Bearding is before reaching Baldur's Gate. Once you within the city, things happen too quickly. 86. SCS prebuffing is unfair (there is no way for Kangaxx to "cast previously" several spells in both lich and demilich for), but it is necessary sacrifice for challenge. 87. We've had enough of dragons and demons as bad guys. I want half-dragon minotaur sorcerer/warrior and vampiric dwarven bards to fight!
I agree/disagree/am neutral on different items there, but I'll just address a few.
75. The dual-wielding skeptics have their reasons, particularly resentment of Drizzt/powergamers in general, but they don't seem to take into account that many of the people doing it have literally superhuman strength, which probably makes it more realistic to have a flail or something in your offhand.
84. I haven't finished the game yet, but I get the sense that Loghain/Howe are supposed to be the main villains. The Archdemon/Blight is just a backdrop which makes it all the more urgent that those two don't weaken Ferelden any further.
87. Agreed. The Five should have included a Cambion minotaur, a nymph, and a Marid with shade abilities. Or something like that. Anything but more drow.
@Abi_Dalzim - ad 87. - I did mean to point any particular event in the plot, just the game in particular. We have cliche elves in cliche forest, cliche dwarves in cliche underground fortress, generic humans in their generic kingdom, generic copy of orcs, standard boring mages and lazy Graal quest. The only thing it lacks is drow. I prefer DA 2 over DA:O because it shows more interesting and original aspects of Thedas. I hid this point in spoiler, just in case. I don't think it revealed anything meaningful, but I should've remember about that.
Depends what surprise you mean. The bit about Loghain being redeemable, I knew already. Didn't think he deserved a second chance, so I just killed him. The bit about needing to sacrifice a life to put down the Archdemon? Didn't get there yet, but I read the game's TvTropes page, so I know that bit, too.
Also, since I don't think I've presented an unpopular opinion of my own in a while, here's one. I don't like wild mages. The best/most useful tricks and tactics in this game, buffs, debuffs, summons, and generally planning around the abilities you know that enemies have, they're all about taking uncertainty out of the game, and tipping the dice in your favor. I don't like the idea of a class that by design increases, rather than decreases, the amount of random chance involved in your endeavors, and even more than the wild surges, I despise the random variations in caster level.
So yeah, my two cents on the subject. Maybe I'll do a wild mage PC sometime, to see what I'm missing, but otherwise, I'm not too interested.
Also, since I don't think I've presented an unpopular opinion of my own in a while, here's one. I don't like wild mages. The best/most useful tricks and tactics in this game, buffs, debuffs, summons, and generally planning around the abilities you know that enemies have, they're all about taking uncertainty out of the game, and tipping the dice in your favor. I don't like the idea of a class that by design increases, rather than decreases, the amount of random chance involved in your endeavors, and even more than the wild surges, I despise the random variations in caster level.
So yeah, my two cents on the subject. Maybe I'll do a wild mage PC sometime, to see what I'm missing, but otherwise, I'm not too interested.
You can't swing two weapons any faster than one weapon, and you wind up giving up the defense of a shield for basically no benefit. You could do almost anything else with your off hand that would be more useful than holding a second weapon in it. After watching the video, I now lose my immersion every time I see dual-wielding in anything, because it is so ridiculous and poorly thought out. I flat out won't do it in games any more, and any work of fiction that does it immediately loses my suspension of disbelief.
However if you are also fighting against ranged weapons, a shield can probably be used to greater effect. As with a lot of tactics, it would all depend upon the circumstances.
Dual wielding was used more as a defense against opponents wielding a single weapon. The mainhand weapon was a distraction, you get your opponent to focus on it, and you are free to counter with a smaller weapon when blocking with the mainhand. Its a pseudo defensive style, when carrying a shield is not possible.
I vaguely recall from some documentary or other that there was some Pictish formation where three people fought together as a single unit. The first guy had two shields, the guy behind him had two axes, (using them to attack people coming around either side of the first guy, rather than one guy twice as much), and the third guy had a spear or something (sadly only one of them).
Damned if I can remember what it's called, but it was supposedly quite an effective and versatile military tactic.
You can't swing two weapons any faster than one weapon, and you wind up giving up the defense of a shield for basically no benefit. You could do almost anything else with your off hand that would be more useful than holding a second weapon in it. After watching the video, I now lose my immersion every time I see dual-wielding in anything, because it is so ridiculous and poorly thought out. I flat out won't do it in games any more, and any work of fiction that does it immediately loses my suspension of disbelief.
Okay but it totally works for characters like, say. Haer'Dalis. In fact the unrealistic bit only feeds more into it and makes it more perfect. Like, he has no regard for his own personal safety and he is SO. EXTRA. He would absolutely swing two swords around on the battlefield even if it brought him a huge disadvantage just because it was cool. That is a totally Haer'Dalis thing to do, and the revelation of how ridiculous dual wielding is only makes me love the fact he fights that way more.
Blade Bards in PnP actually aren't good at fighting but get a lot of intimidation abilities. Like here's an excerpt
"Imagine what an orc would think if it was trapped in a cavern with only two exits and a man blocking each. One man (a warrior) wears plate mail and is calmly holding a long sword; the other (a Blade) is dressed in solid black studded leather armor and is grasping a halberd. Both men advance upon the hapless orc, but the Blade begins rotating his halberd in an ever-quickening offensive spin, demonstrating masterful control of his weapon. Which opponent will the orc choose?"
Edit: Source is Complete Bard's Handbook pages 19-20 under the Blade Bard kit.
Blade Bards in PnP actually aren't good at fighting but get a lot of intimidation abilities. Like here's an excerpt
"Imagine what an orc would think if it was trapped in a cavern with only two exits and a man blocking each. One man (a warrior) wears plate mail and is calmly holding a long sword; the other (a Blade) is dressed in solid black studded leather armor and is grasping a halberd. Both men advance upon the hapless orc, but the Blade begins rotating his halberd in an ever-quickening offensive spin, demonstrating masterful control of his weapon. Which opponent will the orc choose?"
Edit: Source is Complete Bard's Handbook pages 19-20 under the Blade Bard kit.
RR adds the intimidation ability to blades as an ability, which I thought a nice touch.
Blade Bards in PnP actually aren't good at fighting but get a lot of intimidation abilities. Like here's an excerpt
"Imagine what an orc would think if it was trapped in a cavern with only two exits and a man blocking each. One man (a warrior) wears plate mail and is calmly holding a long sword; the other (a Blade) is dressed in solid black studded leather armor and is grasping a halberd. Both men advance upon the hapless orc, but the Blade begins rotating his halberd in an ever-quickening offensive spin, demonstrating masterful control of his weapon. Which opponent will the orc choose?"
Edit: Source is Complete Bard's Handbook pages 19-20 under the Blade Bard kit.
When I think of bards doing fancy weapon moves as a battle tactic, I think of two things: first, Indiana Jones shooting such a swordsman while he's busy flailing around... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ-afKCOZZc ...and a scene from Game of Thrones in which
Prince Oberyn
is horribly, horribly murdered despite all of his impressive theatrics.
I won't post the video because it's very grisly and I personally regret watching that episode.
The scene has been called the most cool scene in movie history but it came to be by accident. It was originally meant to be THE ultimate fight between sword and whip, but Harrison Ford was sick on the day they shot it, so they had to cut it down to "OK, just shoot the bad guy!"
Comments
Oh dear.
A few years later, the TV series based on the books came out, and I actually liked that show, because they removed all the dark and violent stuff.
And the author overused rape a lot to show how bad the villains are.
That, and, well, I had convinced myself it couldn't get TOO bad because my middle school teacher had been the one who recommended the first book to me, and my teacher would not recommend me an inappropriate thing. That, and I hadn't really picked up on the sexual undertones until stuff got super explicit. The Kinky Sex Dungeon scenes? To my innocent preteen mind that was just "oh no the bad guys have captured the good guy and are hurting him, but I know he's gonna find a way out of this bad situation because he is the good guy. Go go good guy I'm rooting for you!" Unnecessary nudity? Skipped over those sentences because they made no sense, imagined it with everyone fully clothed and totally forgot they were naked. When I later confronted my teacher about the fourth book, she was appalled - it turns out she was a slow reader and was still partway through the second book and had no idea about the serious downturn the series took.
Honestly, after that, I tend to turn away from a lot of media if there are signs of it starting to get gross, because like, I'm scared it will go the way of the Sword of Truth novels, which scarred poor 13 year old me for life. I much prefer good clean fun, no unnecessary sexual stuff involved. Which is why nowadays I start giving stuff the side-eye even when something as relatively benign as the Spider Boob Scene shows up.
76. I think most people get alignments wrong. Alignment =/= motivation (they are closer to something like "motivation to choose motivation" - so some higher-order disposition); most alignment can have similar or even identical motivations.
77. Having alignment doesn't mean being embodiment and perfect avatar of good/neutral/evil and law/balance/chaos. People can and do have shortcomings, flaws and inconsistencies. So no, Keldorn does not stop being LG because he's fine with burning Viconia, nor Korgan stops being CE because he says "kidnapping children is bad!".
78. NWN OC is... fine. Really. I don't get the hate, because it's pretty standard - intrigue, terrible danger, ancient evil, and you noble hero, to save the day. It's not that different from any other cRPG and it's definitely not worse than, let's say, Dragon Age: Origins.
79. I dare to say NWN OC has better pacing and structure than SoA.
80. Also there are likable and memorable characters there. Grimgnaw may be favourite dwarf after Varric from Dragon Age 2.
81. Time Stop and Wish should be HLAs, both power-wise and narrative-wise. Ruling over reality and time seem more impressive to me than summoning energy blades and illusion of dragon head.
82. Time Stop is not overrated.
83. Romances in SoD are bad and can't work because expansion is way too short. Corwin and Glint are obnoxious and awkward, and Safana seems desperate.
85. The most natural moment to do Ulgoth's Bearding is before reaching Baldur's Gate. Once you within the city, things happen too quickly.
86. SCS prebuffing is unfair (there is no way for Kangaxx to "cast previously" several spells in both lich and demilich for), but it is necessary sacrifice for challenge.
87. We've had enough of dragons and demons as bad guys. I want half-dragon minotaur sorcerer/warrior and vampiric dwarven bards to fight!
75. The dual-wielding skeptics have their reasons, particularly resentment of Drizzt/powergamers in general, but they don't seem to take into account that many of the people doing it have literally superhuman strength, which probably makes it more realistic to have a flail or something in your offhand.
84. I haven't finished the game yet, but I get the sense that Loghain/Howe are supposed to be the main villains. The Archdemon/Blight is just a backdrop which makes it all the more urgent that those two don't weaken Ferelden any further.
87. Agreed. The Five should have included a Cambion minotaur, a nymph, and a Marid with shade abilities. Or something like that. Anything but more drow.
ad 87. - I did mean to point any particular event in the plot, just the game in particular. We have cliche elves in cliche forest, cliche dwarves in cliche underground fortress, generic humans in their generic kingdom, generic copy of orcs, standard boring mages and lazy Graal quest. The only thing it lacks is drow. I prefer DA 2 over DA:O because it shows more interesting and original aspects of Thedas.
I hid this point in spoiler, just in case. I don't think it revealed anything meaningful, but I should've remember about that.
So yeah, my two cents on the subject. Maybe I'll do a wild mage PC sometime, to see what I'm missing, but otherwise, I'm not too interested.
You can't swing two weapons any faster than one weapon, and you wind up giving up the defense of a shield for basically no benefit. You could do almost anything else with your off hand that would be more useful than holding a second weapon in it. After watching the video, I now lose my immersion every time I see dual-wielding in anything, because it is so ridiculous and poorly thought out. I flat out won't do it in games any more, and any work of fiction that does it immediately loses my suspension of disbelief.
However if you are also fighting against ranged weapons, a shield can probably be used to greater effect. As with a lot of tactics, it would all depend upon the circumstances.
Damned if I can remember what it's called, but it was supposedly quite an effective and versatile military tactic.
"Imagine what an orc would think if it was trapped in a cavern with only two exits and a man blocking each. One man (a warrior) wears plate mail and is calmly holding a long sword; the other (a Blade) is dressed in solid black studded leather armor and is grasping a halberd. Both men advance upon the hapless orc, but the Blade begins rotating his halberd in an ever-quickening offensive spin, demonstrating masterful control of his weapon. Which opponent will the orc choose?"
Edit: Source is Complete Bard's Handbook pages 19-20 under the Blade Bard kit.
...and a scene from Game of Thrones in which
is horribly, horribly murdered despite all of his impressive theatrics.
I won't post the video because it's very grisly and I personally regret watching that episode.
The scene has been called the most cool scene in movie history but it came to be by accident. It was originally meant to be THE ultimate fight between sword and whip, but Harrison Ford was sick on the day they shot it, so they had to cut it down to "OK, just shoot the bad guy!"