posted
I just finished watching all three Lord of the Rings (Special Edition, nonetheless) back to back to back. It has been a couple of years since I had seen the movies, and even longer since I had read the books. But by the end of Return of the King, I was sobbing. I couldn't stop crying for the last half hour. The beauty of the story just overwhelmed me.
The same can be said with my experience with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Moreso than any of the other Harry Potter books, I was completely enthralled from the first page and found myself crying for the last 50 pages. Just like in Return of the King, the beauty of the story overwhelmed me.
I think it was the companionship in each story that touched me. The fact that such strong love can exist in the presence of such evil. The idea that, no matter how horrible the world may become, there will always be good worth fighting for. I know the idea is basically in all adventure stories, but I think its done the best in classic adventures. "Those are the stories that matter", as Samwise Gangee would say.
Okay, so I rambled on a bit longer than I intended. I know this question is ultimately unanswerable...but what do you think makes an adventure beautiful? What makes classic quests classic?
posted
Every classic adventure has memorable characters. Frodo and Sam, Harry and Hermione, Long John Silver, Kim, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, Indiana Jones.
Also, I just noticed that in every case the memorable character is in strong contrast to the people around him, the comfortable, stay-at-home hobbits, the muggles, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru.
Food for thought.
[This message has been edited by Rick Norwood (edited August 26, 2007).]
posted
My take on this is that the "beautiful" tale makes you feel like following a higher goal, acting nobly and selflessly, are possible even when the whole world seems to stand against it. Everyone know that this world is not as it should be, but most give in to the status quo. Heroes in beautiful tales are, well, are heroes who fight for that "something more" for everyone's sake.
That's why I don't like a lot of the modern fantasy tales. Flawed, "human" heroes are fine, but most books these days don't have heroes or heroines that I particularly like, let alone admire.
posted
Well, apparently it's a tale where the "good" guy is so good and the "bad" guys so bad that you end up crying at the end. Of course that leaves a lot of room for authors to play around with how to show that around, but if nothing else it all boils down to how memorable it is.
And I have to disagree with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. They only appeared for, what, 2 minutes total? And proportionally speaking, a good deal of that screen time was as charred and burned skeletons.
posted
For me I think the resonant theme is maintaining hope or virtue against all odds. I'm also attracted to reluctant heroes who are called to action because they realize there is something greater at stake-- i.e. Frodo and Sam, Maximus in Gladiator, Donnie Darko, Ghost Dog... These characters might be flawed, but somehow they transcend those around them because they adhere to some sort of higher belief or more noble standard. I also like the idea of a cost, one which the hero may or may not be aware of, but in the end.
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posted
A story doesn't have to have perfectly good or perfectly bad characters to be a good story. Flawed heroes can be memorable. In all of the stories that stood out in my mind the hero could be admired in some way, like the intelligence of Hamlet or the good nature of Bilbo Baggins. They also had a villain that was a good threat. The cunning uncle Cladius or the powerful dragon smaug and the loathsome Gollum. . . all characters were put into a struggle that made te story memorable. Hamlet and Bilbo had their flaws, but that doesn't make them any less memorable. (For those not familiar with Shakespeare's Hamlet you can substitute Simba and Scar from the Lion King and get a similar connection)
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posted
Ok, this is going somewhat off-topic now, but...
quote:Or, you could say that the amount of screen time doesn't matter as much as how well the audience internalizes the contrast. Either way works for me.
See, that's the thing. Having little screen time is one thing, but Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru had so little screen time as to be almost invisible. I'm just about as big of a Star Wars geek as they come and as far as I'm concerned they were in the story just to die to show how ruthless the Empire was. Or, to put it in the words of a friend of mine:
quote:THEY WERE THERE FOR ONE REASON AND ONE REASON ONLY. TO DIE. REDSHIRT OWEN, REDSHIRT BERU.
posted
I have to disagree that current fantasy has more flawed characters. Frodo was so flawed that in the end he failed in his mission and gave in to the evil of the ring. Flawed characters struggling is one of the things that makes for the best adventrues for me--admittedly only speaking for myself. If the victory doesn't come through overcoming internal weakness, it seems too easy.
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posted
I think for me what makes something classic is:
* Easy to read - I hate having to stop and look up words. * Original idea - I hate reading a bit and predicting things * No stupid plot turns - I put books down after about 5 "WHY WHY WHY would you do that? That made no sense". * Good characters - After a few books, I think the Ender series was one, I thought about what the participants might be doing. It was almost sub-conscious as in I would daydream about something and then wander a bit, but there was a connection.
posted
I think what I was talking about in the Originality thread, specifically in regards to Star Wars, antique storytelling and what Joseph Campbell had to say has a lot to do with it. In short, all the classic, timeless storytelling elements.
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