Wall Banger/Literature: Difference between revisions

** The [[Novelization]] of the first ''[[Baldur's Gate|Baldurs Gate]]'' was horrific, too. Khalid is randomly killed off by an ochre jelly to free Jaheira to be the main character's squeeze, most of the game's [[Non-Player Character|NPCs]] aren't even referenced, and Xan was [[The Chew Toy|eaten by a giant spider]]. Evidently, [[Unexplained Recovery|he got better]], or at least well enough to die again.

* ''[[Earthsea Trilogy|Tehanu]]'' is okay for its first half because Ursula LeGuin is a good writer. Halfway through, things start to change. Certain members of the town disliked Tenar because she was an assertive woman; these were, of course, villains. In itself, not a big problem. Then, a [[Chekhov's Gun|Chekhov's Wizard's Curse]] activates, and Tenar unwittingly lures her (male) friend and adopted daughter into her enemy's trap. This enemy, however, had a prior history set against only her friend, not her. In a previous book in which her friend and that enemy had faced each other, the enemy was pretty much obsessed with not dying. That's about it. He never mentioned anything about women or how he regarded them at all. Ever. It wasn't an indirect attack against Tenar's friend via attacking her, nor was it a personal attack on her specifically. The enemy apparently just up and hated women in the twenty-five years since the novels last wrote about him. This was bad, but seriously, the ''worst'' part of it:

** LeGuin, brilliant as she can be, ''does'' have the worst time when she tries to "[[Author Tract|send a message]]". See: ''[[Changing Planes]]'', specifically the chapters "The Royals of Hegn" and "Great Joy". Most. Blatant. [[Author Tract]]. Ever. (This is sad, because "The Building" is freaking great.)

** And The Other Wind is even worse. In the first three books, the Dry Land is presented as a relatively dreary afterlife that's been there since as long as anyone can remember, a place that it makes sense to want to avoid except that doing so is messing with the laws of nature and has too many consequences. In The Other Wind, it's revealed that {{spoiler|it used to be a pleasant place for dragons only, but the earliest wizards stole it, but in the process [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|accidentally made it a dry land, and prevented humans from reincarnating, which was their former fate-after-death]].}} [[The Reveal|Dark secrets and lost knowledge]] like that are often a good plot device, but then LeGuin turns the Roke Wizards into [[Straw Character]]s defending the actions of these people and calling it the crowning achievement of humanity, ''when according to continuity they shouldn't have even known about it''.