katsabas said:
JennAnge said:
The rest look surprisingly original after that unpromising start, so I guess I'll still give it a go, but no, I will not be extraordinarly motivated to defeat the armies of Mordor after that stale cliché of a beginning.
Suuuuure. Because in this day and age, Tolkien's plot oughta win awards for how original it is. Good vs Evil. Never saw that coming.
Considering the fact that what you define as cliche is probably the centerpiece of Tolkien's stories, I would say your argument is misplaced.
Not quite sure I understand what you're trying to say, but I'll try to respond.
What I defined as cliché was the 'dead family to avenge' deal. That is not a centerpiece of Tolkien's stories, to my knowledge. Silmarillion sees some dead wife/mother start off a quest of vengeance against orcs, maybe that's what you meant, but that's more a subplot if I remember, not what I'd call the centerpiece of his literature.
Though broad in its scope, unreasoning good-vs-evil is cliché too, probably even more so than the dead-family trope. However, good-vs-evil fits with Tolkien's theme and thus I would not have been bothered by that. If Talion had had the same broad motivation as Boromir does, that'd be fine. That would be quite sufficient in and of itself, adding a dead wife and kid is guilding the lily and done to death.
However, some other forum member mentioned this was not the gist of Talion's motivation, despite how the article reads, so I'm holding up hope I won't have to roll my eyes too hard during the prologue and will still feel adequately motivated in my orc onslaught.
