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Post by lisajane on Jun 28, 2007 5:01:14 GMT -5
Tcha, there's nothing worse than a book or television programme where you begin to sumpathise with the villain more than the hero. It totally warps the story. I don't think that necessary makes a bad book or programme... if you manage to sympathise with the villains, it can give another point of view for the book or programme, and you can see it play out from the villain's eyes.
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Post by shyviolet on Jun 28, 2007 6:21:25 GMT -5
Hmm... that's true. I suppose I mean it works badly when you sympathise with the villain and in doing so stop sympathising with the hero, then it's just irritating when the hero wins. or when they've accidentally made the villain more sympathetic than the hero to start with ala Star Trek (the original series).
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Post by zemira on Jun 28, 2007 7:31:10 GMT -5
I always tend to like the villians more. At least in other books/movies/whatever. But actually, I've noticed that I don't like Chris Wooding villians as much. I mean, in Haunting, I didn't like Pyke. Stitch-face, well, he was, if anything, a minor villian and he helped them at the end. He became the "Evil Ally" type thing where he was evil, but he hated Pyke more. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," as the old saying goes. With Poison, I mostly disliked the Spider Queen (because I hate spiders) but I didn't like Phaerie King either. In Kerosene and Crashing, yeah, I hate people like the "bad guys" (I guess I should say "antagonists") were in that book in real life, so that's no surprise. And in Weavers, I really hate Vyrrch. Although it's still too early for me to really like anyone the best. I don't mind Kaiku, Tane, and Asara which is as good as I get in liking the heroes. Of course, I still don't have much information.
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Post by shyviolet on Jun 28, 2007 8:26:50 GMT -5
I think that's one of the reasons Chris's books are so good, the villains are so easy to hate. It's very refreshing, since so many books I read don't have a really villainous villain. Although having said that I did think the Phaerie king was ferociously cool...
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Post by Seregwen on Jun 28, 2007 10:26:13 GMT -5
I think one of the disturbing points for me was when I read Haunting, and Maycraft was all upset about how Stitch-Face had used his plastic surgeon skillz on Lucinda Watt. I know there wasn't a description of what he had actually done to her, but I just got this gruesome image of her face, and it gave me a chill.
I liked Thatch, just because she's so reminiscent of my own grandmother. And I did giggle at the thought of what Dr. Pyke's expression would be when he found out that Stitch-Face was the carriage driver, and that he was getting back at him for copyright infringement.
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Post by zemira on Jun 28, 2007 11:45:46 GMT -5
The Phaerie King was indeed cool, but I still didn't like him. Which sounds confusing, but then, I'm confusing.
My imagination isn't creative enough to really imagine anything all that gruesome when I read that passage about Lucinda Watt and Stitch-face. I guess that's because I haven't technically seen gruesome horror movies, so I can't really picture anything.
Thatch just seemed insane to me. ^_^ Well, duh. But I never really saw her as a villian really, which is strange.
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Post by shyviolet on Jun 28, 2007 12:20:24 GMT -5
I completely forgot about the mutilation thing... yeah, that was very disturbing (my over-active imagination strikes again).
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Post by zemira on Jun 28, 2007 13:09:47 GMT -5
I guess I should be grateful for my lack of imagination, at least with images. ^_^
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Post by kaiku on Jun 28, 2007 14:01:43 GMT -5
In Poison, when they KILLED the dogs, SKINNED the dogs, and then PUT ON THE SKINS... Eeeeeew! For some reason, that never bothered me much. I guess it was because the dogs were dead. Poison and Bram wearing the skins was a bit yucky though. However, in The Weavers of Saramyr when Tane's father was skinning that jeadh in the woods when it was still alive ... *shudders* I always thought that was so horrible and disturbing.
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Post by shyviolet on Jun 28, 2007 14:56:50 GMT -5
Uugh, almost everything in that book that isn't a travelling scene is at least slightly disturbing. When I read it I felt like "Not that I'm not happy about Chris's gift for description, but does he have to be quite so graphic?"
Oh, I hated the skin-kites as well, those were so gross.
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Post by zemira on Jun 29, 2007 7:31:37 GMT -5
I haven't really gotten to anything that disgusting. I mean, the worst I've read is a Weaver raping a sailor-boy. I mean, Vyrrch's room was bad, but it had all already happened, so it wasn't the same as having "seen" it. Of course, I'm still so early in the book still. Curse not having time to read!
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Post by shyviolet on Jun 29, 2007 8:46:37 GMT -5
Didn't you think that was disturbing? That bit with the cabin-boy makes me cry every time I read it. The description of Vrrych's room just makes me feel ill.
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Post by zemira on Jun 29, 2007 9:55:49 GMT -5
Not really. I guess I'm just kinda dead to that. *shrug* Vyrrch's room was pretty nasty, but it would've been worse had I known what actually happened to everything in there.
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Post by shyviolet on Jun 29, 2007 10:01:21 GMT -5
Maybe it's the over-active imagination thing again. My brain happily supplied a gruesome backstory for each object mentioned without my even wanting it to.
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Post by zemira on Jun 29, 2007 10:10:40 GMT -5
Well, that was nice of it. ^_^ Although I don't like the Weavers as it is, so I don't need any help imagining what they do in their post-Weaving times.
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