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Messages - Titan

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31
General Earwa / Re: The Prince of Nothing: TV series
« on: August 29, 2016, 04:39:19 pm »
Quote from: The Sharmat on August 29, 2016, 02:25:34 pm
Fans of the book are satisfied with GoT? I remember tons of complaints from when I watched it, and I stopped watching it in season 5. I can only assume it's gotten worse.

And I remember (and still see) tons of praise - see how wonderfully subjective things can be?  ;) It is one of the most popular shows on TV in recent history (ratings increase every year), and also one of the most faithful fantasy adaptations in the medium's history. A few vocal critics on Westeros.org and elsewhere doesn't change that. I'm certainly pleased with it overall, but then again I don't hold the source material as flawless.

With GOT ending in two years, it could provide a window of opportunity for another fantasy epic on television, and PON certainly qualifies as that.

32
The Great Ordeal / Re: [TGO SPOILERS] Saubon: Battle of Mengedda (TWP) & the Battle at Dagliash (TGO)
« on: August 29, 2016, 05:08:29 am »
Quote from: MSJ on August 27, 2016, 04:06:46 pm
Yea, I wouldn't even say that Earwa has what we call "heaven". There is a quote at the beginning of a chapter, "I've heard the screams of hell and the sighs in heaven, trust me brother when I say there is nary a difference.". Paraphrasing obviously.

Interesting... This reminds me of Peter Hamilton's "The Night's Dawn" trilogy? Have any of you read it? A sci-fi series where the plot deals with the discovery that after death human souls are trapped in another dimension, where they are suffering endless torture, and that they have found a way back into our universe and possessing bodies, and they try to desperately find ways to cut themselves off from returning to that "hell". It is not Hamilton's best work, but I just realized that this part is very similar.

33
The Great Ordeal / Re: [TGO SPOILERS] Inchoroi Weaponry
« on: August 29, 2016, 05:00:57 am »
Quote from: Borric on August 27, 2016, 05:12:26 pm
I kinda assumed the hardware or the knowhow was lost in the crash.
I suspect the Nuke was a one off functional device, saved for a real emergency?

My assumption has been that the Consult has been working hard for the last few thousand years to rediscover and understand tekne knowledge that was lost, and applying it in new ways. Thus the appearance of skin spies (improved biotech) and nukes (improved understanding of physics)

34
General Earwa / Re: The Prince of Nothing: TV series
« on: August 29, 2016, 04:55:28 am »
Quote from: MSJ on August 28, 2016, 02:28:47 pm
Anime, animation, if there is a difference well excuse my ignorance. Here I put it like this, I DO NOT WANT TO WATCH A FUCKING CARTOON OF MY FAVORITE SERIES!!!!!!!!!!

I agree. I don't care if you call it Anime or animation, why would you be hoping for that?
(and frankly it is no insult to call it anime since at least anime has a longer history of stories with adult themes)

I want to see an epic live action adaption... Fail or succeed, I want them to aim very high. (Lynch's "Dune" is a failure, but it is a massively impressive and interesting failure) Going for an animated format is the opposite of aiming high.

Given the long scope of the story, I think three 10-episode seasons on something like HBO (or even Netflix) would be perfect to cover the PON trilogy. A movie adaption would required too much change to the story, unless they are very smart about what they cut.

35
General Earwa / Re: The Prince of Nothing: TV series
« on: August 29, 2016, 04:46:57 am »
Quote from: Cynical Cat on August 28, 2016, 11:58:59 pm
Quote from: The Sharmat on August 28, 2016, 06:57:59 am

I object to the idea that it would involve a smaller cast and fewer locations than GoT. Maybe then the last few books/seasons, but The Darkness That Comes Before at least starts off quite a bit more widespread than Game of Thrones. The thing is GRRM's narrative flows and balloons outward, whereas Bakker's (mostly) consolidates around a few key points after the first book. I doubt we'll see any big battles at all, honestly. That is incredibly expensive and even GoT couldn't really justify having more than one or two after it's first season. Make no mistake, Prince of Nothing is not A Song of Ice and Fire. It's significantly more impenetrable, downright offputting to most audiences, and its main claim to fame in terms of the general geek public is being part of a particularly nasty social media spat.

No, it really is smaller than the early books of GoT.  I'm not saying the Prince of Nothing is small, but GoT was deliberately written to be as wide ranging as possible and the Prince of Nothing is more focused.  Check the shear size of the character lists in the back of the books.  The TV series condenses as number of characters or omits them to try and deal with that while the Prince of Nothing really focuses down to the area around the army and meetings in rooms after the first book in contrast to the Wall, Kingstown, Team Khalesi, Team Stark, and assorted other places where Brienne and so forth.    Big battles are expensive, but the central cast is much smaller and the locations are fewer as far as shooting it is a concern.

We are talking about the *FIRST* book, where GOT is relatively compact. Why are you bringing up Brienne? GOT (book 1 and season 1) starts off with all characters in TWO locations. That's it. It gradually expands from there, but it is a slow expansion. "The Darkness that comes before" does not do that... It does the opposite. Characters travel vast distances to finally meet at the end of the book. That is a problematic structure for an adaption, no matter how you slice it.

After that things do indeed become easier, sure, but you've got to hook people early... People will tune out if they are not hooked by episode 2 or 3. GRRM wrote GOT with with a very cliffhanger heavy structure which made it easier to include some "hooks" at every episode to make sure people came back. Bakker does it as well, but not as consistently as GRRM, so there will be much more adaption work required to create a structure that has that "hook" after the pilot - and every episode after that.

It's not impossible, sure... On the positive side, PON has a trinity of truly excellent characters to hang a drama around - Achamian, Kellhus, and Cnaiür. Get the casting of those three characters right, and things could flow well from there. Fail in that casting... And you would have a disaster.

36
General Earwa / Re: The Prince of Nothing: TV series
« on: August 26, 2016, 09:53:25 pm »
Quote from: Redeagl on August 26, 2016, 09:41:40 pm
Quote from: Titan on August 26, 2016, 08:55:46 pm
I'm almost done with my first re-read of the "Prince of Nothing" trilogy, and I've been mulling about how it could be adapted for a TV series. There is some amazing stuff in there that just screams for a cinematic/televised treatment, and it could be great... if done well.

BUT... There are some SIGNIFICANT challenges.
 - The raping and misogyny would have to be dialed back a LOT, even if this was for HBO/Showtime/Starz.
 - The vast number of characters and locations would probably need some trimming. For example, it would simplify things to merge the Sumna location into Monemn.
 - How do you present Kellhus POV? With voice-overs? Sherlock-esque text overlays? Just great acting?

I would love to see this done well, as a deconstruction of the typical Crusade narrative, set in a mostly middle east inspired setting. (In my mind I read the Nansur empire as being inspired by the Byzantine empire, with the Kianese as very Persian)
Hmm I don't think that your second point is valid. GOT has far more characters and locations so that shouldn't be a problem.
Yes, but as has been pointed out in the old "The Prince of Nothing (Film)" thread (that I just discovered)  :-[, in GOT you started with few locations and grew from there - whereas PON (Book 1) starts with the characters spread in many places, gradually moving towards each other only to meet up at the end of book 1. That many locations could be problematic for the first few episodes.

I'm not saying it is impossible, but it will be more challenging to adapt than GOT.

37
General Earwa / Re: The Prince of Nothing: TV series
« on: August 26, 2016, 08:55:46 pm »
I'm almost done with my first re-read of the "Prince of Nothing" trilogy, and I've been mulling about how it could be adapted for a TV series. There is some amazing stuff in there that just screams for a cinematic/televised treatment, and it could be great... if done well.

BUT... There are some SIGNIFICANT challenges.
 - The raping and misogyny would have to be dialed back a LOT, even if this was for HBO/Showtime/Starz.
 - The vast number of characters and locations would probably need some trimming. For example, it would simplify things to merge the Sumna location into Monemn.
 - How do you present Kellhus POV? With voice-overs? Sherlock-esque text overlays? Just great acting?

I would love to see this done well, as a deconstruction of the typical Crusade narrative, set in a mostly middle east inspired setting. (In my mind I read the Nansur empire as being inspired by the Byzantine empire, with the Kianese as very Persian)

38
General Earwa / Re: TSA on tvtropes
« on: August 21, 2016, 10:35:59 pm »
Quote from: MSJ on August 20, 2016, 09:41:23 pm
HP, I searched the first trilogy and this is all I found, Serwë, daughter of Ingaera. There could be something other than that but I couldn't find it, sorry.

ETA: Oops, sorry, I searched TJE instead of TWP. Here you go, Serwë hil Keyalti.

But doesn't that break the custom of listing your house/last name first? ()Like Ikurei Conphas or Anasurimbur Kellhus) Or is that a practice that is limited to the big name houses?

39
The Great Ordeal / Re: [TGO SPOILERS] Aorsi/Dagliash
« on: August 10, 2016, 04:39:14 am »
Quote from: MSJ on August 09, 2016, 09:49:38 pm
As for Saubon conviently dying, well I think he would've been sacrificed one way or another, and that made clear between Proyas and Saubon's interactions.

I think he planned on sacrificing *one* of them, yes, but I think Kellhus was keeping his options open by grooming both of them for command in his absence. And at the time of the nuke, Saubon just happened to be the one closer to it.

40
The Great Ordeal / Re: [TGO Spoilers] Whale Mothers
« on: August 08, 2016, 05:24:01 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire on August 08, 2016, 05:17:06 pm
You need a couple of guys around to teach, a couple of the most promising 20-somethings thinking and working in TTT, and those that are too old to think/work breeding. Once a son is identified that will likely surpass one of the elders, I'm sure they'd kill off the elder.

4 to 8 dunyain adults, maybe only a half dozen mothers and a few children. Could be as little as 10 - 15 people at once.

That seems a bit on the low side, especially considering the massive amount of work done at Ishual. The tunneling of all those massive spaces, those massive structures. The population must have been bigger - even if they only kept the 'defectives' around as a work force.

I would multiply your population estimate by 10. At least.

41
The Great Ordeal / Re: [TGO SPOILERS] Aorsi/Dagliash
« on: August 08, 2016, 05:17:21 pm »
I agree, I don't think Kellhus knew of the Nuke. But I do think he expected to find *some* kind of deadly surprise at Dagliash - it was important enough for the Consult to be sure that they would have something nasty in store for the great ordeal.

As for Kellhus deducing the radiation risk... He probably has some limited knowledge of Tekne, and has deduced the basic laws of physics. He could probably use his Metagnosis to peer into the nuke and deduce how how it worked, and then go from there.

But I do really like that moment - one of the few times in the series where Kellhus is surprised and temporarily unsure of what to do, until he finishes his probability trance.

42
The Great Ordeal / Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
« on: July 28, 2016, 11:31:21 pm »
Quote from: JRControl on July 28, 2016, 09:59:05 pm
I will say, I am getting some uncomfortable vibes about lube love being the Secret to all the things. I get these Hyperion/Endymion flashbacks and while I found those books great at that time, I would be disappointed in them today. Then again, I doubt things will turn out to be anywhere that simple.

Re: Hyperion/Endymion, that concept (even if you simplified it) was not introduced until Endymion - and it did strike me as a bit of a Simmons not having the whole thing thought out from the beginning. Even though I like the last two books (Endymion + Rise of Endymion), the first two books (Hyperion + Fall of Hyperion) are heads and shoulders above the latter two, and can be viewed as their own work if you prefer.

But yes, hopefully Bakker doesn't head in that direction.

43
The Great Ordeal / Re: [TGO SPOILERS] The DREAMS
« on: July 28, 2016, 10:57:17 pm »
The dreams in TGO are very interesting, to say the least (I liked the first one inside the horns of Golgotterath) - But has an explanation been given why Akka now have dreams that are *NOT* from the point of view of Seswatha?

44
Introduce Yourself / Re: Greetings
« on: July 27, 2016, 04:49:19 am »
Welcome!  :) I know the feeling - these books are VERY dense. I just started my first re-read, and there is so much that I missed the first time...

45
The Great Ordeal / Re: [TGO Spoilers] Threads of White
« on: July 27, 2016, 04:41:16 am »
Quote from: Jackehehe on July 21, 2016, 07:35:19 pm
I would personally burn all my Bakker books on a pyre if it turns out that Earwa is just a computer simulation. In fact, it would be even more stupid than the ending of  Ender's game.

It doesn't have to be exactly that - a computer simulation. But the objective reality of our universe (or lack thereof) is something philosophers have argued about for thousands of years, all the way back to Plato and beyond. That our world might be a ... shared hallucination? Not the right word... But an agreed upon frame of reference, some sort of shared consciousness dream that manifests our reality.

Now I happen to think that is hogwash for our reality  :D, but I agree with Bolivar... Serwa's chapters do offer hints in that direction, for the universe of the books. We already know that their reality is malleable through sorcery - already defined in the books as language that alters reality.

Sorcerers are simply hacking the Matrix! (Ducks and runs!)  ;D

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