MSJ, your whole post was easier for me to understand - thanks for being more verbose, sorry for being slow and needing things spelled out
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you think the story will be the end of Earwa.
Not at all. I think TNG will end somewhere in the middle of the war - with the no god still around and/or the fate of the world left uncertain.
Basically, as Bakker himself said, a few Atrocity Tales.
Something like that, yeah. I haven't read it, but he seems married to the idea of something like the Silmarillion.
What I took from that, is that he's going to write from varying perspectives the awfulness of a dying world. And, as others pointed out in the first place, that's a high order he's placing on himself to do, and do well.
Varying perspectives, yes. Awfulness of a dying world will be the setting almost certainly, but not the 'point' if that makes sense. In the way way that TAE had lots of horrible things happen, but they were the frame the story happened within.
That's why, for the sake of sales,
Lol, going to have to stop you right there. Bakker will die penniless before he does something for sales.
and to make it a more prominent series, I think he needs to go the opposite direction. He needs to show hope. He hasn't shown a whole lot. Redemption for mankind in the face of Monsters (Consult) and the death of a Godlike figure (Kellhus). Which, was where my original idea came from.
I agree that would be a more commercially viable story. Almost explicitly because of that, I don't think that will happen.
There are many ways for this to be done, and it not be all butterflies and rainbows.
I wasn't considering fully the options for this, and you're right, it could be done within the framework of the series to some degree, but I still think that outcome is a betrayal of the story itself. Thus far, the story has been about failure, not redemption. Yes, there has been some hope and some success along the way, but within the larger tapestry to abject failure.
Yeah, Bakker can write a story full of violence set within a bleak world. That said, an ending that is full of hope and promise for a better future would be against the theme of the entire series.
This is where our communicative breakdown is, I think. Its not that I think Bakker can't write a story in a way that makes sense. I don't think he'll literally turn TSA into Shannara or Harry Potter and have things just magically work out in the end and everyone will skip off into the sunset. There will obviously be plenty of grim realities in the books to come.
The point though, is that the story isn't about redemption - or at least 7 books in that's not a theme I've picked up on.
Its not about humanity prevailing in the face of evil.
Its not about the hero winning.
If the book suddenly becomes one of hope and success, regardless of how commercially viable that is, regardless of how much gratuitous violence is piled onto it, it'll be a betrayal to the story. To me, that will make it seem like everything that happened was a huge waste of time, which I detailed pretty well earlier but can go into more detail again if you'd like.
