3 ms·

I'm kind of confused about your point. I have enjoyed reading most of HPMOR, but I would have enjoyed it more if he had an editor. And I'm not sure why you chos

by rspeer 12y ago

I'm kind of confused about your point. I have enjoyed reading most of HPMOR, but I would have enjoyed it more if he had an editor. And I'm not sure why you chose to highlight this particular passage. A shout-out to Ender's Game makes it great literature?

lmm 12y ago
Yeah. I find the jarring shout-outs the most annoying thing about HPMOR, and indeed about fanfiction in general.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- barry-cotter 12y ago
  From the Guardian's obituary for Terry Pratchett. >In a publishing world where popular success often equates to ill-written or hackneyed work, Pratchett’s novels, although in a racy, readable style, were constantly witty, with many cultural, vernacular and literary references. You never quite knew where the next association was coming from: you would find sideways references to HP Lovecraft, William Shakespeare, Beachcomber, Sellar and Yeatman, Thomas Hughes, Peter Shaffer (a good joke about Salieri), JRR Tolkien, Egyptology, vampirism, dragons.
  - lmm 12y ago
    An obituary is not a neutral take; in fact many criticized Pratchett for this. And Pratchett was both cleverer and less jarring about it (and fundamentally, "jarring" is less of a problem in a comedic work). His allusions would engage with something and use it to enhance the meaning, not just "name this throwaway character after that other character even though it would be a major story change if they were to actually have anything in common with them".
thaumasiotes 12y ago
My point is pretty simple: different people value and respond to different things. Eliezer Yudkowsky, as a generally competent person, will produce something that some people like without needing to devote any effort to making his writing "good". I specifically stated that the passage I quoted was great in my own eyes. There's no objective Greatness. (And, for the message "here's a passage that's meaningful to me", I got downvoted. Classy.) On a different note, here's an example of a shout-out (actually, two) in HPMOR: > "Since you became Headmaster forty years ago, there've been eleven students to graduate Hogwarts who became heroes, I mean people like Lupe Cazaril and so on, and ten of those were boys. Cimorene Linderwall was the only witch." Those names, Lupe Cazaril and Cimorene Linderwall, add nothing to the story and don't appear again. They're an out-of-universe signal from the author to the reader that you're both familiar with the work of Lois McMaster Bujold and Patricia C. Wrede. The passage I quoted is in-universe characterization. (Characterization that I particularly like.) It can't be understood unless the reader is familiar with Ender's Game, but it's clear, for example, that Harry, not Eliezer Yudkowsky, is also familiar with that book. Compare the other example, where it's clear that not only is everyone unfamiliar with Dealing with Dragons, it doesn't exist at all. It's fine if you see nothing of value in a moving scene of a little boy getting to recapitulate, in real life, one of his idol's greatest moments. I do see value in that.

by rspeer 12y ago

lmm 12y ago

Yeah. I find the jarring shout-outs the most annoying thing about HPMOR, and indeed about fanfiction in general.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
barry-cotter 12y ago
From the Guardian's obituary for Terry Pratchett. >In a publishing world where popular success often equates to ill-written or hackneyed work, Pratchett’s novels, although in a racy, readable style, were constantly witty, with many cultural, vernacular and literary references. You never quite knew where the next association was coming from: you would find sideways references to HP Lovecraft, William Shakespeare, Beachcomber, Sellar and Yeatman, Thomas Hughes, Peter Shaffer (a good joke about Salieri), JRR Tolkien, Egyptology, vampirism, dragons.
- lmm 12y ago
  An obituary is not a neutral take; in fact many criticized Pratchett for this. And Pratchett was both cleverer and less jarring about it (and fundamentally, "jarring" is less of a problem in a comedic work). His allusions would engage with something and use it to enhance the meaning, not just "name this throwaway character after that other character even though it would be a major story change if they were to actually have anything in common with them".

thaumasiotes 12y ago

My point is pretty simple: different people value and respond to different things. Eliezer Yudkowsky, as a generally competent person, will produce something that some people like without needing to devote any effort to making his writing "good". I specifically stated that the passage I quoted was great in my own eyes. There's no objective Greatness. (And, for the message "here's a passage that's meaningful to me", I got downvoted. Classy.) On a different note, here's an example of a shout-out (actually, two) in HPMOR: > "Since you became Headmaster forty years ago, there've been eleven students to graduate Hogwarts who became heroes, I mean people like Lupe Cazaril and so on, and ten of those were boys. Cimorene Linderwall was the only witch." Those names, Lupe Cazaril and Cimorene Linderwall, add nothing to the story and don't appear again. They're an out-of-universe signal from the author to the reader that you're both familiar with the work of Lois McMaster Bujold and Patricia C. Wrede. The passage I quoted is in-universe characterization. (Characterization that I particularly like.) It can't be understood unless the reader is familiar with Ender's Game, but it's clear, for example, that Harry, not Eliezer Yudkowsky, is also familiar with that book. Compare the other example, where it's clear that not only is everyone unfamiliar with Dealing with Dragons, it doesn't exist at all. It's fine if you see nothing of value in a moving scene of a little boy getting to recapitulate, in real life, one of his idol's greatest moments. I do see value in that.