[FicusFan]

And the other side of the coin is that the whining and dithering makes them seem more human - more fallible, less confident, afraid. Which I think describes all of the main characters, and probably why I've responded to them so well. There's nothing I like less than an infallible, heroic and completely purposeful character. I just can't relate, and can't believe in them.

No neither can I, but there is a happy medium. A little spice goes a long way, and I think the character's skills/defects are like spice. If they are too defective its too much lile real life and then you might as well read the newspapers. If they are too perfect they aren't believable and then you don't feel they will be tested or lose and there is no suspense, no humanity and nothing in common.

Just the right mix is probably something that is easier with more experience.

[BarVybe]

Wow what a great discussion! And this being my first post, i'll say hello though i'm sure there's another spot for that.

I read Darkness about a year ago and have read the Warrior Prophet since - though i was hesitant to buy it and i'm an avid reader. I've found Bakker frustrating. He has many great ideas and interesting elements to his characters...yet I couldn't agree more with the need for a machette (or at least a good editor). While I found the interior monologues interesting at first, I eventually felt somewhat insulted as reader. While each character's throughts gave us a different "truth" about the story, history, the Holy War, the motivations of each other, etc., the beauty to me of great writing is that it provides the outline that we must flesh out with our imagination. Having a character endlessly tell me what he's planning to do, why he will do it, why he thinks someone else did something, what someone's motivation is, etc. robs me of that. For me, Bakker would have been much more effective if he had minimized this to the occasional deep thought, the chapter heading quotes, etc. In fact, I found some of the introspection so tiresome that the battle scenes, snatches of Akka's dreams, and the Dunyain training were all very welcome respites.

It is refreshing to have a man of thought as the hero and manipulation of other characters, and the ambiguous motivations / good - bad nature of nearly all the characters and even the Holy War itself of course adds quite a bit or realism. But that doesn't mean I need to read all of Akka's thoughts word for word. The realizations he has should come out through his actions and speech to others IMO. Instead, we actually end up with very predictable characters I think. While i may not know exactly what someone's next thought will be, i think we pretty much know how they will react to just about every situation since we go over the how, why, and what over and over in their heads.

Someone else mentioned Dune - and while i didn't make the Bene Geserit connection myself - I felt the overall feel of the story, the harshness of the setting, the pressure of history and hidden agendas, the lack of knowledge of the past, and, mostly, the momentum of a holy war all reminded me of Dune. I found really no connection in style or content to LoTR.

I originally picked Bakker up since he was mentioned in the same breath as Erikson in many places - but i find them completely different authors. Bakker is a beautiful writer, but not a great storyteller i don't think. Erikson I think is a great storyteller but doesn't turn quite as pretty a phrase and I much prefer him.

Other thoughts:
- I don't mind the "lifting" and rewording of some well established metaphors or phrases. I remember noticing quite a few.
- The concepts of the Consult, the Dunyain, the Few, etc. are all interesting and one of the reasons i'll read the third book is to find out some more about these things.
- I also felt that the physical landscape was very underdeveloped...but perhaps that's just in comparison to the mental landscape presented.
- the SCK triangle didn't bother me much...nor did the treatment (literary) of women here. If you accept it for what it is, then its actually Esmi's portrayal that should seem out of place.

Anyway - great finding this and i'll try and get on reading some of the upcoming book club selections :)

- Pete

[Jack]

No neither can I, but there is a happy medium. A little spice goes a long way, and I think the character's skills/defects are like spice. If they are too defective its too much lile real life and then you might as well read the newspapers. If they are too perfect they aren't believable and then you don't feel they will be tested or lose and there is no suspense, no humanity and nothing in common.

Just the right mix is probably something that is easier with more experience.

ATTN: Run-on sentences will ensue. Yes, I write run-on sentences.

I completely agree with you concerning the unnattractiveness of whiny characters, or for that matter characters who are in a situation they either A) have the power to change or B) do not have the power to change. More often the situation is A), and the result of a whiny character in this situation is that they don't even attempt to take the steps to affect a positive change in their situation, they would rather just whine about it or wait for somebody else to affect this change for them. When the case is B), then the characters are whining just to feel sorry for themselves - if there is nothing that you can do about it, you have to move on, please.

I've made a flurry of much ado about the whole Akka & Esmi not seeing each other in the camp thing, and in this thread and previous ones I went on rants the fell along the basic template of what I've said above. Having said I have complaints about that scene in particular, I did not find characters' whininess to be to great for me. Though I don't think Bakker found the complete "happy medium" you describe above, meaning its not perfect, and yes I agree with you that with more experience Bakker will rectify this situation, meaning yes I agree with you that it is problem, but I don't find it to be as grave a problem as you do. However, this could have something to do with the fact that I've read TWP, which is break it down to its simplest terms, is less talk more rock.

[BarVybe]

agreed - continuous lack of taking action through endless circular thought and uncertainty isn't particularly endearing...

and yes, TWP is better in terms of plot points actually occurring and characters being, generally, less passive.

[Scott Bakker]

Okay, I thought that since December has come and gone, it was time for me to weigh in on a few issues. After all, I'm not just the object of a SFFWorld discussion, I'm also a member. :D

First off, thank you all for simply reading The Darkness! I still can't believe that the books are enjoying the modest popularity they are. I really thought the books would be far more cultish.

I'm always surprised by the way statements of taste are so often transformed into declarations of value in discussions such as these. The fact is, I wrote the book full well knowing it would cut against the tastes and expectations of very many. That, believe it or not, was actually the point - I don't think literature, as opposed to writing in general, is possible without taking risks. And I think that most of what passes for literature nowadays is simply singing to the choir. This means that I'm actually heartened by the naysayers in the group, though I do wish they would use more qualifiers now and again!

First off, let me state that my perspective is simply one more perspective. The only real privilege I have is that I know what my intentions were in the course of its composition. Part of the wonder and horror of publication is that your work takes on a life of its own. In a sense, a writer is simply a reader who gets a percentage.

Perspectives are probably a good place to begin. Though we each have our unique 'take on things,' our perspectives share as many commonalities as they do differences, which in turn depend on a host of things: temperment, education, reading history, and so on. We all find ourselves in families of 'like-minded' readers.

In writer's workshops and elsewhere they always tell you to 'know your reader,' which is just another way of saying that you should aim for one group of perspectives. The fact is, I intentionally set out to break this rule. I'm an egghead who loves pop culture cheese, so I wanted to write something that could work across perspectival boundaries, rather than simply within, even though I knew I would likely lose a lot of people along the way. Some times I look at The Prince of Nothing as a piece of statuary that looks profound or beautiful from various, divergent positions (from grad students writing theses, to high school punks smoking fatties), but incomplete or overwrought from others.

Thus the monster was borne. I took stock generic types - the Wizard, the Prince, the Whore, the Barbarian, the Waif - but infused them with all the complexities and ambiguities we find in real life. I took a stock generic story - the young Prince coming to a land threatened by a Dark Lord - but infused it with the particularity and interiority of a literary treatment.

And no sentimentalism. Period. We humans bullshit ourselves too much as it is.

Most of the debate here seems to surround these particular decisions of mine, as opposed to my thematic choices, which for me anyway, are the most interesting parts of the book - as well as far more controversial. (I also wanted to write a book that was not only an homage to generic epic fantasy, but also a critical exploration. I spent almost twenty years marbling the narrative with all kinds of crazy diagnoses). In light of this, I guess the question I'm most interested in asking has to do with the impact of my experiment. Are there any converts out there? Is there anyone who came away from the book with a greater appreciation of, say, interiority - which is to say, narrative that is continuously filtered through the consciousness of the characters?

One last note: Given the psychological realism I use as my yardstick, the fugue state Achamian suffers (leading him to not 'see' Esmenet) is not at all that uncommon. The question, it seems to me, should be whether the shock of discovering the skin-spy would be enough to motivate such a state. Given that Achamian is a Mandate Schoolman and the lifetime trauma that entails, I'm not sure I see the problem.

[Erfael]

So, Scott, all this raises a few random questions for me.

And no sentimentalism. Period. We humans bullshit ourselves too much as it is.

Now, no one get started on this but Scott. This sounds remarkably like Moorcock's anti-Tolkien, anti-romanticism rhetoric. Is this something that came purely from what you wanted to do, or was it inspired by something else?

In light of this, I guess the question I'm most interested in asking has to do with the impact of my experiment. Are there any converts out there? Is there anyone who came away from the book with a greater appreciation of, say, interiority - which is to say, narrative that is continuously filtered through the consciousness of the characters?

So you've thrown out this word, interiority. A quick look on the internet doesn't really give me a lot to go on, and I'm not sure what you're getting at with the word. By that, do you mean that almost all (if not all) of the narrative is colored by some character or another's perspective? Or rather, "There is no truth, just perspective"? That seemed to me to be something that the book says in general. And I didn't feel you were always obvious about it. Some authors might have a paragraph talking about how Character A thinks he knows what's going on but really doesn't. In the case of TDTCB, all of these people are laboring under ideas that are just wrong (and sometimes the reader really has to hunt to figure out how or why they're wrong (there was something in one of Akka's little notes at the opening of a chapter that gave lie to something, can't remember what, that happened elsewhere...no bells or whistles, just a little note), but they have no way to know it, so end up trying to do what's best (in their view) but just making things happen, which is what happens in the world. No decision is made with all information.

A few other things I'd want to say, but not sure if they're too spoilerific for TWP, so I'll hold my tongue for now.

[Scott Bakker]

This sounds remarkably like Moorcock's anti-Tolkien, anti-romanticism rhetoric. Is this something that came purely from what you wanted to do, or was it inspired by something else?

I'm not sure what "Moorcock's anti-Tolkien, anti-romanticism rhetoric" is, but it doesn't sound good. I'm a big fan of Papa-T, and 'rhetoric' suggests the deceptive use of words.

What I am against is sentimentalism. Romanticism I'm more inclined to evaluate on a case by case basis. I'm against sentimentalism and wary of romanticism because they are two culturally pervasive modes of self-deception, and I'm not so sure we humans can afford to deceive ourselves anymore.

The romanticism in Tolkien is motivated by the mythological stance he takes to his narrative. This is why I think arguing against Tolkien romanticism amounts to arguing that Tolkien shouldn't have written The Lord of Rings. I wanted to capture a more historical tone, which is why things are decidedly less 'romantic.'

As for sentimentalism, or the idealized caricaturing of emotions, given that this also follows from T's mythological stance, I'd argue that there is actually quite a bit in the way of emotional complexity and ambiguity in TLoTR. But then I am a fan.

So you've thrown out this word, interiority.

It's not really 'thrown out,' since I actually explained what I meant by the word: "narrative that is continuously filtered through the consciousness of the characters." I use various third-person centred POVs throughout, but rather than make the events external to the characters the primary narrative centre of gravity, I tend to concentrate on their internal events. I follow the movement of their souls, the internal action, as much as I follow the external action.

This isn't so common in epic fantasy, I think. And as I mentioned above, I'm interested in knowing whether anybody previously not accustomed to it found themselves partial to it.

In the case of TDTCB, all of these people are laboring under ideas that are just wrong (and sometimes the reader really has to hunt to figure out how or why they're wrong (there was something in one of Akka's little notes at the opening of a chapter that gave lie to something, can't remember what, that happened elsewhere...no bells or whistles, just a little note), but they have no way to know it, so end up trying to do what's best (in their view) but just making things happen, which is what happens in the world. No decision is made with all information.

This last sentence is one of the thematic lynchpins of the series. In a sense, you could see the books as an inventory of the various functional and dysfunctional ways we humans respond to the 'information problem.'

[Erfael]

It's not really 'thrown out,' since I actually explained what I meant by the word: "narrative that is continuously filtered through the consciousness of the characters." I use various third-person centred POVs throughout, but rather than make the events external to the characters the primary narrative centre of gravity, I tend to concentrate on their internal events. I follow the movement of their souls, the internal action, as much as I follow the external action.

This isn't so common in epic fantasy, I think. And as I mentioned above, I'm interested in knowing whether anybody previously not accustomed to it found themselves partial to it.

Ah, see. When you put it that way I am able to wrap my little brain around it. I actually read your explanation a number of times and referred it to the GF who was reading over my shoulder and neither of us were sure we could be sure of what you meant. (Not even a wikipedia article on it at a quick glance)

I found myself very partial to it. I think for me it's probably the most standout thing about the book that I liked. As you say, if you take a few steps back and look at overall structure, there's not really anything going on that hasn't gone on before, but we're seeing it in all sorts of interesting new ways as it shines through all of these bent lenses.

I guess it would be easy to have the various perspectives lapse into the grotesque, which is something I never really felt about any of them.

[Scott Bakker]

Since the one great advantage the novel has over other representational mediums is it's ability to get inside the heads of characters, I find criticisms of interiority hard to make sense of (though I can see why it might not be to everyone's taste).

The criticism I really worry about with regards to this issue (and it's one that goes back to the days when I workshopped TDTCB on the Online Writer's Workshop) is that there are simply too many articulate hyper-self-conscious characters.

But then given the way everyone seems to hate Serwe, it's probably a good thing!

[Erfael]

But then given the way everyone seems to hate Serwe, it's probably a good thing!

Oh, It's Kellhus I hate with a passion....no particular problems with Serwe. She can't help it. I can't see hating someone simply because they're not equipped to deal with a situation.

....is that there are simply too many articulate hyper-self-conscious characters.

I guess it's okay that the Great Names and such are so articulate, but I wonder about people like Esmi or Cnaiur. Their articulation does seem to be a little out of place for their upbringing or station, though it was never something that bumped me when reading.