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Ogres Are Cool

lrb.co.uk

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Re: Ogres Are Cool

#31

Post by shoubidouwah »

drfuzzy89 wrote: post #29

This was a really great article. This part stood out to me in particular: > But what these tales are absolutely forbidden from representing is any agent or action that falls into the social class or milieu of the people who chiefly collected and read them. So the Grimms’ own world of government employees, highly literate women, libraries and universities is perhaps the most profoundly forbidden space of the folk tale…

The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart is definitely one, as well as a bunch of the "big epics" like the Malazan empire / The annals of the Black Company?

It may be less common than "high castles", but that is either because of opportunity cost (non-special characters do not survive well this kind of world, so their stories are either short or picaresque) or feature creep if they start from the bottom: if you want an uplifting tale, upwards mobility is needed and at some point only the king is up...

Re: Ogres Are Cool

#33

Post by layer8 »

no-dr-onboard wrote: post #27

read this as "ogress", thinking it was some new variant of postgresql. My mind has been destroyed by HN!

PostgreSQL, former name Postgres, is the successor of INGRES = INteractive Graphics REtrieval System. Maybe OGRES is the Original Gangster REtrieval System.

Re: Ogres Are Cool

#34

Post by protocolture »

drfuzzy89 wrote: post #29

This was a really great article. This part stood out to me in particular: > But what these tales are absolutely forbidden from representing is any agent or action that falls into the social class or milieu of the people who chiefly collected and read them. So the Grimms’ own world of government employees, highly literate women, libraries and universities is perhaps the most profoundly forbidden space of the folk tale…

>It may be a blind spot of my own, but I can't think of many examples of fantasy with truly common folk as the primary perspective.

How common and how fantastic?

Conan is a hillman. He just becomes more accomplished over time.

Fafyrd is from a frozen waste, trained as a skald. Notable only because he left his tribe interested in civilization.

Vaatzes from KJ Parkers Engineer Trilogy is foreman. A really good engineer, but replaced instantly when he is banished.

Sort of inverted with Saevus Corax, where the main guy is trying really hard not to be royalty, and so he scavenges dead people on battlefields for a living hoping no one will find him.

Re: Ogres Are Cool

#35

Post by anyonecancode »

drfuzzy89 wrote: post #29

This was a really great article. This part stood out to me in particular: > But what these tales are absolutely forbidden from representing is any agent or action that falls into the social class or milieu of the people who chiefly collected and read them. So the Grimms’ own world of government employees, highly literate women, libraries and universities is perhaps the most profoundly forbidden space of the folk tale…

In that vein, you might find this article interesting:

https://contraptions.venkateshrao.com/p/discworld-rules

It also was posted here on HN recently -- discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43299815

Re: Ogres Are Cool

#36

Post by hoseja »

drfuzzy89 wrote: post #29

This was a really great article. This part stood out to me in particular: > But what these tales are absolutely forbidden from representing is any agent or action that falls into the social class or milieu of the people who chiefly collected and read them. So the Grimms’ own world of government employees, highly literate women, libraries and universities is perhaps the most profoundly forbidden space of the folk tale…

Literally Banazîr Galbasi

Re: Ogres Are Cool

#37

Post by pjc50 »

drfuzzy89 wrote: post #29

This was a really great article. This part stood out to me in particular: > But what these tales are absolutely forbidden from representing is any agent or action that falls into the social class or milieu of the people who chiefly collected and read them. So the Grimms’ own world of government employees, highly literate women, libraries and universities is perhaps the most profoundly forbidden space of the folk tale…

> I don't remember Cinderella or Snow White being special beyond being pretty and charming.

Snow White was, at least in the canonical Disney 1937 version, "the fairest of them all": the most attractive person known to the magic mirror.

Cinderella was the chosen one, high femme edition: rather than being handed a magic ring or sword she got a pair of shoes and a carriage. Both of these are folk tales that fit the fantasy trope mould.

Really I think this is a slightly circular problem of genre, because if you try to write this sort of story without centering on The Chosen One you end up just doing literary realism.

(possibly urban fantasy gets into this more, by explicitly starting from the modern post-feudal world. Anyway, I agree with you that it's a great article!)

Re: Ogres Are Cool

#38

Post by mock-possum »

jhbadger wrote: post #18

On this site, I was thinking this would be referring to Ogres in the Steve Jackson sense of autonomous AI supertanks featured in the the classic board game (and several computer games since) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogre_(board_game)

Man I feel like half of what I like so much about HN is just the coincidental things I stumble across in the comments.

Re: Ogres Are Cool

#39

Post by partomniscient »

mock-possum wrote: post #38
jhbadger wrote: post #18

On this site, I was thinking this would be referring to Ogres in the Steve Jackson sense of autonomous AI supertanks featured in the the classic board game (and several computer games since) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogre_(board_game)

Man I feel like half of what I like so much about HN is just the coincidental things I stumble across in the comments.

Belatedly relatedly: Hexagons are the bestagons.
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