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Re: Couple of things...
Posted By: Archilen	Date: 10/27/11 2:07 p.m.
In Response To: Re: Couple of things... (Postmortem) : I couldn't help but think of Garrus: "As you humans say, I can feel it : in my gut." : And then of course of all the people who say "You humans have an : expression (A). We Asari have a similar expression (B)." Yeah, Mass Effect is guilty of this as well. I can definitely see a some kind of sense of self-importance at play there, with humans thinking we'd be the center of everything and other species would actually bother learning things like these. I could understand if this happened with one or two aliens, but it's unfeasibly common. : Even that would've been better. Maybe an Elite could have said "The : humans have a dirty expression for this situation (A), if you can fathom : to think on their level. I much prefer our noble saying (B)." : Yeah, this might have been one of my biggest complaints. The Elite society : just felt too... human. "He knew how to tell them when to roll up : their sleeves and get to work." It's like she wrote them as humans, : and then retroactively changed some wording so that it was talking about : Sangheili. : Instead of having them reference human terms, why not give them some of their : own sayings? That would have been much cooler, and we as fans would have : gained a deeper glimpse into their society. Definitely. Well, it's been said that Traviss writes these things up in a real hurry (like an assembly line) and probably won't devote much time to thinking things like this over. It's much easier to think aliens as human, but it won't make them very interesting. : The first thing that bothered me about her treatment of Elites was actually : when he finds the dead bodies from the keep over, and says to get them : down and remove them from sight for being "indecent". That : bothered me a bit. I know it can be written down as a difference in elite : societies from state to state, but I really felt like an elite reaction : would have been the exact opposite. More like "Gather round children, : and see. There is a valuable life lesson to be learned here." : I'm not going to complain about Traviss' take on the universe, since it seems : to be the most realistic so far, but it really did seem like she was : uncomfortable with showing the elites as the brutal society that they are : and had to reign them back a bit for her own satisfaction, and that, as : you said Archilen, she didn't make it seem very science fiction like, : except for the elements that were already there. In fact, in some ways the : story seemed very primitive , like it was written about a story set in : the modern day. The brutality of Sangheili society was definitely toned down from The Cole Protocol. Now they seemed more like back in The Flood, when their culture hadn't been fleshed out that much. I wasn't exactly a fan of how extreme and impractical the society presented in TCP was, but at least it was something a little more alien. I was also hoping we might see a little more exploration on how their different physiology and psychology might affect their culture and their everyday routines, but right now, if you changed a few wordings here and there they might as well be humans. As for the overall tone, I think the main difference between this and Nylund's books (and the Halo games, for that matter) is the way the previous stories were much more classic, always playing it straight and being very earnest and even optimistic in the vein of classic sci-fi despite the grim setting. They weren't overly naive, and there was certainly a fair bit of moral ambiguity going on, but there was always a certain sense of adventure and optimism there, though I can't pin it down to any specific detail. Traviss' view is clearly more edgy and cynical, and while people tend to welcome that as more realistic, I think I'll take old-fashioned idealism over cynicism any day.

Message Index

Glasslands thoughts/critiques *SP*	Archilen	10/27/11 8:48 a.m.
In regards to Halsey...	davidfuchs	10/27/11 9:56 a.m.
Re: In regards to Halsey...	GrimBrother One	10/27/11 10:31 a.m.
Re: In regards to Halsey...	Archilen	10/27/11 10:52 a.m.
Couple of things...	GrimBrother One	10/27/11 10:27 a.m.
Re: Couple of things...	davidfuchs	10/27/11 10:35 a.m.
Re: Couple of things...	Archilen	10/27/11 11:09 a.m.
Re: Couple of things...	Postmortem	10/27/11 1:10 p.m.
Re: Couple of things...	Archilen	10/27/11 2:07 p.m.
Re: Couple of things...	elrolio	10/27/11 2:29 p.m.
Re: Couple of things...	scarab	10/27/11 4:49 p.m.
Re: Couple of things...	Archilen	10/28/11 1:06 a.m.
Re: Glasslands thoughts/critiques *SP*	elrolio	10/27/11 2:14 p.m.
Re: Glasslands thoughts/critiques *SP*	Postmortem	10/27/11 2:47 p.m.
Re: Glasslands thoughts/critiques *SP*	Archilen	10/28/11 3:25 a.m.
Re: Glasslands thoughts/critiques *SP*	Postmortem	10/28/11 7:44 a.m.
I should have been sleeping...	AladelAngel	10/28/11 4:53 a.m.
Re: I should have been sleeping...	Archilen	10/28/11 7:36 a.m.
Re: I should have been sleeping...	AladelAngel	10/28/11 1:08 p.m.
This. (+ [mean] comments)	Arithmomaniac	10/28/11 9:11 a.m.
Re: This. (+ [mean] comments)	IESUproductions	10/28/11 10:04 a.m.
Re: This. (+ [mean] comments)	Arithmomaniac	10/28/11 10:34 a.m.
Re: This. (+ [mean] comments)	davidfuchs	10/28/11 11:19 a.m.
Re: This. (+ [mean] comments)	AladelAngel	10/28/11 1:13 p.m.
Re: This. (+ [mean] comments)	Postmortem	10/28/11 4:44 p.m.
Re: This. (+ [mean] comments)	davidfuchs	10/28/11 5:14 p.m.
Re: This. (+ [mean] comments)	Quirel	10/30/11 2:49 p.m.