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Author Topic: Fight Thread Pollution! Post here if it's not worth a new thread!!!  (Read 2311786 times)
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« Reply #21400 on: May 27, 2015, 05:32:53 PM »

The bible is like Shakespeare, everybody know about it, passage of it, but outside of passage of it nobody that aren't in dedicated circle have actually read it (me too as I'm non religious).

Btw we had a Bayonetta game now we need a Samson game.

ive seen shakespeare plays performed and read one (julius ceasar) in highschool. i also saw the 4 hour hamlet movie that has all the original text in it. shakespeare is interesting b/c of his huge cultural influence but i dont think his plays are really as "timeless" and "universal" as ppl claim.

side note: reading plays is dum and idk why schools do this. maybe its because classical plays tend to be easier to read than classical novels? even watching a (good) filmed production of a play is preferable to reading it imo.
« Last Edit: May 27, 2015, 05:39:08 PM by Silbereisen » Logged
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« Reply #21401 on: May 27, 2015, 06:24:37 PM »

The Bible is actually a bunch of different books strung together, so judging them as a single work is going to be problematic. Song of songs is some really good love/erotic poetry, genesis has really good and some bad moments, deutoronomy and numbers is pretty boring, etc. Reading them this way, as individual books, is much better for enjoyment.

The things you're describing are characteristics of a lot of ancient epics, btw, like the Illiad you already mentioned. Long lists of names, so called incoherent world building (to modern standards, that search so much for narrative unity), repetitive narrative structure (consequence of oral composition), etc. It' not the text fault if it doesn't do what a modern reader expects a story should do.

I agree with Gimym. Whoever likes the epic part of Tolkien, things like the Silmarillion, and enjoys ancient epics in general will enjoy reading much of the Bible.


Your description is of course accurate. But my point was that it isn't comparable to modern works if you simply judge it on literary and world-building merits; that may be simply a matter of expectations, but I would argue that it's also a consequence of the fact that we've had millennia of development of story telling. The Bible is patched together, which makes it inconsistent, self-contradictory and pretty incoherent in places. You only need to read the first two pages of Genesis to get a bunch of self-contradictions on how the world was created; it just isn't that well written by modern standards.

There is a lot of really funky world building in both Jewish and Christian traditions, though. But much of it (like demonology) can be found in later texts, rather than the Bible/Torah.

I still think it's super-interesting to read. But for slightly different reasons. It's full of stuff that is embedded in our culture, making it an extremely interesting historical document. Recognizing stories I've heard before (or more often retold in more "appropriate" forms) is really fun for me. I'll also give you that the mythology helps to keep it interesting, even if it isn't great by modern standards.
« Last Edit: May 27, 2015, 06:36:32 PM by Dacke » Logged

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« Reply #21402 on: May 27, 2015, 06:39:26 PM »

if you believe box office, modern standard isn't much better, look at the spider man reboot or just the whole marvel/dc universe, not that twilight or even hunger games hasn't some weird stuff. Arguing on the coherence of the bible is like arguing is the romita jr version of spiderman better than the mac farlane, do ultimate spiderman better than kirby's version?, or the tim burton batman is consistent the nolan's one ... there is similar thread and overall mythos that is not changing but the details themselves don't match at all! Worse that's like the "new" standard of consuming stories back from when stories where freely distributed as tales. And let's talk about retelling of classic, I have a soft spot from electra from Girodoux rather than from Eschyle ...
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« Reply #21403 on: May 27, 2015, 07:24:49 PM »

That's a pretty good argument for studying the Christian mythological tradition.

But when considering the Bible (as a book you may want to read) it's not a matter of retelling classical stories in different ways. It's more a matter of the Bible contradicting itself every three pages. Which isn't analogous to a comic universe reboot, but more like if every comic book issue was really poorly written.
(Page 2: Batman swears to never kill. Page 5: Batman shoots into a crowd with a machine gun).

And sure, there are plenty of contradictions and misses in every big world building project. It's certainly the case for LoTR. But those things stand out and are generally considered mistakes or problems. But in the Bible you almost never get a coherent story that's long enough to pull you into the universe.
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« Reply #21404 on: May 27, 2015, 07:36:31 PM »

Well given that's the most read books in the world and it had spawn off many imitation, it was pretty efficient Shrug It seems that a huge number of people has been pull in the universe! There is many high profile fanworks too like all those traditional first movies made by old studio until dreamworks or that movie by Mel Gibson. I have to admit he pull older sources too as inspiration.

/pointless arguing
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« Reply #21405 on: May 27, 2015, 07:53:52 PM »

I'm pretty sure most people haven't actually read the Bible, though. It's more a matter of reading certain verses, which is something quite different

I would also argue that all the cultural spin-offs and references aren't directly connected to the actual book. It's rather a result of the surrounding cultural tradition. A tradition which really does contain tons of interesting world building, in the style of comic universes. I don't consider contradictions in the tradition a big problem, my complaint is rather with the original book. All the diverse fanfics surpass the source material.

The same is also true for other mythologies. The Illiad is pretty boring to read, but the underlying mythology is fascinating. I find it more stimulating to read modern retellings or descriptions of the Greek mythology, when based on different sources and traditions. The originals are interesting from a historical perspective, but the writing and story telling are usually pretty crap.

edit: one example of tradition being more interesting than the source material is Lillith, in all her different incarnations. It's an attempt by the tradition to explain some of the more obvious contradictions in Genesis 1. She's never mentioned by name in the Bible, but the fanfic community has made up all sort of fun stuff.
« Last Edit: May 27, 2015, 08:03:00 PM by Dacke » Logged

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« Reply #21406 on: May 27, 2015, 08:53:41 PM »

If you are talking underlying mythos, there is good texts and bad texts too, pretty sure there is a lot of fan of apocalypse given how many derivative works there is from this one and direct quotes! I haven't read all the marvel/DC universes too nor the entire greek mythos ... That happen whenever you have multiple author expending on the same rough stories, each interpretation convey different message using the same framework, we still don't have the forbidden books outside of the 4 canonized, I heard the Jude one was pretty interesting to contrast against Luke, Mark, Matthew and John.
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« Reply #21407 on: May 28, 2015, 12:03:32 AM »

I was looking at some of the games my aging PC has made me pass by, and thought, "Hey, maybe I'll just get a console. Then I don't have to worry about specs or tuning options or any of that shit. I don't play shooters anyway, so why do I care about using a controller over a mouse?"

Except it turns out that it's cheaper or the same price - especially if I consider usage cost (games etc) - to get a new cheap PC than a PS4. Which I can upgrade later into another one of my multigenerational PC behemoths. I realize that not all markets are the same, but I was a little surprised, as I haven't bothered looking at hardware in a while.
Why do people even buy consoles anymore? Is it just the simplicity?
How can they possibly expect this console cycle to last anywhere near as long as the last one? Sunk cost?
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« Reply #21408 on: May 28, 2015, 03:09:46 AM »

A lot of console purchases are based around first party titles you can't get on PC.

There's also the advantage of the console owner (eg, Nintendo, Sony) controlling quality of the games on their system, but I'm not sure how you'd measure its influence. Included in that is the way Sony and Microsoft push trophies / achievements on their games, which is a huge draw for a large segment of players.

There's also the convenience of consoles for families, since they don't get viruses and it's relatively easy to restrict the access of children to undesirable content (Nintendo's aggressive policing of their online communities is a plus, for example).

Console exclusives is probably the major driving force by a large margin, though.
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« Reply #21409 on: May 28, 2015, 03:14:29 AM »

Why do people even buy consoles anymore? Is it just the simplicity?

The same reason people did buy consoles before. My guess:

1: accessibility/simplicity
2: stability(software less prone to bottlenecks and errors)
3. the traditional habit to own physical games still exists
4. some exclusive games

One could argue steam is trying to solve point 1 at least, but not everybody is a fan of drm.
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« Reply #21410 on: May 28, 2015, 04:11:02 AM »

theres also a lot of misinformation and misconceptions about pc gaming, mainly w/r/t price. ppl think you have to get a $3000 rig and upgrade every year and so on. also youd be surprised how many people don't know that the pc they own can already run games just fine. pc is cheaper unless you intend to only play new AAA games at max settings, doubly so if you live in a country where console software prices are ridiculous (new console games are 60-70 euros where i live). that's also why pc gaming is much more popular than console gaming in "poorer" countries.

anyway consoles and pc gaming are getting closer to each other in terms of user experience and etc. patches, installations, online play and digital distribution are common on consoles now. so are multimedia functions. if you use steam on a pc, there's no real difference to buying games from psn or xbox live or watever. also the age of super invasive drm is largely over and so are the times when you had to spend an afternoon just to get a game to run.

i pretty much stopped using consoles because pc is just more convenient and cheaper these days. i wouldn't even own a ps4 if it wasn't for bloodborne.
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« Reply #21411 on: May 28, 2015, 04:17:19 AM »

Slightly related to your discussion, I recently discovered that by elevating my laptop using a rig of Lego I could get much better ventilation and run games much smoother, which is extremely good for me because I can now enjoy games that were unplayable before. I still want to upgrade eventually though, 'cause an 11­­­" screen is just not good for me.
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« Reply #21412 on: May 28, 2015, 04:25:23 AM »

@Silbereisen

In your case you bought a console for point 4, there will always be at least one of those 4 points why a console is bought.
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« Reply #21413 on: May 28, 2015, 04:58:58 AM »

They're all the same chipset now, exclusives are largely just marketing wankery. Yes, they may be a reason why a person buys a console, but it's not really relevant to the future of consoles v pc's and how things are certainly coming to a middle.
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« Reply #21414 on: May 28, 2015, 05:16:03 AM »

Quote
The same is also true for other mythologies. The Illiad is pretty boring to read, but the underlying mythology is fascinating. I find it more stimulating to read modern retellings or descriptions of the Greek mythology, when based on different sources and traditions. The originals are interesting from a historical perspective, but the writing and story telling are usually pretty crap.

I have to disagree with you, story is not a technology that evolves through time. What changes are other things, the way a society is built, the physical media of the narrative, the beliefs of people, all this things change and with it comes the change in what we call taste, which is basically expectation.

To mention your problem with incoherence. First, there's no world building in ancient epics. World building is a strategy of modern writers to make you believe in a world that nobody knows in the first place. The readers of the Bible and the Illiad didn't need their world explained to them, all the mythology of these works was present everywhere, from festivals to bedtime stories. So, when the story appears to lack something, you must remember tha the reason for that could be simple that it was to obvious for them to even bother. Two thousand years of white noise got in the way of your enjoyment of the text.

Incoherence is another thing. In the case of the Bible we're talking of multiple narratives written by people with different opinions on the same subject. But even if we ignore that, what we can't ignore is the fact that most ancient epics were not written at first, but were part of a large tradition of oral composition. They were not composed to be analysed by someone with a book, that could go back from the fifth page to the second and compare different statements, searching for incoherence. The focus was on the moment by moment basis and the overall feeling of being there on the scene. This also creates another problem, as these narratives were known to everyone that was part of the oral tradition. Nobody at the time read the Illiad to know how it was going to end, that was obvious to anyone, just like you know the end of Christ's story. The fun part was always how to tell the same stories and still make them exciting. These people were not begginers, listening to the odyssey for the first time, they were specialists on the tradition. Ancient epics are Mario lost levels, not mario 1.

That's why, on the epic about Achilles rage, he only starts to fight on canto 19.The Illiad is a masterpiece of playing with expectation, Homer is teasing you all the way through. In short: in order to enjoy texts from another culture we need to relearn our aesthetics expectations. Nobody starts to like japanese theater in one day, the same is through with ancient literature. It's not a a defect that they don't do something a modern reader wants, they were not written for modern readers in the first place.
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« Reply #21415 on: May 28, 2015, 05:49:44 AM »

I have this rule for myself that I only ever buy last gen consoles. Cheaper, instantly available library, and I don't have to worry about buying the wrong thing. My pc does me justice.

I do have to say that console controllers are much nicer to play most games with. I use my Dualshock 3 for basically anything that isn't an fps. It's much more laid back than a keyboard and mouse if you ask me.
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« Reply #21416 on: May 28, 2015, 05:57:56 AM »

i use a ds3 for anything that isnt simulation/strategy. which is not a whole lot lot actually
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« Reply #21417 on: May 28, 2015, 06:14:38 AM »

Same here. I bought my ps3 a couple of years ago, and I dont regret the now cheap console exclusives. Vanquish was totally worth my investment
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« Reply #21418 on: May 28, 2015, 07:00:44 AM »

They're all the same chipset now, exclusives are largely just marketing wankery. Yes, they may be a reason why a person buys a console, but it's not really relevant to the future of consoles v pc's and how things are certainly coming to a middle.
Exclusives are still exclusives and marketing is existing reality. Console hardware is fixed and tuned for its purpose, pc hardware to a lesser extent. Pc games have always been more prone to instability and bottlenecks. They try to cure it with upcoming drivers and apis but there are enough reasons to remain skeptical.

In reality pc games are poorly optimized, they run very weak compared to the potential of the hardware they are running on. For example you would still get a stuttering experience in Far Cry 3 on a GTX 750 Ti(around xbox one level in theory) on min settings, there are just more bottlenecks.
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« Reply #21419 on: May 28, 2015, 07:41:46 PM »

HELLO WANT KAHVIISTA

 Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss
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