observations on some of fiction's bigger names

Politics, drama, messy love triangles, large scale warfare, class discrepancy and quirky characters; the primary ingredients of most science fiction and fantasy titles that have big fights in them. It is interesting to note how the masses in general these days respond when you say Star Wars or Game of Thrones. However, throw at them other names like Dune or Terry Pratchett and they'll probably be stumped. Why is this? Wasn't Dune an epic tale in its own right? Wasn't Pratchett's wit a refreshing breath of air in the grim, leather-clad and axe-wielding fantasy novels? 

My suspicion is that people read and know these titles because they're probably easier to digest. While mass-media has been a boon to many of these books, these books must have had a following massive enough in the first place to have attracted Hollywood. Lord of The Rings is no doubt a story on an epic scale. However, if one looks carefully at the characters, it is no more than a seemingly glorified game of Dungeons and Dragons in a way. We ultimately do not know the reason Sauron wants to control Middle-Earth other than the fact that he wants to and will do it. Sauron is evil because he wants to conquer everything. He is also presented as such. All his buildings, armies are grotesque, slobbering, harsh in every way and dress primarily in black; a colour most often associated with the unclean and evil thoughts. The key word here is appear evil, it is as simple an answer as is logically explainable. With this set up in mind, the heroes seem much more colourful and deeper in comparison to a mindless automaton of an archenemy. 

In a similar set up, Star Wars in its original trilogy and subsequent trilogy, we have the main villain called Darth Sidious or Palpatine. Sidious's overall plan is to win and wrest control of the galaxy from the powers that be, making the Sith reign supreme. It does sound similar to LoTR in this sense. Sidious is evil because he chooses to present himself as such. Again, he dresses in black though his minion stormtroopers use a seemingly pious and pure white, or when presented in this manner, sterile and surgically precise white. His motivations are terribly simple in this sense. The more iconic Darth Vader was created to be as terrifying as possible as well as inhuman. Vader is ironically a deeper character in comparison because he views the Sith's power as strong enough to overcome death and protect his loved one, sadly this character development is only shown in the prequel trilogy in Episode 3. Here, Anakin is corrupted into Vader so that he may have the power to preserve the life of his wife, whom he ironically kills later due to his corrupted nature. A much better story than simply uniting the galaxy under Sith rule, and we have no idea why the Sith have to control the galaxy other than it is the evil thing to do.

With that last bit in place, what LoTR and Star Wars have in common then are an enemy that is designed to be hated and loathed on automatic instinct by even children. The enemy's overall objective is the continuation of their evilness and complete control over their worlds. However, there never really seems to be any deeper rationalization as to why complete control over the world is necessary. 

However, there are other works out there that while are better in my opinion, seem to have faded from the memory of the masses in general. Dune is one such piece of work. Arguably, the early portions are the best whilst the later half being written by Herbert's son and his collaborator make it seem more like an effort to forcibly stop the expansion of Herbert's Dune universe. Otherwise, Dune's characters are indeed deeper than that of Lucas'. If we compare major antagonists to one another. Dune's Vladimir Harkonnen is everything that a person might hate immediately and yet, paradoxically we like him at the same time for who he is. Vladimir is presented as the morbidly obese Baron of Giedi Prime. He is hedonistic in his lifestyle, brutal and ruthless in his execution of schemes, he is much more cunning than any old fox and he ultimately has a flair and style. While Vladimir is seemingly inherently evil, he does evil things not just because it pleases him, but because he can and ultimately he also does said deeds for the betterment of his House. Vladimir willingly grinds his populace into slaves not just because he is evil but because he is greedy for more money and prestige. Even his feud with the Atreides is written to have occurred millenia ago when each of the houses' ancestors were to engage another foe together and the Harkonnens were not present during the battle, forever earning the Harkonnens the Atreides rage which turned into a tit for tat whose original meaning became lost to their descendants. There is a logical reason for each of Vladimir's actions as opposed to just being evil.

In comparison to Palpatine, Vladimir feels more organic, more of a person one would be able to relate to. Thus, making Vladimir a stronger character in comparison. On that level, he is comparable to Darth Vader, though Vladimir will still emerge a stronger character because he is able to come into his own as a character and drive the story as opposed to being driven by it. For the purpose of this post, we'll see  Vader as he appears in the movies due to the differences when other author's attempt to use Vader in other works. As a pawn to Palpatine, Vader does not seem to show much character, until after he discovers Luke is his son. Vader appears as a twisted father figure to Luke Skywalker and attempts to corrupt him to the dark side. While at some point we see this father figure side of Vader attempting to convince his literally rebellious son Luke to joining the Empire, other aspects of Vader appear to be more robotic. Vader becomes a cog in the machine called the story; he does certain things simply because it moves the story along as opposed to the story moving because of what the character does.  For example, his interrogation of Leia and the subsequent destruction of Alderaan is designed to show how evil he is, which feels like a rather shallow reason. 

Taking this into consideration the immense success that Star Wars has over Dune currently, one could easily assume that simplicity always wins out complexity. Dune's overall story in the initial parts revolve around Houses Corrino, Atreides and Harkonnen as their plans and schemes intertwine and cause considerable drama to the Dune universe. Star Wars ultimately does not have politics so much as it has battles. Dune has a fair mixture of political intrigue, espionage, drama and warfare. Warfare in general then it seems, is far easier to do. A clearer example of how mindless warfare wins out would be the influential board game turn computer game and novel series Dawn of War. Here is a franchise about as old as Star Wars and has lasted longer than Lucas had control over his own and is still going strong. The universe of Dawn of War has an incredibly simple premise: war and only war. There will be no alliances between factions, no parlays and no quarter given. War, war, war. If it is anything, Dawn of War is simplicity done at its finest. While not as mainstream as Star Wars, it has made its echoes in the halls of time, as Dune once had. 

The end result appears to be that the simpler the premise of a science fiction or fantasy world, the easier it will be willingly picked up and digested by the masses. Never mind that the hero is a hero for being a hero's sake or that his arch villain had absolutely no reason to take over the world other than it is an evil thing to do. If the villain and hero both raise and army to fight to the death, millions of people will pay to watch it happen, and they will watch the subsequent trilogy with eager anticipation. It is a pitiable sight, when the world forgoes substance in favor of spectacles, but if it will keep your monetary boat afloat, who is to complain? 

breaking something not broken to look like you're fixing something

by this i am referring to the latest update by Valve for its Team Fortress 2 game.

the title on its blog implies that it means to eradicate a threat posed by what is known as 'idling'. time for some context. Team Fortress 2 since its massive update which brought the supposed scourge of hats into the game, a drop system was implemented to distribute the hats and other nice things to the players. the drop system works on a chance system much like slots or dice tosses and depending on your luck you could randomly receive a lovely hat, a not so lovely hat or a weapon you already have or will have soon.

this drop system also has a rather deviously clever economic move in that it drops "Mann Co. Supply crates". these crates form the backbone of the this new TF2 economy for Valve. each crate can only be opened by a "Mann Co. Supply Crate Key" or for USD 2.50. players are drawn to fancy objects in general and each would wish to have their virtual avatars decked out in all the niceties the game can provide. this ensures that even if it is a small percentage of players, there will be those who will buy the keys simply to open the crates to get at their supposedly valuable contents. the presence of hats with certain visual attributes imbued onto them also make it worthwhile for some players to open as many crates as possible due to the tiny percentage of obtaining such a hat.

the normal way of obtaining hats, weapons and by extension crates, would be to play the game itself. previously a very talented coder crafted a 3rd party software that made the game think it was being played and thus allowed item drops to occur for players anyway. this was the first instance of 'idling', whereby a player need not do anything much and still gain items. this in a way breached certain parameters and not just legal ones. with that, an effective item removal went about, thus removing the illicitly gained items whilst rewarding the players who did no such thing with (guess what it is) a hat. the resulting rift in the player camps as a result of who got the hat and who didn't lasted for a bit but has since been forgotten by many new players.

today, the term idling is similar but no longer malevolent in nature. idling now involves the players actually being in the game, but they do nothing. in essence, the players are still playing the game by merely turning it on and allowing the game to kill them. this still clocks up game time and in certain specialty built maps that kill the players slowly, item drops still occur though in a natural sort of way. no parameters have been breached and the people are still in a manner of speaking, playing the game even when they aren't actually at their desks. so, is it malevolent in nature? only if you consider the fact that the players aren't helping out in an actual game then, yes.

from the time the first instance of idling appeared and supposedly reared its ugly head, people have scorned idlers for not actually playing. but consider this. the term idling in fact means, literally not doing anything. most idlers in fact, do not go onto normal servers to idle. most create their own local server and clock in time from there while also clocking up a massive electrical bill. think of this other perspective. how disheartening it must be to play the game and actually be at your computer for 12 days straight without gaining a much vaunted hat or weapon for that matter. pretty dreary i'd say. idling then allows players to clock in and gain the items and they will still be pleasantly surprised even if there isn't technically anyone to show it off to till they get into an actual game.

this recent update by the new Team Fortress 2 team essentially stops all this 'non-sense' by ensuring that the item drop will only occur in valve sanctioned servers, where normal games are playing. the question being though. what problem is actually being solved by this measure?

idlers pretty much stay away from mainstream servers. thus, they would not normally interfere in a game. let's say there's a normal game going on and an idler appears in the game. by idling within that game server and not helping the team he's assigned to, then the idler is being malicious. but if the idler is in his own local server, there's no team to annoy, so everyone technically still wins.

from an economical perspective, valve doesn't lose out either. all the crates are still being dropped equally to every player whether or not they are idling. some players i know possess idling accounts specifically for item farming. not a bad idea in essence and also benefits valve too because for each item farming account made, valve can be certain that money has been transferred to them. a Free account is unable to trade anything to anyone and only allows the F2P (free 2 play) player to 'beg' for items from premium or paid for players. so, for an item farming account to work, it must be paid for to become premium. no issues there either then.

this begets the question, why then has the new Team Fortress 2 team taken this 'idling' issue so seriously? i've asked another player for his views and one thing we did come up with was the gaming experience. a fair point, in a way. the argued point entails that the player must be playing a game and then when he least expects it, he gets an item. never mind that its probably a weapon he already has or a hat of dubious value. the player has got an ITEM! he should be overjoyed, elated and brimming with happiness that the game's chance system has allowed him to get an item for FREE. this experience is then what is being sought after. then again, one must consider that all experiences eventually wear thin. ask yourself why is it then that fads like Aaron Carter or perhaps even Bieber, come and go and yet most of their contributions last even less than their own lifetime? the experience. this is especially true for avid gamers who frequent TF2.

players who play any game for long enough would become weary of a gimmick, especially one as small as the first joys of obtaining an item. but if not for the experience and joys of getting an item whilst slaughtering enemies or erstwhile team mates, what then could be the reason for this update being as it is? my hunch is that it could be a response of the ego or shoe-filling.

bear in mind, that Team Fortress 2's community has evolved from simply being players to facilitators of other players. its community has a strong creative side that genuinely surprises the game's creators time and again with their brilliance and dedication. this is the same community that launched its very own 'Robotics' update with the actual devs doing little apart from marketing work. in essence then, what the original Team Fortress 2 team has created is a perpetual motion engine that constantly goes forwards on its own after some input from its creators. the new team that administers the game essentially become caretakers, ensuring that there are still regular update, bugs are sorted and errant players dealt with.

unfortunately, idling comes under the latter scope of errant players and have been dealt with by being unable to idle any longer. but how is dealing with idlers an ego boost for this new team? the answer is simple. they must appear to look like they are doing something of great significance, and as such attack and rectify a relatively simple problem which nobody really cares about or is actually malignant any longer, the best case of beating a dead horse while making a mountain of a molehill if you will.


i'd personally, rather see more effort from the this very same team being put into stopping actual hackers who, in fact do mess up normal games or even addressing weapons balancing issues properly. but surely, idling is a far greater threat than a speed-hacker who can not only see through walls but also make every shot count then, isn't it?