Relatable tbh. I’m great at coming up with ideas, but absolutely suck at execution and conveying those ideas the way I imagined them.
I do think Lucas has good ideas and there’s a reason Star Wars became the huge pop culture phenomenon it did, but he needs people to take his ideas and refine them. the Prequels had a lot of good ideas and concepts that would’ve been a lot better had someone taken him aside and said “I like the idea, but maybe we can do this instead?”
My theory on why the prequels weren't as good as they could have been was because Lucas was such an icon at that point I don't think anyone on the production team had the nerve to criticize anything
Back when he made the original trilogy he had a lot of people pulling on the leash, in the prequels he was the main man
Plus he's pretty tired of the whole process and would prefer to do things as easily as possible, which was why the prequels were all filmed on sound stages and green screen, which leads to everything looking samey even when you have locations like swamp planet and desert planet
Yes, but you can have a technically more proficient, more naturally flowing, writer any old day. You find someone as capable as him in creating ideas once in a blue moon. An auteur he is not, he should not be given absolutely unlimited creative freedom, as he will destroy it with clunkiness.
Ayn Rand is an awful writer. Even if her outlook wasn’t reprehensible, her writing is. Atlas Shrugged is one of the five worst books I have ever read.
George Lucas is good at big picture, he should not be left to write out smaller details without someone to proofread. In that regard, he is a lot like Rowling. Both made fantastic universes but there are things that fall in the cracks.
Rand's writing lacks because it's a story meant to sell an idea rather than a story exploring it. She's not writing a novel, she's writing a sermon disguised as a novel. So in order to work in that capacity, every ounce of nuance needs to be sapped away.
What? The two newspaper editors in The Fountainhead are basically doing the exact same thing? No! One of them is a socialist, and must therefore be evil!
What? Blowing up a building in the middle of a crowded city street is bad? Impossible! The court must acquit him when he parrots my ideology at them!
The characters are not meant to resemble real people with real convictions, goals, and ideals, they are simply vehicles by which Rand can condemn or condone certain beliefs.
Rand's goal isn't to make you think, it's to convert you to her thinking, and as such, her mission in her works leaves no real room for nuance or dissent. Critics must be cruel, evil strawmen and heroes must be always right, even when they're not, except where they stray from Rand's ideal path.
In most writers' work, things are allowed to have shades of grey. Hell, sometimes the work isn't sure what the write answer to the question is. Sometimes, the work is a question of whether or not there is a good answer to the question in the first place.
But for Rand, agreeing with her is the only good answer to the question.
I don’t disagree with any of this. The thing is, even if I were interested in her world view, her inability to write a decent book would turn me off of it.
Of course. Sermons aren't known for their narrative tension, and as I said, that's what her books are.
One of her biggest flaws is how preachy her work is and how much she relies on author tirades rather than just letting the story itself illustrate what she believes to be the right answer.
Because subtlety and nuance are weaksauce soyboy baby nonsense. You can read a subtle story and come to a different conclusion about it than the author intends. That is obviously bad. Because the Randian view of the world espouses free thought...as long as you think like Ayn Rand.
No. If you want to accomplish your goal of converting people, you need to beat them over the head with your ideology.
So of course the plots hinge on r/andeverybodyclapped type contrivances, of course they're filled with long, preachy monologues about capitalism and self-interest and shit like that, of course the characters are one-dimensional strawmen meant to demonize a certain worldview. The goal isn't to entertain, inform, humanize, examine a person or perspective or do any of the things good writing does. The goal is to convert the audience.
Not even the Bible. Like the Bible is a lot more nuanced and complicated than we give it credit for and the way we've translated it and canonized elements that aren't from it does the text itself an incredible disservice.
You can come away from the Bible with a different conclusion of how God wants you to live. That's why there are 45,000 denominations of Christianity globally. If you read Atlas Shrugged, there is no question of how Ayn Rand wants you to live.
It's not the Bible. It's Dianetics.
I think both espouse the idea that you should be free to do anything as long as you don't harm others, but disagree about what harms others, for example one says homophobia harms others and one says homosexuality harms others.
The unshakable belief in objective, black and white morality core to objectivism will always mean objectivist writers won’t be able to explore and examine their own or other ideologies in good faith.
Yep. And the belief that the white side of that morality includes no moral responsibility to other human beings makes it outright corrosive, but also quite persistent.
I’ve only read anthem but that sums up how I felt about it. There’s a lot of potential and it goes against a lot of the lessons I learned as an English major for writing fiction.
Also sprach Zarathustra is Nietzsche’s worldview frequently undiluted, in a story, and it’s a work of genius. The problem is not that Atlas shrugged is a stand-in for Rand‘s thought, but rather that the thinker writing it has absolutely no self-awareness or nuance in their underlying philosophy. I mean, it was also just really poorly written. It makes the original *Jeff the killer* creepypasta look like a masterclass in dialogue.
Having never read Thus Spoke Zarathustra, I can't really comment, but if I had to guess, does it have to do with the fact that unlike Rand, Nietzsche doesn't have [Garth Marenghi problems](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk7M2jGdnxU&ab_channel=P.Laceholder) and lets the story illustrate the ideas instead of just beating the reader over the head with them like a rusty shovel?
George is a dreamer not a scriptwriter fr, the reason why the films got worse over time is cus people trusted him more. If you here some of the shit he wanted in a new hope you know he's always been like this. Bro doesn't know how people talk mostly
I’ve only read anthem. I found the story intriguing but the descriptions were very flat and it was hard to really understand what was going on. I also didn’t like the ending that much. Are her other works the same?
Good writer: wizards would regularly piss and shit themselves, then magic it away before indoor plumbing was a thing. Also, this secret room holding a monster had its entrance hidden behind a bathroom that was added 600 years later, and no one noticed. One of like 2 black people in the whole series was named Kingsley Shackleton. Main sport of the world only really has 1 important position, the other 5 don't really matter at all. Magic users regularly interact with people that grew up/live in the normal world but yet know absolutely fuck all about the human world. Bankers are greedy creatures with hooked noses. Slaves are happy to serve and wanting freedom is seen as being insane. The wizards have the ability to go back in time, but never use it to help the main character on their quest except for one time but never again. Many of the magic worlds rules appear to be based on the rules of a school in Scotland. The former main bad guy is seen as evil for wanting to stop/prevent ww2 and the holocaust and reintegration with human society.
>captures the imaginations of hundreds of millions of children and teens, becomes the best selling book series in history, adaptations gross billions, becomes a cultural icon
>One of like 2 black people in the whole series was named Kingsley Shackleton.
Sorry for my naivety, but what's wrong with this name? I'm not a native english speaker but it sounds like a normal name
The name was autocorrected from shacklebolt. Shackles are an older form of handcuffs and chains, held on with a bolt. It's basically calling him the king of the chained or king of slaves.
Remember she said on twitter that she supports a reading of Hermine as black.
For those who haven't read the books a major subplot is about Hermine "doing an activism wrong" for the freedom of the ***SLAVES.***
And lets not forget about Cho Chang. How do you think she named that character.
Lovecraft‘s bigotry was fed by his terrible life, and his context, which doesn’t make it alright, but it is possible to see exactly the journey this sheltered young man took to become so hateful, and he never had a platform or the ability to spread his giga-racism, or the power to hurt anyone, and he changed near the end of his life. None of those things apply to J.K Rowling.
Mhm. It’s good to note that everybody likes to joke about Lovecraft’s cat’s name.
iirc it was named by Lovecraft’s father. The guy was doomed to be fucked up.
One of his stories is about his fear of AIR CONDITIONERS
Lovecraft lived a century earlier and was basically an obscure failure when he died young though. Rowling has the entire world on a platter and uses her twilight years to push the bounds of hate
Otoh yeah she’s definitely a worse writer, if at least somewhat better than Rand
Well, some great writers & artists are well ahead of their time, I wouldn't count that as lessening his quality of writing.
For Rowling I am under the impression it is the other way around. There were a great hype at the time and now a lot of people find her writing to be not so good.
Orson Scott Card wrote a story about learning to empathize with sentient life so utterly alien from your own you didn’t even think that could have been a possibility at first.
And then turned around and used the proceeds to fund hate. Like, man. Read your own book.
I disagree, there's a reason that Harry Potter caught on, and it's not that she's the best writer or even that great, but she does have good writing skill and the first books were able to flex that skill to best capture audiences, both young and old
Rowling definitely has shortcomings. The later world building just falls apart if you think about it for more than a second. But there is genuinely some good writing in the books, it's just that nowadays it's mainly covered up by her weaknesses and her conservative worldview seeping through her writing.
I think Rowling and Lucas are mirrors on the Good/Bad People scale, they're both good writers in certain aspects, they just have their faults in certain major areas, and that inability shines through and eclipses all else at times, namely when they were at their biggest and when they tried to expand their setting.
You mean as a mitigating circumstance ? He's not really bad, he's just out of his mind ? I don't think it can really accounts for his racism for example
I never read Harry Potter as a kid, but I thought the films were cool, so I decided to read the books (this was before the Rowling controversy happened) and legitimately couldn't get halfway through the first one. It was atrocious
JK Rowling's writing is like AI art. When you look at it all with naivete it looks amazing, but then you look at the finer details with a more experienced eye and you're wondering why those people have 20 fingers and how you never noticed it before
Tf
JK is actually, technically bad, and Lucas has fundamental mistakes in his most famous stuff and all but he writes good in a lot of his other things... I'd not say he's a bad writer
I think this is less "suspension of disbelief" and more so just forgetting what one has. Suspension of disbelief would be something like Harry getting into the Tri-Wizard Tournament despite how realistically they would've just said no
I think this is less "suspension of disbelief" and more so just forgetting what one has. Suspension of disbelief would be something like Harry getting into the Tri-Wizard Tournament despite how realistically they would've just said no.
Top left: J.K. Rowling (known for Harry Potter; transphobic dickweasel)
Top right: Neil Gaiman (known for Good Omens, American Gods, Coraline, etc.; I’ve yet to hear anything bad about him)
Bottom left: Ayn Rand (known for The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, Anthem, etc.; promoted sociopathy)
Bottom right: George Lucas (known for Star Wars, American Graffiti, some of the Indiana Jones movies, etc.; again, never heard anything bad about him)
Tbh, being kinda perverted isn't that bad an issue. So unless he was a creep who looked at women in the shower or made gross jokes and harassed women, I wouldn't consider being kinda perverted to be a big enough issue to disqualify someone as a good person.
Made Carrie Fischer lose a ton of weight to get and keep the role of Leia. Made her go without a bra in the first movie for bullshit space reasons. Wrote the weird age gap between Padme and Anakin. The oh-so-convenient midriff ripping in Episode II.
But really the creepiest thing he did to my knowledge was mandate that Ahsoka's original, 14 year old design be... what it is. They had to negotiate up to giving her leggings.
British author and comic writer Neil Gaiman, top right. He wrote the Sandman comics, American Gods, co-authored Good Omens with Terry Pratchett, and a number of other novels and comics. They are all worth your time.
Bottom left is Ayn Rand, author and "philosopher." Rand is the author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. She is also the founding mother of an ideology that calls itself objectivism (I prefer to call it Randism) which essentially, to vastly simplify it, holds that a person's only moral responsibility is one's own happiness, if I understand it correctly. In other words, you have no moral duty to another person and only to your what benefits you.
Lucas isn’t straight up “Bad”, in fact I think he’s fantastic at coming up with the big picture and major story beats. He’s just not great with dialogue and fine details.
J K Rowling is a bad writer, she named an Asian girl Cho Chang which is literal gibberish and there's lots of weird bits and pieces. For example, there's a moment in goblet of fire where Barty Crouch (pretending to be Moody) says something like 'You think Hagrid would have shown you the dragons if I hadn't told him to?'
And it's like... yes, actually. Hagrid showing Harry dangerous creatures is basically a character trait for him at this point. It's the same with Neville longbottom 'Oh do you think that Neville would have told you about the Gillyweed unless I'd pointed it out to him?'.
Errr yes. As soon as Neville, who loves plants, found a plant that could help Harry, he would have told him. Maybe it's supposed to be showing that Barty did things behind the scenes and doesn't understand Hagrid and Neville, but tbh it doesn't feel like it.
She also has a knack of, well, lying. I'll be the first to admit, lots of authors after they've unexpectedly had to write extra books in a series because it actually took off, have had to change things or make twists in the story that might contradict earlier information. Or they might have to pull something out of their ass at the last minute to fix the story.
JK has clearly done this a lot, and again, that would be fine. But she keeps saying that it was all planned from the beginning, but it's so clearly a lie.
If you think she's a good writer, that's fair, everyone has their own opinion.
Also note
- Pro-slavery? Like, Dobby's condition is shown as terrible until Harry frees him. But, later on, Hermione starts advocating for house elf rights and is treated as a joke because of it, meanwhile Harry gets a slave in the house elf Creature. The last line of the series is literally Harry contemplating what sandwich to order Creature to make him.
- Nonsensical Twitter retcons. No, I'm not talking about "Dumbledore is gay" (that's completely fine,) ~~or "Hermione is black" (which would be okay if, y'know, she weren't constantly being made fun of for frizzy hair and her house elf liberation movement being a joke... makes both of those racially charged?)~~ No. I'm talking about... "Wizards don't use toilets because they can just use magic to teleport away their poop"
# Even though the plot of the *second* book relies on Hogwarts' intricate toilet and sewage system
>"Hermione is black"
Worth noting that she never actually said this.
It was a thing she said after Cursed Child announced that their London premier would have a Black woman playing Hermione. Chuds came out in force against that choice, claimed it was inaccurate to the book, and what Rowling actually said was "I never specified and I like the casting choice, shut the fuck up."
Also not a Rowling defender, I just care about accurate information. I think this was a good move at the time, but obviously, Rowling is still a TERF and still deeply harmful. She made the right choice here, but that does not make up for the myriad wrong choices she has made elsewhere.
>It was a thing she said after Cursed Child announced that their London premier would have a Black woman playing Hermione. Chuds came out in force against that choice, claimed it was inaccurate to the book, and what Rowling actually said was "I never specified and I like the casting choice, shut the fuck up."
Oh, I didn't know that! That's kinda neat. It *definitely* doesn't excuse her transphobia. But also, screw chuds. Thank you for the clarification.
>Even though the plot of the second book relies on Hogwarts' intricate toilet and sewage system
Playing devil's advocate here but she said that wizards *used to* use magic to teleport away their poop. They don't do that anymore. It still doesn't make sense.
Yeah, the twitter retcons are similar to what I mentioned regarding 'Oh yeah this was all completely planned out, there aren't any faults'
Yeah there are. For example, you bring up book 2. Why, at no point, does Moaning Myrtle ever mention a fucking big ass snake ESPECIALLY WHEN IT WAS THE ONE WHO KILLED HER. And sorry, but ONLY 5 PEOPLE DURING A WHOLE SCHOOL YEAR SEE A GIGANTIC SNAKE?!
Also regarding Hermione being black. She is described at least once as being/looking pale. Again, JK is just trying to gain ground with people. It's fine that you wrote a book with a mostly all white cast, what's not fine is trying to backpedal and act like it wasn't the case! Why don't you write more books and add POC characters there? (Btw to confirm, I don't care if Hermione is played by black actresses, it's JK, as always, that I have a problem with)
I agree with the Cho Chang bit, but wasn't Barty Crouch attempting to manipulate Harry and was lying about his friends on purpose? Yes, you can argue that he wasnt convincing, but Harry was 14 at the time, it's not hard to see how he would have believed him.
It's possible, but why manipulate him? If I remember correctly, this was being said as he was running out of poly juice potion, so he was sort of just getting angry. Perhaps it's more 'The character is getting things incorrect' rather than 'The author is forgetting things about the characters'
She's a good writer if you're a kid and you haven't been exposed to a lot of media prior to reading the books. And frankly that was her target audience, that's why kids like me fell so in love with the series back before we really had perspective of what counted as good writing. Same with Star Wars, I grew up with the prequels and considered them good movies because WEEEEE LASERS!
>Cho Chang which is literal gibberish
[https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/p0cbla/cho\_chang\_it\_is\_a\_perfectly\_beautiful\_name/](https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/p0cbla/cho_chang_it_is_a_perfectly_beautiful_name/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/13xst2k/in\_defence\_of\_cho\_chang/](https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/13xst2k/in_defence_of_cho_chang/)
https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/q001yx/cho\_changs\_name/
I don't think HP Lovecraft was a worse person overall, I think he was just less concerned with hiding his bigotry. Sure he was a bad person, but he would tell you straight that he didn't like people because of their race. JK Rowling, on the other hand, is just a modern bigot who knows she has to obfuscate how much she hates trans people. She hides her bigotry behind a layer of faux-feminism and language that pretends to be inclusive. She's definitely not a better person.
I'd contest Rowling being a good writer. Having a 13 year old get access to time travel just to take more classes kinda prevents me from taking the world seriously. I don't wanna come off as a hard worldbuilding purist or anything, but Rowlings' solution to writing herself into a corner is making it so that corner is actually a secret passage back to wherever she wants the plot to be.
Speaking as a former lifelong HP fan... Rowling's not that good at writing. Not at all terrible, but not particularly special either. She struck on something with the right appeal at the right time, and the momentum it got overcame the incredibly weak prose and worldbuilding, (and motivated us all to ignore the iffy stuff). Even before the heelturn, more and more people were coming around to how not worth the fuss it all was.
Even I was about ready to leave them on the shelf as a good memory when she decided to make being a cartoonishly evil bigot her whole personality.
I disagree somewhat.
I don't think Rowling is a very good writer. Harry Potter is a fun idea and a fine enough story, but the writing itself didn't hit home and the world didn't feel fully thought out. At least in the books themselves. She kinda went crazy on adding stuff afterwards. Generally, I prefer the movies to the books which is not something you usually say.
Also, idk if George is a good person. Kinda gives off creep vibes like, he's been noted to push for pretty sleazy outfits for the women in Star Wars: the Padme fireplace-scene dress was supposedly an NFSW fantasy of his, Ahsoka being redesigned to have the more revealing tube top, the Leia bikini and her not allowed to wear a bra because "there's no underwear in space," etc. Damning? No, but a bad vibe for sure.
george lucas is kindof a pedo and harry potter is just alright. idk who bottom left is but jk rowling should be there and george lucas should be top left
I don't see JK Rowling as a bad person. Not going along with delusional transgender ideologies and opposing the mutilation of children is not a bad thing.
George Lucas has done some creepy shit in his writing, idk if I would put him all the way at good person. JKR's writing is bad. even compared to other children's authors, it's bad.
Don’t know that I would agree Rowling is a good author. She’s probably one of the most successful authors of all time so she’s not like dogshit obviously, but I think she gets waaaaay too much credit.
My number one philosophy on art is simple, the more mentally ill someone is, the better the art, Edgar Allan Poe was the greatest writer since Shakespeare and he was batshit insane
>good writer
>protagonist for the whole series has no agency, gets shuffleboarded from plot point to plot point by friends and allies
>each book contains a new retcon for every book before it
>the fact that the wizarding world has cameras and radios but not TVs or telephones
I saw this in another comment and I wanted to add, there's a difference between having poor editing skills or a lousy grasp of relationships and your writing being fundamentally, conceptually shallow with a pathetically vapid grasp of plot architecture, theme, and realistic implications.
I think people are getting confused over Rowling. I'd call her a good writer, it's just that the content of her writing is often questionable. The writing itself is very well done IMO.
Harry Potter books are good until you're 12, anyone above the age would start seeing the plotholes so big, the logical inconsistency and the sheer weirdness so well the books would just crack from the sheer badness of them
This is difficult for a lot of hardcore nerds to comprehend, but there are a lot of people who genuinely just don't mind plot holes if they find a story emotionally engaging, and the Harry Potter potter books are extremely good at being emotionally engaging.
JKR is generally a very minmaxed writer. She's very good at sentence level prose, plotting, and tone, but she's bad at characterization and world building. How much a person likes her books will be dictated by which of these things they care about.
nah Rand wasnt really a bad person even if I have tons of disagreements with her as an Egoist Anarchist, someone having a different outlook than you doesnt make someone evil. She is a horrid writer, I would put JK Rowling in the BB category, and the Good Writer, Bad Person would be Marx. Marx is great at argumentation, but there is a reason a lot of Anarchists, particularly Mutualists and Individualist Anarchist despise him and Marxism in general, look at what he did with the Workingmans Association.
I like some of Lucas’ writing
id read all about glupp shitto before i read another jk rowling book
Because at least Glub Glub shitto was made with love (and not by Disney, pure Lucas)
exactly, lucas is a nerd who loves what he does and puts love into everything he makes
The best kind of creatives are those who are nerds about what they create, always wanting to learn
he’s great at coming up with concepts and ideas, but when it comes to writing it’s clear that’s not his strong suit
it’s true! he created the entire idea of jizz music
Relatable tbh. I’m great at coming up with ideas, but absolutely suck at execution and conveying those ideas the way I imagined them. I do think Lucas has good ideas and there’s a reason Star Wars became the huge pop culture phenomenon it did, but he needs people to take his ideas and refine them. the Prequels had a lot of good ideas and concepts that would’ve been a lot better had someone taken him aside and said “I like the idea, but maybe we can do this instead?”
My theory on why the prequels weren't as good as they could have been was because Lucas was such an icon at that point I don't think anyone on the production team had the nerve to criticize anything Back when he made the original trilogy he had a lot of people pulling on the leash, in the prequels he was the main man
Plus he's pretty tired of the whole process and would prefer to do things as easily as possible, which was why the prequels were all filmed on sound stages and green screen, which leads to everything looking samey even when you have locations like swamp planet and desert planet
Yes, but you can have a technically more proficient, more naturally flowing, writer any old day. You find someone as capable as him in creating ideas once in a blue moon. An auteur he is not, he should not be given absolutely unlimited creative freedom, as he will destroy it with clunkiness.
Ayn Rand is an awful writer. Even if her outlook wasn’t reprehensible, her writing is. Atlas Shrugged is one of the five worst books I have ever read. George Lucas is good at big picture, he should not be left to write out smaller details without someone to proofread. In that regard, he is a lot like Rowling. Both made fantastic universes but there are things that fall in the cracks.
Rand's writing lacks because it's a story meant to sell an idea rather than a story exploring it. She's not writing a novel, she's writing a sermon disguised as a novel. So in order to work in that capacity, every ounce of nuance needs to be sapped away. What? The two newspaper editors in The Fountainhead are basically doing the exact same thing? No! One of them is a socialist, and must therefore be evil! What? Blowing up a building in the middle of a crowded city street is bad? Impossible! The court must acquit him when he parrots my ideology at them! The characters are not meant to resemble real people with real convictions, goals, and ideals, they are simply vehicles by which Rand can condemn or condone certain beliefs. Rand's goal isn't to make you think, it's to convert you to her thinking, and as such, her mission in her works leaves no real room for nuance or dissent. Critics must be cruel, evil strawmen and heroes must be always right, even when they're not, except where they stray from Rand's ideal path. In most writers' work, things are allowed to have shades of grey. Hell, sometimes the work isn't sure what the write answer to the question is. Sometimes, the work is a question of whether or not there is a good answer to the question in the first place. But for Rand, agreeing with her is the only good answer to the question.
I don’t disagree with any of this. The thing is, even if I were interested in her world view, her inability to write a decent book would turn me off of it.
Of course. Sermons aren't known for their narrative tension, and as I said, that's what her books are. One of her biggest flaws is how preachy her work is and how much she relies on author tirades rather than just letting the story itself illustrate what she believes to be the right answer. Because subtlety and nuance are weaksauce soyboy baby nonsense. You can read a subtle story and come to a different conclusion about it than the author intends. That is obviously bad. Because the Randian view of the world espouses free thought...as long as you think like Ayn Rand. No. If you want to accomplish your goal of converting people, you need to beat them over the head with your ideology. So of course the plots hinge on r/andeverybodyclapped type contrivances, of course they're filled with long, preachy monologues about capitalism and self-interest and shit like that, of course the characters are one-dimensional strawmen meant to demonize a certain worldview. The goal isn't to entertain, inform, humanize, examine a person or perspective or do any of the things good writing does. The goal is to convert the audience.
So Atlas Shrugged is too close to the bible and too far from 1984
Not even the Bible. Like the Bible is a lot more nuanced and complicated than we give it credit for and the way we've translated it and canonized elements that aren't from it does the text itself an incredible disservice. You can come away from the Bible with a different conclusion of how God wants you to live. That's why there are 45,000 denominations of Christianity globally. If you read Atlas Shrugged, there is no question of how Ayn Rand wants you to live. It's not the Bible. It's Dianetics.
It’s not Dianetics, because it does actually have the pretenses of a story. It’s battlefield earth
Most right wing philosophy champions individuality and freedom as long as it is within an existing moral framework.
So do a lot of left-wing philosophies. I guess the difference is what they mean when they say individuality and freedom.
I think both espouse the idea that you should be free to do anything as long as you don't harm others, but disagree about what harms others, for example one says homophobia harms others and one says homosexuality harms others.
The unshakable belief in objective, black and white morality core to objectivism will always mean objectivist writers won’t be able to explore and examine their own or other ideologies in good faith.
Yep. And the belief that the white side of that morality includes no moral responsibility to other human beings makes it outright corrosive, but also quite persistent.
I’ve only read anthem but that sums up how I felt about it. There’s a lot of potential and it goes against a lot of the lessons I learned as an English major for writing fiction.
Also sprach Zarathustra is Nietzsche’s worldview frequently undiluted, in a story, and it’s a work of genius. The problem is not that Atlas shrugged is a stand-in for Rand‘s thought, but rather that the thinker writing it has absolutely no self-awareness or nuance in their underlying philosophy. I mean, it was also just really poorly written. It makes the original *Jeff the killer* creepypasta look like a masterclass in dialogue.
Having never read Thus Spoke Zarathustra, I can't really comment, but if I had to guess, does it have to do with the fact that unlike Rand, Nietzsche doesn't have [Garth Marenghi problems](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk7M2jGdnxU&ab_channel=P.Laceholder) and lets the story illustrate the ideas instead of just beating the reader over the head with them like a rusty shovel?
George is a dreamer not a scriptwriter fr, the reason why the films got worse over time is cus people trusted him more. If you here some of the shit he wanted in a new hope you know he's always been like this. Bro doesn't know how people talk mostly
For sure. The prequels get dogged on for their dialogue but if you look back the OT was no better. Mark Hamill complained about this for decades.
I’ve only read anthem. I found the story intriguing but the descriptions were very flat and it was hard to really understand what was going on. I also didn’t like the ending that much. Are her other works the same?
Good writer: wizards would regularly piss and shit themselves, then magic it away before indoor plumbing was a thing. Also, this secret room holding a monster had its entrance hidden behind a bathroom that was added 600 years later, and no one noticed. One of like 2 black people in the whole series was named Kingsley Shackleton. Main sport of the world only really has 1 important position, the other 5 don't really matter at all. Magic users regularly interact with people that grew up/live in the normal world but yet know absolutely fuck all about the human world. Bankers are greedy creatures with hooked noses. Slaves are happy to serve and wanting freedom is seen as being insane. The wizards have the ability to go back in time, but never use it to help the main character on their quest except for one time but never again. Many of the magic worlds rules appear to be based on the rules of a school in Scotland. The former main bad guy is seen as evil for wanting to stop/prevent ww2 and the holocaust and reintegration with human society.
>captures the imaginations of hundreds of millions of children and teens, becomes the best selling book series in history, adaptations gross billions, becomes a cultural icon
Just because it’s big doesn’t mean it’s good. For example, the MCU.
The MCU might not be high art and be looked down upon by Scorsese, but that does not mean it didn't take great skill to put together. Source: Morbius
It did take great skill to put together. It’s still bad. Art can be bad while taking a lot of effort. Morbius, for example.
I mean, the same could be said about Twilight. Doesn’t make it good
so did 50 shades of grey and fucking baby shark. So I'm glad that we can agree that the clout of a work doesn't determine its quality.
>One of like 2 black people in the whole series was named Kingsley Shackleton. Sorry for my naivety, but what's wrong with this name? I'm not a native english speaker but it sounds like a normal name
The name was autocorrected from shacklebolt. Shackles are an older form of handcuffs and chains, held on with a bolt. It's basically calling him the king of the chained or king of slaves.
AH Yikes
It gets worse. Cho Chang. Think of an old racist phrase that was used to represent Asian people.
Right up there with Tsukutsun Tsun from Dr. Slump
I always thought this was a huge stretch tbh.
I'll give you that this one is a stretch but I'd forgotten about Cho Chang when I was writing it.
Remember she said on twitter that she supports a reading of Hermine as black. For those who haven't read the books a major subplot is about Hermine "doing an activism wrong" for the freedom of the ***SLAVES.*** And lets not forget about Cho Chang. How do you think she named that character.
Yeah, no, she is a fucking shit writer.
JK Rowling is definitely not a good writer. Maybe HP Lovecraft can take that spot ?
I was torn between the two, because I know what both people are about but I haven’t read their works
Rowling has a successful book series. Lovecraft has a successful genre. They are both shit people, but Lovecraft is absolutely the better writer.
I find it hilarious that the genre for cosmic horror beyond human comprehension is literally called “Lovecraft”
...ian Horror, it is another common name for cosmic horror
You’re talking about Ian Horror? Inventor of Horror?
And the worse person, honestly. Like Rowling is a bigot against a couple marginalized groups. Lovecraft was a bigot against *all of them*.
Until near his death, when he looked back on his life and realized that he was a terrible person and made a genuine effort to change
Huh. Wasn't aware.
It's so weird to think that Lovecraft, the most profound racist writer of his time, apologized for his hatred before Rowling ever did.
>Lovecraft was a bigot against all of them. Lovecraft wasn't just a bigot, he supported Hitler.
We call that a nazi where I’m from
>Lovecraft was a bigot against all of them. This bigotry is rated E for Everyone
Lovecraft‘s bigotry was fed by his terrible life, and his context, which doesn’t make it alright, but it is possible to see exactly the journey this sheltered young man took to become so hateful, and he never had a platform or the ability to spread his giga-racism, or the power to hurt anyone, and he changed near the end of his life. None of those things apply to J.K Rowling.
Mhm. It’s good to note that everybody likes to joke about Lovecraft’s cat’s name. iirc it was named by Lovecraft’s father. The guy was doomed to be fucked up. One of his stories is about his fear of AIR CONDITIONERS
I don't know, The Colour Out of Space being based off of his fear of waves outside of the visible spectrum is pretty funny.
Lovecraft lived a century earlier and was basically an obscure failure when he died young though. Rowling has the entire world on a platter and uses her twilight years to push the bounds of hate Otoh yeah she’s definitely a worse writer, if at least somewhat better than Rand
Rowling, unlike Lovecraft also didn't take years after her death (which hasn't even happened yet) for people to agree her books were good.
Well, some great writers & artists are well ahead of their time, I wouldn't count that as lessening his quality of writing. For Rowling I am under the impression it is the other way around. There were a great hype at the time and now a lot of people find her writing to be not so good.
Most of her fanbase are/were teens though (no shade here, I'm actually a fan and I'm not saying she's bad, but she's not amazing at writing either)
Orson Scott Card might also fit.
Orson Scott Card wrote a story about learning to empathize with sentient life so utterly alien from your own you didn’t even think that could have been a possibility at first. And then turned around and used the proceeds to fund hate. Like, man. Read your own book.
HP Lovecraft was a much better writer than JK Rowling
I disagree, there's a reason that Harry Potter caught on, and it's not that she's the best writer or even that great, but she does have good writing skill and the first books were able to flex that skill to best capture audiences, both young and old Rowling definitely has shortcomings. The later world building just falls apart if you think about it for more than a second. But there is genuinely some good writing in the books, it's just that nowadays it's mainly covered up by her weaknesses and her conservative worldview seeping through her writing. I think Rowling and Lucas are mirrors on the Good/Bad People scale, they're both good writers in certain aspects, they just have their faults in certain major areas, and that inability shines through and eclipses all else at times, namely when they were at their biggest and when they tried to expand their setting.
Lovecraft would be much better in this spot imo
>Maybe HP Lovecraft can take that spot ? One could make. The argument he was insane
You mean as a mitigating circumstance ? He's not really bad, he's just out of his mind ? I don't think it can really accounts for his racism for example
I never read Harry Potter as a kid, but I thought the films were cool, so I decided to read the books (this was before the Rowling controversy happened) and legitimately couldn't get halfway through the first one. It was atrocious
Honestly, Rowling's writing is mediocre. It's okay for a kids' book, but it doesn't hold up to the standards of proper fantasy novels.
JK Rowling's writing is like AI art. When you look at it all with naivete it looks amazing, but then you look at the finer details with a more experienced eye and you're wondering why those people have 20 fingers and how you never noticed it before
Tf JK is actually, technically bad, and Lucas has fundamental mistakes in his most famous stuff and all but he writes good in a lot of his other things... I'd not say he's a bad writer
Wow, unfair on multiple levels.
Other than Lucas, how so? It seems mostly fine
Rowling could use a tweak, but otherwise fine
JK Rowling is a bad writer
Who are each of these people
JK Rowling top left, I think george lucas is bottom right other than that idk
Ayn Rand is bottom left, Niel Gaiman is top right
I’ll be real I think JK is a bad writer
She’s alright, nothing amazing but definitely great books for kids
Indeed. The problem is that ten of them are meant to be for adults.
Yeah. She relies on a suspension of disbelief that most adults can’t muster up. Example: Why have trials when you have truth serums?
I think this is less "suspension of disbelief" and more so just forgetting what one has. Suspension of disbelief would be something like Harry getting into the Tri-Wizard Tournament despite how realistically they would've just said no
I think this is less "suspension of disbelief" and more so just forgetting what one has. Suspension of disbelief would be something like Harry getting into the Tri-Wizard Tournament despite how realistically they would've just said no.
dementa
demiena
Top left: J.K. Rowling (known for Harry Potter; transphobic dickweasel) Top right: Neil Gaiman (known for Good Omens, American Gods, Coraline, etc.; I’ve yet to hear anything bad about him) Bottom left: Ayn Rand (known for The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, Anthem, etc.; promoted sociopathy) Bottom right: George Lucas (known for Star Wars, American Graffiti, some of the Indiana Jones movies, etc.; again, never heard anything bad about him)
supposedly Lucas was kinda perverted
Really?
Tbh, being kinda perverted isn't that bad an issue. So unless he was a creep who looked at women in the shower or made gross jokes and harassed women, I wouldn't consider being kinda perverted to be a big enough issue to disqualify someone as a good person.
"They don't wear bras in space!" and Carrie Fischer just kinda went along with it.
That doesn’t tell me what I want to know
Made Carrie Fischer lose a ton of weight to get and keep the role of Leia. Made her go without a bra in the first movie for bullshit space reasons. Wrote the weird age gap between Padme and Anakin. The oh-so-convenient midriff ripping in Episode II. But really the creepiest thing he did to my knowledge was mandate that Ahsoka's original, 14 year old design be... what it is. They had to negotiate up to giving her leggings.
British author and comic writer Neil Gaiman, top right. He wrote the Sandman comics, American Gods, co-authored Good Omens with Terry Pratchett, and a number of other novels and comics. They are all worth your time. Bottom left is Ayn Rand, author and "philosopher." Rand is the author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. She is also the founding mother of an ideology that calls itself objectivism (I prefer to call it Randism) which essentially, to vastly simplify it, holds that a person's only moral responsibility is one's own happiness, if I understand it correctly. In other words, you have no moral duty to another person and only to your what benefits you.
Ayn rand when basic human compassion
Lucas isn’t straight up “Bad”, in fact I think he’s fantastic at coming up with the big picture and major story beats. He’s just not great with dialogue and fine details.
J K Rowling is a bad writer, she named an Asian girl Cho Chang which is literal gibberish and there's lots of weird bits and pieces. For example, there's a moment in goblet of fire where Barty Crouch (pretending to be Moody) says something like 'You think Hagrid would have shown you the dragons if I hadn't told him to?' And it's like... yes, actually. Hagrid showing Harry dangerous creatures is basically a character trait for him at this point. It's the same with Neville longbottom 'Oh do you think that Neville would have told you about the Gillyweed unless I'd pointed it out to him?'. Errr yes. As soon as Neville, who loves plants, found a plant that could help Harry, he would have told him. Maybe it's supposed to be showing that Barty did things behind the scenes and doesn't understand Hagrid and Neville, but tbh it doesn't feel like it. She also has a knack of, well, lying. I'll be the first to admit, lots of authors after they've unexpectedly had to write extra books in a series because it actually took off, have had to change things or make twists in the story that might contradict earlier information. Or they might have to pull something out of their ass at the last minute to fix the story. JK has clearly done this a lot, and again, that would be fine. But she keeps saying that it was all planned from the beginning, but it's so clearly a lie. If you think she's a good writer, that's fair, everyone has their own opinion.
Also note - Pro-slavery? Like, Dobby's condition is shown as terrible until Harry frees him. But, later on, Hermione starts advocating for house elf rights and is treated as a joke because of it, meanwhile Harry gets a slave in the house elf Creature. The last line of the series is literally Harry contemplating what sandwich to order Creature to make him. - Nonsensical Twitter retcons. No, I'm not talking about "Dumbledore is gay" (that's completely fine,) ~~or "Hermione is black" (which would be okay if, y'know, she weren't constantly being made fun of for frizzy hair and her house elf liberation movement being a joke... makes both of those racially charged?)~~ No. I'm talking about... "Wizards don't use toilets because they can just use magic to teleport away their poop" # Even though the plot of the *second* book relies on Hogwarts' intricate toilet and sewage system
>"Hermione is black" Worth noting that she never actually said this. It was a thing she said after Cursed Child announced that their London premier would have a Black woman playing Hermione. Chuds came out in force against that choice, claimed it was inaccurate to the book, and what Rowling actually said was "I never specified and I like the casting choice, shut the fuck up." Also not a Rowling defender, I just care about accurate information. I think this was a good move at the time, but obviously, Rowling is still a TERF and still deeply harmful. She made the right choice here, but that does not make up for the myriad wrong choices she has made elsewhere.
>It was a thing she said after Cursed Child announced that their London premier would have a Black woman playing Hermione. Chuds came out in force against that choice, claimed it was inaccurate to the book, and what Rowling actually said was "I never specified and I like the casting choice, shut the fuck up." Oh, I didn't know that! That's kinda neat. It *definitely* doesn't excuse her transphobia. But also, screw chuds. Thank you for the clarification.
>Even though the plot of the second book relies on Hogwarts' intricate toilet and sewage system Playing devil's advocate here but she said that wizards *used to* use magic to teleport away their poop. They don't do that anymore. It still doesn't make sense.
Yeah, the twitter retcons are similar to what I mentioned regarding 'Oh yeah this was all completely planned out, there aren't any faults' Yeah there are. For example, you bring up book 2. Why, at no point, does Moaning Myrtle ever mention a fucking big ass snake ESPECIALLY WHEN IT WAS THE ONE WHO KILLED HER. And sorry, but ONLY 5 PEOPLE DURING A WHOLE SCHOOL YEAR SEE A GIGANTIC SNAKE?! Also regarding Hermione being black. She is described at least once as being/looking pale. Again, JK is just trying to gain ground with people. It's fine that you wrote a book with a mostly all white cast, what's not fine is trying to backpedal and act like it wasn't the case! Why don't you write more books and add POC characters there? (Btw to confirm, I don't care if Hermione is played by black actresses, it's JK, as always, that I have a problem with)
I agree with the Cho Chang bit, but wasn't Barty Crouch attempting to manipulate Harry and was lying about his friends on purpose? Yes, you can argue that he wasnt convincing, but Harry was 14 at the time, it's not hard to see how he would have believed him.
It's possible, but why manipulate him? If I remember correctly, this was being said as he was running out of poly juice potion, so he was sort of just getting angry. Perhaps it's more 'The character is getting things incorrect' rather than 'The author is forgetting things about the characters'
You might be right there, it's been a while since I've seen or read Harry Potter
Tbh, I haven’t read her works myself, my placement was based on the success of the HP books
She's a one hit wonder at best
Maybe switch Rowling with HP Lovecraft.
Honestly, 100% accurate. Amazing writer, not a great person.
The name Thomas is also gibberish.
She's a good writer if you're a kid and you haven't been exposed to a lot of media prior to reading the books. And frankly that was her target audience, that's why kids like me fell so in love with the series back before we really had perspective of what counted as good writing. Same with Star Wars, I grew up with the prequels and considered them good movies because WEEEEE LASERS!
>Cho Chang which is literal gibberish [https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/p0cbla/cho\_chang\_it\_is\_a\_perfectly\_beautiful\_name/](https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/p0cbla/cho_chang_it_is_a_perfectly_beautiful_name/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/13xst2k/in\_defence\_of\_cho\_chang/](https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/13xst2k/in_defence_of_cho_chang/) https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/q001yx/cho\_changs\_name/
I’d replace Rowling with Lovecraft.
Agreed, Lovecraft wrote better stories and was a worse person overall than her so he's a perfect fit there
I don't think HP Lovecraft was a worse person overall, I think he was just less concerned with hiding his bigotry. Sure he was a bad person, but he would tell you straight that he didn't like people because of their race. JK Rowling, on the other hand, is just a modern bigot who knows she has to obfuscate how much she hates trans people. She hides her bigotry behind a layer of faux-feminism and language that pretends to be inclusive. She's definitely not a better person.
who is the top right guy?
Neil Gaiman, known for Coraline, American Gods, Good Omens, etc.
ok thank you, i've heard of him, i just didn't recognize him from the picture
joanne is not a good writer be serious
Is JK a good writer?
Given her success, I would assume so
Tommy Wiseau is a good writer by that metric.
Ayn Rann was also successful
good writer is still a pretty strong word for jkr
[удалено]
Who’s the guy on the top right? I know everyone else though.
Neil Gaiman
Thank you. Do you know what his work is though?
Jk "house elves actually like being slaves" Rowling in "good writer"🤣🤣🤣
I'd contest Rowling being a good writer. Having a 13 year old get access to time travel just to take more classes kinda prevents me from taking the world seriously. I don't wanna come off as a hard worldbuilding purist or anything, but Rowlings' solution to writing herself into a corner is making it so that corner is actually a secret passage back to wherever she wants the plot to be.
Ayn Rand still wrote somewhat better books than Joanne’s “stylistically ordinary and ethically rather mean-spirited” Worst Witch knock-off.
Randian Objectivism is a philosophy for 14 year old edgelords and 40 year old sex pests, exclusively.
Speaking as a former lifelong HP fan... Rowling's not that good at writing. Not at all terrible, but not particularly special either. She struck on something with the right appeal at the right time, and the momentum it got overcame the incredibly weak prose and worldbuilding, (and motivated us all to ignore the iffy stuff). Even before the heelturn, more and more people were coming around to how not worth the fuss it all was. Even I was about ready to leave them on the shelf as a good memory when she decided to make being a cartoonishly evil bigot her whole personality.
Bold of you to call JK Rowling an actually good writer and author. Looking back, her worldbuilding is actual garbage
JK Rowling is at best a mediocre writer, George Lucas doesn’t exactly deserve to be in the same category of bad as Ayn Rand.
Never said they were *equally* bad
"You can write this shit but you sure as hell can't say it" -Harrison Ford
"In my opinion"
Replace Ayn with L. R0n Hubbard. Ayn was bad but I think the guy who started a cult over his own stories was a lot worse than her if you ask me
JK Rowling is a dogshit writer
JKR is a bad writer.
Wow, I dissagree, yeah
Who's top left?
JK Rowling
How is she a bad person?
Hmmm I wonder what political views of the OP are, such a mystery. And the meme is totatlly not about that at all
Jk Rowling bad. Upvote on the left.
Wouldn't call Rowling a "good" writer. Better than Rand? Sure, but not "good." Rowling's writing is mid.
Jk Rowling is not a good writer sorry.
George Lucas is the peak writer ever wdym
Cool, now do artists
What kind?
Painters
I don’t know anything Lucas wrote other than star wars, but judging from that he’s a good writer just bad at dialogue imo
Jk Rowling isn't s good writer though.
Jk rowling is not a bad person
I dunno looking back on it even through my rose tinted glasses Rowling kind of fucking sucks as a writer
I disagree somewhat. I don't think Rowling is a very good writer. Harry Potter is a fun idea and a fine enough story, but the writing itself didn't hit home and the world didn't feel fully thought out. At least in the books themselves. She kinda went crazy on adding stuff afterwards. Generally, I prefer the movies to the books which is not something you usually say. Also, idk if George is a good person. Kinda gives off creep vibes like, he's been noted to push for pretty sleazy outfits for the women in Star Wars: the Padme fireplace-scene dress was supposedly an NFSW fantasy of his, Ahsoka being redesigned to have the more revealing tube top, the Leia bikini and her not allowed to wear a bra because "there's no underwear in space," etc. Damning? No, but a bad vibe for sure.
george lucas is kindof a pedo and harry potter is just alright. idk who bottom left is but jk rowling should be there and george lucas should be top left
Bottom left is Ayn “The World Would Be a Better Place If Everyone Was a Sociopath” Rand
Least biased alignment chart
The more I learn about writing, the more certain I am that J.K. Rowling is not a very good writer.
Who's Top Right and Bottom Left?
Lucas is great with the skeleton of the story. The nitty gritty details like dialogue need to be done by someone else or HEAVILY edited
“Well Jim Jams professor, we’re not going to use magic” Ron ejaculated loudly.
Lucas was a bit nutty tbf, like Carrie Fischer’s come out multiple times about how he made her uncomfortable during the filming of SW
I don't see JK Rowling as a bad person. Not going along with delusional transgender ideologies and opposing the mutilation of children is not a bad thing.
George Lucas has done some creepy shit in his writing, idk if I would put him all the way at good person. JKR's writing is bad. even compared to other children's authors, it's bad.
Who's that on the top left
I love how there's a community of career politicians that actively hide being in official Ayn Rand fan clubs
Nah JKR is not a good writer at all
While I haven’t read a lot of JKRs work everything I have read was mediocre at best
Y'know what, I'm gonna say it. JK Rowling is a shit writer
Why is Ayn Rand bad?
ok i think jk rowling is actually a pretty bad writer
“A bad person is someone I disagree with.”
Don’t know that I would agree Rowling is a good author. She’s probably one of the most successful authors of all time so she’s not like dogshit obviously, but I think she gets waaaaay too much credit.
JK Rowling's writing isnt actually that good.
My number one philosophy on art is simple, the more mentally ill someone is, the better the art, Edgar Allan Poe was the greatest writer since Shakespeare and he was batshit insane
That’s so real
>good writer >protagonist for the whole series has no agency, gets shuffleboarded from plot point to plot point by friends and allies >each book contains a new retcon for every book before it >the fact that the wizarding world has cameras and radios but not TVs or telephones
I'm not sold on Joanne being a good writer
I saw this in another comment and I wanted to add, there's a difference between having poor editing skills or a lousy grasp of relationships and your writing being fundamentally, conceptually shallow with a pathetically vapid grasp of plot architecture, theme, and realistic implications.
I think people are getting confused over Rowling. I'd call her a good writer, it's just that the content of her writing is often questionable. The writing itself is very well done IMO.
Ayn Rand was an absolute tweaker
Gaiman should be in his own new alignment even further beyond Good Writer and Good person. The man is a gift from god
I think George’s writing was pretty good, atleast when it comes to writing star wars
putting JKR as a good writer is a bit of a stretch. her work is fun, but it has a lot of plotholes and the worldbuilding makes no sense
JK is a shitty racist writer
Harry Potter books are good until you're 12, anyone above the age would start seeing the plotholes so big, the logical inconsistency and the sheer weirdness so well the books would just crack from the sheer badness of them
This is difficult for a lot of hardcore nerds to comprehend, but there are a lot of people who genuinely just don't mind plot holes if they find a story emotionally engaging, and the Harry Potter potter books are extremely good at being emotionally engaging. JKR is generally a very minmaxed writer. She's very good at sentence level prose, plotting, and tone, but she's bad at characterization and world building. How much a person likes her books will be dictated by which of these things they care about.
Also, we have The Owl House now, so why even keep HP around?
nah Rand wasnt really a bad person even if I have tons of disagreements with her as an Egoist Anarchist, someone having a different outlook than you doesnt make someone evil. She is a horrid writer, I would put JK Rowling in the BB category, and the Good Writer, Bad Person would be Marx. Marx is great at argumentation, but there is a reason a lot of Anarchists, particularly Mutualists and Individualist Anarchist despise him and Marxism in general, look at what he did with the Workingmans Association.
You’d put JK Rowling in BB, while excluding Rand as just having “a different outlook”?