Tom Riddle was a self centered lying monster who had a gang of sycophants that worshipped the ground he walked on, and wrote a book full of secrets that threw the whole school into chaos when it was read.
So he was basically the boy version of Regina George. 🤣
Title says it all. I picked up my copy of The Idiot. I finished C+P in June and enjoyed it a lot. I have an unorthodox way I got invested in the book and may need some help with it.
When I read Crime and Punishment there were two scenes I read in advance before properly starting the book that I read thoroughly because I had them to look forward to reaching. The scenes in question were when Rodya is interrogated about hiw article "On Crime" and the scene when Rodya says "Your worst sin is you have given-"
I feel that doing something like this, even with potential spoilers, helped me understand the book better and want to ask of the same for the Idiot.
What are some scenes you would show to someone who hasnt read the book to get them invested? Think of this like "what scene would you show of a movie to pitch it to a friend?"
I managed Notes and C+P quite admirably and cant wait to see what the Idiot brings.
I want the player's choice of house to actually mean something beyond one singular mission. I enjoyed creating characters for each house on my way to getting the achievements and I even imagined backstories for them.
It would be nice if you choice of house affects how the PC talks and interacts with people, with a more callous and distant tone as a Slytherin to a more patient and level headed tone for Hufflepuff.
Think like the difference between Renegade and Paragon from Mass Effect. There are countless variables in those games, yes. But the tiny differences really fleshed things out and made it feel like Shepard was a character that you created. I felt my Legacy PC was one character with barely any personality or backstory because of how the story presented them.
I posted last night that I had finally finished C+P. I mostly read alongside the masterful performance of Anthony Heald to stay engaged, but when I started to actually read faster than he was narrating about 3/4 of the way in, I decided instead to put the music from Dishonored on as BGM because it just made sense. St Petersburg's depraved sense of dread fits so neatly with the oppressive horror of Dunwall, and the soundtrack felt perfect.
The end credits music for the game, Honor For All, really worked out, and I ended up playing it as I read the closing paragraphs. "Can you feel a new day rising? Climbing up the east horizon."
I'm proud that I made the effort that felt quite tedious at times, because its given me the motivation to keep reading more books instead of the aimless scrolling. Thank you Fyodor (and this thread's support).
That was quite the endeavor. I have managed to read through many books before with much bigger wordcounts, and yet nothing felt nearly as dense or as in depth as this one. Mainly because this wasn't sci-fi or fantasy, only one of the greatest novels in all of literature. I bought this copy at the height of Covid, and only now have I had the honor of closing it for good.
I felt the necessity to read the book marking pages up with highlights and comments as I went. I used to be appalled at the very idea of doing that to a book, but in this case it helped me understand the ideas better, and I even came up with my own personal system for how each color was used.
I've given myself the homework of reading all 5 of his great novels with Demons, the Idiot and BK remaining. I'm leaving BK for last because you always save the best for last, right? Undecided which one to read next, but I'll go back to something lighter to slow me down and get prepared for the next round.
All the cliches have been said here on this thread. I look forward to my next reading of it with everything completed absorbed and ready to go again, whenever that may come.
One of my favorite episodes was Tom and Peyton's Mega 105 v 105 Match, even though it ended with them passing out in the drome because they clearly didn't think it through. The idea of having what was basically an all out war from beginning to end without breaks was laughable.
That being said, I just did the math and worked out how long it realistically could have taken them, and how long it might go if it was a card game instead. Not that it would be feasible to arrange a table that big.
I worked out an assumption that each battle could go for about 15 minutes, though that's pretty quick considering the fact that you have to play cat and mouse to find your opponent in the location before battling. Either way, 15 minutes would be the set time for each battle. Cards i have seen battles go on for about 5 minutes or so.
105 is the minimum amount of battles to fight (one of them sweeps the other) and 209 is the maximum (whittling each other down until both sides have one creature each, then a final battle to decide it all). With all these numbers, this is what I got.
At the minimum, Tom and Peyton would be in that drome for over 26 hours straight, and at most, they be looking at 2 straight days. Cards would be much less cruel at 9-17 hours.
... after I saw the reactions on the main HOTD thread. Theres the inevitable shills seeing it as the apex of the series, but theres been a lot more people than last season scratching their heads at the stupidity that they saw last night. They enjoyed the Battle of the Gullet, but they arent being fooled anymore at the rest of the bullshit being pushed by Condal and Hess. That I'm seeing more mixed reactions at least tells me enough people know this isn't as good as they thought it was.
I accept that book adaptations can be tricky to do. I recently reread the Harry Potter books and while I love the movies, there is no contest between them and the books. The movies feel like a cliffnotes version of the story where important things get left out. I accept that this can be for a number of reasons from runtimes to budget cuts.
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My issues with HotD began not precisely when they were making contradictions to the story, but when I had asked members of my family who were watching the show a simple question: who would you support?
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I am the only person I personally know who had Fire and Blood. I read it with no opinion on who should sit the throne because I felt Rhaenyra and Aegon's flaws seriously outweighed their virtues. My family unanimously said that they would have supported Rhaenyra given the choice. That was when I realized that the biases (which werent even that subtle to begin with) had put the finger on the scale and changed the whole nature of the story right down to its moral.
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I immediately followed this up by asking my mom, the only person in my family who could be as close to as big a fan as I am, what the moral of HotD is, if there even is one. "Men are bloodthirsty morons" she said, without hesitation. That only confirmed my suspicions, because GRRM had made it clear the Dance of the Dragons was a story of the cycle of vengeance, not how men are the real monsters who should be listening to the wise counsel of women.
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I think its incredibly ironic that pinning every evil action that Rhaenyra had done in the book on other people only served to make her worse. We had characters like Cersei, Olenna, and even Arya who were capable of making choices we disagreed with, and people still liked them. I disagree when these writers got it into their heads that flaws ruin a character and make us hate them. Flaws can enrich a character because we might find we admire them in spite of their flaws. When they are turned into flawless saints, then I feel like I'm being manipulated into something I know doesn't sit right with me.
Wow... I just finished that chapter and needed to share. I have been actively reading alongside the masterful narration by Anthony Heald with a pen in my hand, marking lines up as I read with underlines of parts I found noteworthy.
If there wasnt still half a book left to go, I would say this is the best chapter in the whole book. Its one of the hardest clashes between the two conflicting views, Raskolnikov's warped sense of morality compared to the determinedly incorruptible spirit of Sonia. I knew this chapter was the source of that iconic quote, but now I see that it has so much more to it.
No fight scene, no intense imagery, just a masterfully written scene between, as Dostoevsky put it so bluntly, "the murderer and the harlot". Incredible.
In the last book, as Harry prepares to set off on his journey to destroy the horcruxes, the narration goes over what few possessions he takes with him in the rucksack. Along with the photo album Hagrid gave him, Harry also takes a stack of letters with him, likely because they too hold sentimental value to him.
I wonder what letters he took with him? Definitely a number of them were from Sirius. If there are any ones that we saw him read in the book, I'm curious what ones he probably took.
No planet in the Star Wars universe has connected to me the way Ferrix did. My first impressions were to think of it as "Tattooine, but cold".
And then the Time Grappler came, and changed everything. With his measured, deliberate movements even before he strikes the anvil, I came to understand what Ferrix was.
Tattooine's Mos Eisley is introduced as a "wretched hive of scum and villainy". Ferrix is shown through these little moments to be a place where every job, even something as simple as striking an anvil to signal the work day, is done with true devotion and care. Where theres so much trust in the community that their work gloves hang on hooks, not lockers. I like to wonder how all that Beskar was brought to Ferrix and what gave them the idea to make it their signal to start and end each day of hard work.
That's why I made a point of turning the anvil into my alarm. The sound of that anvil is made by someone who demonstrates devotion only in his actions, and never speaks a word. When I finish my shift, I make sure to play the end of day signal, too.
Stone and Sky.