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I realized something really stupid today!
You know how one of the pieces of media I take rather personally was "Northern Exposure" - how I identified with Ed Chigliak (naive but well intentioned nerd who just likes movies) and felt like other people expected me to be Fleischman (comic-relief neurotic, no good at anything practical and down to earth, and no matter what branded by Jewishness)?
I realized that I have that sort of identification thing going on with the Dragonlance stories, which were pretty heavily touted by TSR when I was a kid (gamerlet? pre-grognard?). The guy I most wanted to be was Sturm - honorable, brave, honest. The guy I felt stereotyped as was Raistlin - smart, weak, horribly self-centered and ultimately evil and perpetually outside the group. And neither were the real heroes of the story. Sturm in particular winds up being almost a throw-away. Dragonlance has this core thing that the world shall be inherited by wholesome average people who make kids, which I know is very LDS.
I think this source of my dislike for the books actually dwarfs the way the whole thing's actually about some dude with a gem in his chest, the way the sympathetic older character dies, the way Tanis (who you're supposed to somehow like) makes Luke Skywalker look quietly stoic, and the way more than half of everyone in Ansalon is predestined to be stereotypical comic relief.
I don't think any of my dislike for the books is based on not enough Takhisis in human guise with Elmore-floofy-hair in lingerie, because I'm pretty sure I imagined those parts.
You know how one of the pieces of media I take rather personally was "Northern Exposure" - how I identified with Ed Chigliak (naive but well intentioned nerd who just likes movies) and felt like other people expected me to be Fleischman (comic-relief neurotic, no good at anything practical and down to earth, and no matter what branded by Jewishness)?
I realized that I have that sort of identification thing going on with the Dragonlance stories, which were pretty heavily touted by TSR when I was a kid (gamerlet? pre-grognard?). The guy I most wanted to be was Sturm - honorable, brave, honest. The guy I felt stereotyped as was Raistlin - smart, weak, horribly self-centered and ultimately evil and perpetually outside the group. And neither were the real heroes of the story. Sturm in particular winds up being almost a throw-away. Dragonlance has this core thing that the world shall be inherited by wholesome average people who make kids, which I know is very LDS.
I think this source of my dislike for the books actually dwarfs the way the whole thing's actually about some dude with a gem in his chest, the way the sympathetic older character dies, the way Tanis (who you're supposed to somehow like) makes Luke Skywalker look quietly stoic, and the way more than half of everyone in Ansalon is predestined to be stereotypical comic relief.
I don't think any of my dislike for the books is based on not enough Takhisis in human guise with Elmore-floofy-hair in lingerie, because I'm pretty sure I imagined those parts.