19th April 2005, 7:59 PM
Exactly. I know you like explanation, and I suppose it's not explained to an utter degree like D&D, but that's hardly the point. Sometimes leaving out pretty much ANY detail on how it works at all, and explaining nothing more than the effect after the fact, makes for a much better read. SOMETIMES being the key here. For example, I love JRR Tolkein's work. Througout, "magic" is clearly meant to be something beyond mortal comprehension, and to really get that across, he makes no attempt at all to explain it. He goes into great detail on what the mortals actually end up SEEING, but not how it actually came to be. For example, he goes into a great description of the river of horses that wash away the ring wraiths when Frodo is being taken to the safe haveny place of the elvish elven. However, as to exactly how such a feat actually occured, it's left a mystery, and I like it that way. If something is to be beyond mortal comprehension, at the level he was attempting, it better be left unexplained. Oh of course I can come up with my own theories, but that's part of the charm right there. You have the freedom to interpret it as you will. The Silmarrilion really does a good job at leaving you speechless. Originally, The Hobbit was supposed to be part of a legend created about old England, but by this book, it had become something totally different and was now about a totally fictional world with it's own continental structure at that. Eh, anyway at the start the heavenly host sings a song to create the world. A vivid description of the song's beauty and scope was presented, but an explanation of exactly how the song became the World that Is was purposefully left out. I would hardly call that a failing of the author myself. It was just a purposeful thing to leave us in the dark there.
Again, this isn't ALWAYS the best method. I'm only trying to explain that it is SOMETIMES the best method. I don't want explanations for ALL the mysteries a story has to offer unless the story really does require it (for example, if the book is, oddly enough, a "mystery novel", I'd like a full explanation of everything that happened before to wrap it all up). So sometimes I love having things left mysterious with no real explanation, sometimes I don't, depending on how the story was written. It is not ALWAYS better to fully explain everything, that is all I'm trying to say, and a point you seem to be contending by simply ignoring it for some odd reason...
Again, this isn't ALWAYS the best method. I'm only trying to explain that it is SOMETIMES the best method. I don't want explanations for ALL the mysteries a story has to offer unless the story really does require it (for example, if the book is, oddly enough, a "mystery novel", I'd like a full explanation of everything that happened before to wrap it all up). So sometimes I love having things left mysterious with no real explanation, sometimes I don't, depending on how the story was written. It is not ALWAYS better to fully explain everything, that is all I'm trying to say, and a point you seem to be contending by simply ignoring it for some odd reason...
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)