User talk:Arya: Difference between revisions

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Latest comment: 29 September 2015 by Wisenoob in topic Username
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The books have been fun reads at least, I'll give them that. The random names of people and places though... I couldn't handle them after a point and they just become bogus. I did enjoy the POVs of Arya, Tyrion, Jaime, Cersei, Sansa (although it is for littlefinger), though cannot say the same about many others. Would like your opinion on any POV characters you paid attention to.
The books have been fun reads at least, I'll give them that. The random names of people and places though... I couldn't handle them after a point and they just become bogus. I did enjoy the POVs of Arya, Tyrion, Jaime, Cersei, Sansa (although it is for littlefinger), though cannot say the same about many others. Would like your opinion on any POV characters you paid attention to.


What kind of music do you listen to? [[User:Wisenoob|Wisenoob]] 14:11, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
What kind of music do you listen to?
 
Btw only getting to read your reply every WEEK is killing me slowly ;) Is it school work, or have I been boring you?[[User:Wisenoob|Wisenoob]] 14:11, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Revision as of 04:46, 4 October 2015

Welcome to Arya's talk page

Username

Is your username after Arya from the Eragon series, it is spelled the exact same way. You don't have to answer if you don't want to.

Actually it's from Game of Thrones. I have read that series by Christopher P. and enjoyed it immensely, but to me, the Arya in the Eragon books was just to distant for me to love. Arya always struck me as a beautiful name, and a name that works on both elves and humans :) Arya

Hi there! I read aforementioned Aryas and loved both with a fervor. Inheritance series came first though. Wisenoob

Do u mean the books came first, or the Arya in it? Arya

The books came first. As for preference, does the elf have a somewhat higher place in me than the Stark girl? Yes.

Arya Drottning (I know it means queen in Swedish, but God that is still a weird last name), as in Eragon and Eldest at least, was my sole most prominent legend for a large portion of my childhood. It is in me to adore a beautiful, distant, strong-willed, and righteous being. A bit unlike you, distance is important to me too. The child in me once shed tears for Galadriel just because she is not single ;) Then of course, with Arya being a name of power to me, when I read into the Stark girl I found many of the similar qualities. The elf is where it all began though. Wisenoob

Hmmm. Distance is a way where you can fill in the gaps with your imagination. I personally do this, but am sometimes disappointed when my imagination runs ahead of me and is more exciting than the real storyline. Like if John Snow isn't Targarian, I will die. Arya 22:24, 5 September 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

What's the story behind your username? Arya 22:26, 5 September 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]


My username has no story actually, it just so happens no one else is registered with it.

Now, about the literary disappointments...I get disappointed plenty more often than you, to the point of agonizing anger.

To me all the stories out there (even Paolini's, to a lesser degree) regarding elves have gotten their power scales completely wrong. A race that is already gifted, and possessing a life spanning tens of thousands of years, should amass tremendous power and knowledge to do better than falling for infantile mortals and having babies with them and go die. You notice how all these cross-racial / cross-mortality love stories always have elves as females, rather than the other way around? For God's sake life as elven females has to be more than singing and dancing and brooding over their silly unquenchable lust for a lesser race of infants. Base, demeaning tales that only serve some men's sickly fantasy.

Let me just put it this way, If I am Luthien I will have absolute zero interest in romantic relationships with men, stay a friendly but haughty being, drown myself in spellbooks and trainings all day every day, and conjure up a power even the Valars never found to challenge Melkor, and live happily ever after, alone and terrific to behold.

So yes, my personal hell has a special place for the bad blood in stories of Luthien, Idril and Arwen. I'll shatter them and carve them anew so they become stories I actually enjoy reading. Wisenoob


Wow. Ok, so much for all those elven fairytales my dad conjured up to get me to sleep. Yeah, I see what u mean, but Tolkien for his credit was born in a messed up time period and Arya totally shunned Eragon. But there is no boy-elf love (unless u count Legolas, who is separated from his lovers by a million years).

I don't think I'd like the drowning in textbooks, since I've done it already, and found it's not to my liking. I can't imagine what it would be like to stay on earth for a thousand years... That would be sort of sad, watching everything I touch die (asides from my fellow elves, but some of them would probably die too). I would be shocked or sick of it, so I'd probably just marry a human to die anyways. And all the stupid people thought it was true love when it was actually suicide.

Because my little haven would be a utopia and the rest of the world would be in ashes. I would go mentally insane by the fact that i couldn't save everything, and that evil was slowly creeping over my borders. Every day, someone that I've known for centuries would die by an orc's blade. The constant fire in the distance would say the elven world is over, DESPAIR NOW. And I would, secretly inside, and lose all dreams, hopes, wonder that make life what it was.

Do you have any recommendations on books?!? Dying from lack of fiction here!!!

Will imagine you as Luthien from this point forth Arya 01:23, 17 September 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Sorry if that sounded a little tiny bit dark ;) Arya 01:28, 17 September 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]


Books to recommend? Fantasy-wise I haven't read much recently, I tried to pick up Wheel of Time at some point but gave up. Recently I read The Metamorphosis, Memoirs of a Geisha, and some re-reads of 1984 and Brave New World. No particular characters I liked, but today I'm dwelling on the name Arien Urwendi. Uttering it gives me a renewed strength.

I may be the Luthien in you? Color me extremely flattered. I'll aspire in becoming a better Luthien in ways Tolkien (and his wife apparently) never knew.

By saying dark, are you referring to your entire comment, or Luthien's hair and garments? (I'll assume the former.)

Never feel sorry in either case. As a child I was once afraid of dark, I couldn't sleep alone very well because being alone in the dark meant something silly (but dreadful at the time) I watched or read would haunt me.

Then the dark haired, nightly Arya came along. And in her reverence I started to appreciate the physical dark around me, my solitude, and a form of deep beauty unearthly, untouched and unruly. It was more than enough to dispel my fear. Not that my love for radiant things had been diminished, but to me dark has been stripped of its negative associations. I'll take it as a compliment any time.

As for the grievances of being an immortal, I'll point out something for you (a restatement really).

In Tolkien's world, character power is horribly constant. They hold on to the same skill and energy level from day one to day eleventy million; thus an immortal's power is little more than a mortal with a thousandth of knowledge and experience.

Of course this becomes utter and complete nonsense when any common sense is applied; no elf's power, however sloth and imbecile some specimen might be, will remain constant a hundred years later. Their skillset will grow as their dominance over less gifted races expands. Their individual intellect and power will blossom through endless discoveries and exercises. Their intellect would become so formidable such that they continue to perceive their surroundings like never before. Perhaps a process to draw strength from the distant stars could be discovered, or a way to breath life and memories into beings that are no more. With an indefinite lifespan and a benevolent will, they are sure to alter whatever withered fate false prophets might say about them, and build a splendor the gods can do nothing but envy, for a god's power is horribly constant!

And lastly, your longings, friendships, artistic tastes, and your beauty, kindness, wildness - in essence, everything about you that's worth living for - are the reason of your being, and no amount of grief will ever change that. Wisenoob 05:57, 18 September 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]


No, I was not referring to her hair color or garments (had almost forgotten about that poem) more to the whole distopia theme I created back there. (I found it extremely weird how Aragorn drew strength from that poem, though I see the resemblance of the two love-lifes)

Grief can conque almost anything. I have discovered though, it has no hold over longing and love. Taste, friendship, wildness, and kindness vanish before Grief. Especially when the death is because of loyalty. And with the elves, they are all massing together to protect their cities, with unquestionable loyalty. I'm not afraid of the dark, but the things that could be hidden in its shadow. For the dark is unthreatening without any way to threaten.

I agree that the elven powers of the characters are frustratingly constant, but they are supposed to be the root of the story, and have to be strong constantly. For instance, (I really apologize for using a movie reference!) when Borimir died, do u remember Legolas wearing his weird smile/concern face?! I mean, Aragorn was down on his knees, and he stands to a side, looking at them with a thoughtfu expression, as if he wasn't a witness to one of the most saddening scenes in the movie! That is a distance that just annoys the heck out of me.

Have you read the "Here, There be Dragons" series? It's all about amazing adventures about someone important, though I won't say who (such a good ending, one of those Ah-ha moments that you didn't see coming, and totally got you off-guard, but on the second read, you can fairly see all the clues).Arya 08:08, 19 September 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I haven't read the series you mentioned, but now that you mentioned it I'll be sure to.

In the Legolas example, it may be that you were confusing power with a form of mental resilience, and distance with apathy. Here are my definitions:

Power - a character's ability to accomplish things

Distance - a character's tendency of solitude

Apathy is entirely irrelevant here. A person can be powerful and distant, and still care fervently for others. They may give you the illusion of indifference, as their emotion may be hidden and reserved, but their deeds do not lie. Being distant did not stop Paolini's Arya from serving her people with all her life and might, or shedding tears for the killings she's done to her foes.

You said the elves' power is strong. But to be very frank, I found extremely few of Tolkien's elves to have any real, influential power in them at all, as in actually driving the world forward.

The vast majority of them are so inept they cannot even hold on to what they were given in the beginning. They simply slacked through their daily lives, fought unneeded wars against kin and mortal races, and lamented over their losses. Where's the accomplishment in that? The Silmarillion is, for its most part, a fancified family tree decorated with carnage. The only one or two elves that do had some power at some point, some aspect in their stories? Probably Feanor and Luthien. Pardon me if you think I've missed anyone. Even Galadriel falls into the category of only clinging to what little that remained.

You also said grief conquers almost anything. In my opinion, it gets you beaten up for a while; however after that, time will ease all wounds, and the fortitude of any competent human mind should be enough to rise above it; let alone any elven minds. The formidable ones turn it into strength and purpose renewed.

Outside of my imaginary world I lost my grandpa just last month. In fact it was the first perceived loss of someone dear to me, as he had a large part in my upbringing. I was devastated, my thoughts kept going back to the days I was innocent of such atrocities by fate, and wished I could have stayed there for an eternity, or done better for it to not take place at all.

But when I forced myself to watch my grandma going all hysteric about it, I realized that the original atrocity is actually not the worst; but the one that entails I being consumed by it.

I realized the importance of making peace within myself and facing it all with grace. Dead people do not feel; being able to perceive grief means I am still alive; it means I still have a path ahead of me lightened by my peers and memory of my peers; a path lightened by Arien and Varda.

What become of my grief should be anger towards the cause of miseries; and a desire for grandeur, to become the person I always aspired to be, so it will finally be in my power to stop future miseries from happening. The reason I bought up personal qualities against grief is because they serve as a reminder that I still have many and more things worth pursuing or retaining, and each and every one of them is more beautiful than grief.

So why succumb to grief when colourful things still await you? Wisenoob 03:46, 20 September 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]


Believe it or not, I didn confuse them (I have no evidence of this, but none of the other way either). I thought distance got in the way of showing empathy and sympathy to someone. That's my main reason to dislike it. It doesn't provide any value to either person. The illusion of indifference can be hurtful to some, and deeds that show the inside come less often than u would think.

I don't believe elves are inept. They just don't have the save the world job. They know it can be saved, so they don't interfere. They provide sufficent help, and protect what they know they can. Rome was destroyed because of it's massive size and all the borders that needed defending (among other reasons). It couldn't hold up, so the whole thing collapsed. The Elves avoided a similar situation by being small and spread out, little cities scattered all over. Not conquering everything in sight. What counts as a competent human?


I am sorry for your loss Arya 06:07, 21 September 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thank you!

Regarding distant personalities, if you can't see through the (only occasional) superficial indifference, then perhaps you just needed to get to know them a lil more ;) Due to their verbal understatement, many have a much richer innards than you would think. They might even be more sensitive than others due to having to spend more time digesting their feelings alone. Think Edward Scissorhands.

I can see your point about Legolas, though. Legolas didn't really appeal to me as a particularly charismatic character either. Aside from lack of emotions there just isn't much depth in his lore it seems to me. OK, he's a cool soldier, he runs nimbly and shoots things, he makes friends with the Strider and Gimli. Done. Next character.

But then I could be overlooking things. As you may have noticed now I am rather focused and particular about feminine elven characters; and Tolkien's works aren't exactly rich in them. On the other hand however, they fit immensely in my aesthetic tastes so I could not bring myself to think any less of them. (Have you read Wheel of Time at some point? It seems like there's a lot of strong feminine characters in that series.)

About elven power once more. I was simply disappointed a gifted immortal race didn't fare better. It's true no children of Illuvatar were given the "save the world" job at birth, but elves' aptitude comes closest. Plus, it's the best endeavor to express one's love for his/her surroundings.

Obviously my standards are tremendously higher for elves compared to mortal races; there's only so much one can do as a hobbit, a man or dwarf, as they are no more in a few tens or hundreds of years. Elves, however, could have been so, so much more but simply didn't try hard enough; and for this reason alone many met their undue demise.

I know I would aspire to become a wind of change. Putting all the faith in myself, honing my talents and splendor so I can rise to be the brightest star ever unfading and reach out to all the people in need. Bugging Melian every day for more charms and making fun of my father because he's such an idiot. Wisenoob 14:14, 22 September 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Well, of course Legolas doesn't appeal to you much(unless I have wrongly assumed who I am speaking to is a boy... Due apology if I have assumed wrong). He's kinda the hottie in the movie, mainly a trigger for girls to love watching the movie, which totally owned some of my friends... Yeah, horrible but effective method.

Explain this Wheel of Time book to me. I Haven't heard much, asides from something about the author dying before he could finish, and there being 12 books.


I found it weird that we had the shortest life span. Compared to the elves and dwarfs we seem puny almost(and we probably are). I mean, hobbits are basically the underdogs, Dwarves are awesome blacksmiths, and elves... Shoot everything like a boss. And we... Do nothing. I guess one of us took out a dragon, and Aragorn is the most epic character on screen, but that is like two out of two thousand... Can't we have more awesome people that actually affect everything massively? I watch Game of Thrones because of the plot line, because it is the best ever. The gore and everything is starting to get to me (I woke up with a nightmare of my older brothers getting killed again last night), but the plot is so complex, I absolutely love it!

Who is Scissor?? Arya 03:23, 29 September 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]



You got it regarding my gender. (either I was being obvious, or you were good?) I am a young man irl, though prizing many a different things from that of typical young men. Yet you have no trouble picturing me as a (half-)elven girl? I'm so happy ;)

Maybe I went a bit harsh on Legolas in my last comment, IMO he's still more interesting than the grand majority of characters. I watched the Oliphaunt scene numerous times and thought it the best moment in the RotK film (That STILL only count as one!). I was just speaking in my usual Tolkien-hate context then ROFL...

As I've mentioned earlier I didn't dig into Wheel of Time that much (maybe I should), I only read the beginning and thought the character Moiraine very interesting. She's supposed to be the Gandalf in that series. Basically the strongest group of people in the series are called Aes Sedai, wielders of the One Power, and males have been extinct in the group for a long time. I've also heard the author put in a sort of oriental world view in the series, so the protagonist is a transmigrant, and there's a lot of themes about cycles and such.

Men in Tolkien's works are about right power-scale wise. There's no attainment of demigod-like powers in their lifetime, the only way is through Melkor or Sauron's corruption, which made sense to me. In all honesty, they should consider themselves extremely lucky if they could win a duel vs any elf. (Men in World of Warcraft lore, for example, are a completely different story... Just look up Jaina, Medivh, and Aegwynn in wowwiki and you'll get the idea. Not that I play WoW, btw, just wiki times) Hobbits to me made no difference from cozy-living countrymen. Yeah they are supposedly "more resistant to corruption" and all that bull, but who cares?

Dwarves are sort of a less flexible race to me. There's no awe-inspiring beauty in them, and they are supposedly stern in nature. So the exploitable qualities of their characters are rather limited. Sturdiness, fraternity, greed. What else? I heard a lot of people cried about how Gimli was used as comical relief in the LotR movies, but I found it quite alright; since there weren't a lot of diversity to work with in the beginning.

scissor - Just look up Edward Scissorhands the film. He's an artificial man with scissors as hands, that tended gardens and carved ice sculptures for his loved one.

Game of Thrones... IMHO the quality of the TV series seems to be getting worse, and for all we know, GRR Martin could die before Arya Stark comes out and about pwning real people with her leet assassin skillz. Lets hope The Winds of Winter delivers.

The books have been fun reads at least, I'll give them that. The random names of people and places though... I couldn't handle them after a point and they just become bogus. I did enjoy the POVs of Arya, Tyrion, Jaime, Cersei, Sansa (although it is for littlefinger), though cannot say the same about many others. Would like your opinion on any POV characters you paid attention to.

What kind of music do you listen to?

Btw only getting to read your reply every WEEK is killing me slowly ;) Is it school work, or have I been boring you?Wisenoob 14:11, 29 September 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]