J.B. Norman's Blog, page 350

Best. Week. Ever.

Figure 1: Success, as she is acccomplished.
Figure 2: “Accomplished”, as she is spelled wrong.

I’ve mentioned a few times now that 2021 was on pace to be my website’s best year ever in terms of number of views.

Well, it happened. I broke last year’s record earlier this week.

Yay!

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

Not bad, considering it’s only going to be March in a couple hours.

In addition, the week of February 21-27 has been realmgard.com‘s best-ever single week. I got an average of about 60 views per day. And, yeah, that’s not a lot. I’m pretty sure something like Reddit gets that many views every three-fifths of a second.

But, like, I’ve only been serious about this website stuff for about half a year.

Besides, everybody has to get their start somewhere. We’ll all look back at this post and laugh when I’m Undisputed Lord and Master of the World (and Junior Vice President in Charge of Sales for the Moon) all of the authors of the New York Times Bestseller List more than just some schmuck with a couple books and a website.

Incidentally, wanna help out with that?

But, seriously, thanks for humouring me your ongoing support and interest in Realmgard. Stay tuned for more stories and news, including a new free preview chapter that should go live in the next couple days.

And maybe considering following me here, via email, or on Facebook and Instagram.

Photo by Donald Tong on Pexels.com

Recommendation: Disney’s Three Musketeers

Funny story: I distinctly remember that I watched this movie with my best friend when I was kid, but I remembered absolutely nothing about the movie itself until I stumbled across it on Disney Plus. And I was promptly ashamed of myself. This movie is great! How did I ever forget it?

The Three Musketeers: Disney. Image via IMDB.

Admittedly, it’s a terrible adaptation of the source material. It is, however, a great historical(ish) action movie. And, to be fair, there’s never been a good adaptation of The Three Musketeers.

There are a lot of peculiarities with the book that make it hard to put on film.

For one thing, it was written (in French) in 1844 and set in the 1620s (in France), so there’s a lot of cultural and artistic tastes and preferences that have changed since then. For another, it’s not nearly as exciting as most adaptations make it out to be. It’s not really an action story.

Eh. Close enough.
Photo by Artem Podrez on Pexels.com

Honestly, it’s more of a Ancien Régime-era spy novel. Basically, Cardinal Richelieu (a real person, by the way) is trying to do something dastardly to discredit the Queen, so he can manipulate the King, so he can beat up on Spain, and then the Musketeers do something clever to foil him.

It’s interesting, but it’s not big, exciting, in-your-face action.

Siege of La Rochelle: Henri-Paul Motte.
Public Domain. Via Wikipedia.

The other problem is that film isn’t the right medium to convey the novel’s greatest strength.

Clearly, there was something the style of French literature at the time that made sarcastic narration very popular, because The Three Musketeers has that in common with The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (which, incidentally, also has nothing in common with its Disney adaptation; no, seriously, everybody’s a jerk in the novel — except the goat — and then everybody dies).

The narration of the novel is, admittedly, rather long-winded and not always on topic, but it’s very conversational and absolutely full of snarky little comments and shots at the characters and events.

It’s probably my favourite part of the novel, but, again it’s not something that you can really convey on film, unless, perhaps, you’re going to include a Wonder Years-esque voice over to keep up a running narration.

Which, honestly, doesn’t seem like a terrible idea…

Anyway, back to the movie. Like we’ve established, it’s an adaptation of the original novel. In much the same way Star Wars is an adaptation of samurai movies.

Notably, however, the scene where d’Artagnan gets challenged to a duel by all three Musketeers in the span of about fifteen seconds is still present in the film and presented on screen with only minimal changes. Makes sense; it’s one of the best scenes in the book.

Even though the plot has only about a 3% connection to the source material, the main characters are all how they’re supposed to be: d’Artagnan is young, hot-blooded and constantly picking fights, Athos is grim and stoic, Aramis is well-read and constantly trying to seduce married women, and Porthos is jocular but vain and self-absorbed.

On the other hand, primary antagonist Cardinal Richelieu is downgraded from ruthlessly pragmatic master of realpolitik to cackling, moustache-twirling supervillain, played by Tim Curry in a rare villainous role (I’m pretty sure I’ve already made that joke before when I was talking about Muppet Treasure Island…). Basically, in the book, Richelieu is antagonistic, but not evil. He may be at odds with the Musketeers, but he genuinely has France’s best interests in mind (as you’d perhaps expect from the Prime Minister of France). In fact, he actually works with the Musketeers at certain points in the novel.

Similarly, Rochefort — the Darth Vader to Richelieu’s the Emperor — is changed from a worthy opponent to the Musketeers who ultimately ends up allied with them to … a moustache-twirling supervillain. He has no depth, gets not character development, and exists primarily to be defeated in a big, awesome climactic sword fight.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Simplifying the story and the characters is inevitable while changing a 700ish-page novel to an hour-and-three-quarters movie.

But if, for some reason, you’re really passionate about the integrity of Alexandre Dumas’s original stories, you should probably not watch this movie…

If you don’t want to watch the film, you could always watch this film…
Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels.com

Aside from the fact that absolutely nobody is even remotely trying to be French — or even acting all that hard, for that matter — the casting is pretty good. Kiefer Sutherland is getting some solid practice in for Jack Bauer as Athos, Tim Curry is turning in … every Tim Curry performance ever, Charlie Sheen somehow manages to be simultaneously horribly miscast and absolutely perfect as Aramis, Chris O’Donnell delivers d’Artagnan’s youthful exuberance and hotbloodedness, and while Oliver Platt doesn’t really look big enough to be Porthos, he absolutely nails the swaggering, boastful, “I’m BFFs with the Queen of America” (no, that sentence doesn’t make sense; yes, that’s the point) aspect of the character.

Also, he fights a ninja for reasons that are never made entirely clear…

To recap: bad adaptation, good historical(ish) action movie. Excellent way to pass an afternoon.

Photo by Donald Tong on Pexels.com

So, on a scale of F- to 10, I give Disney’s The Three Musketeers a score of “Crunchtacular” out a possible “Platonic Form of Action Movie”.

… Yeah. I think I need to work on my rating system, which, incidentally, I give a 6 out of a possible A+++.

RealmgART: WIP(irate)

As promised, work has begun my drawings of Realmgard’s pirates. Here’s the initial sketch of what will be the first of at least several pirates. More drawings and biographies to follow.

Coming Soon: Pirates

Photo by Dimitris Mourousiadis on Pexels.com

Now, given that four of the five Realmgard books prominently feature pirates — and that the fifth also features a certain one of those pirates in a minor appearance — it should come as no surprise that pirates are kind of a big deal in Realmgard.

The seal of the Brotherhood of the Coasts.

My plan for the near future is to do some Encyclopedia Realmgardica entries on some of the various members of the Brotherhood of the Coasts and include artwork with each of those entries. Now, art takes time, so it’s going to be at least a few days before that’s all ready to go, but it shouldn’t be a huge wait.

Recommendation: Discworld

Now, I’m kind of weird for a Greatest Living author (…that sentence is still factually true if you put the period there) in that I don’t really have an contemporary literary idols.

Basically, if it happened after AD 476, I’ve got no time for it.
Photo by jimmy teoh on Pexels.com

I’m shy of 30. Tolkien — in my opinion factually, indisputably the greatest author of this or any age, in this or any language, on this or any world — died in 1973. Robert E. Howard died in 1936.

Most of the other stuff I’m actually passionate about reading is either anonymous, ancient, mythological epics, historical war stories, or things written by people who have been dead for centuries (or possibly never actually existed in the first place).

In terms of contemporary authors, I’ve made my feelings on Harry Potter very clear, I’ve never really “got” anything Neil Gaiman has written, I like Guy Gavriel Kay (who’s CanCon, by the way), but all his books have at least one glaring flaw, I like the idea of comic books, but hate the current reality of comic books — for one thing, they’ve gotten way too serious, uptight, and sprawling for their own good (bring back the Silver Age!).

I’m going somewhere with this, I promise.

Well I don’t quite consider him a literary idol of mine, I very much respect the talents of the late Terry Pratchett — properly, that’s Sir Terry Pratchett; clearly he was doing something right with his books if he got a knighthood out of them.

No, not that kind of knight.
Photo by Berendey_Ivanov / Andrey_Kobysnyn on Pexels.com

To a certain extent, I feel like Terry Pratchett needs no introduction, but on the off-chance you don’t know who he is, the reason that he needs no introduction is because of the (very) long-running Discworld.

Discworld is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It’s about a flat, circular planet (standing on elephants, standing on a turtle), not unlike actual ancient conceptions of the actual space of the actual world.

So, basically this, but a planet.
(That was the best picture of anything even remotely disc-like I could find)
Photo by Roman Tymochko on Pexels.com

Like I said, I don’t consider Pratchett an idol, but it’s impossible not to respect his ability. That being said, in a very weird, sort of roundabout way, Pratchett and Discworld have been a pretty notable influence on me and Realmgard. Though, strictly speaking, they’ve been more of an anti-influence.

That’s a good thing.

Basically, I clearly have a very British sense of humour, because Discworld is full of exactly the kind of jokes I would make. Hence, the ‘anti-influence’ thing. I’m basically telling myself “No, don’t do that; Discworld already did that.”

I am my own toughest critic…

So, from that, it should be pretty clear that Discworld is overall pretty Realmgard-ian in a lot of ways. Though Discworld is a lot more satirical than Realmgard has ever tried to be. The first few books (which the fanbase as a whole seems to think are the worst in the series, though they’re my favourites) are more straightforward parodies of the Fantasy genre than anything.

Over time, however, Discworld started turning more towards social commentary and satire. Discworld is never not funny, but it does make some pretty insightful (and occasionally scathing) commentaries about things like feminism, death, gun control, religion, war, industrialisation, nationalism, and society in general.

In a way, Discworld is a very “adult” Fantasy series — and that’s not “adult” like “18+”. That’s “adult” in the sense of pertaining to issues most real-world adults are going to relate to as they fall in love, start a career, raise, engage in politics, make sense of their belief systems, face intolerance, try to foster tolerance. Basically, Discworld is examining and addressing real-world issues by means of Fantastical elements like Trolls, Dragons, and giant Space Turtles.

Also, Witches.
Of which (not a pun, I swear), this was the best picture I could find.
Photo by Victoria Borodinova on Pexels.com

Like I said, there’s a lot of really keen, meaningful insight. Terry Pratchett was a smart dude. And also a good enough writer that these insights are never unsubtle or unfunny.

Getting back to that “adult” idea, Discworld aimed at younger readers (except for the several books that were written specifically for younger readers), there’s not much violence, and even less that’s graphic or even just non-cartoonish and unrealistic, there’s the odd bit of naughtiness, but mostly presented in such a way that kids aren’t really going to clue in that it’s naughtiness in the first place.

On the other hand, kids probably also aren’t going to clue into most of the social satire, or why it’s funny. On the other other hand, like I said, Terry Pratchett was an inherently talented and charming writer that even without the social satire landing, there’s enough in the books that’s just funny on its own merits.

On the plus side, at least the kids don’t have to do taxes…
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I’d put Discworld at about the next age bracket up from Realmgard. For reference, The Colour of Magic, the first Discworld book was on the list of recommended books for my little brother’s Grade 9 book report.

As a potential word of warning to any completionists out there, Pratchett was doing Discworld for 32 year, and put out 41 novels in that time. So, doing the whole series is going to take some, uh, doing. On the other hand, most of the Discworld books work perfectly well as standalone stories, so there are plenty of potential starting points to chose from.

I’m pretty sure those shelves are nothing but Discworld books.
Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

Like I mentioned in passing earlier, most Discworld think the series didn’t get good until several books in (depending on who you’re asking, either three, eight, or even 13), but my own personal favourites are the first two: the aforementioned Colour of Magic and its direct sequel, The Light Fantastic (which were also adapted into a TV movie by British network Sky One).

To recap: basically this, but in space.
Photo by Daniel Torobekov on Pexels.com

The (Other) Sport of Kings

Photo by Stephen Niemeier on Pexels.com

I’ve mentioned before — in the post actually about it, and in that last post recapping my list of favourite recommendation posts — that the only sport I care about is Pro Wrestling.

Yes, I’m aware that Wrestling is not, in fact, a “sport.” And, yes, I’m aware it’s fake.

And if you’re not going to get off my case about my favourite sport not being a real sport or even a real competition, I pick Darts as my favourite professional sport.

Yes. There’s Professional Darts.

Yes, there’s a Professional Darts Championship.

It’s the most glorious bewildering thing ever.

It is amazing to see how seriously people apparently take darts, and just how rowdy the (shockingly large) crowds get — though given that darts originated in public houses and drinking establishments, maybe that’s not that surprising…

If you want to get a glimpse at the craziness that is Pro Darts, look up what happens when somebody scores a 180 (the highest possible score in one turn).

So, basically, Darts is better than the things you like.

Photo by Donald Tong on Pexels.com

Good Things, Not Written by Me

Admittedly, I’m sort of cheating with this post. But I’ve mentioned a couple times lately that I’ve been preoccupied with both working on my new stories and real-life stuff.

There’s no new content here, I just figured it would be to have a handy list of the things I’ve recommended in one place. This list is by no means exhaustive, and it’s not even a list of the best things I’ve recommended, so much as a list of the recommendation posts that I think are my best-written.

So, here’s a little bit of everything.

Little Witch Academia — It’s Harry Potter, but good!

Little Witch Academia: Studio Trigger and Netflix.

The Chronicles of Prydain — It’s Lord of the Rings, but Welsh!

Tales from the Perilous Realm — Turns out Tolkien really liked Fairy Tales.

Photo by Tu00fa Nguyu1ec5n on Pexels.com

Professional Wrestling — The only sport that matters.

WrestleMania III: WWE.

Dungeons & Dragons — One of the defining works of the modern Fantasy genre and basically a nerd rite of passage at this point.

[image error]Photo by Will Wright on Pexels.com

Redwall — Woodland animals have epic adventures, get brutally murdered.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Dragon’s Crown — Fantasy Games: The Game.

Dragon’s Crown: Vanillaware and Atlus.

Record of Lodoss War — They say Lodoss War is how we all want our Dungeons & Dragons campaigns to go…

Slayers — ….and that Slayers is how they inevitably end up going.

Slayers: E&G Films and Funimation.

Willow — A wonderfully strange Fantasy movie that deserves to be seen at least once, brought to you by George Lucas.

RealmgArt: Equus Acutis

Now, I’m going to go ahead and say that Unicorns exist in Realmgard, but this is mostly the result of me practicing drawing horses.

Much like dolphins, horses are hard to draw. And, since Unicorns are just Pointy Horses, unicorns are also hard to draw.

All in all, I don’t hate how this picture turned out, though getting the original sketch scanned and cleaned up was a real pain.

That’s it, really. As you were.

Footnotes to Fenyx

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by J.B. Norman (@realmgard)

You’ll remember, I hope, that my most recent recommendation was Immortals Fenyx Rising. To which the above Instagram post was meant to draw attention.

Reading back my earlier post, I’ve realised that I forgot to mention something rather important.

The game was developed by Ubisoft Quebec — as in “City“, not the (Belle) Province, which is the also the province that Montreal is in, which is a city that has its own Ubisoft Studio. Which is not, in fact the same studio, like I thought at first. Clearly, I missed out on the fact that there’s a Ubisoft Studio in Quebec City. Which is pretty embarrassing, because it was apparently founded in 2005.

There’s a point to this, I swear.

Fenyx Rising is CanCon and I can’t believe that I forgot to mention that the first time around.

A Quick Follow-Up to That Last Post.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by J.B. Norman (@realmgard)

Admittedly, not a lot to see here, people.

Just some brilliant advertising on my part…