Favorite Character in Elantris

[Skar]

He's quite dead.

Yeah, sure he is.

[Spriggan]

 That is why, I think, Sprig and Chimera had such strong reactions AGAINST some of the characters.

No I don't like her becasue of things in my second post, ie unrealistic, forced, annoying.  If she was better portrayed then I wouldn't have minded reading her viewpoint.

[Chimera]

No I don't like her becasue of things in my second post, ie unrealistic, forced, annoying.  If she was better portrayed then I wouldn't have minded reading her viewpoint.

But that seems to be a matter of opinion. Most of the girls are saying that they identified with Sarene--I know I did because I saw some of myself in her. I was actually very impressed with EUOL for being able to portray (in my opinion) such a realistic female character. And, since the females seem to feel this way, it would seem that EUOL succeeded and passed the most difficult and critical group (i.e. actual females). You are certainly allowed, though, Spriggan, to dislike certain characteristics of Sarene's personality. But I wouldn't go so far as to say that she is an unrealistic portrayal. Since her character reached the targeted female audience, it seems Sarene was realistic.

Now, there will certainly be some female somewhere who feels like you do--that Sarene was annoying, forced, and just not realistic. But I think if a majority of girls buy it, EUOL must have done a pretty good job, generally speaking. However, you can easily say that this is still just my opinion.

The thing that is interesting in discussing why we like literature is that so often I find that nobody is really wrong--everyone just brings different background to the text; individual background that affects how a person responds to the book/characters. Which is why people seem to have different "favorite" books and characters--because people are different.

But I like hearing everyone's opinion. I hope more people post!  

[Spriggan]

*sigh* I wish people would actualy READ posts instead of assumeing that what someone types is actualy what the reader thinks it means.

Sarene is too perfect and most of the plot around her feels unnatural and forced.

The unrealstic part, as I explain in the post my previous one was refering to, was the plot around Sarene and the politics around her were very forced and unrealistic.  I never said her personality was unrealsitic just annoying.

[EUOL]

The reason I like the people I mentioned previously is that the seam more like real people, they're not perfect and make mistakes while Sarene is too perfect and most of the plot around her feels unnatural and forced.

That sentence, Sprig, says that you found her unrealistic.  You thought she was too perfect, which made her unrealistic, while the others had flaws, which made them seem like real people.  That is what you said.  You can change that now, but the sentence stands for itself.  To me, it means exactly what Chimera thought.

I too found your post interesting, for I generally consider Sarene to be more flawed than Raoden.  Her personality flaws--a bit of arrogance, a bit of busy-bodyness--are what you claimed in your first post as things you didn't like about her.  How, then, is she perfect?

[Spriggan]

Again I've never said her personality was perfect, and as you've stated, I don't like it. You have to remember here we're talking about a character in a book not a real person so when I say Sarane is too perfect that's in reference to the character in whole so that includes the character's personality and how he/she fits into the story.  The character itself is too perfect because you ,the author, made everything she does work flawlessly or near flawlessly especially the political aspects which were very unrealistic and forced.  The whole "scheming" part of her story didn't fit well in with the other parts of the book because of this and every time she's suggest something new and all these nobles/politicians rolling over to her whims were painful to read because that's not what would have happened if the people were real especially since none of them knew here and all the sudden they're letting her run their little cabal with plans that don't seam very thought out.  She's also perfect because dispute her personality that seams to annoy many people you have just about everyone, besides Sarane herself, in the story ignoring the fact she's unlikeable and overbearing.  If she is, as you've portrayed and have told us via the character herself, such a frustrating person how come all these paranoid and prideful nobles think the opposite and make her their leader so quickly?

You conveniently use her to solve almost every problem in the book with little effort or mistakes.

[Eagle Prince]

Lol, don't take it easy on him just cause he is your brother.

Yeah, my favorite character was Rao and least favorite was Sarene.

[Spriggan]

Well that wasn't even my harshest (well at least in my mind) criticism which I told EUOL about a few weeks ago which he subsequently forgot about about a week latter when he asked me if I've read the book yet.  And that is Hrathen using the Seon in secret.  That one incident shows that Hrathen and all the top leaders in his church know that their religion is fake and just a means to an end (ie controlling people).  When you read that chapter, all be it short, you know everything that you were lead to believe in the first few Hrathen chapters is false, there is no curse, there is no impending doom by their god and that Hrathen really doesn't believe anything he's saying. I was very disappointed in that and almost stopped reading the book because it pretty much ruined Harthen as a character for me.  

It wouldn't have been such a big deal if EUOL had either not built up Hrathen's church having some measure of truth or if he had mentioned that the Seon wasn't an Elantian one.  I know he 1) didn't want to show that others could use/access the Dor too early on and 2) wanted to wait for a different book to talk about Seons.  Which, by the way, I think if EUOL revisits this world he should do a Prequel with Sarase's Uncle (forgot the name) as a pirate instead of a book that takes place after Elantrs, or at least do a short story for his website about him (he could do a Tales of the Pirate Crushed Throat section) or even a book of short stories.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I really don't think that it shows they know their religion is false at all. If the LDS church were to do something like that, yes, it would. But their ethics obviously don't forbid using things otherwise forbidden as a tool to the end. Hrathen lies. A lot. He rationalizes it. Dilaf kills rather than bring people in. Yet he believes.

[Spriggan]

They're using the very thing they preach against how does that now prove they know their religion is false?  We don't know what the religion teaches about killing or how you justify converting people so you're Deilaf example is misplaced.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

we know that the prime objective of the religion is political unity. Anything to that end is a good, even if it involves normally forbidden activity.

Hrathen was obviously under the belief that bringing people into the fold was a higher good than wiping them out. Dilaf acts against that. I don't think you've said anything that negates that example.

[Spriggan]

Sure there are plenty.

It's stated several times that killing the unbelieving is the next best thing to conversion since their goal is to have everyone a believer so their god can appear on the planet.  The people in heaven, or what ever the equivalent is, don't need to believe only the ones alive.

Harthen wanted the chance to convert this time instead of killing, like he did in the previous country, since it was more of a challenge.  There is no mention that I know of that specifically says Harthen's religion has any "thou shall not kill" like rules/beliefs.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I'm not sure what you're getting at with that first paragraph. If it's the "next best thing" and the BEST thing was already pretty much assured, then why would the "next" best thing be preferred?

As for the second part, sure there was probably an element of the "challenge" but nearly all of the language describes Hrathen's reasons for wanting to convert rather than kill show him feeling guilty over the bloodshed he caused. He wants to avoid bloodshed not because it's harder, but because it's BETTER.

[Spriggan]

Don't shoot the messenger here SE blame EUOL if you don't like what's in the first paragraph its his book though I could be mistaken and it's actually their the same in importance.  Harthen really doesn't start to mention guilt and wanting to convert instead of killing for moral reasons until he starts to question his religion and motives.  So one could argue that the only reason he feels that way is because of his doubt/knowledge of that his religion isn't true.

One of the problems with this discussion is we're debating a fictional religion that is only briefly described.  So it's hard for you to argue your points since we know so Little of it and what little we do know supports my comments.  Remember this isn't any religion that we know or have experience with and you shouldn't assume common held beliefs on our world would be held with the same regard in Elantris's.

[Skar]

Hrathen wants to convert instead of kill from the very beginning of the book, it's his plainly stated goal, so I don't know how you got the idea that he only starts wanting to convert instead of kill when he starts to question his religion, later.  

As for using the Seon wrecking his religious piety, I don't agree.  We find out later that Hrathen's religion uses the Dor in their monks and that Hrathen certainly knew about it since he was in that monastery for awhile.  He blatantly uses the elantrians as an excuse.  He consciously decides to PRETEND that they are evil and devils as a political tool.  Dilaf has major problems with them but that's because of his personal experiences.  As far as I could tell (and I may be misremembering, it's easy to lose details like this) Hrathen's religion didn't have institutionalized religious/moral sanctions against the Elantrians at all.

Essentially, at the higher levels, Hrathen's religion didn't have a problem with magic in general, since they use it in their monks, but only when it was used against them or it just wasn't under their control.  So Hrathen's use of the seon is just an indicator of complexity rather than an indicator of hypocrisy.