Great podcast as always, however, I have to ask the opinion about books where circumstances create the main source of conflict (more so than villains)?
There are a lot of books where the circumstances are the challenges the protagonist faces, and there are an even greater number of books where the circumstances the protagonist has been pitted against exist alongside of the struggle against the so called "bad guy".
Like, for instance, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rofthuss, I.M.O., the main source of conflict the protagonist (Kvothe) faces in the book, and thus the main thing he has to struggle with to overcome - is actually the circumstances he is faced with being in rather than anything else. Of course, the Chandra, I think they’re called, who were responsible at the beginning for causing his circumstances are an underlying theme in the book, however they are not really the greatest element he is in conflict with (at least, in this third of the tale).
It would be very interesting to here the Writing Excuses crew’s opinions about circumstances as a form of conflict.
