"Imagination" VERSUS "Reality"
Jan. 7th, 2016 09:45 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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queensthiefMWT's books do wonders on the imagination. By leaving some details out for the reader to fill in, a vast world can be constructed without overloading the reader with too much information. Unfortunately, sometimes readers can end up imagining things that end up being quite different from what they actually end up being, especially when more details emerge as the books go along. The reader must then readjust their imagination in accordance...
The Hamaithes's Gift
To be fair, the cover of my book looked like this:
as opposed to this:
So when I imagined the Gift, I thought it would look more like this:
Technically, it's not really wrong -it is a riverbed pebble with hard to see engravings and subtle glimmers of a precious stone. But I was still quite shocked when I first saw the book cover for The Thief.
Costis
For some reason, "Costis" hit me as being a very cute and young name. So I imagined him being rather young, you know, 16 or something. Since Squad Leader didn't really say much to me (I thought it might have been some kind of cadet thing, in retrospect I don't know why... That first scene in QoA really reminded me of a high school student writing a reflection paper during detention...) and I reasoned that anyone who hits their own King can't be very mature, I was quite surprised to read later on that Costis was in fact older than Gen!! (though the books are not explicit about Gen's age, I suspect that he must be in his 20s in KoA, and around 16 in TT)
Eddisian clothes
Gen has colourful taste in clothes (After the Magus tears apart Gen's cheerful yellow shirt in TT). I thought that meant that this passion for colour was shared by all Eddisians. Plus, aren't the finest cloth made in Eddis? Surely this must mean that they can have any colour cloth made... So I was quite surprised to learn that Eddisians (in a conversation between Attolia and Gen from KoA) often wore black boots and black clothes! Alas, what inspired Gen's penchant for canary yellow..?
Nahuseresh
I got that his beard was oiled, but I somehow completely missed that it was split into two pointy parts until it was mentioned at the end of QoA when Attolia is speaking with Eddis. Huh.
On a site note: I'd really like to read more on Sophos' sisters.
What was your "oh, that wasn't quite what I had imagined" moment? :)
The Hamaithes's Gift
To be fair, the cover of my book looked like this:
as opposed to this:
So when I imagined the Gift, I thought it would look more like this:
Technically, it's not really wrong -it is a riverbed pebble with hard to see engravings and subtle glimmers of a precious stone. But I was still quite shocked when I first saw the book cover for The Thief.
Costis
For some reason, "Costis" hit me as being a very cute and young name. So I imagined him being rather young, you know, 16 or something. Since Squad Leader didn't really say much to me (I thought it might have been some kind of cadet thing, in retrospect I don't know why... That first scene in QoA really reminded me of a high school student writing a reflection paper during detention...) and I reasoned that anyone who hits their own King can't be very mature, I was quite surprised to read later on that Costis was in fact older than Gen!! (though the books are not explicit about Gen's age, I suspect that he must be in his 20s in KoA, and around 16 in TT)
Eddisian clothes
Gen has colourful taste in clothes (After the Magus tears apart Gen's cheerful yellow shirt in TT). I thought that meant that this passion for colour was shared by all Eddisians. Plus, aren't the finest cloth made in Eddis? Surely this must mean that they can have any colour cloth made... So I was quite surprised to learn that Eddisians (in a conversation between Attolia and Gen from KoA) often wore black boots and black clothes! Alas, what inspired Gen's penchant for canary yellow..?
Nahuseresh
I got that his beard was oiled, but I somehow completely missed that it was split into two pointy parts until it was mentioned at the end of QoA when Attolia is speaking with Eddis. Huh.
On a site note: I'd really like to read more on Sophos' sisters.
What was your "oh, that wasn't quite what I had imagined" moment? :)
Re: Pronounciation
Date: 1/10/16 06:46 pm (UTC)