The tropes that I hate the most are:- 1. The fetishization of trauma 2. The romanticizing of abusiveness 3. The idea that only ONE person can save the world, even when there is NO PROPHECY or something like that.
@@mischarowe the possibility that multiple characters can save the world is the basis of the book that I'm working on right now. Maybe someday Merphy will review my book😅
Heyo, I've gotten several comments wondering why my "Popular Books I Hate" video was demonetized so I'll just pin it here. Basically, youtube can't put ads on videos that don't follow their guidelines. The guideline I didn't follow was that I was discussing "Sensitive or Controversial topics". Here's a link with more info on what that list encompasses. If you click the category I was flagged for it'll take you to the examples that can't be discussed. support.google.com/youtube/answer/6162278?hl=en It did get a human review and the person deemed it not appropriate for ads. It's unfortunate but what can ya do 🤷♀️
Christopher Rush I agree that it’s lame but it’s not entirely TH-cams fault. I’m sure they’d love to put ads on every single video but the advertisers don’t want to be on videos that are “controversial” because they think people will get the impression that they’re like “sponsoring” the hate. Pretty dumb but they’re the ones with the money lol
Seriously? And how on earth are you supposed to review certain books if you can't discuss "sensitive and controversial issues"? It's not like you're promoting them.
@@marcusgingell3585 I don't think so. From what I've read, Sweet Fanny Adams is derived from the murder of 8 year old Fanny Adams. She was murdered by a baker. Around the time she was murdered, naval rations were changed, the mutton being of worse quality. The seamen joked that it was the remains of Fanny Adams, and over time "Sweet Fanny Adams" came to mean something of bad or no substance.
Also Fanny remained a common name in real life and literature for more than a century afterwards, e.g. Aunt Fanny was a major supporting character in Enid Blyton's "The Famous Five" series, which was published from 1942 onwards.
The thing is I don't know if it is a trope, but it does irritate me every time I see it. Sometimes in a book or series a woman or a girl will go 'I don't want to get married' or 'I don't want kids' or something along those lines. And sometimes, yeah people change their minds on these things. But it does irritate me that when it is said in a book and then that character ends up married or with kids. Some people just genuinely don't want that and I feel like it is important to recognize that in fiction and you know, respect the person that is saying explicitly that they do not want these things. (FYI I don't have an issue with marriage or motherhood, I always feel the need to clarify that.)
@@fuyushitarisou1 it makes sense if you consider it is an algorithm that decides, and YT wants to protect their customers (the companies that pay for ads) and having an commercial connected to a video about bad things, respectful or not, is not what a company wants. Why topics like it get no ads, even if content might be amazing, but Nestlé or Coca-Cola don't want their name associated with mental illness, sexual harassment etc.
I just love that you love Wuthering Heights. It's one of the first books I read in high school that really pulled me in in a lot of ways. It has fundamentally shaped my interest in storytelling.
My most hated trope in fantasy is a prophesy. Unless it's done in a complex way such as in Harry Potter or Mistborn, it ruins a book for me. If destiny is set in stone and the ending is clear, I don't get why you need to tell the story at all in the first place haha
They use prophecy in Percy Jackson but you don't really get the meaning until the end and then it makes sense and that is a lot better than exactly what is gonna happen
Wuthering Heights is probably my favorite classic. I loved that you had these people who got in their own way and couldn’t stop or think outside of societal norms. Loved it.
I liked the Feluda series by Satyajit Ray (Indian Bengali director with an Oscar for lifetime achievement). I've read the first half of the Feluda series, but the way his detective mysteries matured over time, was a treat to my eyes. Feluda stories were published as short stories or serialized novellas in a magazine. It's detective stories set in pre-economic-reform India, told with a movie maker's efficiency. Check out some of his later work, translated masterfully from the original Bengali.
I have read Wuthering Heights a number of times now. I absolutely despise the two main characters and I they had taken a short fatal walk on the moors their universe would have been a better place. I go back to it because the writing is simply spectacular. It was forced reading material at school and I DNF. However I gave it another try as an adult at the behest of a friend and I was just blown away by Bronte's skill as an author and storyteller.
Dragon Flight was very weird and 70s. The very weird "I must feel everything my dragon does as she goes into her mating flight, while a bunch of guys wait around me to see which of their dragons will have sex with my dragon and they with me" will definitely not sit well with everyone. Best to just skip those parts, I think.
@@merphynapier42 There is a book later in the series that focuses exclusively on a boy who hangs out with talking dolphins. That might be more to your liking. There's also Dragon's Dawn, when the original Terran colonists show up on Pern. And later books spend less time focusing on the creepy bits.
I had a somewhat related issue with R A Salvatore and the Drizzt Saga. Broke my heart having to drop that series, but I just could not force myself to read or skip those incredibly problematic chapters....
I enjoy monolithic species too, from time to time. I think for me sometimes there is a kind of comfort in knowing what to expect of a character given where they come from. We as a species like being able to put people in categories, for better or for worse, and fictional monolithic cultures allow us to do that. Dwarves like building things, Daleks like killing things. We can generalise characters as we meet them in this way without taking a step back and going "wait, is that an unfair assumption?".
Fanny = Female Genital Organ (which has expanded from the next example >) & a slang derogatory word for a female. (comes from a serviceman's vocabulary during the 1st & 2nd World Wars, i.e. "im going out to try & get myself a Fany") and the term has developed from there to not just mean a female, but her actual sexual organs. (this could be where the Americans get it from i.e. "im going out to try & get myself some ass (FANY)" it relates to THE FIRST AID NURSING YEOMANRY (FANY) which was created in 1907 as a first aid link between front-line fighting units and the field hospitals. (FANY's {Fanny} = the nurses) During the First World War, FANYs ran field hospitals, drove ambulances and set up soup kitchens and troop canteens, often under highly dangerous conditions. The trope you said you liked about new species with hierarchy and belief systems.... Read Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
Don't feel bad about not liking Martin despite his intricate plotting. It's the fact he made his plot too intricate to write himself out of that is making *him* DNF the series.
Merphy I have been asking this since a long time, can you please watch and review The Dragon Prince? I know you don't really watch TV but I am pretty sure you would love it. Avatar the last airbender's Co- producer and head writer has also played an important role in developing this show . And the voice actor of Sokka also voices Callum ( one of the main characters). There is so much magic and fantasy you would love it. If you are reading this please reply I would like to know your opinions. Also I tried Mistborn trilogy based on your recommendations and I can't be more thankful. It is the only series that comes neck to neck with Six of crows Duology and the Harry Potter series
It is so interesting to me that you loved the Mansfield Park movie more, although they changed the thing - Fanny's character - that you like most about the book! I watched the movie on your recommendation and I see why it can be more appealing than the book, and there are changes that made it more enjoyable for me (in parts!) as well (like Edmund and his feelings towards Fanny) - but wow did it make me angry how they did a complete 180 (okay, maybe like a solid 120) on Fanny! I am more calm now and yes, I get it! I just wish there was a compelling version that did this amazing, complex heroine justice.
@@borbalasz.5237 Merphy was talking about the 1999 movie with Francis O'Connor, I referred to that also. (The 2007 version is a miniseries I believe, which I haven't seen yet.)
If you're open to modern interpretations, I'd recommend giving the youtube series From Mansfield with Love a try. They did a good job with Fanny's character (they renamed her Frankie, because yeah, modern slang), open with herself, shy around other people and also adapted/changed some of the more unsatisfactory elements of the book really well.
The director didn't like Fanny, so she changed her, basically made her into the witty, spunky Jane Austen herself. Until they make a film where Fanny is allowed to be the timid but quietly strong survivor she is in the book, I'm not interested.
Ok now I just want to jump on the bandwagon even if I'm not a booktuber! Love these kinds of videos! :D I skipped a few of them, as I don't read books with love triangles and I couldn't think about tropes I see often and hate. Probably because I've mostly read Classics and they rarely are repetitive... 1. A Popular Book or series that you didn't like: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (I also have a spoiler-filled review on Goodreads as why it is the case), though the prose was beautiful. 2. A Popular Book or series that every one else seems to hate but you love: My favourite books are all well-loved, but I'll say Allegiant, the last book of the Divergent series. I know Merphy didn't like it. I was 18 when I read it, so I might change my mind on a reread, but I remember loving it. PS: I didn't love Wuthering Heights, but I did like it! I gave it 3 stars. 4. Fantasy and sci-fi (I know, what am I doing here? xD But I'll read Gentleman Bastard, I'm sure I'll love it!). 5. A popular or beloved character that you do not like: Dr. Frankenstein and his monster... ^^'' 6. A popular author that you can't seem to get into: I tried Brandon Sanderson's Stomlight Archive, and his writing style didn't grip me at all. I only read the prelude (?) and the two first chapters. I didn't like the fact that I didn't know at all what we were talking about, all these terms didn't mean a thing to me. It's a 1000-page book and if I'm not into the writing style... It felt very overwhelming. :'( 8. A popular series that you have no interest in reading: Game of Thrones as well! 9. What movie or T.V. show adaptation do you prefer more than the book? A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It's a popular children's book that I've read, but I've definitely loved much more the 1995 movie directed by Alfonso Cuarón.
You should try The Emperor's Soul by Sanderson. It's a novella, so it's not a big commitment, but it's some of his best writing. Stormlight is excellent, but it's a hard place to start. Another option is Warbreaker, if you want something a bit more substantial. It's a standalone book (at least for now) and free on his website. www.brandonsanderson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Warbreaker_hardcover_1st_ed.pdf
So I started reading Lovecraft to see how racist he was and... now he's one of my favorite authors. I understand why people don't like his use of certain terms to describe people of my skin tone, but on the other hand, it seems like that aspect of his writing overshadows his amazing prose, expansive vocabulary, and themes (my favorite being how many of his characters are affected by the actions of their ancestors). Many know Lovecraft for his Cthulhu mythos and creation of cosmic horror, but those facts seem to overshadow other aspects of his work that make him a great author like his comedic timing which I find best displayed in Sweet Ermengarde (It's a got a love triangle so you know it's good ; ) ).
I love that take--I haven't been a huge fan of his writing, but I haven't read a lot either. I think it's useful to understand why someone's views are controversial, but it isn't a crime to enjoy the art they've produced. Sometimes they actually make statements that help other people learn, and it's the opposite of the intent. It can be important to not support them if they are actively funding something distasteful, but that is less of an issue if they're dead.
Yeah it’s a complex thing to confront with someone like him. At his core, Lovecraft is violently terrified of what he doesn’t understand. On one side of the coin, his flaws could be channeled into great art about that exact terror of the unknown. On the other side of the coin, it makes him into a cruel hateful man. I always thought that the conversation about “separating the art from the artist” fell short, what we should actually do is simply contextualize and understand the art and the factors that surrounded it. We can’t deify individual artists, they’re just tiny humans like the rest of us, common and of equal value. But we also shouldn’t crucify them (particularly when they’re dead anyway), because that only serves to make us FEEL like we’re undoing their wrongs, it’s a hollow self-gratifying gesture. Best we can do is enjoy what we find beautiful, figure out what we don’t, and use any lessons learned from flawed past work as a means to make our present and future better.
I really appreciate how preeminent Lovecraft scholar and biographer (and POC) S.T. Joshi basically says, yeah he was a racist but will defend the value of his work on its own merits.
For the last q I would say the princess diaries. The films are my all time favourite but the books were awful imo. The same with the vampire diaries which had a good TV show
I agree with you about Mansfield Park. Fanny is one of my favourites. I always related to her. That being said the book is like 300 and something pages of her just being stepped on and it's kind of frustrating to read.
thank you for talking about your dyslexia.i have it to and i also find that graphic novels/comics,mix media thing take way more effort to read and are more draining
I knew sooner or later you'd mention that you wouldn't continue ASOIAF. I'm sad because it's one of my favourite series ever, but I can understand. I agree on the Katniss love triangle, though, and I think my reply to number 4 would be similar to yours.
Still reading A Song of Ice and Fire: A Storm of Swords. Absolutely love it, though there's some characters and chapters I hate. I love the writing style. But I'm not gonna get mad just because someone else doesn't enjoy it or doesn't enjoy the writing style. The books are too long to get into it anyway just for the story.
You just opened my eyes completely. I've not been able to finish Illuminae even though I've liked the ideas in it... Well, I have dyslexia too and I've never thought it's because of that. Hah! I honestly stared at the screen for a moment with my mouth open. It's extra hard for me to finish it too because it constantly changes its format. I can't follow it and I mainly just procrastinate reading it. Ugh! Thank you for making me see why. :D
I’ve had a rough couple of weeks and found your channel one night. Been watching a lot of your content ever since, and I love your work! Thanks for getting my minds of things! I’m also reading Kings of the wyld right now, which I like it alot actually. I read the broken empire before Kotw so it was a breath of freash air. Also, greetings from Norway!
Liking more the movie than the book is rare. Have you read the Neapolitan Novels from Elena Ferrante? I love this books and the way they are written. I absolutly recommend it. But somehow i like more the TV serie they made based on the books. They respected the books (well, there are allways things) and took all the best narrations and dialogs in it and also did an amazing job bringing the characteres and scenarios. The actors are amazing and with the final product they really added some value.
Im not sure if its in the books but the amount of times they say "Bend the knee" In Game of Thrones drove me crazy. And I like the show(until it imploded on itself) This is what I immediately thought about when you talked about George being repetitive. P.S. Love the videos!
Enid Blyton was still writing a prominent secondary character called Fanny into the 1960s I think we're quite good at ignoring the slang meaning. Like with a Richard being nicknamed Dick. Also, I've probably recommended this before but Rivers of London are urban fantasy mystery novels. Most of the time, the solution to the mystery is a fantasy creature, so it's not just magic as incidental to the mystery. Also, while they're set in modern London, they're not grim. And most of them end in a realistically happy way.
An addition to your "what movie is better than the book" question, Shutter Island and Mystic River both for me because they showed me a "twist" I missed in the books.
I'm not a fan of the mystery genre either, with the exception of the Nero Wolfe novels by Rex Stout. They're quite fun, and you can always watch an episode of the A&E series starring Timothy Hutton and Maury Chaykin if you don't want to commit to a book.
I actually have Pern in my TBR, mainly bcuz I just already have it for some reason. Read your Goodreads review for it. I'll still read it out of curiosity. And can I say I love your outro song?? It's so nice I'd listen to a full version of it.
I love Jane Austen too, but I agree with the answer you gave about Mansfield Park (it's also my least favorite book of hers). The movie added layers the book just didn't have.
Wuthering Heights...it was popular back in the school and college days long ago, so after people taking about it, I decided to give it a go. I found it a difficult read, couldn't get through it. Which was fine until people decided to quiz me on it, so I had to make the answers. It worked as they quickly stopped talking about it
I adore the Dragonriders of Pern series, but there's a reason why I often skip Dragonflight when I reread the series. McCaffrey writes some wonderful, romantic, healthy relationships, but sadly not in Dragonflight! My favourite relationship is in The Skies of Pern.
Well I really disagree with what you said about Song of Ice and Fire, but I definitely appreciate what you said about the brilliance of his plot and character work. Truly a masterpiece in my opinion.
Took a break to go check out your review of Dragonflight, and um 🤯😧 what is even going ON with some of those comments. 🤦🏼♀️ The internet is a weird place.
I read Mansfield Park last month and then the chapter about it in Helena Kelly's book Jane Austen: the Secret Radical and the chapter completely changed my viewpoint of the book - Helena says it's actually about the church and slavery.... I still gave it 3.5 stars (i think it suffered from some pacing issues), but I think I will definitely need to reread it before too long knowing what I know now. And I agree with you, Fanny is awesome. (And i'm British, back in the day Fanny did not mean what it does now, but i think it was quite a popular name!)
i think resurrections can be done well if there is a price paid for the resurrection. Ex: the person preforming it gives up part or all of their life. Or the person comes back changed, a little or a lot. if it is just a (because a wizard did it) then yeah it is bad.
Give 'Wives and Daughters' by Elizabeth Gaskell a try. The story in the book is good, but not engaging in how it's written. The BBC mini series on the other hand is absolutely wonderful 💕 Same goes for 'Cranford' by the same author: the book is sort of boring, but the mini series is brilliant.
If I remember correctly it's my least favorite set in that universe, which makes sense because it was the first. The world and the characters all get much better developed in subsequent books.
I really hate repetitive writing as well! I often think I point it out too much when I beta read or critique partner with someone. Like, add to the description to flesh it out more already.
Hi Merphy! I just recently got into your channel because of your Harry Potter and ATLA/LOK vids. I was watching your ATLA graphic novel vids, and you commented that they are very expensive. They are, but I recently found that you can get them through Kindle Unlimited, which is something like $8/month. You don't get the author comments like you do with the physical volumes, but you do still get all of the awesome world-building. I figured that you might want to give it a shout-out on your next ATLA themed vid so that your fans might be able to get them for cheap.
Mansfield Park and persuasion are two of my favorite Austen Books. I recently wanted to listen to them, and spent $100 buying the complete collection of her audiobooks just so I could have them. There is something about Fanny that I just adore. It might be the way she sticks to her guns and her morals, well-being soft-spoken and gentle.
i 100% agree with Dragonriders of Pera. it's sad how people got so defensive and gave you such a hard time you feel you can't say anything about it. the relationship is terribly abusive and the story, while it's alright for a mindless escape to wind down, it's not very entertaining or satisfying.
One of the most famous cookbooks in American history was authored by a woman named Fannie Farmer; the Fannie Farmer Cookbook remains fairly popular even today, though with changed recipes over time/editions. (She was born in 1857 and died in 1915.)
I rarely dnf books and especially didn't expect it from one that Brandon Sanderson said he loves, but the same stuff that bothered you made me give up pretty early in to Dragonflight. I've read books with some of the same elements, but something about the way it was presented really turned me off.
I'd like to say I can't believe you got hate over not liking Dragonflight, but I can believe it. You're reasons for not liking it are valid and the reason I've not gone back to Pern in almost two decades.
This video contains two spoilers about the character Matrim Cauthon from the Wheel of Time series, so be careful before watching! I have been avoiding spoilers about WoT like the plague, so it was quite disappoiting to find out a) whether or not Mat is alive when a certain thing happens and b) some personal thing about him. I like you the best, Merphy, so please don’t see this as hate, more like a headsup for viewers!
I agree about Matrim. I don't like him not because of womanizing(I skipped after the first book so I didn't get to that) but because of everything else. I don't even remember why exactly, lol.
Did you watch Emma 2020? I love Jane Austen too, I think she is a underappreciated genius but actually think the movie did a great job at focusing and condensing the story and characters (and fiing the age different between the main pair), and it nailed the humor that I'm sure Austen would have appreciated and the cinematography was beautiful.
I also prefer the Sense and Sensibility film with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet to the book! I very much enjoyed the book, but tone-wise, I found her ending rather abrupt and anticlimactic. For me, the film had a much more satisfying ending 🙂
I'm one of the few people who like quiet characters more than the headstrong ones. Ani from the Goose Girl is my favorite protagonist. I don't know why, but it seems that a great portion of protagonists I've read about are too intense for my taste(except for Spensa) 😂 Unpopular opinion here I guess.
I feel like I'll forgive any Austen or Brönte book for any feeling as long as the main heroine is compelling. Thus I love Mansfield Park but was livid about Wuthering heights... I'll try to read it as a tragedy, but it's so hard. I want it to be another Jane Eyre, which is unfair and a little silly because obviously that's not a healthy relationship either, but still!
If we want to talk about movies that were better than the book, let me tell you about Ready Player One. The entire book felt like a movie script. As I was reading, I could practically see the "cut here" lines during certain scenes that just felt like padding. I'm glad they cut out most of Daito and Sho's stuff. They were generic, shallow, stereotypical, and uninspired characters, whose only traits were "brothers" and "honor". The action, the racing scene, the battles, the entire time I was reading them, I kept thinking "this would be way cooler on the big screen". Shocker, it was! The writing wasn't even that good, and the story wasn't that deep to begin with. But is was fun as hell.
With regards to mystery/detective/crime novels, I totally recommend In A Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes. Like holy shit, that book is crazy creepy. But also it really does a fantastic job of criticizing and portraying the inherent hypocrisy that accompanies misogyny. 10/10 recommend. The 1946 film is excellent as well, perhaps even better than the book.
I had to read Wuthering Heights in school. I expected to hate it, and it wasn't really my cup of tea, but I found it reasonably interesting up until the end. I despise the ending, it felt too...nice, i guess. For me, the tone just didn't fit. It felt like it was tacked on by the publisher to make the book softer or more marketable.
If I had known in high school what it was originally marketed as and had a chance to read it without all my friends naming it amongst their favorites, I might have been able to love it... or at least stomach it.
Every classic is a classic for a reason of course, but classics in general get a lot of hate and criticism because of the pedestal they’re place on. So it’s pretty uncommon to hear someone say they actually love a certain classic genuinely (and not just to be pretentious).
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The tropes that I hate the most are:-
1. The fetishization of trauma
2. The romanticizing of abusiveness
3. The idea that only ONE person can save the world, even when there is NO PROPHECY or something like that.
I LOVE when the world is saved by multiple characters. :)
@@mischarowe the possibility that multiple characters can save the world is the basis of the book that I'm working on right now. Maybe someday Merphy will review my book😅
But the last ones done very well in Avatar the Last Airbender
@@sarcasticeggs8998 Lol. I was thinking the same thing. I'm currently drafting a book that falls under that category.
Good luck!😉👍
It would be fun to like don quixtino (sorry) no.3 like they think they are the only one and the chaos they cause
I'm bored so I shall share a joke with you guys.
"What does a house wear?"
"Address"
nice one
xD In Germany we would say: Raise your feet, this one comes flat
Nice
someone listening to B96 this morning?
@@hartsbane nah bro read it somewhere long time ago
Heyo, I've gotten several comments wondering why my "Popular Books I Hate" video was demonetized so I'll just pin it here. Basically, youtube can't put ads on videos that don't follow their guidelines. The guideline I didn't follow was that I was discussing "Sensitive or Controversial topics". Here's a link with more info on what that list encompasses. If you click the category I was flagged for it'll take you to the examples that can't be discussed. support.google.com/youtube/answer/6162278?hl=en
It did get a human review and the person deemed it not appropriate for ads. It's unfortunate but what can ya do 🤷♀️
Wow.... that's super lame of TH-cam. At least you got human eyes on the video... most people don't get that.
Still sucks, though.
Christopher Rush I agree that it’s lame but it’s not entirely TH-cams fault. I’m sure they’d love to put ads on every single video but the advertisers don’t want to be on videos that are “controversial” because they think people will get the impression that they’re like “sponsoring” the hate. Pretty dumb but they’re the ones with the money lol
Seriously? And how on earth are you supposed to review certain books if you can't discuss "sensitive and controversial issues"? It's not like you're promoting them.
Of all the things TH-cam allows, a book review was to controversial? Wow
Do you get any credit from people with TH-cam Premium watching if it's been demonitized?
“I have a whole video about this that TH-cam demonetized and, well, I don’t blame them.” No that video was amazing and TH-cam is dumb.
i remember someone critisizing an television series for the Awful cgi effects that it got taken by the network that owned it
Fanny didn't come to mean vagina until around 1830, so Fanny was just the name at the point the book was written, being short for Frances.
LiveHedgehog do you know if it came from the saying: sweet fanny Adams?
@@marcusgingell3585 I don't think so. From what I've read, Sweet Fanny Adams is derived from the murder of 8 year old Fanny Adams. She was murdered by a baker. Around the time she was murdered, naval rations were changed, the mutton being of worse quality. The seamen joked that it was the remains of Fanny Adams, and over time "Sweet Fanny Adams" came to mean something of bad or no substance.
LiveHedgehog yeah you know your stuff.
Also Fanny remained a common name in real life and literature for more than a century afterwards, e.g. Aunt Fanny was a major supporting character in Enid Blyton's "The Famous Five" series, which was published from 1942 onwards.
And here I was all this time thinking it meant rear end.
The thing is I don't know if it is a trope, but it does irritate me every time I see it. Sometimes in a book or series a woman or a girl will go 'I don't want to get married' or 'I don't want kids' or something along those lines. And sometimes, yeah people change their minds on these things. But it does irritate me that when it is said in a book and then that character ends up married or with kids. Some people just genuinely don't want that and I feel like it is important to recognize that in fiction and you know, respect the person that is saying explicitly that they do not want these things. (FYI I don't have an issue with marriage or motherhood, I always feel the need to clarify that.)
"I hate repetitive writing."
"I finished WoT."
These two statements do not compute
I assure you I complained A LOT about the repetitive writing in WOT too
@@merphynapier42 yeah but what makes ASOIAF so special???
that's funny that you got demonitised for doing critisism
I think it’s because she mentioned r*pe etc. and TH-cam doesn’t like that
aberdeen lol logan filmed a dead body but he didn’t see any repercussions. goes to show where TH-cam’s priorities stand 😃
@@aberdeen0107 which is stupid, because she did it in a respective way, she did not gorify it in anyway. So it really did not make any sense
@@fuyushitarisou1 it makes sense if you consider it is an algorithm that decides, and YT wants to protect their customers (the companies that pay for ads) and having an commercial connected to a video about bad things, respectful or not, is not what a company wants.
Why topics like it get no ads, even if content might be amazing, but Nestlé or Coca-Cola don't want their name associated with mental illness, sexual harassment etc.
radioactivestardust yes I know but that’s not how advertisers think
People need to stop hating on each other for having different opinions and tastes. It drives me crazy.
Thank you
So much of ASOIAF is descriptions of what people are eating! GRRM loves writing about food and that just makes me hungry
I just love that you love Wuthering Heights. It's one of the first books I read in high school that really pulled me in in a lot of ways. It has fundamentally shaped my interest in storytelling.
My most hated trope in fantasy is a prophesy. Unless it's done in a complex way such as in Harry Potter or Mistborn, it ruins a book for me. If destiny is set in stone and the ending is clear, I don't get why you need to tell the story at all in the first place haha
They use prophecy in Percy Jackson but you don't really get the meaning until the end and then it makes sense and that is a lot better than exactly what is gonna happen
miss merphy, you gave us what we wanted!!! keep it up!!!
Wuthering Heights was in our country's English syllabus for 10th Grade and i loved it.
And you have only three fingers in your thumbnail, Merphy. 😆
Merphy , you are truly awsome . U make my quarantine much better
waiting for a dear author vedio
That hmmmmm when you talked about the Wheel of Time character was priceless 😂😂😂
I wasn't a fan of Dragonflight either, didn't even finish it, which was a shame because I was hoping to like it as much as everyone else.
Wuthering Heights is probably my favorite classic. I loved that you had these people who got in their own way and couldn’t stop or think outside of societal norms. Loved it.
I liked the Feluda series by Satyajit Ray (Indian Bengali director with an Oscar for lifetime achievement). I've read the first half of the Feluda series, but the way his detective mysteries matured over time, was a treat to my eyes.
Feluda stories were published as short stories or serialized novellas in a magazine. It's detective stories set in pre-economic-reform India, told with a movie maker's efficiency. Check out some of his later work, translated masterfully from the original Bengali.
I have read Wuthering Heights a number of times now. I absolutely despise the two main characters and I they had taken a short fatal walk on the moors their universe would have been a better place. I go back to it because the writing is simply spectacular. It was forced reading material at school and I DNF. However I gave it another try as an adult at the behest of a friend and I was just blown away by Bronte's skill as an author and storyteller.
Princess Bride the movie did it better, though I still love the book!
Dragon Flight was very weird and 70s. The very weird "I must feel everything my dragon does as she goes into her mating flight, while a bunch of guys wait around me to see which of their dragons will have sex with my dragon and they with me" will definitely not sit well with everyone. Best to just skip those parts, I think.
you summed it up well
@@merphynapier42 There is a book later in the series that focuses exclusively on a boy who hangs out with talking dolphins. That might be more to your liking. There's also Dragon's Dawn, when the original Terran colonists show up on Pern. And later books spend less time focusing on the creepy bits.
I had a somewhat related issue with R A Salvatore and the Drizzt Saga. Broke my heart having to drop that series, but I just could not force myself to read or skip those incredibly problematic chapters....
I enjoy monolithic species too, from time to time. I think for me sometimes there is a kind of comfort in knowing what to expect of a character given where they come from.
We as a species like being able to put people in categories, for better or for worse, and fictional monolithic cultures allow us to do that. Dwarves like building things, Daleks like killing things. We can generalise characters as we meet them in this way without taking a step back and going "wait, is that an unfair assumption?".
I love Wuthering Heights so much! It's one of my favorite classics
I remember reading Wuthering Heights so "scared" of hating it, and ended up really enjoying it!
Fanny = Female Genital Organ (which has expanded from the next example >) & a slang derogatory word for a female.
(comes from a serviceman's vocabulary during the 1st & 2nd World Wars, i.e. "im going out to try & get myself a Fany")
and the term has developed from there to not just mean a female, but her actual sexual organs.
(this could be where the Americans get it from i.e. "im going out to try & get myself some ass (FANY)"
it relates to THE FIRST AID NURSING YEOMANRY (FANY) which was created in 1907 as a first aid link between front-line fighting units and the field hospitals. (FANY's {Fanny} = the nurses)
During the First World War, FANYs ran field hospitals, drove ambulances and set up soup kitchens and troop canteens, often under highly dangerous conditions.
The trope you said you liked about new species with hierarchy and belief systems.... Read Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
Don't feel bad about not liking Martin despite his intricate plotting.
It's the fact he made his plot too intricate to write himself out of that is making *him* DNF the series.
Merphy I have been asking this since a long time, can you please watch and review The Dragon Prince? I know you don't really watch TV but I am pretty sure you would love it. Avatar the last airbender's Co- producer and head writer has also played an important role in developing this show . And the voice actor of Sokka also voices Callum ( one of the main characters). There is so much magic and fantasy you would love it. If you are reading this please reply I would like to know your opinions.
Also I tried Mistborn trilogy based on your recommendations and I can't be more thankful. It is the only series that comes neck to neck with Six of crows Duology and the Harry Potter series
It is so interesting to me that you loved the Mansfield Park movie more, although they changed the thing - Fanny's character - that you like most about the book! I watched the movie on your recommendation and I see why it can be more appealing than the book, and there are changes that made it more enjoyable for me (in parts!) as well (like Edmund and his feelings towards Fanny) - but wow did it make me angry how they did a complete 180 (okay, maybe like a solid 120) on Fanny!
I am more calm now and yes, I get it! I just wish there was a compelling version that did this amazing, complex heroine justice.
@@borbalasz.5237 Merphy was talking about the 1999 movie with Francis O'Connor, I referred to that also. (The 2007 version is a miniseries I believe, which I haven't seen yet.)
If you're open to modern interpretations, I'd recommend giving the youtube series From Mansfield with Love a try. They did a good job with Fanny's character (they renamed her Frankie, because yeah, modern slang), open with herself, shy around other people and also adapted/changed some of the more unsatisfactory elements of the book really well.
The director didn't like Fanny, so she changed her, basically made her into the witty, spunky Jane Austen herself. Until they make a film where Fanny is allowed to be the timid but quietly strong survivor she is in the book, I'm not interested.
Ok now I just want to jump on the bandwagon even if I'm not a booktuber! Love these kinds of videos! :D I skipped a few of them, as I don't read books with love triangles and I couldn't think about tropes I see often and hate. Probably because I've mostly read Classics and they rarely are repetitive...
1. A Popular Book or series that you didn't like: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (I also have a spoiler-filled review on Goodreads as why it is the case), though the prose was beautiful.
2. A Popular Book or series that every one else seems to hate but you love: My favourite books are all well-loved, but I'll say Allegiant, the last book of the Divergent series. I know Merphy didn't like it. I was 18 when I read it, so I might change my mind on a reread, but I remember loving it.
PS: I didn't love Wuthering Heights, but I did like it! I gave it 3 stars.
4. Fantasy and sci-fi (I know, what am I doing here? xD But I'll read Gentleman Bastard, I'm sure I'll love it!).
5. A popular or beloved character that you do not like:
Dr. Frankenstein and his monster... ^^''
6. A popular author that you can't seem to get into: I tried Brandon Sanderson's Stomlight Archive, and his writing style didn't grip me at all. I only read the prelude (?) and the two first chapters. I didn't like the fact that I didn't know at all what we were talking about, all these terms didn't mean a thing to me. It's a 1000-page book and if I'm not into the writing style... It felt very overwhelming. :'(
8. A popular series that you have no interest in reading: Game of Thrones as well!
9. What movie or T.V. show adaptation do you prefer more than the book?
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It's a popular children's book that I've read, but I've definitely loved much more the 1995 movie directed by Alfonso Cuarón.
You should try The Emperor's Soul by Sanderson. It's a novella, so it's not a big commitment, but it's some of his best writing. Stormlight is excellent, but it's a hard place to start. Another option is Warbreaker, if you want something a bit more substantial. It's a standalone book (at least for now) and free on his website.
www.brandonsanderson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Warbreaker_hardcover_1st_ed.pdf
@@stevemarethyu3003 Thank you very much, I'm intrigued! :)
I just bought "The lies of locke lamora" per your recommendations and am excited to read it!
Now I really want to read Wuthering Heights. It’s that one book I never cared to pick up..till now
Because it’s always sold as a love story!
you should!!! it's absolutely much better if you don't approach it with the expectation of a love story
So I started reading Lovecraft to see how racist he was and... now he's one of my favorite authors. I understand why people don't like his use of certain terms to describe people of my skin tone, but on the other hand, it seems like that aspect of his writing overshadows his amazing prose, expansive vocabulary, and themes (my favorite being how many of his characters are affected by the actions of their ancestors).
Many know Lovecraft for his Cthulhu mythos and creation of cosmic horror, but those facts seem to overshadow other aspects of his work that make him a great author like his comedic timing which I find best displayed in Sweet Ermengarde (It's a got a love triangle so you know it's good ; ) ).
I love that take--I haven't been a huge fan of his writing, but I haven't read a lot either. I think it's useful to understand why someone's views are controversial, but it isn't a crime to enjoy the art they've produced. Sometimes they actually make statements that help other people learn, and it's the opposite of the intent. It can be important to not support them if they are actively funding something distasteful, but that is less of an issue if they're dead.
Yeah it’s a complex thing to confront with someone like him. At his core, Lovecraft is violently terrified of what he doesn’t understand. On one side of the coin, his flaws could be channeled into great art about that exact terror of the unknown. On the other side of the coin, it makes him into a cruel hateful man. I always thought that the conversation about “separating the art from the artist” fell short, what we should actually do is simply contextualize and understand the art and the factors that surrounded it. We can’t deify individual artists, they’re just tiny humans like the rest of us, common and of equal value. But we also shouldn’t crucify them (particularly when they’re dead anyway), because that only serves to make us FEEL like we’re undoing their wrongs, it’s a hollow self-gratifying gesture. Best we can do is enjoy what we find beautiful, figure out what we don’t, and use any lessons learned from flawed past work as a means to make our present and future better.
DownUFO dare I say 🙊 CS Lewis should be a more controversial figure than Lovecraft
I really appreciate how preeminent Lovecraft scholar and biographer (and POC) S.T. Joshi basically says, yeah he was a racist but will defend the value of his work on its own merits.
For the last q I would say the princess diaries. The films are my all time favourite but the books were awful imo. The same with the vampire diaries which had a good TV show
I agree with you about Mansfield Park. Fanny is one of my favourites. I always related to her. That being said the book is like 300 and something pages of her just being stepped on and it's kind of frustrating to read.
Wuthering Heights is one of my favorite books ever -- I own 13 copies. Love it
how have we never talked about this????? It's so good
this tag deserves some new questions
thank you for talking about your dyslexia.i have it to and i also find that graphic novels/comics,mix media thing take way more effort to read and are more draining
I knew sooner or later you'd mention that you wouldn't continue ASOIAF. I'm sad because it's one of my favourite series ever, but I can understand. I agree on the Katniss love triangle, though, and I think my reply to number 4 would be similar to yours.
Still reading A Song of Ice and Fire: A Storm of Swords. Absolutely love it, though there's some characters and chapters I hate. I love the writing style. But I'm not gonna get mad just because someone else doesn't enjoy it or doesn't enjoy the writing style.
The books are too long to get into it anyway just for the story.
You just opened my eyes completely. I've not been able to finish Illuminae even though I've liked the ideas in it... Well, I have dyslexia too and I've never thought it's because of that. Hah! I honestly stared at the screen for a moment with my mouth open. It's extra hard for me to finish it too because it constantly changes its format. I can't follow it and I mainly just procrastinate reading it. Ugh! Thank you for making me see why. :D
That’s odd, it seems like a lot of Booktubers I follow/like are dislexic
I’ve had a rough couple of weeks and found your channel one night. Been watching a lot of your content ever since, and I love your work! Thanks for getting my minds of things! I’m also reading Kings of the wyld right now, which I like it alot actually. I read the broken empire before Kotw so it was a breath of freash air. Also, greetings from Norway!
Liking more the movie than the book is rare. Have you read the Neapolitan Novels from Elena Ferrante? I love this books and the way they are written. I absolutly recommend it. But somehow i like more the TV serie they made based on the books. They respected the books (well, there are allways things) and took all the best narrations and dialogs in it and also did an amazing job bringing the characteres and scenarios. The actors are amazing and with the final product they really added some value.
Im not sure if its in the books but the amount of times they say "Bend the knee" In Game of Thrones drove me crazy. And I like the show(until it imploded on itself) This is what I immediately thought about when you talked about George being repetitive. P.S. Love the videos!
Enid Blyton was still writing a prominent secondary character called Fanny into the 1960s
I think we're quite good at ignoring the slang meaning. Like with a Richard being nicknamed Dick.
Also, I've probably recommended this before but Rivers of London are urban fantasy mystery novels. Most of the time, the solution to the mystery is a fantasy creature, so it's not just magic as incidental to the mystery.
Also, while they're set in modern London, they're not grim. And most of them end in a realistically happy way.
your rant videos are my favourite aha
An addition to your "what movie is better than the book" question, Shutter Island and Mystic River both for me because they showed me a "twist" I missed in the books.
Hey Merphy, can you please do a dnd campaign video? We'd love to hear about what you guys play
I love Wuthering Heights. People expect it to be a romance which I think is why most end up hating it.
I’m currently reading WoT book 1 and wow..... I really hope Mat gets rid of that dagger soon lol.
I get how repetitive the lost princess trope gets..........but boy do I freaking LOVE the Lunar Chronicles
FANNY IS LITERALLY MY FAV. The most relatable.
I'm not a fan of the mystery genre either, with the exception of the Nero Wolfe novels by Rex Stout. They're quite fun, and you can always watch an episode of the A&E series starring Timothy Hutton and Maury Chaykin if you don't want to commit to a book.
I actually have Pern in my TBR, mainly bcuz I just already have it for some reason. Read your Goodreads review for it. I'll still read it out of curiosity. And can I say I love your outro song?? It's so nice I'd listen to a full version of it.
I did check out your goodreads review for that dragon book...😳 I can't believe someone actually typed out those comments.
I love Jane Austen too, but I agree with the answer you gave about Mansfield Park (it's also my least favorite book of hers). The movie added layers the book just didn't have.
‘I hate repetitive writing styles,’ tugs on braid
Wuthering Heights...it was popular back in the school and college days long ago, so after people taking about it, I decided to give it a go. I found it a difficult read, couldn't get through it. Which was fine until people decided to quiz me on it, so I had to make the answers. It worked as they quickly stopped talking about it
I adore the Dragonriders of Pern series, but there's a reason why I often skip Dragonflight when I reread the series. McCaffrey writes some wonderful, romantic, healthy relationships, but sadly not in Dragonflight! My favourite relationship is in The Skies of Pern.
Well I really disagree with what you said about Song of Ice and Fire, but I definitely appreciate what you said about the brilliance of his plot and character work. Truly a masterpiece in my opinion.
Took a break to go check out your review of Dragonflight, and um 🤯😧 what is even going ON with some of those comments. 🤦🏼♀️
The internet is a weird place.
I read Mansfield Park last month and then the chapter about it in Helena Kelly's book Jane Austen: the Secret Radical and the chapter completely changed my viewpoint of the book - Helena says it's actually about the church and slavery.... I still gave it 3.5 stars (i think it suffered from some pacing issues), but I think I will definitely need to reread it before too long knowing what I know now. And I agree with you, Fanny is awesome. (And i'm British, back in the day Fanny did not mean what it does now, but i think it was quite a popular name!)
i think resurrections can be done well if there is a price paid for the resurrection. Ex: the person preforming it gives up part or all of their life. Or the person comes back changed, a little or a lot. if it is just a (because a wizard did it) then yeah it is bad.
Give 'Wives and Daughters' by Elizabeth Gaskell a try. The story in the book is good, but not engaging in how it's written. The BBC mini series on the other hand is absolutely wonderful 💕 Same goes for 'Cranford' by the same author: the book is sort of boring, but the mini series is brilliant.
"Dragonflight is one of the best fantasy books of all time!' -Brandon Sanderson
Merph: *pathetic*
If I remember correctly it's my least favorite set in that universe, which makes sense because it was the first. The world and the characters all get much better developed in subsequent books.
I really hate repetitive writing as well! I often think I point it out too much when I beta read or critique partner with someone. Like, add to the description to flesh it out more already.
Hi Merphy! I just recently got into your channel because of your Harry Potter and ATLA/LOK vids. I was watching your ATLA graphic novel vids, and you commented that they are very expensive. They are, but I recently found that you can get them through Kindle Unlimited, which is something like $8/month. You don't get the author comments like you do with the physical volumes, but you do still get all of the awesome world-building. I figured that you might want to give it a shout-out on your next ATLA themed vid so that your fans might be able to get them for cheap.
Dear lord I'm not alone in not loving Matt! Thank you for that.
Mansfield Park and persuasion are two of my favorite Austen Books. I recently wanted to listen to them, and spent $100 buying the complete collection of her audiobooks just so I could have them.
There is something about Fanny that I just adore. It might be the way she sticks to her guns and her morals, well-being soft-spoken and gentle.
This was interesting. Have not heard of those books before. Great video!
I also LOVE The First Law series. Sand Dan Glokta is one of my favorite characters of all time. :)
"The kingth tactheth!" Lol
merphy, you are so bad for my sleeping schedule because I always see ur videos at 11.30 when im just getting ready for bed!!! never change love u
I always wondered which were the white books at your left! 😂 A Jane Austen collection!
Merphy !!!!! I bought the gentleman bastard series very excited to start it
i 100% agree with Dragonriders of Pera. it's sad how people got so defensive and gave you such a hard time you feel you can't say anything about it.
the relationship is terribly abusive and the story, while it's alright for a mindless escape to wind down, it's not very entertaining or satisfying.
One of the most famous cookbooks in American history was authored by a woman named Fannie Farmer; the Fannie Farmer Cookbook remains fairly popular even today, though with changed recipes over time/editions. (She was born in 1857 and died in 1915.)
I rarely dnf books and especially didn't expect it from one that Brandon Sanderson said he loves, but the same stuff that bothered you made me give up pretty early in to Dragonflight. I've read books with some of the same elements, but something about the way it was presented really turned me off.
The Harper Hall trilogy is much superior, in my opinion. I remember the White Dragon being the best book in the Original trilogy as well.
Like Lord of the Rings, this series took me several attempts to get started. Then suddenly I'm 17 books in and enjoyed it quite a lot.
The Illuminae audiobook was really well done!
I'd like to say I can't believe you got hate over not liking Dragonflight, but I can believe it.
You're reasons for not liking it are valid and the reason I've not gone back to Pern in almost two decades.
I was literally wishing I could see this tag make a comeback yesterday and then BOOM! It happened XD
This video contains two spoilers about the character Matrim Cauthon from the Wheel of Time series, so be careful before watching! I have been avoiding spoilers about WoT like the plague, so it was quite disappoiting to find out a) whether or not Mat is alive when a certain thing happens and b) some personal thing about him. I like you the best, Merphy, so please don’t see this as hate, more like a headsup for viewers!
I DNF'ed the Dragons of Pern series too. I found it overly focused on world building, and couldn't connect to the characters
Yaaaaaaaaaaaasssssss I love Wuthering Heights. I've got three copies. Four, if you include the graphic novel.
It's funny to me because I'm obsessed with murder mysteries, and overall it seemed I shared your opinions about almost everything else lmao
I'm with you. I loved Wuthering Heights too.
I agree about Matrim. I don't like him not because of womanizing(I skipped after the first book so I didn't get to that) but because of everything else. I don't even remember why exactly, lol.
Oh to each his own... but disliking A Song of Ice and Fire .... ouch :)
Did you watch Emma 2020?
I love Jane Austen too, I think she is a underappreciated genius but actually think the movie did a great job at focusing and condensing the story and characters (and fiing the age different between the main pair), and it nailed the humor that I'm sure Austen would have appreciated and the cinematography was beautiful.
No entiendo por qué tanto odio hacia Cumbres borrascosas si es genial ❣️
Amo tus vídeos ❣️
I also prefer the Sense and Sensibility film with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet to the book! I very much enjoyed the book, but tone-wise, I found her ending rather abrupt and anticlimactic. For me, the film had a much more satisfying ending 🙂
I'm one of the few people who like quiet characters more than the headstrong ones. Ani from the Goose Girl is my favorite protagonist.
I don't know why, but it seems that a great portion of protagonists I've read about are too intense for my taste(except for Spensa) 😂 Unpopular opinion here I guess.
I feel like I'll forgive any Austen or Brönte book for any feeling as long as the main heroine is compelling. Thus I love Mansfield Park but was livid about Wuthering heights... I'll try to read it as a tragedy, but it's so hard. I want it to be another Jane Eyre, which is unfair and a little silly because obviously that's not a healthy relationship either, but still!
Books and Quills loves Wuthering Heights. It’s her favorite.
If we want to talk about movies that were better than the book, let me tell you about Ready Player One. The entire book felt like a movie script. As I was reading, I could practically see the "cut here" lines during certain scenes that just felt like padding. I'm glad they cut out most of Daito and Sho's stuff. They were generic, shallow, stereotypical, and uninspired characters, whose only traits were "brothers" and "honor". The action, the racing scene, the battles, the entire time I was reading them, I kept thinking "this would be way cooler on the big screen". Shocker, it was! The writing wasn't even that good, and the story wasn't that deep to begin with. But is was fun as hell.
With regards to mystery/detective/crime novels, I totally recommend In A Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes. Like holy shit, that book is crazy creepy. But also it really does a fantastic job of criticizing and portraying the inherent hypocrisy that accompanies misogyny. 10/10 recommend. The 1946 film is excellent as well, perhaps even better than the book.
Merphy teaches me more stuff in 20 minutes than I’ve learnt in an entire day of school
I enjoy A Song of Ice and Fire, but I really do get why so many people don't and it's okay. :)
I had to read Wuthering Heights in school. I expected to hate it, and it wasn't really my cup of tea, but I found it reasonably interesting up until the end. I despise the ending, it felt too...nice, i guess. For me, the tone just didn't fit. It felt like it was tacked on by the publisher to make the book softer or more marketable.
"Wuthering Heights" has so many fans though lol.
it's true. But it's also very widely hated.
@@merphynapier42 pppjj0l
If I had known in high school what it was originally marketed as and had a chance to read it without all my friends naming it amongst their favorites, I might have been able to love it... or at least stomach it.
Every classic is a classic for a reason of course, but classics in general get a lot of hate and criticism because of the pedestal they’re place on. So it’s pretty uncommon to hear someone say they actually love a certain classic genuinely (and not just to be pretentious).
Poetry recommendation and audiobooks th-cam.com/video/Dxz7FiZvjUA/w-d-xo.html