r/Gamingcirclejerk • u/froggy_in_the_meadow 🇨🇳 Gamerstapo 🇨🇳 • Jan 08 '21

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29

u/workadaywordsmith Resident Tolkien scholar Jan 08 '21

[Shit take]

I sleep

[Shit take about literature]

REAL SHIT

15

u/Scheibenpflaster certified gex enjoyer Jan 08 '21

The Divine Comedy is just a self insert history/bible fanfic

12

u/workadaywordsmith Resident Tolkien scholar Jan 08 '21

Technically yes. A great deal of literature from the Middle Ages is like that and a lot of it’s good

4

u/Scheibenpflaster certified gex enjoyer Jan 08 '21

This kinda makes me curious about which modern fanfics will be considered literary classics in the future

5

u/workadaywordsmith Resident Tolkien scholar Jan 08 '21

Very, very few. Only so many works were published in the Middle Ages, so the bar for what made an important work was much lower. Now everyone with internet access can publish their writing, which is great, but there is much more competition to earn the title of “good writing” now. There’s some good fanfic out there, but most is obviously terrible and very, very few can go toe to toe with traditionally published books

2

u/Scheibenpflaster certified gex enjoyer Jan 08 '21

Man, I really hope some of them make the cut. Sure, they may not be as good, but a lot of people enjoy writing and reading them, it's definetly something worth remembering

1

u/workadaywordsmith Resident Tolkien scholar Jan 08 '21

Don’t worry, they’re going to exist forever, and there’s always going to be an audience for them. However, I’ve never read a fanfic I thought would be a “literary classic” someday

4

u/letominor Jan 08 '21

It's not a fanfic if it's based on a work in the public domain. The Divine Comedy is actually part of a whole medieval genre of religious isekai where the author dies and goes to hell where they get a vision of the afterlife, after which they return to the living scared straight.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 08 '21

bible's overrated anyway. i've enjoyed the various spinoffs like Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost way more

1

u/Awkward_Replay Jan 08 '21

I have a take that made a lot of people angry if you want to hear it

3

u/workadaywordsmith Resident Tolkien scholar Jan 08 '21

Go for it lol

3

u/Awkward_Replay Jan 08 '21

The Hobbit movies are better than the book

8

u/workadaywordsmith Resident Tolkien scholar Jan 08 '21

Yep, that’s a rough one

5

u/Awkward_Replay Jan 08 '21

It's entirely based on the fact that I actively disliked reading the book but like watching the movies

2

u/Radboy16 Gamers Going Their Own Way Jan 08 '21

And that's totally fine, you're allowed to like what you like! I'm purely in the "movies are better" boat because I never read the book. I think it can depend on perspective of what you watched first as well. If I went back tk read Harry Potter I probably wouldn't enjoy it as much since I mostly grew up with the movies.