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"Crystal Dragon Jesus"

Progress report:
You may have noticed I had to postpone the target completion date by two weeks. This is partially due to a beautiful surprise which I'm not going to reveal just yet; partially due to certain parts of the game taking longer than expected; and most of all due to me forgetting to account for the time needed for testing, which is entirely my own fault.
I apologize for the delay, but I hope I can make it worth the wait. We're getting there.


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The internet is the home of many oddities, some of them even of the good kind. Among these, (apart from RMN, of course) there are few places as time-consuming as the site called TV Tropes.
I am neither a contributor to nor a regular visitor of that site, but sometimes I stumble upon a link and am soon lost in the quicksand of trope articles. When this happened to me some time ago, I came across a neat little article titled Crystal Dragon Jesus. Reading this (and especially the title) made me smile, though somewhat uncomfortably so.

I had started The Book of True Will long before I found that particular article, and it was funny to discover that apparently I had unknowingly been employing this trope all the time in an almost literal sense - yet, at the same time, not literally at all. It's weird how recognizing such a trope in your own work can make you feel so self-conscious, while actually we should all know that Tropes are tools. In fact, it shouldn't even matter much to me, but I did find it interesting enough to make me want to share these thoughts.

Considering how many people have tried to discuss religion in their work already, and how many have failed at doing the topic justice, I am still a bit uncertain whether I can manage to do it. But we'll just have to see what happens if intercultural discussions, slightly odd pseudo-medieval fantasy and real historical theological debates are twisted and intermingled in the depths of the brain of a young hobbyist game maker. And if the result turns out to contain elements of "Crystal Dragon Jesus", well, so be it.


P.S.:
In case you didn't know it already: TV Tropes will ruin your life. You can thank me later.

Posts

Pages: 1
Volrath
2760
12/09/2014 09:05 PM
Don't sweat the tropes, bro. MotW's page on that site is flipping huge and if I'm not mistaken, has "Crystal Dragon Jesus" on there, and I'm not ashamed of using so many. It's all about the overall experience of the story and that's why a lot of those tropes come up so often - they are very effective.
NeverSilent
Got any Dexreth amulets?
6299
12/09/2014 11:40 PM
Thanks! In the case of the vast majority of those tropes, that's absolutely true, and you're right, there's nothing wrong with using them. Seeing something I tried to incorporate in a story listed on that site just tends to make me feel a bit "caught in the act", even though that's obviously nonsense. And I'm not going to let it distract or influence me anyway, but at least it provides the material for a hopefully interesting little anecdote.

And yes, if I recall correctly, Master of the Wind's TV Tropes pages is actually where I first came across the "Crystal Dragon Jesus" trope. Not really a surprise to find such a similarity, though, considering how much that game inspired me.
Pages: 1