No idea how right this is

[womzilla]

... but I found the quiz itself interesting.

Which fantasy writer are you? ...
Philip Pullman (b.1946)
15 High-Brow, -19 Violent, 29 Experimental and 21 Cynical!

You are also a lot like Tove Jansson.
If you want something some action, try Gene Wolfe.
If you'd like a challenge, try your exact opposite, J R R Tolkien.

One of the problems with the quiz is that I suspect that they've rated Tolkien at the "traditional" end of the traditional-experimental axis, and he really wasn't: he became the tradition everyone else aped.

I'm most of an outlier on "experimental" and "cynical", and somewhat outlying on "highbrow". All which makes me think that they don't have Tom Disch in their list of outcomes.... (Of course, most people don't think of Disch as a fantasy writer, but he was, especially in the second half of his career--the Minnesota horror novels, The Brave Little Toaster, and a lot of later short stories are all fantasy. One could even argue that On Wings of Song is more of a fantasy than sf.)

Comments

[sarah-ovenall.livejournal.com]

do you think this question is intentional:

What's the most irritating aspect of the internet (out of these four)?
1. Too much boring stuff, not enough sports.
2. The fact that you must sit on your ass by the computer to use it.
3. All the desinformation that is spread through it.
4. All the morons who can't spell.

I think yes, I think they were hoping all the people who checked 4 would write in to complain about 3.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

I think it had to be. I'm pretty sure I spotted one other spelling error, but I don't remember what.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

"It's"

[sarah-ovenall.livejournal.com]

ps I got Philip Pullman as well, with this score: 27 High-Brow, -15 Violent, 33 Experimental and 1 Cynical!

Apparently I'm slightly more experimental than you, slightly more violent, much more highbrow and much less cynical. I think the music questions were the ones that made me appear highbrow. None of their options suited me at all, and I ended up choosing "free jazz" a couple of times because I dislike it less than the other options.

I would call Tolkien highbrow, violent, innovative and idealistic, making him only half your opposite and even less mine.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

I think that as a whole, Tolkien's oeuvre is pretty anti-violent. One important point about the overall plot of his magnum opus is that it is about a quest to rid the world of a violent tool. Throughout, the characters who endorse violent means are rejected, chastized, or killed, unless they're fighting purely defensively. The clearest example of this is Boromir, who wants to seize the One Ring so that Gondor can become the military superior of Mordor, but there are many others. Gandalf's words to Frodo--""Many who deserve death, live, yet many who deserve life, are dead. Can you give it to them?"--echo throughout the work, and it's exactly that mercy that Sam and Frodo extend to Gollum, which finally makes peace possible.

(If you want to spoil The Lord of the Rings in a way which is completely misleading, just say, "Frodo fails.")

Which isn't to say that there isn't a lot of fighting in the novel, but it's a war which is won by stealth and mercy.

[sarah-ovenall.livejournal.com]

the explanation at the end says that on their scale, "violent" means 1. tolerating violence in fiction and 2. believing violence is a valid means to achieve a good outcome. Tolkien is definitely 1, there's plenty of violence in his work, but I agree, not really 2.

Georg just took the quiz and scored much lower on "violent" than I did. That has to be a problem with the quiz because he can handle much more violence in movies than I can. Well, actually it depends on the movie. He wouldn't watch either Stalingrad or Suspiria with me, but there are a lot of horror movies he has seen that I wouldn't. (also, he got Pullman.)

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Yes! I got Le Guin!

[washa-way.livejournal.com]

I would have liked getting Le Guin, but I'm one of those surly types who gets annoyed when he reaches the end of an internet quiz and only THEN discovers that he has to register and provide an email address and all that stuff.

And all the misspellings didn't make many any more cooperative...

But interesting questions. My main problem with internet quizzes is that they're inevitably multiple choice, and there's inevitably a question that doesn't have a good answer for me... only an answer that's the least bad.

[sarah-ovenall.livejournal.com]

I didn't have to register or give them my email address, when I took the quiz it was optional.

[washa-way.livejournal.com]

Hmm. This time it gave in and provided the results. Perhaps I impressed it with my dedication.

But I ended up with this:

"-7 High-Brow, -23 Violent, 9 Experimental and 11 Cynical!

Orson Scott Card (b.1951)

Congratulations! You are Low-Brow, Peaceful, Experimental and Cynical!"

I can see myself being called any of the above EXCEPT Orson Scott Card.

[cattitude.livejournal.com]

Good grief. I got Orson Scott Card, second Katherine Kerr. For action, Lian Hearn (Who? Thirty seconds of Google: Oh that's who. Meh.), and China Mieville as my opposite.

*sigh* I got a rock.

Still, it's a good quiz; it didn't lead me by the nose the way most such do.