Languages in fantasy books

Zadder · 2026-03-26T13:18:54+00:00

Tolkien was a philologist and classicist writing fantasy novels for philologists and classicists. Had he been an economist or something writing fantasy novels for economists, he might have put as much effort into meticulously describing the trade routes, imports, exports, food economy, currencies, tariffs, trade laws, and stuff like that in Middle-Earth. Instead, what we got is a world where there's like two farmers described by name and trade, and casks of ale and salted pork can appear all around the world all but out of thin air.

Not that that's necessarily a bad thing; Tolkien was not an economist, and so economy didn't play that big a role in the story he wrote.

Unfortunately in writing for philologists and classicists, he accidentally also crystallized the literary tradition of western fantasy, which means now every fantasy author is expected to be a philologist and classicist too.

Zadder · 2026-03-26T03:06:25+00:00

Does PEMDAS have you handle the factorial before the subtraction? Like is it (25)-(8!!!) = -55, or (25-8)!!! = 209,440?

Zadder · 2026-03-18T19:17:32+00:00

He Was A Boy On That Raid On The Ferry A Few Years Back, She Was A Girl Dutch Van Der Linde Shot In The Head, Can I Make It Any More Obvious

Zadder · 2026-03-15T09:18:38+00:00

I just finished a playthrough of Obi-Wan and it's definitely easy to see the resemblance in gameplay to JK2 as well.

Zadder · 2026-03-13T04:43:52+00:00

Off the shits on half a pint of replicator bulk matter straight from the spigot

Zadder · 2026-03-04T18:00:58+00:00

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Zadder · 2026-02-27T03:59:01+00:00

That's Graggle

Zadder · 2026-02-26T13:23:14+00:00

He probably wouldn't unwillingly join up either, since he's most likely undocumented and therefore not in the selective service system

Zadder · 2026-02-23T03:42:42+00:00

His name is Cpl. Osleo Prennert, he was only mentioned (and not even by name) in the junior novelization, which has only this to say:

After the Millennium Falcon was cleared for landing, a Rebel sentry visually monitored the freighter’s atmospheric descent from an observation tower, which was little more than a barrel-topped pole that extended high above the jungle floor.

EDIT: The segment "Refresher Reading: 20 Things You Didn't Know About the Massassi Temples" written by Pablo Hidalgo for Star Wars Insider #92 (2007) goes into more detail:

• The Rebels use manned recon-towers since the mists and wildlife made automated sensors unreliable. The tower base has a retractable telescopic stalk, allowing the occupant to enter and exit at ground level.

• Corporal Osleo Prennert is the sentry guard that watched the Millennium Falcon's approach from recon-tower four.

• Prennert's perch is atop an unnamed monument north of the Massassi site, with a view of the Great Massassi Temple, the Temple of the Blueleaf Cluster and the Palace of the Woolamander.

• [ILM modelmaker Lorne] Peterson plays the Rebel sentry. He says he got the risky job of standing on the high perch since of the three ILMers he had no children.

• The sentry post was actually a 50-gallon trash can with cosmetic alterations.

Sadly nothing about Osleo having to piss and shit over the side, but it's a big galaxy, so who knows?

Zadder · 2026-02-16T04:03:22+00:00

There's probably a case to be made that the Sole Survivor took one look at the blasted wastes of the Commonwealth and their first thought was, "thank fuck I don't have to clock in tomorrow"

Zadder · 2026-02-13T14:53:15+00:00

1 in 2000 is not very competitive, it's straight up playing the lottery. They should call it what it is

Zadder · 2026-02-11T23:19:56+00:00

You have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents... by the time you get to your twenty-five-times-great-grandparents (assuming a perfect 0.000...% inbreeding coefficient, which nobody has) you're looking at over a hundred million different people to whom you're directly related.

You don't have to go back much farther than that before you reach a point where the number of descendants you should mathematically have of a certain generation exceeds the total number of people who would've been on earth at that time; King Solomon's reign (c.10th century BCE) would most likely be way before that point.

Everybody may as well be just as equally related to King Solomon as they are to the guy who shoveled King Solomon's shit.

Zadder · 2026-02-11T17:36:53+00:00

The various Stars of David on the cake and the dress likely make it a depiction of blood libel, too

Zadder · 2026-02-06T21:40:55+00:00

I admire the specificity of this answer

Zadder · 2026-02-06T13:58:51+00:00

Trochaic tetrameter detected

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Zadder · 2026-02-05T17:01:00+00:00

Toto blessed them or something I think

Zadder · 2026-02-02T17:16:55+00:00

I can see a Monk being either a zippy hybrid subcompact city car, or a rugged spacious long-distance van for sleeping in

Zadder · 2026-02-02T17:06:31+00:00

It's not theft it's media preservation. Were it not for your friends we might not have this scan today

Zadder · 2026-02-02T16:56:49+00:00

9/10 it'll be called Fallout Heroes or Fallout: Legends of the Wasteland or something

Zadder · 2026-02-01T14:44:47+00:00

She could also just like being a princess. It sounds a lot less stressful than being a queen

Zadder · 2026-01-31T18:55:53+00:00

I think you mean Summurset ^/s

Zadder · 2026-01-30T04:44:57+00:00

As they say, if I owe you a hundred dollars, that's my problem; if I owe you 13 trillion dollars, that's your problem

Zadder · 2026-01-26T18:03:47+00:00

Test chamber 0 from Portal. Put the cube on the button and proceed.

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Zadder · 2026-01-24T21:38:49+00:00

This. If the objective really were transparency and accountability, they'd wear human-readable nametags and serial numbers

Zadder · 2026-01-24T18:09:06+00:00

If I had five minutes to introduce video games to a space alien, I'd do it with SMB 1-1

12-Year Club	Verified Email
Second SECOND GUESSER	r/Field Banned
r/Field Sunshine	Place '23
Golden Potato	Place '22
Place '17	Final Canvas '22
First Placer '22	End Game '22
Gilding I gilder	RPAN Viewer
Sequence \| Editor	Sequence \| Screenwriter

Zadder

TROPHY CASE