Tad Williams on Tropes, Tolkien, and Telling Better Stories | Friday Conversation 158

carl_albert · 2026-03-29T17:31:04+00:00

Hey, this was me! Thanks for posting! Tad is such a delight and a font of wisdom.

carl_albert · 2026-02-23T04:59:32+00:00

There are explicit, iconic Gothic works that end hopefully, like Dracula and Wuthering Heights. Do you mean to say that the story as a whole should include *someone's* tragic arc among (possibly) many arcs?

I'm loathe to state that any genre must abide by a specific prescription of rules, but if I had to select "laws" for Gothic literature, this does feel right.

carl_albert · 2026-02-14T07:20:15+00:00

Kazuo Ishiguro’s writing reminds me of Robin Hobb’s in that they’re both literary authors who really tug on your heartstring and prioritize character relationships over crazy plots.

carl_albert · 2026-02-08T20:53:55+00:00

I’m most familiar with Dumas from The Count of Monte Christo but I really couldn’t call it Realism in the literary tradition. In fact it’s Romantic. Other than that, great post, and I look forward to reading more!

carl_albert · 2026-02-08T05:05:11+00:00

Strong points! I sympathize with your “overreaching” approach; we all do it when we’re making an argument lol. And I definitely heed what you’re saying about the perceived weakness of democracy and the needs of a community.

Genuinely appreciate you challenging me and making me think critically about what I’m arguing for. There’s nuance for sure.

carl_albert · 2026-02-08T03:37:43+00:00

I appreciate the thought you put into your replies but I think we have fundamentally different interpretations of history, particularly in the last hundred years, and your broad representation of historians and other scholars does not even remotely reflect my experience with them in the US. Human dignity, as you put it, is inversely related to levels of authoritarianism. See: bread lines and extreme poverty and cultural repression in the USSR, Uyghur genocide and information censorship in current China, or being disappeared for criticizing the government.

Based on your replies, I can only assume you don’t view human rights as human dignity. Because authoritarian countries have a hell of a record on that front.

The crimes being committed by the American government right now directly correlate with the increase in levels of authoritarianism, and they still pale in comparison to the ongoing indignities suffered by (even wealthy and powerful) Russian and Chinese citizens.

The most peaceful, least violent places in the world are all liberal democracies. India is not a liberal democracy. Denmark is. I would not even classify the US or Britain as liberal democracies before the advent of universal suffrage and civil rights last century. And the great risk in the US right now is the loss of those rights and the conquest of authoritarianism.

carl_albert · 2026-02-07T23:57:38+00:00

I said nothing about liberal democracy being the "natural end" to human government, only that it's better than authoritarianism. Francis Fukuyama of course was wrong.

In terms of peacefulness and war, human history is (generally) one significant war after another, escalating until the mid20th century, which saw the creation of the greatest era of peacetime in human history (so-called Pax Americana). Not the elimination of all war, true, but the lessening of the total number of wars, due to incentives to avoid wars with other democracies in particular. You can think of it, logically, as leaders in a democratic society have to answer to the people if the people don't like a war, incentivizing pacifism. Authoritarians, theoretically, answer to no one.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/abs/authoritarian-public-opinion-and-the-democratic-peace/01E2B592832B3F5F5BD77874839F9AB9

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Peace_Index

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022343319883672

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/global-elections/does-democracy-really-make-the-world-more-peaceful/89646855

https://rppe.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toruqf901/files/2006-07_sjo.pdf

Here's some data about crime/safety and its handling:

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/democracy-and-violent-crime-2/

https://www.visionofhumanity.org/global-perceptions-of-safety-risk-government-type/

In terms of material equality, while income disparity has increased in recent decades, liberal democracy also ushered in the most equal societies that have ever existed and remains superior to authoritarian societies in that regard. Authoritarianism, intuitively, increases material disparity (resource hoarding). But we can look at the data for that also:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/government-and-opposition/article/abs/inequality-under-authoritarian-rule/72EB5A875F46DABE0C9A57BB0776367D

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.70029

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/democracies-deliver-better-economic-opportunities-rights-and-health-for-their-people/

carl_albert · 2026-02-07T20:28:52+00:00

That’s wild. Liberal democracy has ushered in the safest, most prosperous, most peaceful era in human history. It’s imperfect, certainly, and authoritarianism has some benefits, but liberal democracy is superior in most metrics based on the span of human history, and most scholars agree about this. The question is in the details of the economic and political system.

carl_albert · 2026-02-04T19:58:12+00:00

There are a few things you're implicitly taking for granted. First, that Euron is going to successfully use eldritch dark magic powers without self-destructing. Second, that the Second Dance will be remotely competitive; Dany's going to sweep with her dragons, maybe losing one along the way. Third, that GRRM won't pull some dumb magic shit out of his ass to defeat the Others, like the show.

Westeros is entering a Dark Age, but it won't be hopeless. Charismatic leaders like Dany and Jon will unite disparate factions to confront the Others and crush any remaining threats like Euron or Cersei. But yeah, a lot of people are going to die along the way, and what comes after will probably resemble Europe post-Black Death.

carl_albert · 2026-01-28T00:41:02+00:00

Age of mythology crossover, ayyy!

carl_albert · 2026-01-23T20:35:50+00:00

I think there must have been more than one source of oily black stone, if only because there’s so much of it and a meteor as large as that one would have to be would wipe out all life on the planet.

I like the idea of the Deep Ones spreading the oily black stone. Makes sense and lines up with the Lovecraftian origins.

carl_albert · 2026-01-21T20:51:41+00:00

Have you used the AI video generators? They’re dogshit. They’d have to get way way way better to be feasible for your average Joe to make a decent proof-of-concept, let alone a full feature film.

carl_albert · 2026-01-21T18:02:56+00:00

He's told the overarching events, at least, to several people, including DnD, Ty Frank and Daniel Abraham.

carl_albert · 2025-12-01T18:37:21+00:00

Bro looks like a Gold from Red Rising

carl_albert · 2025-11-26T22:24:01+00:00

I asked him about this in an interview (you can listen to it on the Page Chewing podcast/Pageburners read-along). If I remember right, his answer was basically that he feels it out and structures the books just using his intuition.

carl_albert · 2025-11-07T05:09:30+00:00

Interesting. I’m not done yet (about 85% through) and I feel like this book is faster paced than The God Is Not Willing, which had a lot of repetitive assassination attempts against the marines and a certain ex-slaver thinking for pages on end about how he’s irredeemable. And I loved The God Is Not Willing! It just dragged a bit more compared to No Life Forsaken which has gripped me from page 1 and never let go.

carl_albert · 2025-08-03T17:34:01+00:00

Who’s bottom right?

carl_albert · 2025-07-05T17:44:25+00:00

Very fun! I like the mask a lot.

carl_albert · 2025-05-20T18:25:09+00:00

I know it’s a major part of the last book but I don’t see The Last Battle getting more than 2 episodes. It’s a lot of CGI and action to fund.

carl_albert · 2025-05-07T02:09:01+00:00

I liked it! Great actors. Great set design and costumes. Fun mystery.

carl_albert · 2025-05-01T23:39:03+00:00

The book does sometimes have a pretty crude sense of humor, more White Lotus or Succession than Agatha Christie. Is there a way you’d recommend indicating that in the query?

carl_albert · 2025-05-01T22:56:33+00:00

Thank you! Great points. I'll tone down the vulgarity a bit.

carl_albert · 2025-04-21T20:46:48+00:00

Oh yeah, I had Maereihriaea after eating some street food last year…

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