From: mdhangton@gmail.com   
      
   Michelle Bottorff wrote:   
   > William Vetter  wrote:   
   >   
   >> J.Pascal wrote:   
   >>>   
   >>> Contrast cliche or stereotype... they might exist "for a reason" but are   
   >>> generally experienced as lazy and usually inaccurate.  "No, I don't have   
   >>> to actually explain how this guy is the villian... didn't you notice   
   >>> that he's a priest?"   
   >>>   
   >> That's a tradition.  In _The Canterbury Tales_, Chaucer has the   
   >> Alchemist-Priest, and in the Summoner's Tale, we learn the place in   
   >> Hell for friars is up Satan's asshole.   
   >   
   > I thought that was exactly what she was complaining about.  Doing   
   > something because "it's a tradition" and for no other reason, and not   
   > bothering to support the underlying reality of it in the story.   
      
   I was thinking the other day that Grendel breaks into the mead hall at   
   night to slaughter thanes because he is a monster, and when we are   
   confronted with a monster, the reader wants the brutal Viking Beowulf.   
   That is what we call storytelling, and what we call writing is when we   
   give Beowulf a crippled wife and a hound with three legs; and we give   
   Grendel a backstory in which his mother the witch molested him and fed   
   him spoiled weasel meat.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)