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Ghost Nappa
2014-02-23, 08:02 PM
Does it have a name besides, "The Greenhilt Family Sword;" Fanon or otherwise?

Keltest
2014-02-23, 08:04 PM
Not to my knowledge. Swords are usually named based on their fame, and nobody has really been seen to recognize the Greenhilt sword who isn't a member of the order or a Greenhilt.

Grinner
2014-02-23, 08:07 PM
More pressingly, which came first: the name "Greenhilt" or the sword's green hilt?

Ghost Nappa
2014-02-23, 08:36 PM
Not to my knowledge. Swords are usually named based on their fame, and nobody has really been seen to recognize the Greenhilt sword who isn't a member of the order or a Greenhilt.

That's why I asked. I wasn't sure how famous his family or the sword is, or if Roy has his own name for it (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ICallItVera). It seems like something Elan would mention or ask about.

Edit: Or if naming weapons is even a cultural thing (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NamedWeapons) within the world.

Nerd-o-rama
2014-02-23, 08:50 PM
I was mentioning this in another thread earlier, but the vast majority of Northern surnames seem to be based on their profession, accomplishments, or some other obvious fact. Obviously these are the same creative minds that gave us place names like Wooden Forest and Cliffport.

Roy's great-grandfather probably got the name Greenhilt from the sword he happened to use while he was a famous adventurer, and passed the name and the sword down to his son, and from there to Eugene (who ignored the sword but kept the name because it was established by then), and from there to Roy.

Tiiba
2014-02-23, 09:04 PM
More pressingly, which came first: the name "Greenhilt" or the sword's green hilt?

The sword's green hilt. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0113.html)

Jaxzan Proditor
2014-02-23, 09:42 PM
I was mentioning this in another thread earlier, but the vast majority of Northern surnames seem to be based on their profession, accomplishments, or some other obvious fact. Obviously these are the same creative minds that gave us place names like Wooden Forest and Cliffport.
Don't forget Nowhere, Anywhere, Somewhere, Someplace Else, and Greysky City.
Although, the Western Continent isn't terribly imaginative either. Take a look at the map here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0698.html).
And in the South, the city with all the blue buildings is Azure City. I think the trait of using obvious details while naming things is worldwide.

Goosefarble
2014-02-23, 10:23 PM
Don't forget Nowhere, Anywhere, Somewhere, Someplace Else, and Greysky City.
Although, the Western Continent isn't terribly imaginative either. Take a look at the map here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0698.html).
And in the South, the city with all the blue buildings is Azure City. I think the trait of using obvious details while naming things is worldwide.

Definitely pretty worldwide, given the Goaway Mountains, the Redmountain Hills, the Great Barren Desert, Sandsedge, etc. I find it pretty refreshing really; most fantasies are all about their Emyn Muils and their Du Weldenvardens. Reading one that actually has a forest called Wooden Forest is kinda nice.

Nerd-o-rama
2014-02-23, 10:49 PM
It's also pretty much what I would have to do if I DMed in a homemade setting, so I approve of it in that sense.

Keltest
2014-02-23, 11:02 PM
Definitely pretty worldwide, given the Goaway Mountains, the Redmountain Hills, the Great Barren Desert, Sandsedge, etc. I find it pretty refreshing really; most fantasies are all about their Emyn Muils and their Du Weldenvardens. Reading one that actually has a forest called Wooden Forest is kinda nice.

If you aren't Tolkien, the quality of any story is going to be of inverse proportion to the number of completely made up non-character-name words. If you are Tolkien, you can do whatever the heck you want; your trash bin will still make more money than most people's life works.

Jaxzan Proditor
2014-02-23, 11:10 PM
Most of Tolkien's place names translate into fairly simple names. For example, Gondor comes from One of, which means "stone land". Emyn Muil means the drear hills, the Emyn Luin are the Blue Mountains, the Ered Engrin are the Iron Mountains, etc.

Nerd-o-rama
2014-02-23, 11:14 PM
Basically The Lord of the Rings is actually a linguistics paper for three or four made-up languages.

ti'esar
2014-02-23, 11:16 PM
I've actually wondered from time to time if fantasy as a genre would have been better off if it wasn't founded by a linguist.

ORione
2014-02-24, 01:38 AM
I was mentioning this in another thread earlier, but the vast majority of Northern surnames seem to be based on their profession, accomplishments, or some other obvious fact. Obviously these are the same creative minds that gave us place names like Wooden Forest and Cliffport.

Interesting. I wonder, then, how the names Thundershield, Starshine, and Bitterleaf came to be.

Lombard
2014-02-24, 02:32 AM
I've actually wondered from time to time if fantasy as a genre would have been better off if it wasn't founded by a linguist.

:miko: S M I T E* ! :miko:

*Though actually it wasn't founded by a linguist

ti'esar
2014-02-24, 02:42 AM
*Though actually it wasn't founded by a linguist

Tolkien was basically a linguist, and he basically invented the fantasy genre as we know it today. I'm not sure what there is to disagree with about that.

Lombard
2014-02-24, 03:01 AM
Tolkien was basically a linguist, and he basically invented the fantasy genre as we know it today. I'm not sure what there is to disagree with about that.

Ooh sidebar!

Hey man I've got nothing but admiration for Tolkien but all I was trying to say was that it's not quite fair to people like MacDonald, Howard, Morris, Burroughs etc. to act like they didn't even exist or have any influence. :vaarsuvius: I doubt JRRT would approve.

hamishspence
2014-02-24, 03:05 AM
Indeed. Maybe even Thomas Malory, if you count Arthurian stories as fantasy.

ti'esar
2014-02-24, 03:06 AM
Ooh sidebar!

Hey man I've got nothing but admiration for Tolkien but all I was trying to say was that it's not quite fair to people like MacDonald, Howard, Morris, Burroughs etc. to act like they didn't even exist or have any influence. :vaarsuvius: I doubt JRRT would approve.

I'm not saying Tolkien sprung out of thin air, but I think it's ridiculous to argue that he didn't have a massive, transformative effect on the genre. Regardless of how important its predecessors were to its existence, it was The Lord of the Rings that forever reshaped fantasy as we know it.

I did err in leaving out the sword-and-sorcery guys, though, as they were basically the other building block of most modern fantasy.

Lombard
2014-02-24, 03:20 AM
I'm not saying Tolkien sprung out of thin air, but I think it's ridiculous to argue that he didn't have a massive, transformative effect on the genre. Regardless of how important its predecessors were to its existence, it was The Lord of the Rings that forever reshaped fantasy as we know it.

I did err in leaving out the sword-and-sorcery guys, though, as they were basically the other building block of most modern fantasy.

I think I can live with that. :) At any rate most of the D&D-inspired stuff tends to be more directly descended from Tolkien... orcs, rangers, halflings, and so on.

Roland Itiative
2014-02-24, 05:34 AM
I always imagined the sword to also be called Greenhilt. Not "the Greenhilt family sword", but just Greenhilt. So Roy Greenhilt wields Greenhilt, and Eugene Greenhilt needs his son ROy Greenhilt to have Greenhilt on him if they want to communicate :smalltongue:

nogall
2014-02-24, 08:03 AM
The sword is saving its real name to use it in a moment when it is in mortal danger.

Mrc.
2014-02-24, 08:19 AM
The sword is saving its real name to use it in a moment when it is in mortal danger.

This (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0112.html) isn't mortal danger? :smalltongue:

Seriously though, I found your comment most amusing.

snowblizz
2014-02-24, 08:55 AM
I'm not saying Tolkien sprung out of thin air, but I think it's ridiculous to argue that he didn't have a massive, transformative effect on the genre. Regardless of how important its predecessors were to its existence, it was The Lord of the Rings that forever reshaped fantasy as we know it.
No one was arguing that though. It was pointed out that Tolkien didn't invent fantasy per se.

As a point, Tolkien himself wasn't particularly impressed by his position as author. He was a linguistic scholar. Can't really find a source now, but I recall hearing how when receiving an award (or something) it was pointed out it was in recognition of his linguistic work, not the books he wrote. And that Tolkien was very happy with that point being made.

Nerd-o-rama
2014-02-24, 09:55 AM
Interesting. I wonder, then, how the names Thundershield, Starshine, and Bitterleaf came to be.

Thundershield almost certainly has to do with being priests of the thunder god.

Starshine is a very optimistically upbeat euphemism for thief (as in, someone who works under the stars; the only people who work outdoors at night, at least before the invention of electric lighting, are thieves).

Bitterleaf is vaguer, although it describes Belkar's personality, it could refer to any number of things. It could refer to tobacco-farming ancestors, it could be a reference to culinary skill with bitter herbs, it could even be a reference to survival and tracking skills (knowing what leaf to eat), if people just assumed Belkar had actual Ranger skills.


And Tolkien is the one who metamorphosed the pulp sword & sorcery genre into what we call "high fantasy" today, largely due to his academic approach to writing, blending sword & sorcery tropes with the conventions and style of Classical epics. He didn't invent fantasy any more than the Beatles invented rock 'n roll, but he did a large part to define its modern form.

littlebum2002
2014-02-24, 10:01 AM
Greysky City.

I totally never got that name before now. I thought it was pronounced similar to "Gretzky"

MagicalMeat
2014-02-24, 11:59 AM
I totally never got that name before now. I thought it was pronounced similar to "Gretzky"
On that note, is it officially pronounced Grey-sky? I always read it as Grey-ski (like ruski)

Vinyadan
2014-02-24, 06:10 PM
I've actually wondered from time to time if fantasy as a genre would have been better off if it wasn't founded by a linguist.

Everything is better when founded by a linguist! (besides when he tries to put graphs in his works, because that's usually the imprecision factory).


Basically The Lord of the Rings is actually a linguistics paper for three or four made-up languages.

When you find that he put things like mathom to build up a relationship between the hobbit's language and that of the Rohirrim, you start wondering what else he built without expressing it.


Tolkien was basically a linguist, and he basically invented the fantasy genre as we know it today. I'm not sure what there is to disagree with about that.

Let us just say that his work were to fantasy what the Iliad was to previous epic, setting a standard which eclipsed much of what came earlier, becoming well known by pretty much anyone with some interest in the genre and gaining a lasting influence on it, without having yet been reached in level, and, at the same time, giving an everlasting hero figure which deeply influenced personal values and aspiration of many of its readers.


Indeed. Maybe even Thomas Malory, if you count Arthurian stories as fantasy.
I don't completely agree to such comparisons, because the perception of stories people had in previous ages is very difficult to compare to ours, and genre definitions largely depend on it. However, this seems like one of the first works to which people weren't supposed to believe, or to use as a didactically learning, or to include metaphysical elements in which they believed. But then, Boccaccio's Filostrato comes even earlier, and it was preceded by the French roman about Thebes and the one about Troy, and the Latin medieval literature about which I really don't know much may very well have build something of this kind even earlier. If Nonnus converted to Christianity before he wrote them, the Dionisiaca may well have been one of the earliest fantasy works - as, something written by someone who didn't believe in what he was writing with subject which we would today accept in a fantasy work.


No one was arguing that though. It was pointed out that Tolkien didn't invent fantasy per se.

As a point, Tolkien himself wasn't particularly impressed by his position as author. He was a linguistic scholar. Can't really find a source now, but I recall hearing how when receiving an award (or something) it was pointed out it was in recognition of his linguistic work, not the books he wrote. And that Tolkien was very happy with that point being made.

I remember a letter he wrote, in which he said that he won a sci-fi prize shaped like a missile and left it on someone else's window sill.


Does it have a name besides, "The Greenhilt Family Sword;" Fanon or otherwise?

I'll call her Andugrill, Grill of the West!

veti
2014-02-24, 07:55 PM
The real reason Roy never mentions his sword's name is that he's embarrassed about being named after it.

That's right, the sword's name is Roy.

skim172
2014-02-25, 12:17 AM
I believe its name is "The (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0234.html) Trouser (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0251.html) Titan (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0308.html)."

:smallbiggrin:

Vladier
2014-02-26, 03:03 AM
Interesting. I wonder, then, how the names Thundershield, Starshine, and Bitterleaf came to be.

Well, obviously, Starshine's family name came from their record of interbreeding with celestials, Solars in particular.

Seriously, though, where did this insane theory come from? From a single phrase about Haley's mom being in the sky?

ti'esar
2014-02-26, 03:46 AM
Solars in particular.

Seriously, though, where did this insane theory come from? From a single phrase about Haley's mom being in the sky?

Wouldn't astral devas make more sense?

I think it has more to do with the angel that looked like Haley here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0193.html).

Vinyadan
2014-02-26, 06:13 AM
Well, obviously, Starshine's family name came from their record of interbreeding with celestials, Solars in particular.

Seriously, though, where did this insane theory come from? From a single phrase about Haley's mom being in the sky?

This is nonsense, Haley is part copper dragon! :smallcool:

Vladier
2014-02-26, 08:33 AM
This is nonsense, Haley is part copper dragon! :smallcool:

And why can't she be part-celestial and part-copper dragon?

Vinyadan
2014-02-26, 08:52 AM
And why can't she be part-celestial and part-copper dragon?

Oh well, then I'll have her half Radiant Dragon (celestial, shining), half Astral Dragon (stars, chromatic but not evil, explaining why she has problems seeing herself as good) and half Copper Dragon (after all, she loves a bard, and is pretty down to earth; plus, CG). :smallamused:

skim172
2014-02-27, 03:03 AM
Guys, you're overthinking it. "Starshine" happens to be the third-most popular brand of cosmetics on the Northern Continent, and Haley's grandmother was, at one point, the top door-to-door seller for the entire A5-3 metropolitan region for three financial quarters, and they obviously named themselves in honor of that crowning family achievement.

"Thundershield" was originally the nickname of Durkon's great-grandpappy, who was a kickass snowboarder who used to swoosh down the mountain on his shield, on an avalanche in the middle of a thunderstorm, while wearing sunglasses and playing air guitar. He was the most radical dwarf who ever lived.

I'd tell you where "Bitterleaf" comes from, but it's not legal in our universe.

Nerd-o-rama
2014-02-27, 04:28 AM
"Thundershield" was originally the nickname of Durkon's great-grandpappy, who was a kickass snowboarder who used to swoosh down the mountain on his shield, on an avalanche in the middle of a thunderstorm, while wearing sunglasses and playing air guitar. He was the most radical dwarf who ever lived.

Go back to bed King Radical this isn't even your comic.

illyahr
2014-02-27, 01:30 PM
When you find that he put things like mathom to build up a relationship between the hobbit's language and that of the Rohirrim, you start wondering what else he built without expressing it.


Or that the word Hobbit is based off of the Rohirrim word "holbytla" which means "hole-dweller." The appendices make mention of the fact that both Rohan and Gondor had dealings with that area in the past.

Vinyadan
2014-02-27, 03:38 PM
Or that the word Hobbit is based off of the Rohirrim word "holbytla" which means "hole-dweller." The appendices make mention of the fact that both Rohan and Gondor had dealings with that area in the past.

If you hadn't posted this, I would have never noticed that hol- in holbytla has something to do with "hole" :smallbiggrin: So I searched if there was some "bytlan" somewhere, and a grammar book gives it as the infinitive for "to build" in Old English. An imaginary meaning shift between building something and inhabiting it makes sense, and the form could be a present participle (not OE, but maybe Rohirrim?)

Also, I suggest as name for Roy's sword hole-builder. Or "Carver". Carver sounds cool. "Hey, have you seen Carver?" "Whom?!" "Nah, he's talking about the sword again".

skim172
2014-02-27, 07:32 PM
Go back to bed King Radical this isn't even your comic.

There is a King Radical in every universe.

:smallwink:

Vinyadan
2014-02-27, 07:41 PM
There is a King Radical in every universe.

:smallwink:

...Durkon...
is actually future past Durkon? :smalleek:

skim172
2014-02-28, 11:17 PM
...Durkon...
is actually future past Durkon? :smalleek:

He came back, to save us from a hideous future - an apocalypse, where the entire planet has been conquered by trees. Everywhere, massive trees destroy all that man, dwarf, and elf has wrought. Why else would Durkon be so terrified of them? Because he's witnessed what will be - and what must never be. He fears that trees may be attacking ... because he knows what happens with the trees have won.