"Shawn Burns" <shawnb at stanford.edu> Sent by: dragaera-bounces at dragaera.info 05/08/06 02:20 PM To <dragaera at dragaera.info> cc Subject RE: [OT]Re: Sword Jokes. >So it just occurred to me, after reading these and countless other sword >jokes, that we might be approaching them in the wrong way entirely, if one >of our purposes is to contribute jokes similar to the originals. For the >most part, we've been offering versions that elicit responses appropriate >for those already acquainted in some way with Dragaera and the Houses. There >have been some exceptions, but for the most part that is how they have run. >However, the brilliance (bright, shining, illumination) of the jokes already >written was that they were in fact out-jokes instead of in-jokes. They make >use of something everyone who is NOT Dragaeran would be familiar with or >would respond to in order to reveal something about the Houses instead of >playing on our knowledge of the House to make a funny. I'm not sure I understand the distinction you're trying to make, here. ALL of these jokes, even Steve's, would be unfunny without the proper context of Dragaera. (Yendi: One to sharpen the sword and one to confuse the issue? Huh? What's a Yendi? Why is that funny? Dzur: One to sharpen the sword, three to make it worthwhile. Huh? Why would someone need three people to fight against?) Certainly, some of the jokes offered here are better or worse in regards to how easily they would be understood by a lay-person... And IMO, the better ones generally *are* the ones that are more readily understood. But I think we've seen examples of several of these in this thread... Like so many creative writing exercises, for every good joke, you're going to get 4 or 5 lame ones (if you're lucky). Hence, the process of editing out the boring or (let's face it) stupid jokes in favor of the more refined and/or punchy ones. I don't think this is a flaw in thinking--just a matter of getting from the brainstorming part of creation into the refining part. I understand that Steve spends time editing his books before he publishes them. Who knows how many lame sword jokes he went through on scratch paper before he found the three or four that we've seen in the books? There are probably piles and piles of pages that he's written that we'll never see--and believe me, we're probably much better off for it. Majikjon