Talk:The Eyes of the Overworld

Novels: Fantasy Mid‑importance

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Untitled[edit]

The spoiler section is accusatory toward Cugel's behaviour and is hardly written with a neutral point-of-view. We're dealing with a fictional character in a work of fiction here, not some guy on trial for being amoral or whatever and the tone of this article needs to reflect that. Peter1968 13:59, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Whenever I turn someone on to this book, the first reaction I get is that Cugel behaves appallingly (or if by a woman, that Cugel behaves appallingly to women). I don't see how that can be softened in any accurate review. The concept of an anti-hero is a familiar one in literature and need not be explained anew on every occurrence. What makes Cugel remarkable is that he manages to remain an anti-hero without tipping over into pure villain, despite many truly atrocious failings of character. TheNameWithNoMan (talk) 12:04, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with your approach to Cugel. The appeal (at least to me) of Vance's work is the exciting and interesting societies and characters that are encountered in his stories. The protagonist, Cugel (or Gersen, Laumer, etc.) are mainly there to serve as a viewpoint for Vance to unfold these elements. The Cugel character in Overworld and in the sequel is not a consistent or realistic character. For example, his abandonment of the woman that he is with to the nomads in exchange for some directions is nasty, but Vance must have felt that a female companion for Cugel would be undesirable. So she is crudely eliminated. Blame Vance, not Cugel. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:2D80:882A:0:994:790D:EC01:9E27 (talk) 01:52, 3 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Revised article[edit]

I've tried to offer more of a summary and to soften the critique of Cugel a bit. He *is* a terrible person, in real-life terms, but obviously Vance manages to win us over to him anyway. --Andersonblog 23:03, 8 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative title[edit]

The Eyes of the Overworld is also known as Cugel the Clever. Thus I believe the later should redirect to this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.156.123.191 (talk) 22:10, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Addition of ISBN from Wikidata[edit]

Please note that this article's infobox is retrieving an ISBN from Wikidata currently. This is the result of a change made to {{Infobox book}} as a result of this RfC. It would be appreciated if an editor took some time to review this ISBN to ensure it is appropriate for the infobox. If it is not, you could consider either correcting the ISBN on Wikidata (preferred) or introducing a blank ISBN parameter in the infobox to block the retrieval from Wikidata. If you do review the ISBN, please respond here so other editors don't duplicate your work. This is an automated message to address concerns that this change did not show up on watchlists. ~ Rob^Talk 01:22, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]