A 'Light Novel' Tag?

Ai-chan

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No, Percy Jackson is an Epic Romance, the story of a boy who grows to sacrifice his humanity to protect the earth and loses it all, but the love oh his life, who manages to recover him from death with love and affection. The books are about Percy's and Annabeth's love.

First things first let's correct your gravest mistake

There is romance and romance.

"A romance is a narrative genre in literature that involves a mysterious, adventurous, or spiritual story line where the focus is on a quest that involves bravery and strong values, not always a love interest."
A Romance is a tale of a person, from beginning to end, and talks about their Quest or Journey. Most of the times, this is also the development of relationships over the course of their life. This could be Romantic Love, Fraternal Love, or any other kind, including even the love to things and dreams, like in the ROMANCE Don Quijote.
This is what a Romance is as a novel. Romance as in "from Rome", is a 12th century French term

A romantic story on the other hand, that has the GENRE romance , based on the 18th and 19th century definition of Romantic School of Poetry, And Romanticism, the artistic movement, of which books such as Romeo and Juliet inspired, is a different thing.

You want this to be a Scholar Discussion, get your terms right first.
Alright, let's get this straight. You KNOW we're not talking about the archaic form of the word, right? A definition that NOBODY uses anymore except to refer to archaic cultural construct. Is this a joke?
 

DarkGodEM

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This is a little over the top, but since Cadmar joined in I'll paste in here the abstract of the end of The Last Olympian, the last book in the series.

Soon, Kronos/Luke finally comes to Olympus, and Annabeth, Percy, Thalia, and Grover are the only ones there to protect the ancient city. A statue falls over Thalia, and she urges them to go on. Grover gets knocked out almost immediately. Kronos strikes at Percy and paralyzes him. Then Kronos goes for Annabeth and mortally wounds her. Luke regains control of himself, and stabs himself to kill Kronos once and for all. As he lay dying, he asked Annabeth if she ever loved him. She replied that she thought of him like a brother, but never truly loved him at all.

Near the end, as Percy is being offered immortality and life in Olympus, Annabeth feels horrified that Percy would leave her, similar to the way Percy felt when she almost became a Hunter. He turns down the offer, primarily because of Annabeth, and she cries in relief. Back at camp, Annabeth holds a private birthday party for Percy, with a homemade cupcake. Percy confesses his vision in the River Styx. He tries to tell her how he feels about her, but Annabeth simply smiles at him, as if she was trying to hold in her laughter. Percy complains that she is not making things easy for him, to which Annabeth replies by putting her arms around his neck and saying that she would never make things easy for him. She kisses him there and then, while Percy states that he felt like his brain was melting right through his body, and that he could stay like that forever.
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However, the campers, lead by Clarisse La Rue, interrupt and pick them both up, but allow them to be close enough to hold hands. They dump Percy and Annabeth into the lake, expecting them to resurface. But because Percy is a son of Poseidon, he creates an air bubble around the two of them, not unlike the one in the Bay of The Sirens in The Sea of Monsters, and they share what Percy describes as "the best underwater kiss of all time". They officially start their relationship, and when Annabeth says she wants to be an architect to make something permanent, Percy says that they were "off to a great start."

Percy Jackson and the Olympians is, academically speaking, a Romantic Pentalogy based off of Greek Epics.

If they name the genres whatever the heck they want, I do not care for I do not rule.
But, ignoring the marketing bs and the hiding of the Romantic tag for selling towards young boys who generally have an aversion to that word for some stupid reason. It is a romance.
It follows the story and the character creation of Percy Jackson and his relationships in especial, his love relationship with Annabeth.

Yes, it is a Romance. And if you want, prove me wrong.
Alright, let's get this straight. You KNOW we're not talking about the archaic form of the word, right? A definition that NOBODY uses anymore except to refer to archaic cultural construct. Is this a joke? Or are you trying to be an asshole?
But you were the one who brought in that "opinions are not important in this scholarly discussion".
I'm just using the scholar definition of what a romance is to define what a novel is, and explain why the use of "young adult" is just a way of straying away from the use of the actual terms to attract more teenagers.

This is just a validation of what I first said about Light Novels being a form of Publication and Serialization rather than anything to do with their content. Just as much as these are Romances no matter what the publishers try to frame them as to attract more readers.

I'm not the one trying to bend the definition of words to defend my point.
Kinda like Romance of the Three Kingdoms, yet there's no romance.
Exactly. People thing Romances have to have love and all that shit but it has nothing to do with that. It has to do with how the characters aims for that thing with all he has and ultimately accomplishes it, even if only in death.
 
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Ai-chan

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This is a little over the top, but since Cadmar joined in I'll paste in here the abstract of the end of The Last Olympian, the last book in the series.



Percy Jackson and the Olympians is, academically speaking, a Romantic Pentalogy based off of Greek Epics.

If they name the genres whatever the heck they want, I do not care for I do not rule.
But, ignoring the marketing bs and the hiding of the Romantic tag for selling towards young boys who generally have an aversion to that word for some stupid reason. It is a romance.
It follows the story and the character creation of Percy Jackson and his relationships in especial, his love relationship with Annabeth.

Yes, it is a Romance. And if you want, prove me wrong.

But you were the one who brought in that "opinions are not important in this scholarly discussion".
I'm just using the scholar definition of what a romance is to define what a novel is, and explain why the use of "young adult" is just a way of straying away from the use of the actual terms to attract more teenagers.

This is just a validation of what I first said about Light Novels being a form of Publication and Serialization rather than anything to do with their content. Just as much as these are Romances no matter what the publishers try to frame them as to attract more readers.

I'm not the one trying to bend the definition of words to defend my point.
A scholarly discussion is one where the person giving the argument is mindful of the context. By the context of this thread, romance does not refer to the archaic definition in regards to cultural construct. It refers solely to the classification of romance in the modern term, which is used by publishing houses to classify their publications in the shortest and most concise way possible.

If we argue that archaic definitions are still valid to be used as modern classification, then comedy would refer to everything not tragedy.

This site defines romance better than Ai-chan can.
 
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@DarkGodEM
Unless you are categorizing it in what Shakespeare counts as a genre, then no. Thats old definition. A comedy back then could be where not everyone dies, but almost all of them dies, and it still gets called a comedy.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians is primarily action/adventure fantasy based off of greek myths but a kinder...kid friendly version (as opposed to the actual...myths).

Most stories, even the fantasy ones, have some sort of romance in them. But are they considered romance then? No, since that is not the overall main theme of the story. Romance be the story where its all primarily centered about that love and romantic emotions between characters and whatnot. Everything is cast aside as a second sub detail to help support the romance progressing along the story.
 

DarkGodEM

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It is not archaic, it's classic. A Romance is a story about following ones dreams, those dreams coming to fruition, and the story in between, which most times has to do with love, but not necessarily Eros and Philia, There are, in the definition of Romance, the four original loves, including Agape and Storge. And if you want to include the even more "modern" definition, we even even have irremediably non-corresponded love, Platonic.

And this love may be directed to anyone, or anything. All it has to be is love itself.
I'll trust my well updated dictionaries over writingcooperative, whatever that social network is, especially an article written by a user that has only 600 followers.

1617678760707.png



Collins Dictionary:


1617678768903.png


Cambridge Dictionary:

1617678833439.png
 
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Deleted member 45782

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It is not archaic, it's classic. A Romance is a story about following ones dreams, those dreams coming to fruition, and the story in between, which most times has to do with love, but not necessarily Eros and Philia, There are, in the definition of Romance, the four original loves, including Agape and Storge. And if you want to include the even more "modern" definition, we even even have irremediably non-corresponded love, Platonic.

And this love may be directed to anyone, or anything. All it has to be is love itself.
I'll trust my well updated dictionaries over writingcooperative, whatever that social network is, especially an article written by a user that has only 600 followers.

View attachment 7215


Collins Dictionary:


View attachment 7216

Cambridge Dictionary:

View attachment 7217
The dictionary also shows archaic meanings, of what it used to meant. They document definitions, including old definitions no longer being used as much. But times changes things. If thats the case, every single story can be considered romance because it has some romantic or even platonic relationships between characters. The dictionary could also reference works done in the Romantic period.

Your argument and the way you compare sounds like whats the point of having different genres when it could all be lumped under romance.

Agree to disagree.
 

DarkGodEM

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@DarkGodEM
Unless you are categorizing it in what Shakespeare counts as a genre, then no. Thats old definition. A comedy back then could be where not everyone dies, but almost all of them dies, and it still gets called a comedy.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians is primarily action/adventure fantasy based off of greek myths but a kinder...kid friendly version (as opposed to the actual...myths).

Most stories, even the fantasy ones, have some sort of romance in them. But are they considered romance then? No, since that is not the overall main theme of the story. Romance be the story where its all primarily centered about that love and romantic emotions between characters and whatnot. Everything is cast aside as a second sub detail to help support the romance progressing along the story.
Do you understand that even if what you are saying is correct. The main thing that defines the genre of a story is The beginning and The End right?

As in, the whole 5 books of Percy Jackson were a scaffolding for his relationship with Annabeth, for which he gave up on godhood itself.

I mean, just think for a second, ok? Just because it is sold as being mainly action/adventure fantasy, that's not what the book is actually about. When you read Percy Jackson, the story begins as Annabeth lends him a hand after he's bullied into a river by the antagonist of Book 1, the daughter of the god of war, and he describes her "common" beauty and her ways, for many many pages, over the whole first book, including during their adventures. And the story ends, when they finally get together in a relationship.

It begins with them.
It ends with them starting to formally date each other.

Everything in between is the reason for it to happen.
This is how you define the plot and the Genre of literary creation.

Same as in The Railway Series by Christopher and W. Awdry, despite we calling it and immortalizing it as "Thomas and his Friends", The protagonist of the whole thing is Gordon, whose story began in Vol. 1 written by Rev. W. Awdry and Ended win Vol 42, Thomas and his Friends, written by C. Awdry, where he retires.
 
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Do you understand that even if what you are saying is correct. The main thing that defines the genre of a story is The beginning and The End right?

As in, the hole 5 books of Percy Jackson were a scaffolding for his relationship with Annabeth, for which he gave up on godhood itself.
Whole* not hole.
I mean, just think for a second, ok? Just because it is sold as being mainly action/adventure fantasy, that's not what the book is actually about.
Actually it is, but do carry on your argument....
When you read Percy Jackson, the story begins as Annabeth lends him a hand after he's bullied into a river by the antagonist of Book 1, the daughter of the god of war, and he describes her "common" beauty and her ways, for many many pages, over the whole first book, including during their adventures. And the story ends, when they finally get together in a relationship.

It begins with them.
It ends with them starting to formally date each other.

Everything in between is the reason for it to happen.
This is how you define the plot and the Genre of literary creation.
While Annabeth and Percy takes a good chunk of the plot, the main point wasnt about Annabeth and Percy. It was about Percy finding out what his destiny was - whether to destroy or save Olympus. The whole thing is a bildungsroman, what Percy finds out what wants to be and taking charge of his destiny and how he grows up to confront the things placed in front of him.

I get those stories you want to classify romance because that is how it was classified then. But what is actually counted as romance these days by publishers, readers, and most writers?
If thats the case how are going to differentiate plots primarily 90% focused on romance versus stories that focus 20% on romance and 80% action/fantasy?

Agree to disagree. Leave it at this.
 
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Deleted member 45782

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:blob_popcorn_two:
but it's almost got into the good part
Whisk away the popcorn blob. He is now isekaied into a romance story full of alien and demon blobs...which will he choose? The one with many slimy arms or the one with the most coldly sharp piercing horns?

Find out to know more on this story's newest chapter: Wth have I landed into and what blob should I blubber on and kiss?
 

DarkGodEM

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:blob_popcorn_two:
but it's almost got into the good part
You are not typical.

Agree to disagree. Leave it at this.
I'll also leave it at this since you somehow still think novels are not about their meaning and main story, but about all that happens in between...
You don't consider a novel about a man fighting gods to try and recover his lover's soul after she dies an adventure/action because of what it shows most of the word time. You consider it a romance for the reason he is doing all of that and the objective which is to save the love of his life and to be together with her. Which in most cases, happens when the story ends.

Percy Jackson is not about his "Destiny" so much as it is about his Identity, who he is, and what it means to everyone around him. Is about him turning from "The son of Poseidon" into "Percy Jackson, the man who saved the Olympus and refused to live among gods for the love of his life".

This is clear for anyone who read The sea of Monsters, where he meets his brother, who is a Cyclops, and who read about Nico's identity crisis in The Battle of The Labyrinth, where Nico went above and beyond to prove himself as "The son of Hades" and almost killed himself in the process.
 
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Actually Ik what happens in the main story and its main message. Its primary bout finding and facing one's own destiny. Thats not in between, thats the main focus of all 5 books. Bildungsroman. I don't focus on the subplots and call it the center piece.... The main plot is...

Anyhow different readers different interpretations.
 
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Bernie1117

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So yeah, at the end of this REAAAAALLLLY long discussion,

I suggest we include a 'Light Novel' / 'Japanese-style' tag.
 

tounokenja

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The format of [Light Novel] being easily digestible sentences and paragraphs with a not too complex plot that easy to understand for almost all ages is a good reason for it to exist. Sure [Light Novel] is different from Web Novel in that it's considered a complete publication instead of being serialized, however the meaning to the international community who receive translations of these stories, and I'll cite the entirety of NovelUpdates as my source, is that do follow a particular format, with short concise sentences, descriptions, dialogues that are quite different from lengthy and erudite wording found in sizeable pulp fiction.

For the fellow citing Mushoku Tensei as one, you know the precursor to that (Overthrow of King Dragon) story wasn't light at all. It was a grueling narrative full of descriptive sentences about one of the characters in the latter part of MT's story's early history. It was tough to read and tough to translate. By comparison, Mushoku Tensei by the author's own admission (there's an article about this) was made to be easier to read and digest by all ages (as a web novel) to attract readers.

So to me, LN doesn't mean YA. It's more an All-Ages tag that means the novel isn't overtly complex and instead is easily digestable, even in a serialized novella format.

TL;DR: Upvote for [Light Novel] tag.
 

AliceShiki

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Well, there's a number of JLN-inspired and styled stories in the main site. I suggested this because several readers would often apply the Japanese definition of LN to a supposedly-'English' site. So my point is, why not put that tag in there to avoid issues?

Besides, SH already did it with 'isekai' tag.
That's because Isekai and LN are fundamentally different.

Isekai is just "Another World". Leaving it as Isekai is just leaving the word untranslated.

LN on the other hand is more specific and has to do with the Japanese language itself... Putting a Light Novel genre out there doesn't make sense because English Light Novels don't exist by default...
 

Bernie1117

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That's because Isekai and LN are fundamentally different.

Isekai is just "Another World". Leaving it as Isekai is just leaving the word untranslated.

LN on the other hand is more specific and has to do with the Japanese language itself... Putting a Light Novel genre out there doesn't make sense because English Light Novels don't exist by default...
Well, hopefully all the readers know and understand about it.

As I said, there are several titles in the main site that are styled after JLNs, and a number of readers that tend to look for JLN-inspired OELNs. You can say that it doesn't exist by default, but it's already there, and the genre (or type, whatever you call it) is becoming popular.

Besides, adding one little tag in the list wouldn't harm the site. In fact, it could even help readers decide whether they wanted to read the work or not. (some readers avoid OELNs like a plague, thus averting potential issues and bad blood for both the author and the reader)
 
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AliceShiki

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Besides, adding one little tag in the list wouldn't harm the site.
That mindset doesn't work. If you add a tag for every small thingy that people want, you'll end up with having over 2000 tags in the site. It's already hard enough to find all tags that suit your story with the current 700+ numbers, so I don't even want to imagine how troublesome it would be if there were 2000+... The number of tags really shouldn't be raised thoughtlessly.

I don't mean to say that the site shouldn't add new tags at all though, but if a new tag is added, it better be because the tag makes sense and will be useful... I don't think a Light Novel tag would make any sense, however, so I see no reason why it should be implemented.
 

ForestDweller

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For the fellow citing Mushoku Tensei as one, you know the precursor to that (Overthrow of King Dragon) story wasn't light at all. It was a grueling narrative full of descriptive sentences about one of the characters in the latter part of MT's story's early history

Precursor? You mean it's written before MT? What's it about?
 

FreemenMuaddib

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LN or WN are formats definitions. Not genre. So, no.

We need other more urgent genres, like: xianxia, xuanhuan, wuxia, isekai, western fantasy, western cultivation, LitRPG and GameLit.
 

Napelynn

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LN or WN are formats definitions. Not genre. So, no.

We need other more urgent genres, like: xianxia, xuanhuan, wuxia, isekai, western fantasy, western cultivation, LitRPG and GameLit.
We already have all of those except western fantasy, western cultivation, and GameLit.
 
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