Kuruharan:
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You're married? Hmm, there goes my mental picture......harrassed poet arguing with his wife in the backyard...
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Ouch. That's almost too close to the reality. If there had been aisles I'd have been laughing in them. Harrassed poet, indeed. Well, yeah. Just last night I think I was on the witness stand being cross examined again. Not really. Well, yeah really. Kindof. enuf abowt mee.
Regarding the villain's demise and details adhering thereto, I have no problem if an author uses this plot device once, and does it well. My problem with Redwall is that the author used the same tired formula FIVE TIMES in the SAME BOOK! Come ON!
Mister Underhill: I could not agree with more with all you have to say.
Birdland: "mythological mutt", eh? I'm having laughing fits. Good one. You make a good point .... to a point. I have to agree with Naaramare with a further qualification (or is it elucidation?): as has been said already, it depends on how the writer uses the detail of her mythological mutt.
An illustration of writers' fantasy resources
came to me while I was debating a point on Kalessin's rant, and I became so enamoured of it that I'll repeat it here, especially since it is to the point. There are a number of different mountains of myth down which flow streams of legend and rivers of story. Every writer starts with an empty bucket called "the story I will write" and goes to the flowing waters. Some writers go to the broad rivers near the oceans with their huge cities and great harbors. Here nothing is pure, all his mixed. Other writers draw their water from further upstream, but in places where the confluence of a number of different mountains of myth have converged. For example, the Celtic and Greek and Norse all flow into one river. Further upstream you come to streams that flow out of only one mountain. This is where you dip into legend that has been affected by the confluence of a number of different streams. And finally, high up one mountain, the writer draws from a clean spring. Say the Norse mythos. This is clean and pure and has its own freshness, but in order to make it interesting to the reader back in the seacoast city, the writer must draw from her own mind (here the analogy breaks down unless I get a little gross) and bring her own unconscious/subconscious to bear upon the fresh spring water.
Now, I prefer stories where the writer has drawn from high upstream. Others prefer only city water. Most of us, I expect, prefer our stories with a little mix, but not too muddled, not too pristine.
I think that the writers drawing from pristine and muddled subject matter have the greatest challenge in making their works, well, work.