the tale of Tealkounikoiueanyuiyen the louyougen

First and foremost i apologize for the title of this post. The post has almost nothing do with either Tealkounikoiueanyuiyen, hero of the fantasy-kingdom-shire-middle-earth-resembling-but-legally-distinct-place series*, or the proud people of the Louyougen**. It was not my intent to dissappoint avid fans of this popular franchise, but their names clearly display the point i wan't to make. Which in case you were wondering is coming up. my point is that there is an issue with the names in fantasy literature.

fact is that the names in fantasy, whether it be literature or games or whatever, sound like the uttering of howler monkey who sat down on a frozen banana in a most unfortunate way. now there is nothing particularly bad about this in it self, but it does make the story difficult to follow. This is because fantasy also contains a great deal of self invented flora and fauna. add to this the fictional geography with the same name issues and it makes for difficult to follow sentences. let me give you an example:

"In the depths of the couaoeond*** deeeeaeeack was searching vehemently for the fabled Geeea-spououout"

now while it isn't strictly impossible to follow i think most people would agree with me that it would be a challenge to read out loud. Sure it's possible but we all know tongues look their best before being tied in a knot.

In some cases they might as well have written the names in Russian because frankly Столичная the drink makes the same amount of sense that tewaattyeacaeakee the elf does. Sure we know roughly what they are, one is a russian drink so it's some derivative of vodka and the other is an elf so it's some derivative of a golden haired, muscular, pointy eared super-being whose parent's tragic death while he was an infant led to him being raised by an old wise hermit whose tough outer shell really only is defense mechanism to hide the fact the he loves this elf child as was it his own, which is also evident through the fact that this old monk taught the young elf about his powerful but almost forgotten fighting technique that allows the elf to fight evil wherever he finds it. Not that teawaeattyeacaeakeea has no problems, as an elf in the lands of men he must overcome the cultural differences which his witty sidekick, the kings son in disguise, lovingly help him with as they form an unbreakable friendship while working to defeat the ultimate evil Feasibility.

frankly, I have no idea why they pick such retarded names sure they fantasy'ish but we, the readers, cant follow what hell is going on and we sure as hell cant guess what kind of person this is, not to mention that reading the story aloud is a definite no go.

my solution to this is that we give fantasy characters tried and true names from the real world. just imagine the grandeur of the tale of Joe the elf. We all know exactly what's going on here, a nice guy goes on quest to fight something evil'ish.

-Amsus

*a brilliant series, i advise evryone who likes fictional literature to look it up

** now i'm just a big a fanboy as everyone else here but let's just admit it they're elves with cat tails

*** pronounced /ˈkʌnt/ or kunt if you must know