Discussion What makes a war a "good" war?

1) A war is interesting as it unfolds only if you care about the result. So, good build up.
2) The war must be of organic characters I connect to, who are also badass.
3) The war shouldn't just be a massacre.
4) Strategy is always welcome.

 

If you want to read good war books I'd check out history instead of fantasy. Pretty much every fantasy war I've ever read fails at some level.

 

i think it will be interesting if there wars like on Death Mage where Human Population become less than 4 thousand people.
Most hated war story..... when there war with more than 200.000 army. i will put that novel on trash list

 

Because novel more often depicted the war one sidedly. Of the rarity they being fair they most likely showcase the goodness of humanity rather than their bad. The reality always need both to be seen in their completeness.

 

A good war is one that achieves the objective, without much civilian casualty or civil damage. It is not a dirty war, such as a war of extermination, genocide or obliteration. The goals of a 'good war' is normally to show off one's might, to pay back the other side for slights made, to intimidate or to persuade the other side to give the aggressor what they want, need or rightfully eligible to.

The following are examples:
1) Bad war
a) Extermination
- This is in reference to how the goal of the war is to outright exterminate the populace of a certain region, country or beliefs
- It includes holy war where the goal is to either convert the populace to the aggressor's religion, exterminate the followers of the target religion or execute the populace that was given a choice to convert but refused. The Crusades was of this type, at least based on what the aggressors (Christians) did in Jerusalem when they captured it.
b) Genocide
- This is quite self-explainable, but the basic purpose is to completely wipe out the populace of a particular race, ethnicity or culture.
- The Second Punic War was basically this. The goal of Rome was to completely destroy Cartage and ensure that there would be no second Cartage by massacring all its populace and all who'd call themselves Carthaginians. Apparently, for the next decade, you would've been executed from simply calling yourself Carthaginian in a Roman controlled city.
- World War 2 in Europe is not a war of genocide. Hitler didn't want to annihilate the Jews, they Nazis just wanted them out of Germany and Hitler had offered to send Russia, UK, and USA all the Jews in German territory, but they all refused.
c) Obliteration
- This is similar to a war of extinction. It is a war so absolute, that nothing is left of the target. A war where both sides destroyed the other is this type.
- The Portuguese did this to several civilizations that they conquered. The method of destroying a group of people is to destroy their history so that the next generation would not have anything that they could call theirs and had no choice but to adopt the culture of their conquerors. They did this is Malacca, and destroyed the city so thoroughly that archeologists still could not find a single evidence that the city of Malacca once existed beyond books by Marco Polo, Zheng He and Chinese merchants. What happened here is not the obliteration of land or people, but the obliteration of people's cultural identity.

2) Good war
a) Showing off might
- This is usually done to tell the other side that "Hey, cavalry is better than yours". Some people died, many wounded, but it's pretty much not really all that involved. Proxy war is in this category.
- Ai-chan doesn't remember anything, maybe Vietnam War, but that dragged on way too long that it couldn't be considered a good war anymore.
b) Pay back for slights
- If Amarilas insults Bemaris, then Bemaris may decide to burn a village or two on Amarilas's side to get even before pulling back. If Amarilas gives resistance but does not push further, then it is a good war. Even if Amarilas push further, as long as this doesn't drag on for too long and only stays constrained at the border before peace is signed, then this is considered a good war. Both sides get to lose steam and show off that they're not easily bullied.
c) Intimidate
- Sometimes, you want to march an army into enemy country just because you think the other side doesn't believe you have that many soldiers. If it's just intimidation with nothing getting damaged or killed, then it's a good war. Some tavern wenches may get bedded and some alcohol (and gold or silver) may get stolen and there may be some fighting, but if the purpose is only to intimidate, the attacking side will withdraw pretty easily, since the goal of showing their army has been achieved.
d) Persuade
- It involves marching your army into the enemy lands, telling the populace "If you surrender, we won't do anything to you and will withdraw as soon as your king complies with our king's demands". You can also march your army straight to the capital or cities and sieging them without actually throwing rocks at their wall (maybe a little) or blockade the roads so that merchants can't enter. If you have enough control over their lands, the victim may decide to comply with your demands. Nobody dies, the victim gets shamed and you get what you want.

EDIT: Oh wait, is this not a philosophical discussion?

 

A "Good" war is only decided by the victor. No amount of argument will quash the winning side as they will be the ones to write the history books.

 

hmm what's make a war good in novels?

It's when plot armors don't appear on that war or something

 

Kingdom builders, because yo get invested into making the kingdom better , suddenly every solider matters if you're there from day 1 .
Think about it like a game of Civ4.

Another good example of war is in manga KINGDOM, thats base on how the armies are separated. With leaders on top of every division, when a division gets a hit the leader gets a hit. The leaders of all states are fleshed out so you care about their armies rank and sucess.

While the wars go on the front, the pollitics and strategist work in overdrive to provide the generals the resources they need to win. It creates that organic feedback loop between front and back bone of the army , very beautiful... also common people are used in various ways. So you get to see how they play a role in all of it too.
You get to see the d

Also from moral standpoint war isn't good, there's no such thing as "Righteous Murder".
IT's an immoral affair, human error and in general god's/evolutions mistake whichever you believe in. Something that is MORAL is constructive. war is destructive @Ai chan..

 

The only war i know that doesn't have any bloodshed was Dog Days where instead of getting killed, they turned into stuff animals and sometimes girl's clothes explode when weapons made contact to their body.

Its not the best war but at least it isn't bloody. Also, once they get defeated, they would set up rules and payment in something like money or territory.

 

Wars are good if the series is focused on wars (like gundam or youjo senki) or they are very personal and relatively short (like Ace's war in One Piece).

Terrible wars are those that are in the series just because the author wants to go off with a huge and epic final arc where everything goes boom, only to get an extremely underwhelming last arc. (See Naruto, Bleach and Fairy Tail)

 

wars on video games~
cuz it is fiction~
lel~
that aside for how war go boom boom there several way I like how it goes

Altina The Sword Princess
Sevens
The Ravages of Times

I think those three hmm from light to heavy~
Altina mainly strategy
Sevens for preparation and after effect
while the last is heavily on strategy, conspiracy and thing behind the scene of wars

 

The short answer is that good war stories are the ones that are well written. The longer answer is that what makes a war story well written is that the author understands what the strong point of war stories is and finds a way to employ them in his writing. I think that the most important elements are that the story should ideally be believable, and that there is some tension about what happens. Fail at these two elements, and a war story may be able to generate mild amusement, but probably not much more than that. Unfortunately, that's probably exactly where most books that work as power fantasies sit, so if you're mostly reading this kind of book, you're not going to get the best war stories.

On the other hand, when done well, war stories can be extremely engaging. I'm reading a 6-million word that is solely about the Eastern Front in World War II, and it's terrific because it tackles this subject in such exacting detail. Also, I think that stories based on historical wars tend to be better than ones made up by the author because it's a lot easier to make events that actually happened feel more believable.

 

A good war is when you beat a mom-in-law in a verbal disagreement.