Talk:Xanth

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Opening comments

This is my first try at an article. How badly did I screw up? I think it's good, but I'm not really all that objective. Fastfinge 23:06 Feb 2, 2003 (UTC)

It is quite adequate. -Fuzzy 20:00, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I am a fan of the Xanth series and I think you, and the whole community now, have done a great job pulling together this collection of Xanthism. If nothing else, it lets me know what to look for to complete the series. (I stopped reading around Yon Ill Wind.) --TecBrat 23:55, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Are you talking about the first paragraph? It's nice, but unfortunately it is an opinion. It's one I share, but it's not appropriate for an encyclopedia. Tokyogirl79 12:25, 11 November 2007 (UTC)Tokyogirl79

I just removed the information about P.A.'s preference for blondes and it being the basis for the name Xanth. The Greek word for blonde (feminine) is actually pronounced pretty close to "Cynthia" (it's where the name came from), and the word for blond (masculine) is closer ("Zinthos"), but it's still an unverified fact.

@GaidinBDJ:

1. "an unverified fact" is not a fact at all, just a claim.
2. The name Cynthia has nothing to do with ξάνθος (xánthos) and doesn't sound much like it. See Cynthia:

   Cynthia is a feminine given name of Greek origin: Κυνθία, Kynthía, "from Mount Cynthus" on Delos island.

3. ξάνθος does mean "blonde" in modern Greek.

--Thnidu (talk) 17:11, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Merge

Someone marked this article for merge in from The Manticora (a character in the Xanth series).

I've also just seen an article on Crunch The Ogre and Dor (Xanth). Both of these are stubs. We should consider gathering them all together into an article Characters of Xanth. Before the population gets out of control. RJFJR 02:11, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, there is a page titled List of Xanth characters. Maybe this article could include a link there? And I can see no reason for this article to be merged with The Manticora, especially since The Manticora redirects to the mythical creature rather than the (very minor) Xanth creature. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.216.1.8 (talk) 08:11, 26 June 2005 (UTC)

Merging the characters of Xanth is a good idea for stubs, but The Manticora page? No. Manticora is fine on its own, as is Xanth.

WikiProject?

Hey guys, me and my friend are thinking of starting a Xanth wikiproject. What do you think? There arent very many Xanth articles compared to other fiction series such as Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter. --Siam 19:26, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be good to start a wikiproject. I'm surprised there aren't as many page; there are way more books about the Demon $X\left({a}/{n}\;\right)^{th}$ and his realm than there are Harry Potter books. --Daniel (talk) 18:16, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Xanth Family Trees collaborator

Would it be appropriate to have a little tiny mini-bio of the other author of the Xanth Family Trees on the Xanth page? (I know her.)

Lady Aleena 14:52, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be appropriate under a "Collaborators" section perhaps. Jody Lynn Nye also comes to mind as far as other co-writers in the Xanth world. --Avery W. Krouse 20:39, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Xanth PseudoWikiProject

Hey there. Let's start a Xanth project. Whether or not we go for a full-on WikiProject or just a nice selection of Xanth pages, I'd like to see more about the World of Xanth. I could easily see more on the List of Xanth characters, perhaps a Geography of Xanth page, a page about the Moons of Ida (Xanth), mayhaps the History of Xanth, and even a List of Xanth puns. If you'd like to help with this project, let's discuss it here. Plant a comment in this section to let me know you're working on something, what it is you're working on, and what you'd like to see us do with WikiXanth. --Avery W. Krouse 21:32, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I think a list of Xanth puns might be just a tad overwhelming.--Vercalos 20:41, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I disagree; I'm like Dug Mundane, I'm one of those crazy people who LIKES puns (although even I think he tries to squeeze in too many per novel, they're displacing the substance). Besides, no Xanth project would be complete without them. --Daniel (talk) 18:20, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Major work to start soon

I have created infoboxes for all of the books in the series and will be making the articles shortly. I have also created a template for the Xanth series which I will be putting on the main Xanth page so that you can follow my progress during the article creation process for the books. This means that all of the redirects will not be redirects anymore. When the infobox is up, the article will be ready for the main body. This may take a while, so please be patient. --Lady Aleena 18:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

All done... --Lady Aleena 19:14, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I've added the new page for Geography of Xanth, feel free to rearrange and expand as you see fit. --Avery W. Krouse 18:18, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

We need a To Do list. --LA 20:05, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Not a horribly bad idea. *scampers off to make a new section*--Avery W. Krouse 23:42, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Possible Bias

Excerpt: "As many things in Xanth this is cross to the sensible idea of sex education." Something about that strikes me as being somewhat biased, but I am unsure if it merits editing or removal. Scienda 22:52, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Easily fixed. I will make a change, revert if it still seems biased. Will you be joining us in the quest to improve Xanth's presence on WP? --Avery W. Krouse 01:47, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Xanth Expansion Project

We shall use this section (or copy it into a subpage) to outline plans for a Xanth pages expansion project. There are several items on our To-Do list to complete in order to create a definitive resource for Xanth information.

Xanth

• Incorporate some form of chronology of Xanth (perhaps its own page)

List of Xanth characters

• Expand short descriptions and fill in missing ones
• Add new characters

Need some input please

As some of you have seen, I have been placing characters in groups across several pages. Now that the characters have been dispursed to those pages, should the main article stay as is or should I just make an alphabetical index? I have the index already saved on my computer ready to slap up, but before I do this, I would like to know what you think.

Vote:

• For index instead of groups
• For index and groups
• For separate index on another page

Lady Aleena 21:48, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd say an index instead of groups, especially considering the level of ambiguity of where characters belong.. Although Magicians and Sorcerers are fairly clear cut, the extended family of various families gets rather vague, and some of the characters are currently in sections they don't even belong in. For example the nagas, demons, and mare Imbrium are listed under Humfrey's family.--Vercalos 22:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I would say also that perhaps the current grouping, although a rather magnificent effort, does cause a bit of confusion here and there. Is there any other way we could go? Maybe stick to just racial lines, humans / demons / goblins / etc. On the human page, at least, it could have a major heading of "Magicians," divide from there into "Kings" and "Other Magicians," and have another section for regular humans. Maybe we could use subheadings to divide the family trees, ala this format. No clue beyond that. --Avery W. Krouse 01:58, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Duh, I just saw the new magicians page. I think the families pages get a bit weird when you start into family trees. Is there a format or template for family tree building on WP? --Avery W. Krouse 02:04, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Nice work on the character's page, Aleena! --Avery W. Krouse 04:54, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

About families

Should I include the family trees? I have all of Humfrey's ready, all I need to do is put them up. Lady Aleena 16:04, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

It would probably be less confusing.--Vercalos 18:52, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Family trees are added. Humfrey does have a large extended family. Lady Aleena 20:27, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Hope Piers is keeping track

I hope that Piers is keeping track of the families. As we have all seen, most of the couples that are boyfriend/girlfriend end up married. In Up in a Heaval Piers has added not only a person with no history before the book, he has added a DRAGON to Humfrey's family. And it isn't just any dragon either, it is Draco Dragon. He has also mentioned Demon Ted possibly marrying DeMonica. If that happens, there will be a loop in Humfrey's family tree. If the family tree didn't scroll so badly left to right, I would be able to show just how wide the thing really is. Oh, and he mentioned relatives of Mare Anne, but not how they are related to her. How can I add them to the family tree without knowing where they belong?! ACK!

If I were a demon right now, I would become a nice little puddle.

Lady Aleena 01:17, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Novels

• Add plot summaries to each novel page

Geography of Xanth

• Fill in information for existing sections
• Add additional sections

If you can think of any other objectives, please add them. We will then work on completing as much as possible as we go along. Should we make these objectives even more specific so we can say "Done" when we finish them? --Avery W. Krouse 23:50, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Moons of Ida

I created a Moons of Ida article, but it needs some work. Help would be greatly appreciated. -- Bigolfish 2:35, September 5 2006 (UTC)

Xanthian months

I think there should be a list of the Xanthian months, because they are different from the Mhundane months. Here they are:

Jambory - when the ogres celebrate with iceball fights.

FeBlueberry - when the red berries are blue with cold.

Marsh - when the snow melts, turning the ground into mud (mudball fights are almost as much fun)

Apull - when they have a big tug-of-war contest (a Pull which lasts all month, having forgotten to schedule a month for Push)

MayHem - which is entirely too pleasant for ogres, driving them crazy, so they do wild things. Noboby messes with an ogre then--or any other time.

JeJune - which is so pleasant they can't stand it, so they sleep through it, making the month pleasant for all other creatures.

Jewel-Lye - when the ogres bash fist-sized jewels into fragments that scatter widely for others to find.

AwGhost - when an ogre imbibed too deeply from a beerbarrel tree, so that it gave up the ghost, causing the ogre to say "Aw, Ghost".

Sap-Timber - when the ogres bash trees into splinters with their hamfists, making sap fly and trees fall, thus ushering in the fall season.

OctOgre - which the ogres reckoned to be the eighth month of he year, showing that ogres can't count well beyond the toes of one foot; but it was still their very own month.

NoRemember - because it was hard for a stupid ogre to remember anything that late in the year.

Dismember - with really bad weather, which ogres love, causing them to celebrate rather violently.

These months are described as I typed them word for word in How Precious Was That While (Piers, 285-286)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by MathPath Geek (talk • contribs) 18:23, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

From what I remember and what I see here, these are not generally Xanthian months but ogre months. --Thnidu (talk) 05:23, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Comments

Of all the Xanth articles I have seen, this is by far the best one. It reads well, and there are no unnecessary spoilers. There's some room for growth, but not a whole lot. I think the next major section to add to this page is an overall plot for the series. A separate timeline page will be necessary later on. The organization of the characters is good for now, but tense needs a lot of work. I think we need to find ways to introduce the characters without spoiling too much for readers who are just getting into the series. The books ... well, they do have pages, which is good, but, again, the spoilers need better placement, and the plot summaries need to be straightened out. I think a "standard" for what to include in the book pages would be good, too. Each book page should have a plot summary, in two parts (1, setting the scene and, 2, spoilers); lists of characters (starring roles (with spoiler warning, if necessary), other significant characters, and cameos (established major characters that make only a brief appearance in this particular book)); and some kind of geographic & time reference box. What do you think? Mdotley 20:30, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Next two Xanth books

I have emailed Piers and Found out the name of the next two xanth books and a brief plot description of one of them. Number 32# is "Two and Fifth" it will involve rythmn and cyrus having a baby. Number 33# Jumper Cable (which I will be in with my username Oxalate) no plot details so far. Set to be published in 2009. Oxalate 20:09, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Easter Egg

I hope that no one minds. I added in an easter egg on how to read "gibberish". Signed: Nick Petruzzi. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.1.71.83 (talk) 19:26, 13 January 2007 (UTC).

Adult Conspiracy

I've corrected the error that the exact age of entering into the Adult Conspiracy is unknown. Anthony states many times that the age is 18 (which corresponds to the age of majority).

I also linked "summoning the stork" to sexual reproduction to be as factually accurate as possible about what is meant by "summoning the stork."

Also, Anthony has made it clear (and stated openly) that the Adult Conspiracy is meant to make fun of the sometimes absurd lengths adults go to in order to keep "adult knowledge" from children. I think this should be worked into the description somehow, but couldn't think of a good way to do it. Perhaps someone else can. --Lord Galen 14:12, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Find a citation, and I'm sure there are any number of folks that would be willing to help. Mdotley 22:32, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I found a published interview with an appropriate quote, put it in and cited it. you're welcome. If it's isn't sufficient, anyone else is welcome to do better. Davnoctu (talk) 14:13, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Piers Anthony does state that the age is 18, however later in the series he said it depended on several things (Such as in Demons Don't Dream), and in one of the first novels (before the Adult Conspiracy), once two people want to marry, they can - despite age. --Daniel (talk) 18:26, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't have my copy of the Xanth books right now, but in one of the latest ones ("Stork Naked", I believe), it is speculated in the story that the Adult Conspiracy artificially became reality due to Ida and Ivy's powers ("Idea" and "Enhancement"), which were strong enough combined to retroactively affect the past, even well before they were born, providing an in-universe explaination for how the Adult Conspiracy became so essential to the series when there was no reference to it whatsoever in the earliest Xanth books. --202.134.242.104 (talk) 14:15, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Series

I noticed that articles referring to the Xanth series direct here. This article seems to be about the Xanth universe. Should there be a section/article for that? -- StarDolph (talk) 12:44, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Article deficiencies

Knowing absolutely nothing about the Xanth series coming in, I found this article to be remarkably uninformative. Details are given without any background ("While this belief is exaggerated, the entry to the Conspiracy does cause the couple to lose their bed monster, inadvertently creating the appearance of losing all childhood spirit under the responsibility of Adulthood," as an example), and there is an obvious lack of any sort of critical assessment of the works. It's not even clear what level of reader the series is aimed toward: is it for kids? teens? immature adults? =) Powers ^T 16:40, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Curse fiend

I doubt that anyone wants to write a whole article on Curse fiends. Don't you think it would be better to merge it back here? I can still be linked in the text, to another part of the article. In that section, just say that this is an original creation, unlike the other mythical beasts. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 03:57, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

That sounds quite reasonable to me. -Phoenixrod (talk) 04:39, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Delete Curse fiend without merging as there is currently no section for the various creatures of Xanth anywhere in the article. I like Xanth a bit, but curse fiends aren't notable even for this article. The information could be mentioned in the article of the first novel they were mentioned in however. LA (T) @ 07:31, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Pet Peeve

The link for Pet Peeve is wrong. When you click on it, it takes you to the definition of pet peeve instead of the Xanth book —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.127.132.53 (talk) 14:03, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Chronological order of novels?

It's been a while since I've read the books, and I haven't yet read the latest half dozen or so. From what I recall, the chronological order followed publication order, except in the case of Castle Roogna. Even that book had the 'present' framing the 'past' (400 years before the current books.)

Are there any other Xanth books that are set in previous time periods? I usually prefer to read the earliest chronological books first, even though a much later book might have been published first, such as the Stainless Steel Rat books by Harry Harrison, and the Redwall books by Brian Jacques.

I would like to see either a chronological listing as many other series show, OR a note that says something like "The novels take place generally in the order they were published, except for Castle Roogna which has the characters travelling 400 years to the past."68.12.195.143 (talk) 22:46, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Unintentional pun?

The History section states that "The name Xanth is in itself an unintentional pun, which matches the playful tone of the books."

This has an inline citation, which reads: "The name 'Xanth' was from my 'Names' book. I use these books not for the usual purpose of naming babies...but for naming characters in my fiction" (Piers, 213)

I don't... I don't see how that citation shows that "the name Xanth is in itself an unintentional pun", nor that it "matches the playful tone of othe books". Am I missing something? (I admit I also don't "get" the pun... maybe that's part of the problem?) ErraticDragon (talk) 05:58, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Xanth sounds like Piers Anthony, if you leave out the "pier" and the "ony". If it's still unclear, note that "Piers" is usually pronounced with a voiced s, i.e. [z] in IPA. Ryan 1729 (talk) 03:39, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Fixed. --Thnidu (talk) 17:53, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

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Anyone more familiar with the series than I care to add it to this list?

Types of mythological or fantastic beings in contemporary fiction is a page of, well, fantasy series (movie, TV, written, whatever) and the assorted mythological and/or fantastic critters they contain. This series would qualify. Anyone care to add it? Tamtrible (talk) 01:11, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Sourcing/ encyclopedia tone

Despite being a reasonably sized article and this talk page having 20 sections, this article has only 3 sources, one of which is an interview. The article desperately needs to be converted to a more encyclopediac tone, including cites, a reception section etc. A description of the world is fine, but wikipedia is not a site for dumping any knowledge an editor may have of a book series they like. Ashmoo (talk) 13:53, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Newest Book Skeleton Key

Just to let anyone know, the latest book listed in production is to be called Skeleton Key. I added the info, unfortunately, as the book page doesn't yet exist, "skeleton Key" is directing to the article about actual Skeleton Key's for the time being. I'm not pro enough editor, to write whatever is necessary to redirect it to a "page doesn't exist" Unrelated I also hunted down a number of references to jazz up the main article. Davnoctu (talk) 14:13, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

I fixed the link. Cheers- Dan Bloch (talk) 00:02, 21 July 2018 (UTC)