Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Dying Earth characters

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect‎ to Dying Earth. History preserved so editors can do the necessary merging Spartaz ^Humbug! 05:24, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

List of Dying Earth characters[edit]

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As far as I can recall, with the exception of Liane the Wayfarer and one or two minor characters, none of the other characters appears in more than one story in the series. The significant details can be merged into each individual work's article. Also, two of the books are not mentioned here. Clarityfiend (talk) 13:17, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to respective pages for books. From our articles, it looks like the 'series' is comprised of books which are themselves collections of short stories/essays. As the nominator notes, the characters are often unique to one short story. Having these characters collected in a central location is unhelpful to readers since there is little or no overlap. Therefore, we should merge the sections to the books they correspond to, Rhialto the Marvellous and The Dying Earth. The latter already has a framework of a character list, anyway. ‡ El cid, el campeador ^talk 13:39, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements, Science fiction and fantasy, Literature, and Lists. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 14:38, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Collecting some sources: Magill's Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature: Dream, p. 275; Fantasy: The 101 Best Books. And these are about characters by Jack Vance more generally, not sure how much there is about The Dying Earth specifically: Jack Vance - Critical Appreciations and a Bibliography; Paperback Quarterly (Vol. 2 No. 2), "The Cadwal Chronicles" and the Criticism of Vance, Demon Prince: The Dissonant Worlds of Jack Vance. Daranios (talk) 15:27, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I'd like to see this rescued based on sources Daranios found... but if nobody does that, redirect for now (preserving history, of course). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 00:04, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Those sources do not really relate to this discussion. They deal with the author and the works, not a list of characters. No one is debating that the author or works are non-notable. ‡ El cid, el campeador ^talk 12:27, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The author and the works may be the main topic of those, but all of them also have something to say on the characters, as a group and individual ones, if briefly. Daranios (talk) 15:27, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, or merge to the respective books and redirect to Dying Earth seem both fine (with their pros and cons) to me. This list is in bad shape as it lacks both detailed references (even though everything can be verified by going through the books) and commentary, but not to the point of being a case of WP:TNT. It's true that Rhialto the Marvelous has a different cast of characters than The Dying Earth, but all books share the same notable setting. And having a list of character for a setting even if a number of characters appear only in one work is common practice, just compare List of Star Wars characters and the like. In contrast to what the nomination claims, for The Dying Earth it is the characters who link the short stories, with one main character becoming a side character of the next story and such. Aside from Liane, at least Turjan, T'sais, T'sain and the minor character Kandive appear in more than one story. As for "two of the books are not mentioned here", that means the list is incomplete. That's not a reason for deletion, rather one to WP:JUSTFIXIT. So in my view no convincing rationale for deletion has been brought forward. Daranios (talk) 10:20, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Merge/Redirect per all. I would accept merging to more than one target, and that can be worked out through editing. Doesn't have enough coverage, but support WP:ATD. Shooterwalker (talk) 23:17, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.