Talk:The Tripods

the 1700s?

the 1700s were not a period of technological stagnation. i don't understand WHAT you are talking about

I think the point is that people are living in the equivalent of this time period but because of mind control have no means to advance beyond this. --ChrisJMoor 15:51, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Images lost ?

What happened to the images ? Rama 21:56, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

(16 years later) Is someone going to answer User:Rama? 173.88.246.138 (talk) 20:58, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

City location?

"... (The Tripods, it turns out, actually have three cities: one near Berlin, ..."

"... the Tripod city, which is located in a sealed, pressurized dome that sits astride a river (presumably the Rhine) ..."

There's an inconsistency here. —wwoods 03:27, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

On a global scale, it's not inconsistent. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 04:12, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

From the novels and other wikipedia references, I always thought it was close to Koblenz:

"In John Christopher's post-apocalyptic series The Tripods, one of the three domed cities built by the alien invaders is located close to Koblenz; it is the setting of most of the second novel, The City of Gold and Lead.

--Shrekgrinch (talk) 23:37, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

This plot sounds VERY familiar

Did L. Ron Hubbard rip this off for his Battlefield Earth series? 68.152.95.130 18:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Having just looked at the Battlefield Earth novel's entry on Wikipedia (it's a series?!?) I'd say maybe not. (I've never read it, and don't intend to.) Keep in mind that The Tripods backstory is essentially cribbed from H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds," as noted in the article. Hubbard could have done the same, but there's no mention of it there. Science fiction abounds with post-apoc alien occupation stories. salamurai 19:33, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Historical analogue

Could somebody comment on the similarity between the Tripod occupation and World War II? Is there a critical source which says this? 71.199.114.44 17:19, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

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BetacommandBot 04:49, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Love interest

In the TV series section, the article notes the following "divergence" between the book and the movie:

... love interests for both Will and Beanpole. The original texts have almost no female characters at all.

However, under the plot of "The White Mountains", it's stated:

Will forms a strong relationship with their preteen daughter, Eloise, and is heartbroken when Eloise ... must then go off to serve the Tripods in their domed city.

Then under The Cities of the Masters in Vocabulary it says:

The cities include ... a display of taxidermically preserved humans. It is here that Will discovers the horribly preserved body of Eloise, ... arranged in an array of red-headed females ... to demonstrate the variations in human hair color.

Again, I don't have the books to hand to give exact citations, nor have I read them in the last few years, but I pretty well recall that a key plot element of "The White Mountains" was Will's falling in love with the aforementioned French girl Eloise, who nursed him back to health, and then in "The City of Gold and Lead" that the motivation for him to finally struggle to escape the Masters' city was his finding her preserved body in a museum, as discussed above. In the meantime, I'm also slapping a {{fact}} tag on that sentence. --Eliyahu S ^Talk 22:45, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

"almost no female characters" implies there is at least one. A display of preserved bodies, however, does not make them characters. I always thought the notation of Eloise in G&L was there to point up the aliens' disregard for humans but fascination with the variations in physiology, as there was no indication of sexual differences in the Masters. ( ... I'm getting off the subject.) Eloise is the only female character I recall from the story, other than mothers, which were incidental. The prequel book does have a couple of female characters in it. Salamurai 02:44, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

While "almost no" does admit of an exception, that was not the main thrust of my remark. My point was that Will already had a "love interest" in the books, and in fact, even if Eloise was unique, Will's love for her was pivotal in his actions in two of the three books in the series: In the first book, her selection by the Masters is what wakes Will from his idyll and returns him to his original quest for a land free of the Masters; in the second book, discovering her preserved body renews his desire for vengeance, which overcomes the familiarity and comfortable accomodation he'd found with his relatively easygoing Master in the City. One could make a case for Omnia vincit Amor as a sub-theme in the books, and yet the idea of Will having a love interest is described as a "divergence" with the TV series. Makes no sense to me.--Eliyahu S ^Talk 12:45, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Vocabulary

Vocabulary - far too much unnecessary detail???

Someone deleted a whole section. Shouldn't it be discussed first? --217.184.90.19 09:01, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Not every edit needs to be discussed. The heading was misleading, and the section was huge. There's no need for that level of detail, Wikipedia is not an in-depth guide to the series. This article is start class for a reason. Adding large chunks of redundant info (most of it is expressed concisely further up the page) will not improve the article. Geoff B 09:35, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

There is a remarkable similarity of the Tripods' shape and the machines used by the martians in HG Wells' War of the Worlds, sheer conincidence? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.239.179.128 (talk) 18:14, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Author John Christopher used tripods as a way to pay tribute to HG Wells' story. Michael24 13:02, 8 February 2008

The 2003 edition of The White Mountains, The author discuss the process of how the book came to be, in which he had already rewritten the book multiple time and had the final version accepted by both his US and UK publishers before he realized he had subconsciously cribbed from War of the Worlds, he wasn't even sure if they were going to be sentient machines or vehicles when he had ended the first book. He was only consensuses that he was working as deviated works with the latter books --Roguebfl (talk) 22:45, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Section 1.2 : The White Mountains (1967) states that the book The White Mountains has an unsophisticated vocabulary. Well, words in the book include "acquiescence", "arabesques", "reverberated", "ululation", "sacrosanct", and "corrugations". Somebody should probably delete that statement. Hplink941225 (talk) 10:51, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with HPlink941225. The vocabulary can be quite sophisticated at times, although it is not always. - Spongefrog (talk) 18:39, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Dates

I'm going to eliminate all mentions of specific dates for when the books took place from the article. No specific date is mentioned in When the Tripods Came, and in The White Mountains Ozymandias tells Will it had been 100 years since the Tripods took over. —The President of Cool (talk) 00:46, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

In the 'White Mountains' the author does give some clues as to when the Tripods arrived. It is stated that a gravestone marked 1966 was from before the Tripods. In Britain the old currency system is still in use - this switched in 1971, and presumably the author was thinking that the invasion happened before 1971 and as a result the switch did not take place. The book was published in 1967 and it would therefore appear that the invasion was around the time the author wrote the book.

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Re-assesment

Coudn't this article be re-assessed. I think its better that Start-class. Tell me if I'm wrong, I won't do it myself. --Spongefrog (talk) 18:32, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Plot tag

The plot tag needs removing. This was mistakenly placed by a newbie with no familiarity with other articles. Then replaced, for some unknown reason by a "sympathizer" apparently recruited by the newbie. Plots here are entirely too short. There are four books, yet only a few lines per book. Usually these are addressed in four different articles with several pages each. If you are going to place a tag, it helps to be familiar with how other articles read. Student7 (talk) 16:41, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

You are making assumptions for which there is no evidence.

1. Due to the rotating nature of IP's there is no evidence that it was place there by a "newbie".
2. Your accusation of "recruitment" is false and offensive. I do not know the IP number that placed the tag nor have I been contacted by anyone about this page.
3. Please read WP:PLOT The synopsis of the plots for each of the books is too long and full of minor detail. While this might be fun on a fan page for these books it is not encyclopedic.
4. I have been editing here as long as you have and am quite familiar with how other articles read. Take a look at the old and the current plot synopsis sections for The War Games if you want to see what wikipedia guidelines are striving for. MarnetteD | Talk 17:01, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

This is an article about four books, not one book. Articles on books tend to be quite long when done properly and divulge the entire plot. See, for example, Kim (novel), The_Lion,_the_Witch_and_the_Wardrobe, Gulliver's Travels, and others. Student7 (talk) 17:12, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I think the White Mountains got reduced to nothing. Right now depending entirely too much on the lead. Needs a paragraph more at least. Maybe two. Student7 (talk) 17:32, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

War of the Worlds vs The Hunger Games

There is a section stating that The Tripods was similar to the 3 legged tripods in The War of the Worlds. While the plot of the series is entirely different, it is indeed true that in both stories they had 3 legged robotic beings. One big difference, of course, is that while in the War of the Worlds they were automatons, in The Tripods they had living beings inside operating them.

But the problem is that there is no link to the almost identical The Hunger Games. It should be mentioned, given that the similarity to the alien robots in The War of the Worlds is mentioned. Both The Hunger Games and The Tripods have societies split into 12 areas that are forced to compete in olympic games style events, and that is the whole point of both series. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.2.223.96 (talk) 05:58, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

 Not done - Per No Original Research. -- MST☆R ^{(Chat Me!)} 06:12, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Not to mention that the competition is the main plot of The Hunger Games, while it is only a very minor part in one of the books in The Tripods. --Conti|✉ 15:47, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Or more relevant The Hunger Games was published in 2008, 41 years after the first book in this,series, so unlike the War of the Worlds can't been seen as an influence on these books. If the claim is the Hunger Games was influenced by The tripods that would go on the Hunger Games entry. Roguebfl (talk) 14:04, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Why were the Lat/Long coordinates of the filming locations removed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.12.78.81 (talk) 16:31, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

animated series

I remember watching an animated series on TV with the same story line, in the late 80s perhaps. But I cannot find any clues of it nowadays. Does anyone remember it? 80.187.101.24 (talk) 09:01, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Master's Bauplan

Did J.C. ever explain why he chose to make the Masters bilaterally symmetrical, rather than triradial? 2600:6C54:4100:F13C:113C:441F:C4C7:34AC (talk) 16:01, 14 August 2021 (UTC)