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| Alt-text: If you're 15 or younger, then just remember that it's nevertheless probably too late to be a child prodigy. |
So Randall has completely copied the concept of an earlier comic, made it into a chart with popular movies, and gone back to masturbating. In fact, the only reaction I got out of this was with the 'Snakes On A Plane' one. Five years ago, really? Doesn't make me feel old though.
Given the recent burst of nostalgia and self-reference to past comics, it seems as though Randall has entered into a quarter-life crisis. He has dropped into the existential funk that some people seem prone to and, at 26, has realised he is not a child anymore. He can celebrate his ball pits and his quirkiness all he wants, but his slowly decaying body will drag him into reality even as he sobs and screams like an infant.
There isn't really much else to say. It's a tired concept. It's another shitty chart. It's dull.
That is all.
JON LEVI'S BINGO TIME!
Our first instance of xkcd forum bingo!
And it's close! No-one disliked this comic? Madness!
do a comment bingo for 890 please
ReplyDeleteIt's also pretty clear that Randall simply sat around pondering movies from *his* youth rather than actually doing some research on, say, major teen movies at various points.
ReplyDeleteFor example, he mentions The Matrix, which was the quintessential movie for (male) teens in the late 90s. But "earlier" he mentions "Home Alone", which was *not* a teen movie but a children's movie of a few years before.
So as a child, Randall went to see Home Alone with a bunch of other screaming brats. He then got taller and grew pimples and went to The Matrix with other pimply-faced teenaged boys who afterwords smoked and drank malt liquor behind the 7-11 (except for Randall of course, he didn't want to do that "bad stuff" and ruin his chances of becoming a NASA rocket engineer).
Later, as a loser sitting in his apartment in his late-20s, selling tee-shirts to pay his bills and masturbating to little-mermaid based internet porn, Randall decides to make a comic about going to the movies. But because he never attained the level of self-awareness one would expect from an adult, he simply assumes that his experiences are universal.
@Me!: I'll start by saying perhaps I got a bit overzealous as I went on. I stopped responding directly to your concerns, and starting responding to my own comment. I kind of lost sight of the point I was trying to make, so I'm going to try to take it back to Star Wars specifically again.
ReplyDeleteSince we agreed on my points in Empire, I'm going to back to my point in New Hope, since we didn't agree on that.
"I don't see the issue with the Force making Luke a decent pilot, this seems a case when it's arbitrarily decided by you or him that it's bad because...it's bad. [...]Luke trained, he got better at it, and it made him a better pilot and such."
If The Force wasn't there, Luke being an amazing pilot (despite the fact that he's a Farm Boy, not an experienced pilot) and being able to blow up the Death Star, without his computer no less, wouldn't make sense. Him switching off his targeting computer at all would make even less sense. The only reason those things make any sense at all, is because of The Force. The idea that "Well, it's okay because he trained in the force." is the whole reason why it's shoddy writing. Instead of writing plot points that fit with one another, you can write them not making sense, and use The Force to explain them. I don't think that's arbitrary at all. I think that's looking at how the plot points fit together, and realizing there is glue keeping those puzzle pieces in place. The only thing keeping all those things together is The Force. That's the way The Force was written. It's what it was designed as. As an omnipotent, all knowing Thing, that can essentially affect the outcome of anything, anywhere, ever, for any reason. I don't know how else I could explain that this is a sign of poor writing.
"Heck, you might as well say that Luke getting better at piloting "normally" is prodding forward by the author. I simply don't see how it's covering up plot holes, unless you count every single explanation ever as a covering up of a plot hole. A character does well in a swordfight because they know how to use a sword well? It's covering up a plot hole because otherwise the character wouldn't do well in the swordfight!"
ReplyDeleteI think you're misunderstanding what is suggested by the author "prodding." Story is meant to push forward by the natural interactions between characters. Luke's natural desire was to become a pilot, and leave his farm boy life behind. We know this about the character, and so him running off to become a pilot would make sense. That's not the author prodding a character to become a pilot, that's the author creating a character that wants to become a pilot. They are totally different things. Just like in real life, if a person wants to be a pilot, he will get himself into flight school. If a person has no interest in becoming a pilot, what possible series of events could put him into flight school? It wouldn't be bloody likely would it? That's the key difference between prodding by the author, and a lack of prodding. It's the reason why Luke learning to pilot the normal way wouldn't be an "explanation" of the events in the future, it would be a logical path that LEADS to the events in the future.
Incidently, Magic and Superpowers can be used the same way, you're right, but they are not necesarily guilty of the same issues. The issue isn't that The Force allows Luke to do wonderous things (like use Telekenisis), it's that it allows him to do EVERYTHING needed. There are no limits to what the Force can do, and the force can be thrown in to explain anything. Magic, and super powers, can have limits. If they don't, then they are the same exact problem. Spiderman is a good example. His power makes him strong, and it gives him a "sense" for danger. But that's all. When a plane is crashing, we don't suddenly learn it helps him fly a plane. When he's drowning, we don't suddenly learn it helps him hold his breath. Sure, he can use his super strength to prevent problems, but that is written into the scenario, and not absusing the "Superpower" to fill in plot holes. They are not plot holes, because the plot is written with full knowledge that Super Strength is going to be able to resolve the issue. Again, it's writing based on what the character is capable of doing already, rather then something you want him to do, and need to find a way to make him capable of doing it. Your sword fight example is without specifics, which makes it hard to discuss. If the character is a skilled fighter, that is not an "explination" that is a part of the character which would naturally lead us to the plot point of a sword fight. If we did not KNOW he was skilled, but he in fact is, then learning he is right at that moment isn't just an explination to fill in a plot point, it completely adds a new dynamic to the character. This is of course assuming that it doesn't contradict with the other things we already know about the character. (Like his background would prohibit the ability to learn swordsmanship, etc.)
Here's another bingo, if you want to keep going with these.
ReplyDeleteBy they way, I can assure you my mental state is *TWITCH* absolutely fine.
If you're looking for something to replace bingo, how about Xkcdsucks Wordles (image here)? We get to see which words commenters have been using the most, and we make a pretty picture out of it.
Captcha: saten. I can haz saten?
I made a bingo for 890. Here it is.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I don't know what you're talking about but my mental state is *TWITCH* absolutely fine.*
If you're looking for an idea to replace bingo, how about Xkcdsucks Wordles (image here). We get to see which words commenters are using the most, and make a pretty picture out of it.
*Though apparently it's bad enough that I accidentally posted it on Xkcdsucks first.
My original captcha: saten. I can haz saten?
Star Wars? More like Star Bores. More like Blah Wars. More like Marred Cores. More like Par Course. More like Jarred Doors.
ReplyDeleteMore like Niggers.
ReplyDelete@ Rinnon
ReplyDeleteI still think this would've been better served back in the original blog post comment area, but since you moved it here...
If The Force wasn't there, Luke being an amazing pilot (despite the fact that he's a Farm Boy, not an experienced pilot) and being able to blow up the Death Star, without his computer no less, wouldn't make sense.
Two different points here. Let's tackle them one at a time.
First, Luke being an amazing pilot. You seem to be claiming that the Force made him one. The thing is...it's established that he was a good pilot before he ever learned anything about the Force.
When Luke first meets Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan says that Luke's father was the best pilot in the galaxy and adds "I understand you've become a good pilot yourself." In the script there was a scene with Luke and Briggs a while before this one that establishes this even better, but it doesn't look like it made it into the movie itself. Later on in the movie, though, Briggs (he shows up later) mentions Luke being "the best bushpilot in the outer rim territory" when a superior asks if Luke is up to the Death Star attack. Luke's skill in shooting is also established earlier when they make their escape from the Death Star and they're shooting down the TIE Fighters that are chasing them. Granted, that one is after Obi-Wan has taught him, but there's no indication that he's using the Force to do it.
The next part you bring up is the Force letting him hit the vent and destroy the Death Star. Now, it's not entirely certain he wouldn't have been able to hit it otherwise. After all, when someone says that it's impossible to hit a target that narrow (2 meters), Luke says that it's not impossible and he "used to bull's-eye womp rats in my T-sixteen back home. They're not much bigger than two meters." This again reinforces Luke's skill in firing before he learned about the Force, and indicates that he may have been able to do it even without the Force. So even if you were to take the Force out of it entirely, you COULD have had it all happen and have it made sense.
Now you might be wondering "if you didn't need the Force, why is it there?" The reason story-wise that Luke turned off the computer and relied on the Force instead was (1) it was cooler that way and (2) it fit with the set-up of Obi-Wan teaching him and showed he was on his way to mastering it. If Luke had learned about the powers of the Force and didn’t ever use them, THAT would’ve been poor writing.
(continued next message)
So ultimately, your entire complaint about Luke's usage of the Force in A New Hope relies on the faulty premise that Luke wasn't a good pilot or a good shooter prior to learning the Force, when he actually was established as being both. It furthermore was established in the movie what the Force could do (fight with lightsabers and give you greatly attuned senses...there was the whole choking thing also but that didn't matter too much in terms of the plot, it was there to make Darth Vader seem more spooky and establish his strength) and Luke's triumph via the Force is in line with what was previously established.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, I phrased some aspects of my argument poorly and made it sound like Luke ONLY was a good pilot because of the Force. I was trying to say that it was because of the Force that he hit the vent, not that it was why he was a decent pilot in the first place. But looking back, I realize even that wasn't entirely accurate and, as mentioned before, he had a possibility of doing it even without the Force (though he would’ve needed the computer most likely).
Speaking of which, one thing you say that if not for the Force, him turning off the computer wouldn’t have made sense. This seems a weird complaint to me. This is true about any action a character has a motivation to do. If someone hides when they hear gunfire to avoid being shot, it doesn’t make sense to say “if not for the gunfire, it wouldn’t make sense for them to hide!” I’m simply not seeing the reasoning here.
If a person has no interest in becoming a pilot, what possible series of events could put him into flight school? It wouldn't be bloody likely would it?
This is a bit of a different subject, but this is actually part of my problem with the idea of "prodding." With this logic, anything that makes a character do something other than what they would've done otherwise is prodding. So if a war starts in a book and the characters join into it, that's prodding because otherwise they would've just stayed at home. If a character is defeated by an enemy and resolves to grow stronger as a response, that's prodding because if the enemy hadn't shown up they wouldn't have done that. Really, when you get down to it, any external force that changes a character's actions or motivations seems to be "prodding." Are we going to declare Batman's backstory to be bad writing because if his parents hadn't been killed, he would never have become Batman? Speaking of superheroes, you seemed to mention Spider-Man positively. He became Spider-Man because he got bit by a radioactive spider. If he hadn’t been bit, that wouldn’t have happened, as beforehand he had no interest in becoming a superhero. Is that prodding? Because it seems like it has to be according to the definitions I'm seeing.
@Me!: You make some good points about Lukes piloting. Perhaps it is in fact established enough that he is capable of flying an X-Wing/Destroying a Death Star. I'll have to put that complaint aside, because upon further review, I suppose the force was not actually required to allow those things to happen. I still stand by my earlier points which were meant to address a lack of cohesion in the plot of Empire Strikes Back, but I'll relent on Lukes piloting, to be sure.
ReplyDeleteBefore I address the prodding, I'd like to bring up another point I thought of, that would have been useful to have mentioned at the forefront of our conversation. It's more of a question really. Do you think that the existence of the author being either acknowledged or brought to the readers attention is a bad thing? I think a lot of the points I try to make are based on this thought, so it's regretful I haven't mentioned it earlier. I think that depending on the context, it is indeed a bad thing. In a Comedy, it's not such a big deal, but in a serious fiction (Or at least, a fiction we are meant to take seriously) the existence of the author being brought up is a big negative. Most serious stories, in my opinion, attempt to create as real a world as possible. Magic or Elves may exist, but the world is still meant to follow it's own internal logic. The benefits of writing a story in what feels like a real world (not our real world, but A real world) is that it enhances the feeling of immersion in the story. It allows readers to relate more closely to characters and events. Breaking the 4th wall and allowing the reader to be reminded of the existence of an author dispels the illusion of a real world. Is this a bad thing? Maybe it's subjective. I think it's a terrible thing. But then, I particularly want to be immersed in my fiction.
So now that we're back from that tangent, I'll answer some things you said more specifically in the next post.
"This is true about any action a character has a motivation to do. If someone hides when they hear gunfire to avoid being shot, it doesn’t make sense to say “if not for the gunfire, it wouldn’t make sense for them to hide!” I’m simply not seeing the reasoning here."
That particular example isn't really about motivation, but more about very direct cause and effect. The character didn't really "decide" to hide, he reacted to the fact that he was being shot. Taken by itself, you're right, it would be silly to point out that without the gunfire, he wouldn't have hid, but mainly because that doesn't effect the plot in any way. However, if we expand the scenario a little, that very same thing might matter.
Let us suppose that by hiding from gunfire, the main character bursts into the nearest house. This house happens to be the residence of an attractive young woman. She yells at him and hits him with whatever was in her hand (thereby establishing the love hate relationship) and she naturally becomes the heroine of the story. It obviously wouldn't have made sense for him to burst into her house if he wasn't being shot at, or without some other kind of reason. But if he didn't bust in, she wouldn't have been so mad, and we wouldn't have a reason to start of their relationship as hostile. So now the shot becomes much more relevant to the plot, it is a fact that because of the shot, the two main characters meet, under very specific circumstances.
ReplyDeleteNow that this is not just a single shot, but a shot that caused a major plot point, how it came to be would be a logical question, and this is where (in my opinion) we can discern if the situation was well written or poorly written. If our main character was a rebel, and he was in the midst of a battle in this city perhaps, then being shot at would make perfect sense, as would his desire to take shelter in a nearby household. But this would require that the main character be some kind of gunfighter, and that there be some kind of war going on. If this isn't desirable to the author, perhaps the main character is a thief, who just stole something and is running from his pursuers. This might work, but that would force our main character to be an established thief. In any of these cases, the most logical reasons for our main character to be in this situation, requires something be set in stone about his personality or history. It could be that it is too late for these things to be the case, due to us being a few hundred pages into an already established setting. If the author cannot think of anything, or perhaps doesn't like any of the options, he may just have the main character shot at "mysteriously" so as to avoid commitment. If this was the case, it would become completely reasonable to make the assertion "if not for the gunfire, it wouldn't make sense for them to hide!" The reason the assertion becomes reasonable is that the only reason for the Gunfire was that the author needed him to burst into the heroines house.
This is what I mean by prodding. It's not the who, what, when, it's all about the why. Why he hid from the shot was obvious, but why was he shot? If it was more than just a "mysterious" shooting, then why was the character in a situation where someone would want to shoot at him? Why did he do, whatever it was he did (Murder, Theft, Insulted a Monarch, or maybe something more Righteous) to make someone want to shoot him? Because people do not do things that are likely to encourage people to come shooting at you arbitrarily, the character must have been very certain that he wanted to do what he was doing. Which means that for these questions to have been answered reasonably, a large amount of the character needs to be decided upon. If it is logical that he is being pursued and shot at (based on decisions the character would have made), then the event of him crashing into the Heroines house is fine. If it is illogical or makes no sense (or is not explained at all) then the hand of the author can be sensed in this most fortuitous of meetings. Which, as I already expressed my feelings on, is not a good thing. The biggest thing here of course is that one of these methods would he challenging to write, and one of them is easy.
It’s still a bit of a murky concept, especially in fantasy and sci-fi.
ReplyDeleteIf the hero and heroine meet because the hero was shot at, that’s no problem, but if they met because the hero took a starship to the heroine’s planet, that’s almost prodding by default by your definition. After all, as the author I cannot explain how and why it’s possible that such a starship exists. If I could, I’d have won the Nobel Prize a long time ago.
Similarly, if I don’t want person X to reach place Y, I can simply come up with some made-up rules within my made-up physics that make it so he or she can’t without doing made-up thing Z that cancels the effect out.
If you don’t allow for this kind of thing, the whole genre of SF and fantasy sort of becomes invalid. Usually, audiences are willing to suspend their disbelief if the amount of things they need to suspend their disbelief over is kept limited, the made-up stuff is at least internally consistent, and the rest of the story is at least constructed logically. As long as you’re not continuously pulling things out of your ass, I think doing this kind of thing isn’t as much of a problem as the article made it out to be.
I can’t disagree with what you said about the Force in Empire Strikes Back. It’s used as a crutch to get certain characters where they need to be at times. But is this really a problem? I’d argue that since Empire is a strong character-driven story that has a fairly solid structure, good characters and great dramatic pay-off, we can overlook this minor misstep.
This becomes even more relevant if you take the constraints of real life into account. Sure, they might have been able to come up with a more logical reason for Luke to go to Cloud City, but would the more realistic approach have been interesting enough to watch for the audience? Would it have worked with the pacing in that part of the film? And could they have come up with something on time, on budget, and without pissing the studio off? It’s not necessary laziness, but simple practicality that means that sometimes shortcuts are necessary.
Sure, if you have a perfect author, with an unlimited amount of time and money, you might be able to write a story without any of those kinds of problems. But in the real world you have to stop somewhere and say that what you have is good enough.
Similarly, if I don’t want person X to reach place Y, I can simply come up with some made-up rules within my made-up physics that make it so he or she can’t without doing made-up thing Z that cancels the effect out.
ReplyDeleteIt is precisely that sort of plotting that I dislike. In his more academic work, Nick Lowe likens a plot to a game - some rules and a board (location/situation) are set out, and the plot should come as a natural movement based on them. In SF/Fantasy, this means setting out a magic/physics system (not necessarily explicitly) and working within it. However, things like the Force and magic in Harry Potter are so ill-defined that there are basically no rules and the author can do whatever they want.
As for plot devices, there are two criteria that mark one out for me: one, it has to be a little too convenient to be a natural part of the plot, and two, it can be replaced by pretty much anything else without problem.
The One Ring and the Cracks of Doom (also, that's a terrible location name), for example, gives the heroes the ability to win just by chucking the ring away, and it could have been a picture of Sauron's mum that they have to put back in the correct frame for all the plot cares. Spaceships in Star Wars are completely part of the universe, and aren't really replaceable with anything else apart from maybe teleporters, and that would ruin huge chunks of the film.
And just to reiterate, I can deal with a bit of sleight-of-hand in movies just because it's a hugely restrictive format. In books, I'm not so forgiving.
I agree with you to a point. The example I gave that you quoted is something that I know is a bit questionable, but the problem is that in an SF setting, coming up with a legitimate reason why something doesn't work under certain circumstances is not possible because the physics involved are all made up.
ReplyDeleteWould you say that example is more acceptable, if the made-up thing blocking them is a major part of the setting, established from the beginning, and consistent with the rules of the science of the setting as exposited thus far? Even though that doesn't change the fundamental made-up nature of it, or the fact that the only real way the rules are the way they are is because the plot demanded it?
One of the major rules of linking books in the Myst games is that you cannot link between two locations in the same Age, only to other Ages. Why is that? Because the authors said so. Linking books don't exist, so every single thing about them is only because the authors said so.
Now it's undeniably a real issue if you keep changing the rules or coming up with new things your made-up science can do. That's a major problem in Star Trek, where subspace/phasers/deflectors/whatever can do something new almost every week. But at the same time, I can't start my book with a 20 page treatment on how my made-up physics work. No one wants to read that.
So how does the reader know if, when I bring up something new half-way through the story, it's something I just pulled out of my arse, or something that's always been part of how it's supposed to work but just not mentioned before?
It's something I will complain about myself, if I see a blatant example of it (e.g. the rules of wand ownership in HP7 that came out of nowhere). Yet as a writer, I also struggle with these kinds of things myself.
While we're talking of things being pulled out of asses, I should point out that I'm not speaking from experience of writing anything. Just opinions, is all.
ReplyDeleteHere they are:
1) The reader doesn't need to know everything the author does, especially not at the beginning of the book. As long as there is a consistent logic/idea to the world you've built and you stick to it, it should flow through the story naturally. Unless of course you want a totally surrealist vision, in which case you are free to go mental.
2) In SF, the story is more of a 'what if?' scenario - what if we could time-travel but could only observe, for instance. You start with a premise, and work out what you think would happen. Hence the flow of the story should make logical sense to you from the start.
3) Aside from those general points, bad plotting is just a break in the internal logic of the story. Characters acting in completely alien ways, convenient rules being introduced just to finish a particular scene or get it underway, objects that do exactly what is needed appearing from nowhere. I suspect that if you have a scene you can't close off properly, or you have a scene you really, really want to put in your story but can't find a good reason to do so, that is when you are likely to pull out a plot device. Also, if you can't find a good reason for there to be a conflict - plot device ahoy!
It's been a while since I read them, and I never bothered with the last book, but from what I remember Harry Potter is just completely filled with this kind of thing.
Me! Said...: "If the hero and heroine meet because the hero was shot at, that’s no problem, but if they met because the hero took a starship to the heroine’s planet, that’s almost prodding by default by your definition. After all, as the author I cannot explain how and why it’s possible that such a starship exists."
ReplyDeleteYou're using Plot and Setting interchangeably here, and that's causing a major inconsistency in your argument. The existence of spaceships in general is based on the setting, the existence of that particular spaceship at that point in the story is based on the plot. When creating a setting, the author need not use reality as a template. If he wants Magic, that's fine, it's his setting. If he wants crazy technology that can't really exist in real life physics, that's fine too. The only problem would occur when either that Magic or Technlogy is ill defined, and can be added to or changed on the fly. Harry Potter and Star Trek are both good examples of this. Star Wars, is actually surprisingly consistent in it's application of technology. I can't think of any point in Star Wars where a character busted out a bizarre piece of technology never before mentioned or assumed that was perfect for the situation. So to get back to your example, the author is not expected to explain the exact reason why spaceships exist, but he may be expected to explain the exact reason why THAT spaceship was there for the Hero. If Spaceships are absurdly common, then the Hero finding the spaceship would be perfectly expected for the setting, and it would not be the author prodding. If however spaceships or that level of technology is never suggested or alluded to in the setting, then the hero finding a Spaceship would be very out of place, and then it would be a problem. The exception to this would be if the hero coming up to the spaceship was the author's way of explaining part of the setting to us, that spaceships are very common (perhaps near the beginning of the book).
So if spaceships are common in the setting, and a Hero finds one, that's not an issue with the setting. But if we want to talk about Plot, we have to ask those questions I suggested in my last post. Why did he find it? Why was he looking for it? Why did he fly to the heroines planet? If the answers are simple such as, It was His spaceship, so he wasn't looking, he knew where it was, and he was going to the Heroines planet because he is a delivery man. Well that's pretty easy, and it's consistent. If he was a business man who didn't own a spaceship, but then found one in front of his house mysteriously, and a note saying "Please return to this planet" was on it, so he did it. Well that would be the author prodding. Why was it in front of his house specifically? Why didn't he call the police (if there is such a thing) and ask them to do it?
So, this is again, a situation where your example is lacking in context. But it's that context that is required to know if a situation was a result of good writing or bad writing. Each of these examples I can extrapolate on, and create situations that are either natural progressions of characters interacting withing their setting, or I can crate situations where they are unnatural or contradictory to either the characters, the setting, or both.
Yeah, I see where you're coming from now, and I definitely agree. I like this discussion. :)
ReplyDeleteJust another hypothetical scenario I'd like to submit for discussion: what if space ships are not initially part of the setting, but the hero finding a space ship is the plot (or at least the setup)?
In this situation, there is no reason why this particular person found the space ship: it's coincidence, it could have been anyone. The only reason the author was following this particular person was because he's the one who finds the ship. I'm curious what you think of that kind of plotting.
This is something Peter Hamilton (one my favourite SF authors) does quite a lot. He'll spend whole chapters establishing seemingly ordinary people, who then later end up involved with the plot somehow. Here, we have to assume that these people don't get involved in the plot because the author was focussing on them, but that the author was focussing on them because they would take part in the plot (it reminds me of a line from the Hitchhiker's Guide trailer: "It begins with the introduction of the main character, who will very shortly have something so fantastic happen to them that someone just had to make a movie about it.")
Note that Hamilton does stray into the realm of bizarre coincidences a bit too often though. When you introduce a character and his girlfriend because his girlfriend will end up becoming a kind of spy/observer for an external entity, that's fine. If the guy then ends up joining the army, getting posted to a planet that the girlfriend happened to be on when the invasion began, then you're straining credibility. This is perhaps at its worst in the Void Trilogy (Hamilton's most recent books), where half of the characters just happen to be either the same people or related to characters from the Commonwealth Saga, even though the Void Trilogy takes place 900 years further into the future! That makes it seem like there are only a handful of people in the universe that are actually important (I could understand it in the case of Paula Myo - it fits with her character - but the rest gets too far-fetched; and when he revealed the true identity of The Lady in the final Void book, I just wanted to go over there and punch him, it was so contrived).
I guess you're right about not moving the conversation to the next blog post. Probably better for people who don't care about what we're talking about if we keep it here. ^^
ReplyDeleteSo I'll preface by saying I don't know Peter Hamilton, so I can only go on the information that you have provided.
In writing, I feel that there are no "true" coincidences. You can get away with 1 or 2 because there are genuine coincidences in real life, but the events surrounding them still need to make sense, and flow logically. But really, I guess "coincidence" is not unlike "fate" or "The will of god" or "The Force" when you really think about it. It's just a little more subtle.
Your example where the Main Character finds a spaceship by coincidence... again it would be wrong to say that all coincidence is forbidden in story telling. It could be a focal point of the story that this 1 coincidence changed the life of this young man. And that's okay, so long as he doesn't have a mythical series of coincidences that keep assaulting him with life changing situations that are very convenient for the plot.
Your example is actually very close to the one we talked about earlier. The fact that the spaceship exists is not a problem, it's just a part of the setting. I presume, that this happens early in the book, and the rest of the book goes on the chronicle his adventures in this spaceship. I don't really have a problem with that, so long as the character wasn't "destined" to find the spaceship. By destined, I mean, if he was a perfect fit to find a spaceship, a test pilot in the air force or something, I'd start suspecting this was a little TOO convenient. But if he is a normal guy, who finds himself in front of a spaceship under normal circumstances (that is to say, he arrived there due to choices he made that were consistent with his character) then it's fine in my opinion.
But you can go pretty deep into what "normal circumstances" means with regards to finding a spaceship. Why was he where the spaceship was hidden is my obvious first question. If he just spontaneously decided to take a walk right where a spaceship was, that sounds like an idea planted in his head by the author. Why was the spaceship there was my second question. This one is a little easier, since if it crashed on the planet, it could have been anywhere. However, if it was somewhere that was so easy to find, why didn't someone else find it before? If it was in a place that would have been terribly difficult to find, why the Main character was there becomes an even mores pressing question. So, in the end, it could go either way. It all depends on the lead up to the event of him finding the spaceship.
Lastly, I think your best chance to get away with a coincidence is at the beginning of the story. Many stories claim to be about a normal person who finds "X" by coincidence and it changes his life. One could very easily argue, as you did, that it is not that the main character found it, but rather the person who found it is now the main character. I would be more than willing to let this slide, if the rest of the book refrained from excessive Author Intervention. But more often than not, where there is smoke... =)
Sorry about the really late reply, but procrastination rules the day. Now I'd better get through some responses quick before I put it off again in the off chance anyone is interested...
ReplyDeleteBefore I address the prodding, I'd like to bring up another point I thought of, that would have been useful to have mentioned at the forefront of our conversation. It's more of a question really. Do you think that the existence of the author being either acknowledged or brought to the readers attention is a bad thing? I think a lot of the points I try to make are based on this thought, so it's regretful I haven't mentioned it earlier.
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Breaking the 4th wall and allowing the reader to be reminded of the existence of an author dispels the illusion of a real world. Is this a bad thing? Maybe it's subjective. I think it's a terrible thing. But then, I particularly want to be immersed in my fiction.
The issue here is what "the author being acknowledged" even means. Obviously, blatant breaking of the fourth wall matches that (e.g. a webcomic character looking through the comic's archives to find information). But none of the other things that have been discussed really seem to be breaking the fourth wall. There's no acknowledgement of the author at all, just the reader taking a plot point and speculating on the author's motivations. That is not breaking the fourth wall.
Really, the whole thing seems circular reasoning. "Because this is bad writing, I see the author's hand in it. Why is it bad writing? Because I saw the author's hand in it!"
Now, outside of comedies, I would say that breaking the fourth wall is generally a no-no, but again, the so-called "prodding" isn't breaking the fourth wall. In fact, the issues I agree with the original essay on (e.g. I generally don't like deus ex machinas) have nothing to do with breaking of the fourth wall. You can, perhaps, read author intentions from a deus ex machina ("this happened because they needed a way out") but that's because the deus ex machina is already regarded as weak writing rather than the aforementioned circular logic of "it's bad writing because it's fourth wall breaking, and it's fourth wall breaking because it's bad writing."
And that's a big problem with the essay, the circular logic that seems to be employed in it.
That particular example isn't really about motivation, but more about very direct cause and effect. The character didn't really "decide" to hide, he reacted to the fact that he was being shot. Taken by itself, you're right, it would be silly to point out that without the gunfire, he wouldn't have hid, but mainly because that doesn't effect the plot in any way. However, if we expand the scenario a little, that very same thing might matter.
Unfortunately, you devote your message to responding to what was probably the weakest analogy I had. But what I see a lot from your speculations are justifications. You can say the same thing about the justifications for plot coupons and the like. The One Ring actually had a detailed backstory which included the reason why it was what was necessary to defeat Sauron.
Likewise, if an ancient prophecy is important to the story, then an explanation of who gave the prophecy, how they knew the future, and why they wrote it down would, by your logic, justify it. Now, if it's just a random prophecy with no explanation whatsoever, you might have a point (see the "Chosen One" prophecy in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, though I think the problem with that was the sheer pointlessness of it). Which is what you seem to be saying afterwards. (continued next post)
If it is illogical or makes no sense (or is not explained at all) then the hand of the author can be sensed in this most fortuitous of meetings. Which, as I already expressed my feelings on, is not a good thing.
ReplyDeleteBut the thing is, something being illogical isn't bad because of "the author's hands" being sensed, it's bad because if it's illogical it doesn't make sense (by definition), and things in story should generally make sense (with a few exceptions: For example, A wacky comedy series can get away with things not making sense as long as it's sufficiently funny).
The biggest thing here of course is that one of these methods would he challenging to write, and one of them is easy.
Yes, some things are easier to write than others. But why does that make them worse? Writing a book without using a particular letter would be harder than writing without that restriction. But it wouldn't necessarily make the book more interesting. It wouldn't necessarily make it better written. It might be impressive as an accomplishment (especially if it's one of the more common letters), but that doesn't make make any difference in terms of the quality of the book. The fact "Gadsby" was written without using the letter E is certainly an impressive accomplishment, but it means zilch in terms of whether the novel is good or not.
Further, as Sven pointed out in regards to The Empire Strikes Back, even if we do accept the "the Force can now let you see the future" bit as being used because it was an easy and quick way to give a reason to get Luke from Point A to Point B, does it really matter? It's still a good story and it allows it to progress without having to waste more of the audience's time as might be necessary with a more (supposedly) "logical" reason. Likewise, if collecting plot coupons results in an interesting story, I don't think it matters much whether plot coupons are supposedly "prodding."
For the record, while I still don't see anything inherently wrong with the use of plot coupons (they can be used well, they can be used poorly), I will say that I generally do prefer if plot coupons have some purpose other than just being something the characters need to collect or bring somewhere. For a random example, in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (as well as some other video games), the things you need to collect (the Crystal Stars) are plot coupons. However, they also help you out in battle by giving you new abilities after you collect them.
(continued next post)
@ Legion of Kittens
ReplyDeleteHowever, things like the Force and magic in Harry Potter are so ill-defined that there are basically no rules and the author can do whatever they want.
Well, there are a few rules in Harry Potter (can't bring the dead back to life) but for the most part it is pretty nebulous. I'm fine with the general lack of rules, though; my problem is when things are brought up at the exact moment they're convenient with no set-up. In the fourth book, when Harry and Voldemort fight, it turns out that if two wands have components from the same thing (e.g. feathers from the same phoenix) then they don't work right and one will force the other to regurgitate spells. This was never hinted at before (yes we knew that Harry and Voldemort's wand were both made from feathers from the same phoenix, but that doesn't count and you know it). It's a blatant deus ex machina and even if it was kinda cool, it's still rather poor writing. I like Harry Potter but I'll readily admit that it has a propensity to use deus ex machinas to resolve plots.
The One Ring and the Cracks of Doom (also, that's a terrible location name), for example, gives the heroes the ability to win just by chucking the ring away, and it could have been a picture of Sauron's mum that they have to put back in the correct frame for all the plot cares.
Actually, no. First, they did have some backstory on why the Ring was so important, but let's suppose you switched that backstory to it being portrait somehow (no idea why Sauron would invest his power in a portrait, a ring makes perfect sense because he'd have it with him at all times). How, then, does it turn people invisible? I can't see you putting on a portrait.
I'll start by saying you're right, I'm using the term "Breaking the 4th Wall" far too liberally. It's not the same thing as sensing the author in the writing, because that is more subtle.
ReplyDeleteFurther, as Sven pointed out in regards to The Empire Strikes Back, even if we do accept the "the Force can now let you see the future" bit as being used because it was an easy and quick way to give a reason to get Luke from Point A to Point B, does it really matter? It's still a good story and it allows it to progress without having to waste more of the audience's time as might be necessary with a more (supposedly) "logical" reason. Likewise, if collecting plot coupons results in an interesting story, I don't think it matters much whether plot coupons are supposedly "prodding."
I noticed that you said the story is "Good" but you did not say it was still "Well Written". When you said "Good" did you mean that "Well Written" was a part of that? Or when you said "Good" did you just mean it is still "Entertaining"? Good is a very vague word. So would you mind explaining what you meant in a little more detail?
What is it that makes a story "good" rather than "bad"? You have stated that you believe Empire to still be a "Good" story despite what I would call a glaring fault in the writing. This implies that you do not agree that The Force being used to push Luke to Cloud City is in fact a fault. Or it means that you do not believe that a fault in writing has anything to do with what makes a story "good".
This all seems to boil down to, what did you mean by "good story". If you simply meant that it was still "Entertaining" I would surely agree with you. Bad writing does not itself make a story unentertaining. But did you mean more than that when you said "Good"? I would argue that for a story to be "Good" it has to be both Entertaining, AND Well Written. Do you agree?
I'll stop there, because if you don't agree, it would be hard for me to continue down the line of thought I had. Suffice it to say that if you DO agree, I would argue that we next need to discuss what is it that makes a story "Well Written." Our lack of agreement on that particular subject seems to cause much of this debate. Putting plot coupons, and vouchers aside, I think if we can first determine what makes a story well written, we might be able to determine if Plot Coupons or Vouchers or whatever, contradict that, or not.