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#21 Guest_Theodur_*

Posted 27 April 2012 - 03:32 PM

But in all honesty, I think it's just getting goddamn ridiculous. And I'm not even going to apologize for my sentiments by saying "Oh, well, maybe it's just my age or my upbringing that's making me think this." No. Flat out, this mentality that you pretty much have to warn for everything on the chance that someone, somewhere, might be offended is just nonsense.

And the reason I think so is because of how it shifts the onus of responsibility onto one person (i.e. the writer) as opposed to the masses (i.e. the readers.) It smacks of laziness and of self-entitlement to me.


Damn straight. :) If I had to choose one word which best defines the current generation of teenagers, it would be 'self-entitlement'. Now I'm reminded of the youtube link Weyoun sent me a while ago.

(link deleted)

I should probably warn that the above video contains coarse language, but really, I don't care, TheAmazingAtheist is awesome.

Just wanted to say - don't think you're being one. It's just natural frustration. As one of the Attic's mod team, I can tell you I have no desire to see such maddeningly silly warning systems crop up here.


Yeah, let's not go there. :) Hell, even FF.net seems pretty reasonable, you just select a content rating without being prompted to go into specifics about every little thing that might offend someone.

I remember posting my DA stories on that AO3 site, and I was at start really perplexed about all the warnings and stuff people had for their stories there. Also, it was mildly disturbing to see 4 out of 5 stories having warnings for rape. All those kink-fics kinda made my stories look tame and boring in comparison. Or maybe I just suck at marketing.

Edited by Theodur, 03 June 2012 - 07:46 AM.


#22 Guest_Theodur_*

Posted 27 April 2012 - 03:33 PM

Ignore this :)

Edited by Theodur, 27 April 2012 - 03:33 PM.


#23 Guest_VigaHrolf_*

Posted 27 April 2012 - 06:26 PM

Ignore this :)


I wasn't warned to. :P

#24 Guest_Ajwol Semreth_*

Posted 27 April 2012 - 07:46 PM

I wasn't warned to. :P


What you did there, I see it :P

In my opinion a general warning should be more than enough in most cases. If I was to write something that contained an element I perceived as being particularly unpleasant, then I would add a more specific warning, but then again I would not use such a drastic plot point in the first place unless it was really necessary for the story as a whole.

Based on my limited experience reading fanfic, more often than not people add over the top amounts of gore, sex and swearing because they feel it makes their story mature, but more often than not it has the opposite effect. That was pretty much my only problem with The Witcher 2 as well, so it seems this problem is not contained to within the realm of fanfiction.

#25 Guest_Blue-Inked_Frost_*

Posted 27 April 2012 - 10:21 PM

Maybe it's also an artefact of the sort of fics that tend to be most common around that neck of fandom--short, modern-day-era one-shots depicting two white guys in bed with each other, though I hate to stereotype (or do I?). Trying to apply this sort of system to longer stories with a plot starts to show how ridiculous and impossible it can get.

#26 Guest_nazlan_*

Posted 28 April 2012 - 03:00 AM

I've never written anything I felt needed a warning. Am I doing it wrong? :unsure:

#27 Guest_AlphaMonkey_*

Posted 28 April 2012 - 06:02 AM

Yes. Clearly, everything you've written actually needs a warning, and the reason why you don't feel it needs them is because you've failed to check your privilege. Of which you obviously have tons.

(Nods sagely.)

#28 Guest_Blue-Inked_Frost_*

Posted 18 May 2012 - 08:30 AM

Extra addendum to this little debate: trigger warning for delegitimisation of soul-bonding/walk-ins.

On that note, Edwin's sitting on the sofa behind me, eating Cadbury's. He's going to be my bridesmaid when I marry Cor Delryn on the astral plane. :P

#29 Guest_Clight_*

Posted 29 May 2012 - 11:12 AM

I always wish there were discussions here - and then I miss them when there are because I've stopped looking after there haven't been any in a long time.

I haven't found much need in my stories to use warnings. I suppose I'd use some commonsensical simple ones. I don't much like the idea of warning for swearing as I might typically use it, though (which wouldn't be much). I probably will if it's in a place where that gets done, but it's stupid in principle - those words aren't magic, they can't hurt you, you won't die if there's one socially frowned-upon word somewhere.

I can personally find all kinds of things uncomfortable, at least a little, but I suppose what's peculiar to my tastes is the importance of moral distaste over other types. Think of Abdel Adrian. Yeah, like that. Things being annoying or icky is never as important as their being wrong, and I don't tend to confuse the two. This is related to what others above have said about the effect of something having to do with whether it has a place in the story, which is about a different kind of rightness, and which I also agree with. The moral thing also has a similar caveat: I don't mind immorality as long as it's in its proper place in the story (Irenicus being a moral monster is just right) rather than being endorsed or accidentally inserted by the author (Abdel Adrian being a weak-willed moron is terrible).

I don't know much about trauma triggers, but from what I think I know (I just read the Wikipedia article), a comparison to allergies is perfectly appropriate, whereas calling the reactions merely "being offended" is unfair.

Edited by Clight, 29 May 2012 - 11:12 AM.


#30 Guest_Blue-Inked_Frost_*

Posted 29 May 2012 - 11:33 AM

Things being annoying or icky is never as important as their being wrong, and I don't tend to confuse the two. This is related to what others above have said about the effect of something having to do with whether it has a place in the story, which is about a different kind of rightness, and which I also agree with. The moral thing also has a similar caveat: I don't mind immorality as long as it's in its proper place in the story (Irenicus being a moral monster is just right) rather than being endorsed or accidentally inserted by the author (Abdel Adrian being a weak-willed moron is terrible).


This sounds like it should be a separate discussion here--I think you have interesting thoughts on this sort of thing. :) That often runs into the issue of an author who is just not self aware, as most authors don't notice their typos or plot hole inconsistencies or think they're better than Jane Austen and Shakespeare and Emily Bronte all rolled into one when really they're only named Stephenie Meyer. You can't require warnings that the writer would deny and resist to their last breath! (And, to be fair, that some readers might disagree with too.) I do think characters should be judged on their actions rather than whether I find them personally icky or annoying, or whether the author seems to. The author seeming to often makes me go over to their side.

All authors have tried to write imperfect versions of a book they imagined as everything wonderful in their heads, and often moral myopia in fiction is only a result of not paying attention. The writer wanted the protagonist to win a victory and didn't bother thinking about the implied huge casualty lists, for example.

I don't know much about trauma triggers, but from what I think I know (I just read the Wikipedia article), a comparison to allergies is perfectly appropriate, whereas calling the reactions merely "being offended" is unfair.


A LJ poster called impertinence wrote a harrowing description of her personal triggering process, and did so including a warning for the very explicit discussion of sexual assault and the nature, anatomy, cause & effect of triggers.

My idea of major triggers are violence and sexuality, with the various subsets from death to torture to rape to underage. Character death warnings confuse me, since some fandoms it makes for ridiculously OOC fic to have stories without a murder or two, and there's huge grey areas on how-major-do-you-mean-is-major, and of course, spoilers. (All hail the no-warnings warning!)

I don't usually warn for swearing, because it's something I think is going to be a natural risk of various settings--specifically, virtually any canonical setting that involves adults. Infidelity is another thing I don't want to warn for, though I've seen some people saying they prefer infidelity warnings: I don't think consensual infidelity is nearly as potentially traumatic as rape, and it's often telegraphed in advance by pairings advertisements or the obvious direction of the story. Warning for haircuts or saying mean things about soulbonding or astral plane marriages I definitely won't warn for. If one of my friends said they wanted warnings of some special thing that they personally found triggering, I'd accommodate them, but probably not some random stranger on the internet I'd never chatted to before.

#31 Guest_Silver_*

Posted 29 May 2012 - 12:18 PM

I don't usually warn for swearing, because it's something I think is going to be a natural risk of various settings--specifically, virtually any canonical setting that involves adults. Infidelity is another thing I don't want to warn for, though I've seen some people saying they prefer infidelity warnings: I don't think consensual infidelity is nearly as potentially traumatic as rape, and it's often telegraphed in advance by pairings advertisements or the obvious direction of the story. Warning for haircuts or saying mean things about soulbonding or astral plane marriages I definitely won't warn for. If one of my friends said they wanted warnings of some special thing that they personally found triggering, I'd accommodate them, but probably not some random stranger on the internet I'd never chatted to before.


Yes, I think this is another factor to take into account. When I post things over at LiveJournal, I tend to go a bit overboard with my warnings at times, because I have a lot of friends and a lot of them are triggered by various different things. I'm also a member of a couple of groups where it is necessary to warn for anything that might even be remotely triggering - so it's not uncommon to have someone posting and the trigger warnings are longer than the post itself.

But if I'm posting here or on other websites, I tend to only warn for the more extreme things: rape/attempted rape, torture, maybe very graphic violence or bad language, very adult scenes.

One thing I rarely - if ever - warn for any more is slash. I don't see why I should have to warn people that my story contains m/m relationships, unless there happens to be graphic sex involved. If it's just standard romance, why should it matter what genders the characters happen to be? So that's a warning that I find pretty silly.

#32 Guest_Clight_*

Posted 29 May 2012 - 12:26 PM

This sounds like it should be a separate discussion here--I think you have interesting thoughts on this sort of thing. :)

Maybe... I don't know which part exactly you're referring to, but there's plenty here I could probably discuss extensively.

A LJ poster called impertinence wrote a harrowing description of her personal triggering process, and did so including a warning for the very explicit discussion of sexual assault and the nature, anatomy, cause & effect of triggers.

Not nice reading, but it's actually pretty much as exactly as I would have imagined. I suppose I did know about this topic already, just classified under "trauma" and "abuse" in my head rather than "triggers".

#33 Guest_Blue-Inked_Frost_*

Posted 30 May 2012 - 10:52 AM

One thing I rarely - if ever - warn for any more is slash. I don't see why I should have to warn people that my story contains m/m relationships, unless there happens to be graphic sex involved. If it's just standard romance, why should it matter what genders the characters happen to be? So that's a warning that I find pretty silly.


I definitely agree. Warning for slash is tantamount to having to warn for gay people existing, and that's pretty damned offensive. Over on the corners of LJ I frequent it's been viewed in that way for some years now. Maybe there are some people who warn equally for het and femslash as for slash, but even then people are likely to view warnings for slash as homophobic because of the history of warnings for slash being used that way, and I don't blame them.

Much the same argument can apply to warning for BDSM, since a consensual activity between adults in private isn't necessarily a negative thing that requires a warning. So some people use the term "content notes" as a more inclusive way to list both things that can be upsetting because they're upsetting when they happen in the real world, and things that people might want to either avoid or seek out based on tastes. I feel like the term's origins are so bound up with the excessively twee you-absolutely-must-list-absolutely-everything-and-hell-on-you-if-you-overlook-one-thing-one-person-hates-somewhere that I don't want to use it myself, but I can see how it's more accurate than just "warnings".

This sounds like it should be a separate discussion here--I think you have interesting thoughts on this sort of thing. :)

Maybe... I don't know which part exactly you're referring to, but there's plenty here I could probably discuss extensively.


Maybe you could start a topic with some examples from books where the author's failed at getting everyone to share their sentiments on a character, or where you feel the poor writing skews the characters' moral compasses? Like Abdel Adrian the weak-willed intellectually disabled person (:P), or perhaps even like Edward Cullen lending human-eating vampires fancy cars to aid and abet them murdering people as a price for them helping protect his unholy demonspawn. (I may enjoy Twitlight sporkings/50 Shades of Grey sporkings a bit too much.) I'd be interested in reading more of your thoughts. :)

Edited by Blue-Inked_Frost, 30 May 2012 - 10:53 AM.


#34 Guest_Clight_*

Posted 31 May 2012 - 10:02 AM

Maybe you could start a topic with some examples from books where the author's failed at getting everyone to share their sentiments on a character, or where you feel the poor writing skews the characters' moral compasses? Like Abdel Adrian the weak-willed intellectually disabled person (:P), or perhaps even like Edward Cullen lending human-eating vampires fancy cars to aid and abet them murdering people as a price for them helping protect his unholy demonspawn. (I may enjoy Twitlight sporkings/50 Shades of Grey sporkings a bit too much.) I'd be interested in reading more of your thoughts. :)

It's not that simple, though. If I talked about many readers sharing the sentiments, I could talk about Aerie's writing, which I actually have no issue with myself. On the flipside, I could complain about readers' reactions themselves, which would be a Hell's Kitchen topic people probably would rightly ignore and disdain. The point is that there's a difference between not writing what you're supposed to be writing and readers just not liking the way you wrote something and/or interpreting it based on secondary elements... but, of course, it's impossible to draw a line properly no matter how much effort you make to separate objective and subjective elements, so the kind of objective difference between objective and subjective itself becomes effectively subjective.

If I were to pick some such topic, I'd have to emphasize the objective side or just my own reactions and no-one else's, or both side by side... I'm sure you know reactions to the same thing vary pretty arbitrarily. Well, maybe some day.

Edited by Clight, 31 May 2012 - 10:03 AM.


#35 Guest_Blue-Inked_Frost_*

Posted 31 May 2012 - 10:44 AM

The point is that there's a difference between not writing what you're supposed to be writing and readers just not liking the way you wrote something and/or interpreting it based on secondary elements... but, of course, it's impossible to draw a line properly no matter how much effort you make to separate objective and subjective elements, so the kind of objective difference between objective and subjective itself becomes effectively subjective.


Well, but Abdel Adrian's a pretty objective case of Bad Writing on the authorial side, or on the fan side the case of the Harry Potter fanfic writers with an irrational urge to turn Ron into a Death Eater... I think that although it's often impossible to be absolutely objective, there are plenty of examples to pick where you can still be mostly objective. For example, if Betty scores 98 and Veronica scores 96 on an IQ test, maybe it's hard to tell which of them is really the brightest if the randomly selected questions happened to favour Betty that day, but if Cheryl scored 50 it's easy to rank that score a definite third.

Once I read this Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Sherlock Holmes crossover that was well written but made Alec d'Urberville into a good-hearted broad-minded decent man rather than the rapist I think anyone who can read ought to be able to interpret from the text. It was an interesting concept and a pretty good story if you could accept the character about-face, though. And the professionally published book THE WIND DONE GONE has a Melanie the Death Eater treatment of the character who's basically the most ethical character in the original text, but the author's reason for doing that was definitely more interesting and complex and mature than usual. It's possible to talk about subjective preferences you don't share without shaming people for it.

Edited by Blue-Inked_Frost, 31 May 2012 - 10:45 AM.


#36 Weyoun

Posted 01 June 2012 - 09:55 AM

"Warning: This story contains a completely inappropriate use of a magic wand."

Done well, you can actually use a story warning to lure readers into reading your fic. I often get the feeling warnings are not so much intended as self-protection for the writer, but as a rather insidious form of advertisement. :)

Generally, I think most people are smart enough not to get offended by the smallest of things, however the people who do get offended tend to be very loud about it. As for using warnings, well, I write about lesbian elves... when I started doing that, I often left a warning in the preface about it, but since then most people here know me and I stopped doing that because you know what to expect. Were I to bring TnT to a bigger site like FF.net, I'd have to be a bit more careful about it. I mean, if you are offended by the notion of magic, it's a bit silly to complain about having been confronted with the use of magic in a book when it has a wizard on the cover, right?

Fanfic has a tendency to dive into the extreme more readily than 'official' publications. (Though there are doozies. Touched by Venom anyone?). So eventually, you'd expect people who often read fanfic to know what to expect. Warnings become a way of 'sifting through the rubble'. I know when I am in a masochistic mood and am looking for some badfic, I often skim the warnings to look for clues of terribadness. Mispellings in the warnings, combined with self-proclamations of a story being grimdark is often a good bet. And sometimes you surprise yourself when you find something good. :)

As for the inappropriate use of the wand? Well, the wand was stuffed underneath a table leg to keep the table from being wobbly.

Mind you, Draco and Hermione were having sex on said table at the time. :lol:
TnT Enhanced Edition: http://www.fanfictio...rds-and-Tempers

---
Sith Warrior - Master, I can sense your anger.

Darth Baras - A blind, comotose lobotomy-patient could sense my anger!

---

"The New Age? It's just the old age stuck in a microwave oven for fifteen seconds" - James Randi

#37 Weyoun

Posted 01 June 2012 - 10:14 AM

Well, but Abdel Adrian's a pretty objective case of Bad Writing on the authorial side, or on the fan side the case of the Harry Potter fanfic writers with an irrational urge to turn Ron into a Death Eater... I think that although it's often impossible to be absolutely objective, there are plenty of examples to pick where you can still be mostly objective. For example, if Betty scores 98 and Veronica scores 96 on an IQ test, maybe it's hard to tell which of them is really the brightest if the randomly selected questions happened to favour Betty that day, but if Cheryl scored 50 it's easy to rank that score a definite third.


Personally, I'm a firm believer that any plotline or character change can be done as long as it's executed and handled well. Ron becoming a death eater, for example. There's a big difference in having Ron waking up and suddenly deciding that being a death eater is a really splendid idea and a multipart storyline showing a slow descent into madness with Ron eventually becoming a death eater. In that regard, I think every possible storyline is possible.

As for objectivity, one thing that's been hammered into our minds when studying history is that it's not often impossible, but *always* impossible to be absolutely objective. A historian can approach absolute objectivity closely, but will never reach it. This is because the objective truth (what actually happened) is translated through a historian's own mind which is filled with all kinds of notions and preconceptions before the theory actually is put to paper. Take your example of the IQ test, for example. The validity of the IQ has and is often been disputed, to the point that scientists like Schönemann claim that is it a myth. Certainly, IQ says nothing at all about mental stability. Sure, Betty can score a 98, but if she's a raving lunatic, Cheryl with her score of 50 will still function better in society than Betty. So who's the brightest of the two then?

To apply this to writing, look at your comment to my latest TnT interlude about the physical and mental age of Laska. In my mind, Laska looking six, but acting like 12, was playing with other kids of six. She exploded at a childish jest and beat up another six year old. Looking at your comment and later comment, you were left thinking first that Laska played with twelve year, looking like a twelve year old while having the mind of a six year old. And later that she was still playing with twelve year olds.

That you misread it is not your fault, but mine. I came up with the idea in my head (objective truth), but it went wrong in the translation from my mind to the paper (or screen) and potentially became something else than I intended. Fascinating how that happens.
TnT Enhanced Edition: http://www.fanfictio...rds-and-Tempers

---
Sith Warrior - Master, I can sense your anger.

Darth Baras - A blind, comotose lobotomy-patient could sense my anger!

---

"The New Age? It's just the old age stuck in a microwave oven for fifteen seconds" - James Randi

#38 Guest_Blue-Inked_Frost_*

Posted 01 June 2012 - 11:26 AM

Personally, I'm a firm believer that any plotline or character change can be done as long as it's executed and handled well. Ron becoming a death eater, for example. There's a big difference in having Ron waking up and suddenly deciding that being a death eater is a really splendid idea and a multipart storyline showing a slow descent into madness with Ron eventually becoming a death eater. In that regard, I think every possible storyline is possible.


I agree with you that anything is possible, but some things are certainly more likely than others and some things are prone to being poorly executed. Given Ron's personality and family background, becoming a Death Eater is unlikely. So's the idea that Lily Potter was a Death Eater at some moment in her life before she was killed. So's the idea that Gilderoy Lockhart was a secret agent for Dumbledore all along--although then that might get to the point of so unlikely it's fun. :)

Or suppose a new writer comes along and says, "My character is a brooding martial artist and wizard and death master and handsome and all the female characters want to join his harem and he shows no mercy to his enemies and everyone is afraid of him or lusting after him if they are female, could I get concrit on this?" Different reviewers would give different advice, but that character probably could do with being toned down or turned into a parody or portrayed as a villain or left to let the author get it out of their system with the people who are interested in that kind of character.

As for objectivity, one thing that's been hammered into our minds when studying history is that it's not often impossible, but *always* impossible to be absolutely objective. A historian can approach absolute objectivity closely, but will never reach it. This is because the objective truth (what actually happened) is translated through a historian's own mind which is filled with all kinds of notions and preconceptions before the theory actually is put to paper.


Absolute objectivity is impossible to attain, but you can pick out plenty of examples of biased history where people have been absolutely wrong: the one that breaks Godwin's law to bring up, the conspiracy theories around the Kennedy assassination or the Twin Towers, the historical oversimplifications that kids pick up like Newton's apple and Benjamin Franklin's kite-flying.

Take your example of the IQ test, for example. The validity of the IQ has and is often been disputed, to the point that scientists like Schönemann claim that is it a myth. Certainly, IQ says nothing at all about mental stability. Sure, Betty can score a 98, but if she's a raving lunatic, Cheryl with her score of 50 will still function better in society than Betty. So who's the brightest of the two then?


If you define 'brightest' as 'best able to achieve a high score on an IQ test'... ;) IQ tests are culturally biased and have plenty of issues, but if one person's score is a significant degree higher than another person's score, it measures that they do better in the forms of intelligence tested by IQ tests. Here's a link to IQ and ableism--brings up some facts and stats.

If you apply absolute subjectivity to literature, then you might place Twilight on the same level as Sappho's poetry. I'm sure there probably are Twilight fans who feel exactly that. But although you can't tell anyone what a piece of writing subjectively means to them, you can apply concepts such as cultural significance, language, rhythm, imagery, ideas, unity, consistency, and so on. 'Criticism' of writing can also have the effect of being descriptive, even if meant negatively. Charles Dickens waxes habitually prolix and I abhor such catholic tastes in writing: Dickens meant to be, some dislike that style, enough enjoy it for his work to survive.

That you misread it is not your fault, but mine. I came up with the idea in my head (objective truth), but it went wrong in the translation from my mind to the paper (or screen) and potentially became something else than I intended. Fascinating how that happens


I thought a mental six-year-old in the body of a twelve-year-old beating on other twelve-year-olds was more likely than vice versa. But what you put down onto the page was objective, my guess of what you meant subjective. I thought there was a typo when there wasn't. Or suppose a reader thinking there's a continuity error when the writer meant a character to be lying or a character to be confused or the beginning of a virus messing with the timestream. The lack of consistency between events is objective, the writer's reasons for it are hidden, and the reader's choice of interpretation subjective. I don't think "objective" is what lies in the writer's head (and what if they change their mind or forget what they meant when they originally put it down?); I think objective is the words on the page. There are a wide variety of interpretations possible, but some stories offer wider subjective possibilities than others (Hamlet v. Eragon). Some subjective interpretations aren't meant to enter the author's head at all (whether and how much the text is consistent with that interpretation); other subjective interpretations are more concerned with the author's thoughts and views and plans (such as fans trying to predict how the story's going to end).

Edited by Blue-Inked_Frost, 01 June 2012 - 11:31 AM.


#39 Weyoun

Posted 01 June 2012 - 01:37 PM

Absolute objectivity is impossible to attain, but you can pick out plenty of examples of biased history where people have been absolutely wrong: the one that breaks Godwin's law to bring up, the conspiracy theories around the Kennedy assassination or the Twin Towers, the historical oversimplifications that kids pick up like Newton's apple and Benjamin Franklin's kite-flying.


Oh, you don't have to tell the local historian that, believe me. :) For example, there were a staggering amount of holocaust deniers out there in the seventies and eighties, for example. Science, however, has this wonderful self-correcting properly to it to root out nonsense like that and today, there's only a small hardcore group of holocaust deniers left writing on a semi-academic level. I'm not counting Mel Gibson, because every word that comes out of that man's mouth is nonsense. :)

The danger of any science and certainly history, is false pattern detection - seeing things which aren't there, yet seem somewhat supported by the facts. That's where most conspiracy's come from. You only need to visit Alex Jones' website (which I can highly recommend, because it's hilarious) to see how this works. Supposedly, you cannot aim and fire 3 times in rapid succession with that type of rifle, so there *had* to have been a second gunman, etc. A bullet cannot have the trajectory that was claimed it had, etc. And despite that both claims have been disproven multiple times, there will always be those that hang on to their false positive patterns.

Michael Shermer wrote a great book about this 'Why people believe weird things' and his new book is coming out soon. Looking forward to it. He talks about his theory of false positive and negatives here:




If you define 'brightest' as 'best able to achieve a high score on an IQ test'... ;)


Well, that's whole point. The definition is completely arbitrary. :)

If you apply absolute subjectivity to literature, then you might place Twilight on the same level as Sappho's poetry. I'm sure there probably are Twilight fans who feel exactly that. But although you can't tell anyone what a piece of writing subjectively means to them, you can apply concepts such as cultural significance, language, rhythm, imagery, ideas, unity, consistency, and so on. 'Criticism' of writing can also have the effect of being descriptive, even if meant negatively. Charles Dickens waxes habitually prolix and I abhor such catholic tastes in writing: Dickens meant to be, some dislike that style, enough enjoy it for his work to survive.


That's just it, those concepts you mentioned are subjective terms in themselves, defined by mostly arbitrarily chosen elements and completely dependent on the time of the work's creation. The term 'cultural significance' is one concept that really grinds my gears, but I'll leave that alone or this post might turn into a 10-page long rage essay. :rolleyes:

Whether a work (be it literature, film or a game) is, in my opnion, considered art or pulp is almost completely dependant on a 'coin toss'. That coin toss being a metaphore for the author's choice of publication, public's taste, critics' tastes, academic fashion trends (trust me, they sadly enoug do exist, very much so in the social sciences), possible re-evaluation in a later time period, the original writer picking a publisher which doesn't go bankrupt, etc, you name it. Twilight is far more likely to survive its time period than the dutch book "Tejo, De lotgevallen van een geëmancipeerde man", for the very simple fact that copies of it are more readily availiable and won't go out of print for decades. Though the mere thought that Twilight might one day be considered a great literary work of its time makes me not want to live on this planet anymore, I cannot deny that there is a role for the market in the 'coin toss' which determines if something becomes literature or not. And as a historian, I can learn just as much or little from 'art' than I can from 'pulp'. In that respect of a book being a historican source, yes, I do place Twilight on the same level as Sappho's poetry, as ridiculous as that might sound. Level of personal enjoyment doesn't factor into it.

In that view (and I might not make fans with following statement), I feel that literary studies are fields of limited use on its own and only become really interesting when linked to another academic field in a supporting form, be it history, anthropology or sociology for example. Pulp sci-fi from the 50's and 60's is a prime example of this - hordes of faceless and brutal alien invaders... as a warning of communist hordes just waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting freedom loving people from behind the iron curtain.

It works both ways too. The more I learn about Shakespeare, that small-minded Tudor propagandist, the less I enjoy his work. And Richard III is NOT actual history, goddammit! :angry:

I don't think "objective" is what lies in the writer's head (and what if they change their mind or forget what they meant when they originally put it down?); I think objective is the words on the page. There are a wide variety of interpretations possible, but some stories offer wider subjective possibilities than others (Hamlet v. Eragon). Some subjective interpretations aren't meant to enter the author's head at all (whether and how much the text is consistent with that interpretation); other subjective interpretations are more concerned with the author's thoughts and views and plans (such as fans trying to predict how the story's going to end).


Respectfully, I disgree completely that the words on the page are what's objective, for the simple reason that the words didn't magically spawn into being as they are on that page. The words were deliberately put there with an intention and meaning behind them, started as an idea in the writer's head. That's the objective story forms. Naturally there is interplay between what's in the writer's head and what is actually on paper - we've all had moments when writing down something where an idea seemed better in your head than it does on paper - that's first signs where a translation from mind to paper is not perfect. The story, the characters, the plot all form in the writer's head and the actual written down form is the flawed translation of that thought-proces.

I'm fully aware that this could be seen as a chicken-or-the-egg kind of discussion, though I firmly believe that the starting point, and thus the objective vision, behind any story is in the writer's mind. As for the meaning behind a story or painting? Since you cannot look inside the writer's brain to see the complete picture, best you can do is an approximation based on an educated guess.

Edited by Weyoun, 01 June 2012 - 06:10 PM.

TnT Enhanced Edition: http://www.fanfictio...rds-and-Tempers

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Sith Warrior - Master, I can sense your anger.

Darth Baras - A blind, comotose lobotomy-patient could sense my anger!

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"The New Age? It's just the old age stuck in a microwave oven for fifteen seconds" - James Randi

#40 Guest_Blue-Inked_Frost_*

Posted 02 June 2012 - 10:26 PM

I find the mathematical concept of fuzzy logic useful as an analogy for these sorts of things: where you deal with partial truth and probability. One person's cutoff for cold weather might be ten degrees, another person's cutoff five degrees, but they can both agree that zero degrees is cold; if it's six degrees, then they can at least agree that it's somewhere between "cold" and "moderately cold".

Oh, you don't have to tell the local historian that, believe me. :) For example, there were a staggering amount of holocaust deniers out there in the seventies and eighties, for example. Science, however, has this wonderful self-correcting properly to it to root out nonsense like that and today, there's only a small hardcore group of holocaust deniers left writing on a semi-academic level. I'm not counting Mel Gibson, because every word that comes out of that man's mouth is nonsense. :)


Yes--absolute objectivity is impossible but some are more objective than Mel Gibson. :) Back in school, some of my Christian teachers fed a line of absolute shit on these lines--because absolute objectivity is impossible, they'd argue, it's okay for us to be heavily biased in favour of our own religion and politics and ignore inconvenient facts otherwise. Scientists should strive for objectivity. Literature and history can't be broken down easily into fact or not a fact, but that doesn't mean that all opinions about them are equal.

Whether a work (be it literature, film or a game) is, in my opnion, considered art or pulp is almost completely dependant on a 'coin toss'. That coin toss being a metaphore for the author's choice of publication, public's taste, critics' tastes, academic fashion trends (trust me, they sadly enoug do exist, very much so in the social sciences), possible re-evaluation in a later time period, the original writer picking a publisher which doesn't go bankrupt, etc, you name it. Twilight is far more likely to survive its time period than the dutch book "Tejo, De lotgevallen van een geëmancipeerde man", for the very simple fact that copies of it are more readily availiable and won't go out of print for decades. Though the mere thought that Twilight might one day be considered a great literary work of its time makes me not want to live on this planet anymore, I cannot deny that there is a role for the market in the 'coin toss' which determines if something becomes literature or not. And as a historian, I can learn just as much or little from 'art' than I can from 'pulp'. In that respect of a book being a historican source, yes, I do place Twilight on the same level as Sappho's poetry, as ridiculous as that might sound. Level of personal enjoyment doesn't factor into it.


I predict that one day Twilight will mean as much to high school English teachers as Mary Elizabeth Braddon does to high school English teachers in our time. And the wicked Lady Audley was a better character than Bella by far. (I wouldn't be surprised if people here already know, but 'Lady Audley's Secret' was famous in Victorian times as a sensation novel, by a woman who wrote about a billion books and was called the 'Queen of the Circulating Library'; now her fame is gone. Another example is the word "Svengali": a lot of people know what it means, but far fewer people remember that it comes from a once-famous novel called "Trilby". Pulp often dies.) From a historical point of view, there can be as much information encapsulated in the 'bad' work as the 'good' work, but historical information isn't the only reason why English teachers stay employed.

The reasons why some literature lives and some doesn't is definitely part coin toss, part reasons that some people dislike (eg. "represents the view of dead white men and so dead white men continued to carry its fame"), part reasons that some people like (eg. "says something significant about the history of the French Revolution, which is in turn believed to be a significant historical event because of our cultural biases").

It works both ways too. The more I learn about Shakespeare, that small-minded Tudor propagandist, the less I enjoy his work. And Richard III is NOT actual history, goddammit! :angry:


What, writers aren't allowed to change things to make a better story? :P

Because Shakespeare *has* been appreciated for several hundred years (and Sappho far more), that makes it easier to know the factors that have caused the words to continue to exist. If they didn't speak to some people in some complex way that involves a lot of subjective opinion and never-going-to-agree disagreement, they wouldn't last. I shouldn't bore people with a long quote, but I enjoyed this bit by Robert Ingersoll on why Shakespeare's so creative:

Perhaps we can give an idea of the difference between Shakespeare and other poets, by a passage from "Lear." When Cordelia places her hand upon her father's head and speaks of the night and of the storm, an ordinary poet might have said:

"On such a night, a dog
Should have stood against my fire."


A very great poet might have gone a step further and exclaimed:

"On such a night, mine enemy's dog
Should have stood against my fire."


But Shakespeare said:

"Mine enemy's dog, though he had bit me,
Should have stood, that night, against my fire."


Of all the poets—of all the writers—Shakespeare is the most original. He is as original as Nature.


I like Mary Elizabeth Braddon, but I can see some factors that make her pulp and forgettable--such as the way she uses a thin number of melodramatic plots, doesn't use historically significant backdrops, has her characters all sounding the same, and so on. Some famous writers share some of her flaws but also have virtues she lacked. There are also plenty of talented writers who missed the bus in some way, or who dropped out and then back into public opinion. A story a hundred times more popular than another story is probably not a hundred times better. But although chance is involved there are quality-related reasons, whether one considers those reasons for that story worthwhile or not.

Respectfully, I disgree completely that the words on the page are what's objective, for the simple reason that the words didn't magically spawn into being as they are on that page. The words were deliberately put there with an intention and meaning behind them, started as an idea in the writer's head. That's the objective story forms. Naturally there is interplay between what's in the writer's head and what is actually on paper - we've all had moments when writing down something where an idea seemed better in your head than it does on paper - that's first signs where a translation from mind to paper is not perfect. The story, the characters, the plot all form in the writer's head and the actual written down form is the flawed translation of that thought-proces.


What about when writers are disingenuous about their motives? For example (probably with a bit of a political slant here :P):

I'm sorry you misinterpreted what I said about those kind of people being festering lumps of walrus snot who should all have been drowned at birth. What I actually meant was to spread love and tolerance and rainbows.


Even if the author's being honest about what they *meant*, what they said can be different. What about the way the writer of "Fahrenheit 451" claimed the story was solely about television, when many people find it easy to draw a censorship analogy from the text? Or when Stephenie Meyer claims that Bella is a feminist character? On the opposite end of that scale, you also get people claiming to read writers' minds when they're a bit off:

JK Rowling is bigoted against Slytherins and clearly is just not admitting to her crush on the teacher she based Snape off!


I'm fully aware that this could be seen as a chicken-or-the-egg kind of discussion, though I firmly believe that the starting point, and thus the objective vision, behind any story is in the writer's mind. As for the meaning behind a story or painting? Since you cannot look inside the writer's brain to see the complete picture, best you can do is an approximation based on an educated guess.


Sometimes fandom doesn't go for the meaning in the author's head at all--"is this consistent with the story so far" rather than "is this actually what the author would want to do with the story". Sometimes this can be even Literary. I'm sure Margaret Mitchell would have claimed her characters were not racist and Melanie was a good person, but THE WIND DONE GONE makes a commentary about racism in the original novel and alters Melanie's character to make a point. It's impossible to know what was actually in the writer's head, and for some purposes that's not even wanted as a primary objective.

Edited by Blue-Inked_Frost, 02 June 2012 - 10:30 PM.





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