53 KiB
[D] Why the use of torture and violence in rational and other kind of fiction bothers me (inspired by the recent Broadcast chapter in Unsong)
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Author: u/Xenograteful *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/4qb9xq/d_why_the_use_of_torture_and_violence_in_rational/
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Score: 8
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Created: 2016-06-28T19:26:15
Post:
Nostalgebraist described the aesthetics of rational fiction as follow:
If there’s an aesthetic common denominator I can describe from all of these, or at least most of them, it’s something like: blunt and cynical (often with humorous intent) in tone, dark or at least not reluctant to get very dark at times, often includes extremely powerful or intelligent characters, sense of scale or “many orders of magnitude.”
I don't really like "very dark" aspect of it anymore. And I thought Unsong was meant to be lighthearted and humorous, and I'm not sure if it can be that after the Broadcast chapter.
So here's what Scott Alexander said in the beginning of the book.
I am constantly boggled by people who have read my previous stories still being surprised that I like humor in fiction.
But I am trying to make the book able to stand on its own aside from the humor (sort of like HPMoR or Discworld, which both included humor but weren't about humor), so I hope you'll stick around anyway.
I thought I had finally found a piece of rational fiction that's mostly just fun and doesn't include that much death and torture so I was a bit disappointed by the Broadcast chapter. And also for other reasons than the tonal shift (It felt like watching a children's TV series in which there's a brutal rape all of sudden.) I've read and watched my share of grimdark fiction like that. The violence grabs your attention and makes the story more intense and seemingly more meaningful with more at stake. But does it really make it better or is it just a cheap trick? Is intense fiction really better fiction?
So here's my feelings on the subject and why the excessive use of torture bothers me in fiction (note, feelings, not the objective truth)
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Torture and violence are things that happen a lot in the real world even now in the year 2016. I just begin to think what the victims would think about if they saw it used in fiction, and whether they'd consider it disrespectful.
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It somehow disturbs me that people are devising imaginative ways to cause misery and torture people, even if it's only fictional. It's especially disturbing when you acknowledge that torture is something that has happened a lot throughout human history. It kind of affirms that even ordinary people are capable of this kind of cruelty and it's part of human nature. It probably is, since dominating and bullying other people is so common.
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It's a kind of superstimuli. "Torture porn" is a word for a reason. Like many other types of superstimuli, consuming it and enjoying it makes me feel dirty somehow. And since it's superstimuli, creators will probably try to make it more and more horrifying to make it have the same effect on consumers of fiction as the previous depictions of violence have had. This seems to be a trend in fiction, seeing how bland some earlier forms of fiction were in this regard. Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones have been the most popular shows in recent years and both are really dark.
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The world itself dark enough in itself. Even if the world is a better place than in the past, the lives of happy people still contain a lot of conflict, suffering and death.
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I wonder if it's a sign of privilege to enjoy fiction with a lot torture and violence. This is after all one of the longest periods without war in the western world in recent history. I don't think people who've gone through war would like to see the same thing in the fiction they consume. For example the Golden Age of Comic Books wasn't nearly as dark as some of the popular fiction nowadays.
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I become afraid if I will see something like this in the future if a war or some other kind of conflict breaks out, or the world becomes a worse place in some other way. It's harder to enjoy it if you fear it might become reality.
Wildbow's stories are probably the worst offenders in this, and I'm not that enthusiastic about them anymore.
Comments:
u/Schuano [+22] (14 hours later)
I thought the Broadcast worked.
Watching Thamiel subvert the angels or bully Sohu was kind of bad, but it wasn't evil in the same way. Everything else in the world of Unsong is fun. Magic names, Nixon playing the piano, etc... The story of how Hellish Hell actually is important. Otherwise, Thamiel is just the Robot devil from Futurama.
u/bassicallyboss [+4] (a day later)
I agree. Hell just seemed like a curiosity before we saw the Broadcast, and Thamiel didn't seem evil. Not really evil, anyway. Also, I think it would have been hard to believe the US disintegrated after seeing a broadcast without seeing the extremity ourselves.
u/alexanderwales [+25] Time flies like an arrow (18 minutes later)
I think I'm probably one of the offenders as far as darkness goes, but ... I'm a cynic and suffer from depression. I have a lot of trouble writing cheerful, optimistic things. I've tried, in the past, but it always comes out wrong and takes a turn for the dark.
So I do agree that rational fiction as it stands tends to be a little darker than I would like it to be, but don't feel like I can actually do anything about that, because that goes so contrary to who I am as a person and how I see the world.
Actually, maybe I'll make that the next weekly challenge: happy stories.
u/Alphanos [+10] The Bright Powers (2 hours later)
I doubt I've read everything that you've written, but I've certainly read most of it, and I'm a fan. Your work, even when violence occurs, is not objectionable in the way Xenograteful is talking about for the Broadcast. The Last Christmas heads in that direction, but it still doesn't go so far.
I think part of the issue with the Broadcast in Unsong is the odd leaps in tone. For example, the Azkaban material in HPMOR gets pretty dark, but it's clear that this is integral to the story and serves to provide core motivations and goals of several major characters. In contrast, Unsong presents the Broadcast bookended in between comedic segments.
If it was more explicitly tied to the motivations and actions of Aaron or the Comet King, etc, it would at least be more understandable. But the story isn't written as a continuous plot timeline, so the result is an appearance of gratuitousness. Being shocking and grotesque for the sake of being shocking and grotesque. It's possible that this was the literary intent of the author, to represent how this broadcast shocked the world when released. I don't think so, though.
u/None [+2] (32 minutes later)
So I do agree that rational fiction as it stands tends to be a little darker than I would like it to be, but don't feel like I can actually do anything about that, because that goes so contrary to who I am as a person and how I see the world.
Do you enjoy comedy series much? Some people have depression powerful enough to stop them from even feeling happy.
u/alexanderwales [+7] Time flies like an arrow (6 hours later)
During a depressive episode, I tend to not take pleasure from anything. Other than that, I love comedy, fluffy stories, and optimistic endings.
u/nolrai [+3] (38 minutes later)
Hmm. I think you are making a bit of an assumption, I'm not the op of this chain, but I can like light stories, as long as they aren't comedies. But the only only things I find really truely find funny are dark.
u/vakusdrake [+21] (20 minutes later)
Well the obvious response to this is that since rationalist fiction tries to emulate reality in many ways you can expect at least the levels of horror you find in reality (which is quite a lot).
However since many fiction shies away from such things rational fiction may have a tendency to slightly overcompensate, though really not by much.
I should also point out that plenty of things in history would be considered a bit gratuitously horrific if they took place in fiction.There's also the fact that if you are trying to get people to truly fathom what's at stake you may need to actually delve into things in depth. People aren't going to be nearly as affected by horrors that they are merely told about but don't see described.
Lastly it bears mention that it seems as though there's a tendency to be more gratuitous in literature than film because people's imaginations may not be quite as good as actually seeing it on screen. Similarly you might see less explicit horror in VR because it would require less to achieve the same result because you don't feel as removed from it.
u/None [+11] (35 minutes later)
Separate point: the interaction between fiction and the reader of fiction is very intricate and varies from person to person. Some people read slowly and take time to mull every word over and visualize. Some people read quickly enough, and are desensitized enough that things like Worm barely bother them. I think the last time I felt anxiety while reading was when I read the Hunger Games trilogy three years ago. (in that period, I've read Worm and Pact, and a whole bunch of other stuff that would probably drive you mad)
u/None [+8] (42 minutes later)
Some people read quickly enough, and are desensitized enough that things like Worm barely bother them.
Are you me?
u/None [+4] (53 minutes later)
I'm at the point where I don't think I could be genuinely distressed by much of anything unless someone was really trying. I just assimilated every coping method I've ever read about, and for some reason it worked.
There was this one piece of fiction I read where the main character basically built an entire empire from scratch, and then lost, having to start from square one. This was like half the novel, tossed down the toilet. After that, I learned to stop taking losses as hard.
u/None [+6] (2 hours later)
You are a better reader than I, then. I don't get distressed by darkness, but I do get a bit distressed by other things, usually various forms of cringe or social anxiety-inducing moments. Never enough to make me stop reading (usually, sometimes I'll stop reading in a huff and come crawling back quickly enough).
u/None [+2] (4 hours later)
When a character does something stupid socially, generally I cringe and keep on reading. If something is irredeemably bad, like the main character keeps making consistently stupid decisions for the plot, then I drop it in a heartbeat.
u/waylandertheslayer [+2] (16 hours later)
There was this one piece of fiction I read where the main character basically built an entire empire from scratch, and then lost, having to start from square one. This was like half the novel, tossed down the toilet. After that, I learned to stop taking losses as hard.
What novel was that, if you can remember? It sounds interesting
u/None [+1] (a day later)
It was some random piece of fanfiction, so I don't know the title.
u/chaosmosis [+3] and with strange aeons, even death may die (3 hours later)
I recommended Worm to my mother, not realizing that she might find it upsetting.
u/TennisMaster2 [+9] (2 hours later)
There's value in making a strategic decision to avoid dark themes in a work. I don't think there's value in making that decision if it runs counter to a work's integrity. Likewise if the author decides to use dark themes as meaningless superstimuli that don't inspire reader reflection.
I'm waiting for Unsong to finish before I read it, so I'll comment abstractly on the use of torture as a device in rational fiction.
Torture doesn't strike me as a rational choice. It doesn't work. Artful cajoling and psychological manipulation does. A rational work, with rational characters, would employ the latter device. A rational work with irrational characters might employ the former. I'd have no problem with that, with the major caveat that it's shown to not work - in other words, that it's treated realistically.
I'd be happy if rational fiction avoided fetishization. No fetishizing techniques that don't work by e.g. having a character learn the world's secrets by torturing everyone, or by being really nice (might work to a degree, but not on a global scale). If something works, like manipulation, then I'd like to see it handled intelligently, describing the emotional toll on the manipulator if mentally healthy, or showing how to manipulate in a mutually beneficial fashion a la HPMoR and Lighting Up the Dark.
In summary, I agree with you in that it's something to which we as consumers and creators should pay attention, but disagree that we should proscribe it entirely. When handled with thought and grace what you describe may serve as a powerful teaching tool.
I do worry though for the desensitized. Does that make them more likely to consider violence justifiable, more likely to credit rationalizations of why real-life violence was necessary?
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+3] Roll the Dice on Fate (5 days later)
I often see it said that torture doesn't work, and I myself have long held that view. At the same time though, how do I know that? I have never researched the subject apart from for a single paper back when I was in school and did not have proper truth telling apparatuses, and I am not sure where it is simply something that has been repeated often in my sphere of interaction.
u/TennisMaster2 [+3] (5 days later)
My evidence is mainly an interview I saw with an American investigator for the FBI or CIA - one of their agencies. He said the best way to extract information is to be reasonable, point out the options available to the prisoner, and sympathetically and approachably cajole them into realizing that divulging information is what they want to do.
I'm really curious how he'd do so if what the person wants most is to not tell their captor anything, and has no other desires. Although I also haven't done much of a research spree and thus rate the evidence as weak, I still think testimony based on a career investigator's expertise stronger than the evidence for torture's effectiveness. If I came across a weightier source that contradicted that investigator, I'd change my mind.
u/RMcD94 [+3] (5 days later)
Presumably torture gets results, if you have some idea of what the answer is since torture victims would say anything to not be tortured, then they are bound to say the truth too.
But if you're in that kind of position what's the need in torturing anyway? Just to confirm a hunch? Could lead to some biases.
u/None [+1] (7 days later)
Presumably torture gets results, if you have some idea of what the answer is since torture victims would say anything to not be tortured, then they are bound to say the truth too.
The prisoner is obviously going to say what the interrogator wants to hear, which means you'd need to be quite clever to torture a prisoner while still having their resulting utterances be informative evidence rather than plausible untruths you wanted to hear.
There are much more effective interrogation techniques that rely on firm psychological grounding. Real intelligence agencies don't use those because they're being nice, they use them because getting true information out of a prisoner requires keeping their sanity and emotional balance intact enough to avoid its interfering with their testimony when they finally spill.
u/RMcD94 [+1] (7 days later)
The prisoner is obviously going to say what the interrogator wants to hear, which means you'd need to be quite clever to torture a prisoner while still having their resulting utterances be informative evidence rather than plausible untruths you wanted to hear.
That's why I said confirm things.
Prisoners can't make up names or locations or things like that very consistently. If you have two people being tortured in separate rooms and you ask them to spill the secrets then whatever they say that is consistent is what is the truth. If they make up stuff you want to hear they won't do it consistently.
There are much more effective interrogation techniques that rely on firm psychological grounding. Real intelligence agencies don't use those because they're being nice, they use them because getting true information out of a prisoner requires keeping their sanity and emotional balance intact enough to avoid its interfering with their testimony when they finally spill.
No true intelligence agency? I didn't say there were not more effective techniques. I said torture can work.
u/None [+2] (3 hours later)
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u/None [+1] (4 hours later)
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u/None [+1] (4 hours later)
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u/None [+1] (4 hours later)
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u/None [+1] (7 days later)
Torture doesn't strike me as a rational choice. It doesn't work. Artful cajoling and psychological manipulation does. A rational work, with rational characters, would employ the latter device. A rational work with irrational characters might employ the former. I'd have no problem with that, with the major caveat that it's shown to not work - in other words, that it's treated realistically.
Yeah, torture is basically the crowning example of dark stuff that shouldn't show up in rational fiction because the characters ought to be smart enough not to use it. If you want to inflict raw pain, torture works; if you want information, get trained by the FBI in psychological interrogation.
Worse, when other factions find out your faction tortured, they tend to bring you up on war-crimes charges unless you are just that imperially powerful.
u/Nepene [+6] (17 hours later)
Views on rape in GoT from rape survivors. Spoilers, obviously.
They like that we got to see a rape victim confront their rapist.
http://winteriscoming.net/2015/05/23/i-am-sansa-a-survivors-take-on-sansas-rape/
They don't like dismissive reports of her rape from other fans.
It's used as a lazy tool to show how bad a villain is.
They don't like how it's seen as the worst thing ever that can happen to a person.
http://www.xojane.com/issues/im-a-rape-survivor-and-sometimes-i-want-to-be-triggered
They like being triggered and finally getting to feel.
I think you can see from this that there's quite a diversity of views from rape survivors.
I think this says that if you do want to use rape, it should be done tastefully. The negative consequences should be depicted carefully, it shouldn't be overly exaggerated as the worst thing ever or ruining people, it should be a substantive act, not just laser guided rape to show how evil a character is.
It somehow disturbs me that people are devising imaginative ways to cause misery and torture people, even if it's only fictional.
People do have a huge capacity for cruelty, although TV generally doesn't get that close to the true normal of torture. Part of why I enjoyed worm. Not many stories get really close to the grinding, endless hopelessness of being a fairly powerless and unpopular student in a school which doesn't like you much, where no one cares about your pain.
It's a kind of superstimuli.
Yep. There's an endless competition to beat the old super stimuli.
The world itself dark enough in itself. Even if the world is a better place than in the past, the lives of happy people still contain a lot of conflict, suffering and death.
I'd agree with the rape survivor's views on rape in tv- that sometimes you want to be triggered, and that it's a lot more palatable if done tastefully.
I'm reminded of a comment by a friend on why she likes The Walking Dead. It's a world where you can't trust anyone, where you're constantly running. Since that was much of her childhood she appreciates watching a show that closer approximates the emotional reality of her childhood.
With these various traumatic experiences it's fairly common to bury a lot of it, to rationalize it away. It's much easier to get a greater emotional range when you can feel those emotions you locked away again and I for one definitely appreciate the chance to see it when done tastefully.
Soldiers who directly experience war make extensive use of violent video games, especially games like Halo, call of duty.
http://kotaku.com/how-video-games-are-helping-soldiers-deal-with-the-horr-1411559341
And many report how without such video games they'd have a lot more ptsd and trauma.
I've not seen any torture porn that really got close to the graphicness of actual war stories I've seen. They have a long way to go before TV things catch up with reality.
Although of course, I'm happy to see more cheerful rational stories as well.
u/None [+1] (13 days later)
I would really appreciate you tagging ASOIAF spoilers from the show. One of those links has a major spoiler in the URL.
u/Nepene [+1] (13 days later)
Tagged
u/Fredlage [+10] (an hour later)
I think one of the reasons rational fiction is so often dark is the "intelligent application of their knowledge and resources" part. After all, violence is a universal resource and pretty easy to apply. Unless your characters have some plausible reason to not be violent, it would be unrealistic if they didn't consider it all, especially considering how common its use is in the real world. So, what it comes down to, in many cases, is coming up with more creative uses for violence.
u/None [+22] (an hour later)
Apologies if I come off sharp or mean. I get defensive when people criticize aesthetics I enjoy.
Torture and violence are things that happen a lot in the real world even now in the year 2016. I just begin to think what the victims would think about if they saw it used in fiction, and whether they'd consider it disrespectful.
In a breath, trigger warnings. Ideally a person doesn't want to see certain content, can just filter the associated tag. Even failing that, if people really don't want to see it, eventually someone'll do something like building their own site where such content is banned. The net effect is not having to see what you don't want to see.
It's a kind of superstimuli. "Torture porn" is a word for a reason. Like many other types of superstimuli, consuming it and enjoying it makes me feel dirty somehow. And since it's superstimuli, creators will probably try to make it more and more horrifying to make it have the same effect on consumers of fiction as the previous depictions of violence have had. This seems to be a trend in fiction, seeing how bland some earlier forms of fiction were in this regard. Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones have been the most popular shows in recent years and both are really dark.
Superstimuli isn't intrinsically bad, that's a naturalistic fallacy. Science is a superstimulus, modern narrative practice is a superstimulus. Almost any cultural artefact that you and other regularly consume that isn't strictly instrumental is optimized to hit an affective peak. That's good, not bad. Even if my examples don't convince you, I don't think you'd argue Smile, You Are On Tumblr.com isn't a superstimulus, but I also don't think you'd argue it's anything but a good thing.
The world itself dark enough in itself. Even if the world is a better place than in the past, the lives of happy people still contain a lot of conflict, suffering and death.
How is this an argument? This is a non-sequitur to me. This is almost like arguing violent video games => more violence, but it doesn't even have the plausible vector of some kind of process. You are taking the darkness of the world as a constant, and funging against the presence or absence of dark fiction. Your own distaste notwithstanding, people enjoy dark fiction. Removing it would make the world a worse place, not a better one.
I wonder if it's a sign of privilege to enjoy fiction with a lot torture and violence. This is after all one of the longest periods without war in the western world in recent history. I don't think people who've gone through war would like to see the same thing in the fiction they consume. For example the Golden Age of Comic Books wasn't nearly as dark as some of the popular fiction nowadays.
And?
Are you suggesting we allow people who don't like thing to dictate the consumption of media (or lack thereof) that has absolutely nothing to do with them? Granted, making everything as bad as possible for everyone involved is a stable point, but I think we'd all agree allowing others to live and let live is much better.
I become afraid if I will see something like this in the future if a war or some other kind of conflict breaks out, or the world becomes a worse place in some other way. It's harder to enjoy it if you fear it might become reality.
Have you tried not reading fiction that declares itself to be dark? That Unsong wasn't so marked is a mistake, but I think notably dark fiction declares itself so the majority of the time; for instance see Worm.
Wildbow's stories are probably the worst offenders in this, and I'm not that enthusiastic about them anymore.
More power to you. Don't read stuff you don't want to read.
u/earnestadmission [+0] Singular "they" user (5 hours later)
This is a really aggressive response to what is basically an invitation to discuss the degree to which "rational" stories need to be violent stories. Prefacing with "sorry for being mean" does not actually excuse being mean.
u/None [+14] (6 hours later)
I wasn't excusing being mean, I was pointing out I couldn't tell either way. "Apologies if I come off sharp or mean" means "it's not intentional" not "it doesn't matter anymore cause I admit it, right guise". Being mean clearly isn't my goal, as I could do a much better job of being mean if I actually wanted to be mean. This is the intended meaning of the header.
discuss the degree to which "rational" stories need to be violent stories
Which isn't at all apparent. This could easily be construed three different ways
"ratfics are disproportionately dark, and I want to raise awareness of that fact in order to facilitate more non-dark ratfics"
"I don't like dark fiction"
"I don't like dark fiction and you should feel bad for liking dark fiction."
Edit: "I want to discuss the structure of non-dark fics, what they do well, and how better to write them."
Number one is a sound, even respectable reason for creating a thread. Number two belongs on a personal blog, and is completely irrelevant navel-gazing and distracts from the purpose of this sub, which is emphatically not circlejerking about what types of things we like and don't like. Number three is more of the same. Number four was brought in a reply, but I'm skeptical it could even be interpretted as a motive for the OP.
It is my contention that this post is mostly a mix of the first three. To the extent that OP wants to encourage the production of more non-dark fiction, I support him/her, since more things that people like is always good. To the extent OP is just wanting a pat on the pat for liking the right things I don't care, to the extent that this post is about why dark fiction is bad and you should feel bad, I'm merely content to write a short post outlining why every reason he/she produced holds little water.
u/earnestadmission [+2] Singular "they" user (7 hours later)
Talking about your intended goal versus the merely foreseen side effects of your post is unlikely to be fruitful so I will happily discard that line of discussion.
I am interested by your idea that option #2 emphatically doesn't belong here. I'd imagine that a discussion about what modes of fiction are "pleasurable to read" would be particularly interesting for a community that wants to write well. Engaging with writing involves more than analysis of grand themes and recitation of plot minutia. There's an emotional "affective" component that is often neglected by the more didactic branches of fanfiction (and web fiction more generally). This is largely an artefact of the lack of (professional!) editors.
If you are offering motives for OP, lets widen the search space to include motives that only incidentally annoy you, even though there is a little bit of (implicit) negativity towards the ratfic-tribe.
u/Bowbreaker [+10] Solitary Locust (11 hours later)
I am interested by your idea that option #2 emphatically doesn't belong here. I'd imagine that a discussion about what modes of fiction are "pleasurable to read" would be particularly interesting for a community that wants to write well. Engaging with writing involves more than analysis of grand themes and recitation of plot minutia. There's an emotional "affective" component that is often neglected by the more didactic branches of fanfiction (and web fiction more generally). This is largely an artefact of the lack of (professional!) editors.
One could argue that OP's dislike of certain literary tools is anecdotal evidence and thus only marginally relevant, thus explaining /u/Altiumbe's opinion that such a thing belongs to a personal blog.
u/None [+3] (18 hours later)
I am interested by your idea that option #2 emphatically doesn't belong here. I'd imagine that a discussion about what modes of fiction are "pleasurable to read" would be particularly interesting for a community that wants to write well. Engaging with writing involves more than analysis of grand themes and recitation of plot minutia. There's an emotional "affective" component that is often neglected by the more didactic branches of fanfiction (and web fiction more generally). This is largely an artefact of the lack of (professional!) editors.
There was miscommunication there. By number two, I meant a post that effectively boils down to "DAE like x" threads, mainly. Where the only purpose it patting each other on the back for liking the right things.
Your suggestion is sensible. I've tentatively edited the original post to add this.
However, I don't think this a very likely motive for OP, but I will concede it throws my blanket statement (this all belongs on a blog) out, albeit marginally.
If you are offering motives for OP, lets widen the search space to include motives that only incidentally annoy you, even though there is a little bit of (implicit) negativity towards the ratfic-tribe.
It was a failure of imagination on my part, admitted.
Talking about your intended goal versus the merely foreseen side effects of your post is unlikely to be fruitful so I will happily discard that line of discussion.
No, it could be plenty fruitful. I don't want to offend, to the extent that I can do that without being completely silent. This is a request not a demand, so I'll completely understand if you refuse, but knowing either 1) where in my post I was most mean, or 2) knowing how I can better convey the non-intendness of any meanness in my header (the fact that you didn't immediately understand what I meant there means it didn't do a good job) would be much appreciated.
Again, this is orthogonal to our topic of discussion, so consider it plenty optional.
u/Bowbreaker [+10] Solitary Locust (11 hours later)
Could you point out the stuff where he was mean? Especially the ones that are meaner than OP's insinuations that writing darkly may just be a cheap trick, disrespectful towards people who have suffered through bad things or even downright sadistic?
u/electrace [+23] (an hour later)
Can we stop acting like this was a surprise?
This story has been dark since near the beginning. It's just been intellectually dark, rather than explicitly dark.
Chapter 12:
That worked for about five years. Then there had been another sudden drop in the efficiency of technology, and parts of the route needed costly refitting to use the Motive Name. Then the Comet King had died and the security situation went to hell, in some cases literally. The smoking ruins of the Midwest had been taken over by warlords and barbarian chiefdoms – Paulus the Lawless, the Witch-King of Wichita, the Oklahoma Ochlocracy – who wanted tolls to pass their territory. The Other King seized Nevada and demanded another toll plus the promise that the train wouldn’t be used to lift the siege of the West children in Colorado. The smouldering conflict that had troubled the East Coast after the election of 2000 had devolved into guerilla warfare that made the whole Appalachian area dangerous.
Chapter 20 had Thamiel killing virtually 2/3 of all angels. Is genocide not dark enough?
If you thought this was going to be just a light-hearted story, the realization that it wasn't going to be should have hit you a long time ago.
Was The BroadCast more explicitly dark? Yes, but there was a prominent content warning at the top of the page.... I don't know how much clearer Scott could have possibly made it. If you know that things like that bother you, why on Earth would you choose to read it?
u/floordeliqour [+9] (9 hours later)
I think it's quite uncharitable to say that people are acting surprised, rather than being genuinely surprised.
More generally, I have trouble with this sort of response to criticism. I'm usually on the reader's side; if a reader says something like "this didn't feel right to me" or "I was bored at this part" or something like that, my default response is generally "okay, what could the author have done differently?". It's the author's job to communicate with the reader, and while communication is a two-way street, the bulk of the responsibility is on the author.
You're saying, essentially "no, you're bad at reading, the story was this way all along". I personally think that if the story was supposed to be interpreted that way all along, it was the author's job to make sure that this was clear to his readers. Based on the comments for that chapter (both here and on the site) this isn't something he accomplished.
u/electrace [+5] (20 hours later)
I'm usually on the reader's side; if a reader says something like "this didn't feel right to me" or "I was bored at this part" or something like that, my default response is generally "okay, what could the author have done differently?"
I have the same response, generally. Here, it's different. No one is claiming that the writing was bad (as in, poorly written). People are claiming that it was too violent. It was meant to be violent. It was meant to show the horrors of hell, and what the characters are up against.
If you look at the disclaimer it explicitly says...
Content warning: Part II of this chapter contains graphic scenes including references to Hell, gore, rape, psychological torture, and death...
If you still choose to read it, you lose the right to blame the author. So, in this case, it is completely the fault of the reader.
You're saying, essentially "no, you're bad at reading, the story was this way all along". I personally think that if the story was supposed to be interpreted that way all along, it was the author's job to make sure that this was clear to his readers.
You could plausibly claim that up to chapter 12, which people did.. But that ship has long sailed.
u/floordeliqour [-1] (21 hours later)
Unsong was recommended in the thread "stories without major sadness or darkness", so I think that it was plausible to claim that right up until the chapter was posted.
u/electrace [+5] (21 hours later)
What evidence would possibly convince you that this story has been dark, since genocide and dictators don't seem to cut it?
u/holomanga [+3] (3 days later)
Because you don't get to see the genocide and dictators. You get to see the funny guy making biblical whale puns and the quirky archangel with his young companion.
u/floordeliqour [+3] (21 hours later)
I'm not arguing for the story being dark or light, I'm saying that people legitimately thought it was a light story and if you want to respond to that, try figuring out why they thought that, instead of claiming that they couldn't plausibly think it.
u/bassicallyboss [+9] (a day later)
I expect people noticed that the characters were humorous and a few whimsical things happened, so they figured that the story was going to be lighthearted and whimsical. It probably doesn't help that, stylistically, most chapters sound like SlateStarCodex chapters.
Still, I've felt all along that the characters' humor was sort of like a shock response. The world is really messed up, and no one knows how to act, so they they pretty much go around making jokes and doing normal things.
You're saying, essentially "no, you're bad at reading, the story was this way all along".
I can't speak for /u/electrace, but this is pretty much exactly how I feel. The author isn't blameless, of course, but the evidence has been pretty clear from the start. This is a story where the US has collapsed and the Midwest is ruled by warlords; The universe we understand is slowly and irreversibly falling apart; People are employed at minimum wage to recite potential names of God Himself so they can be copyrighted and sold for profit; Most humans who've ever lived are currently or will soon be suffering in literal hell, and the world's best hope of saving them learned something so terrible that he lost heart and was killed.
I suppose I've some sympathy for those who discovered it through the "stories without major sadness or darkness," but this hasn't been a light story for a long time. The Broadcast didn't change that--it just briefly shined a spotlight into the darkness.
u/None [+1] (21 hours later)
[deleted]
u/Chronophilia [+4] sci-fi ≠ futurology (a day later)
Did you honestly think that I was arguing that people were physically incapable of thinking that the story wasn't dark?
That sentence should be taken outside and shot.
u/electrace [+5] (a day later)
I... agree. It's too messy. I'll leave it up though, for posterity.
u/LiteralHeadCannon [+9] (11 hours later)
It is impossible to make a product idiot-proof. The entirety of the responsibility cannot ever fall on the creator of the product.
u/floordeliqour [+4] (19 hours later)
I didn't say the entirety, I said the bulk. Communication is a two-way street, and the reader does have their own responsibilities.
My view is colored by having people beta-read things that I've written. When someone says, "I didn't find that character sympathetic", responding with "no, you're wrong, they were actually sympathetic, here's why" is a terrible response that will never help you improve as a writer. Similarly, if someone says that something was confusing, or dissonant, or boring ... you have to have a lot of hubris to say "the fault lies with you as the reader, not me as an author". The same principle applies when fans are talking to other fans -- but of course, fans get stupidly tribal about the works that they like, and any criticism is taken as a mean-spirited, idiotic attack rather than a genuine reaction.
u/LiteralHeadCannon [+8] (19 hours later)
Frankly, it doesn't make sense for the bulk of the responsibility to fall on the author, either, because there's only one author, and many readers. Making a story worse to please one reader will decrease the value of the story for other readers. If we assume the author's job is to maximize overall utility, it would be silly to expect that utility for every reader is maximized, because people have such different desires and expectations. But that's an oversimplification, because good authors don't try to maximize overall utility, they try to maximize their own utility. In practice, this is much more effective, because people are much better at maximizing their own utility than they are at maximizing the utility of an abstract average other - trying to do so tends to minimize novelty, which is actually very valuable in art, as well as sincerity.
So, as readers, what can we do? Well, I won't tell you not to engage in criticism, because I find that engaging in criticism often increases my utility. But I will tell you to try to enjoy things, for what I think are fairly obvious reasons.
u/whywhisperwhy [+1] (a day later)
Another option that I'm going with is that, yes,this is a huge change compared to past chapters, and that it was jarring, but that it's a feature, not a bug. The story should have had a trigger warning, but I don't think this chapter should be criticized from a literary point of view.
It's the author's job to communicate with the reader"
From the author's comments here, they had a goal for this chapter and it certainly seems fulfilled, so I'd call that a success.
u/DCarrier [+4] (5 hours later)
It's a kind of superstimuli.
What do you consume that isn't? We've made practically everything into a superstimulus at this point.
u/RMcD94 [+3] (5 days later)
People have always enjoyed stories with murder and violence throughout all of human history even when it was murderous and violent itself.
Do you feel the same way a grunt is killed in an action movie?
u/None [+16] (28 minutes later)
Dude, just chill out. Most of us are capable of relaxing and enjoying this stuff, and I'm pretty sure we're not all irredeemable monsters. Violence may just not be your thing, and that's cool, but what plot device would replace it? There are very few plot devices as versatile and moving as physical violence.
It's important to understand very intrinsically that there is a difference between fictional violence and real violence, just like there's a difference between fictional sex and real sex, and a difference between driving a car and reading a description of a person driving a car. To play on your anxiety for a second: however bad the stuff in stories is, in real life it's a million times worse. Not only that, but the stuff in stories is far removed in terms of accuracy too - fictional characters tend to have a ridiculously high pain threshold. These differences make it entertaining to read violence - it would be a really shitty story if people died from one bullet, like they do in real life, or gave up the location of the rebel base after being tortured. Wildbow's works are less graphically violent and more emotionally subdued. He uses this to move the plot forward, because the characters are constantly seeking higher ground.
I think your speculation about it being a privilege to enjoy torture is wrong. You point out Golden Age comic books, but who's reading those comics? The hardened war vet, or the kid who bought it for ten cents because it was cool? And there are plenty of instances where people traumatized by war enjoyed dark fiction for the accuracy and lessons it conveyed. Saving Private Ryan triggered quite a bit of actual PTSD, but plenty of people praised it for its realistic depictions of war. The same goes for all of the good novels from the lost generation - All Quiet on the Western Front, A Farewell to Arms.
u/Lexabyte [+2] (21 hours later)
I think that maybe rational fiction tends to be dark is because in most cases the rational thing to do is to leverage whatever power you have to try to eliminate the world's problems. To have a cheerful rattfic you'd first have to invent a world with no major problems.
u/MultipartiteMind [+2] (3 days later)
<nods...> There are going to be things that some people find emotionally satisfying and others find emotionally unsatisfying, for reasons of personal background as well as personality. All are free to stick to what they prefer, and try to encourage more of its type; when something is popular enough, avoiding it may be difficult. Responses to points five and one below:
Point five: '"There are no atheists in foxholes" is not an argument against atheism, but against foxholes.' If life is peaceful enough that people turn to less peaceful forms of entertainment for contrast, this is a good sign. That is to say--it shouldn't be a bad thing that it's a sign of privilege, because privilege is a good thing. We want each generation to be more privileged than the last, privileged to live in a better world/universe than their ancestors had to. Our ideal future descendents are going to be much more 'soft' in that they don't have to deal with the young-person mortality rates that our generation does, and that's a good thing. If they're not privileged, if we keep the same amount of suffering and death to keep the future as underprivileged as the past, that's a tragedy.
Point one: This can be extended to all negative things. Namely, death (where the victim is someone close to someone who has died) or any sort of crime or tragedy. To echo another comment, if you strip out all the truly meaningfully bad things that can happen, you strip out the meaningfulness of people trying to protect something or prevent something. A detective cannot solve a murder (and a reader cannot try to deduce it before the declaration), because of how people close to murder victims might feel. A poor person cannot strive to improve their situation, because of how those who have been poor might feel. A quick thinking person cannot act to save their country from the predations of an aggressive neighbour, because of how people who have suffered in a war might feel. Take away negative aspects and you take away struggle. Take away struggle and you take away the heart of many forms of escapist fiction.
To combine those two, a little: I'd prefer to be in a world where people think about ugly things and have clear impressions of them rather than one where people have averted their eyes from ugly things and are unprepared when they encounter them. To put it another way (and end this post by invoking Godwin's law): even if there are Holocaust survivors who find books which talk about the Holocaust to be disrespectful, there is merit in those books existing so that people who had not encountered it first-hand can know about it and think about it, rather than let it be hidden in darkness.
u/holomanga [+2] (3 days later)
The world itself dark enough in itself. Even if the world is a better place than in the past, the lives of happy people still contain a lot of conflict, suffering and death.
Exactly! Rational fiction often aims to model what would happen if X, where X is some premise (people get superpowers, a kid gets sucked into a fantasy world, the universe starts running on kabbalah). If conflict, suffering and death happen to real people, they would probably also happen to fake people. In fact, you'd expect it to happen more, since most of the time X increases the capabilities of individuals to effect change, unethical people included.
u/None [+2] (7 days later)
I want to add another major reason not to use torture in stories:
- It does not work in real life. Most real-life intelligence agencies use psychologically-based interrogation techniques rather than torture because they need information that will turn out true when they check it empirically. Sometimes, they also need the evidence they've obtained via interrogation to hold up in a court of law, as when compelling a mobster or a drug-runner to testify by applying incentives regarding their family, for instance.
I actually also agree regarding the common use of Darker and Edgier flavoring in fiction, period. There's a very real and palpable difference between fiction that is trying to be dark and the actual darkness of real life.
In real life, your adviser can get gout and your stepfather lymphoma while your wife is ground down into an anxious, depressed, tired, increasingly soulless wreck by her awful job -- in a single year. Yes, that's my year I'm talking about. Meanwhile, in the broader world, the environment is severely damaged, social inequality is off the charts, wars in that one damned region have gotten quite bad, and fascism is creeping up on supposedly developed societies. Entropy is running, and right now it's running quickly.
But that's not very suitable for fiction, is it? From a fiction-writer's point of view, all those awful things are just background details, and we even sort of expect that no one real person statistically ought to be hit with any great number of personal tragedies all at once. Instead of just being constantly bruised and having bones broken until nothing heals right or completely anymore and pain becomes a constant background fact of life, we expect fictional characters to be healthy and strong right until they are fucking nuked from orbit.
Maybe it's good writing for ordinary fiction to have the characters be, effectively, strong and strapping young space marines who suddenly get nuked from orbit and have to fight Lex Luthor's army of undead mutants from Mars to save the world from the Weyland-Yutani company's evil manipulations, but I do think it's bad writing for rational fiction.
Rational fiction ought to inflict its dose of pain, on the characters and on the reader, in the same way real life does. Otherwise, people will keep going through their daily lives thinking that evil comes with a goatee and laughs maniacally about taking over the world, while considering drugs or war or cancer as facts of life to be accepted.
u/want_to_want [+2] (13 hours later)
Most fiction is based on superstimuli of various kinds, from robots punching dinosaurs, to super-smart Harry outsmarting his opponents by being smart. So that's not a strong objection to me.
Also most fiction can be accused of insensitivity to real suffering, just because it's fiction. In a world where children starve, etc, etc. So that's not a strong objection either.
That leaves artistic criteria, which depend on what the artist is trying to achieve. Clearly, LOTR works better without torture and GOT works better with torture. Most artistic works fall somewhere in between.
That said, I'm also disappointed by Unsong's use of torture. It doesn't fit with the rest of the work and it feels made up. As a doctor, Scott has tons of experience with actual suffering, and his SSC posts prove that he can describe it vividly and truthfully. So why talk about cartoon stuff like forks in eyeballs?
u/OutOfNiceUsernames [+1] fear of last pages (5 days later)
I’ll just put this here: Youtube/Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Torture (HBO).
u/Towerowl [-6] (2 hours later)
Yeah, rational fiction does tend to be overly dark... A attribute this to the writter/reader pool, which is mostly composed of immature 20ish old who feel fustrated IRL not managing to impose their will on the world with their vastly superior intelect! Obviously this doesn't work IRL so they enjoy writting about how they can in fiction. Is it really a wonder if this SI tend to resort to rash violence, usually against someone the authors dislikes IRL...
u/TK17Studios [+8] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (5 hours later)
Yikes.
u/None [+7] (8 hours later)
[removed]
u/Bowbreaker [+3] Solitary Locust (11 hours later)
I wonder whose alternate "unpopular opinion" account that is.
u/Towerowl [+3] (a day later)
Yeah, i know this excuse is overused, but english is my second language. Also while i admit to having formulated the last post in a delibarately insulting way, and without much work invested in the writting of it, can you really deny the sliver of truth of the points being made? Judging by the number of down post, it appears to have struck a cord...
u/holomanga [+1] (3 days later)
I'm an immature 17 year old. And the gratuitous violence and torture is the stuff my author avatar uses her vastly superior intellect to stop.