scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/4uy79d.md

[Challenge Companion] Superheroes

• Author: u/alexanderwales Time flies like an arrow*

• URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/4uy79d/challenge_companion_superheroes/

• Score: 24

• Created: 2016-07-28T01:32:24

Post:

This is the challenge companion thread, post recommendations, commentary, or story ideas below.

To start off, I'll list all of what I think of as the standard superhero recommendations on this sub:

• Worm: Long (and now complete) web serial about a girl with bug powers. This was one of the first things posted to this subreddit, which immediately spawned discussion about whether or not it was rational.

• Metropolitan Man: A Superman fanfic I wrote with Lex Luthor as the villain protagonist.

• Strong Female Protagonist: A mostly rational webcomic about superheroes with an arguably too-high amount of social justice in it.

On top of those, I'd like to recommend two deconstructions and one fairly thoughtful take on superheroism from a mainstream publisher.

• Soon I Will Be Invincible: Does a bunch of neat things with the superhero genre and I found it quite well-written.

• Watchmen: Alan Moore's landmark masterpiece that helped to redefine superheroes and brought a sense of the real world to comic books. I personally prefer the movie, mostly because I felt that the pirate/comic/artist subplot dragged the main plot down.

• Superman: Red Son: Part of the Elsewords imprint; Superman lands in Russia instead of America and grows up as a Soviet. It's got a few too many winks and nods at normal continuity for me, but overall I thought it did a good job of using Superman in interesting ways (raising philosophical and emotional questions rather than showing how hard he can hit things).

I think superpowers are fairly easy to write rationally, but superheroes (as distinct from people with superpowers) are not. Going out into the street to fight crime almost never seems like the rational thing to do. Crime is fairly uncommon, vigilantism is legally risky, and if you have any actual powers there are probably better ways to do good (and if you don't have any actual powers, why are you out on the streets and how are you fighting crime?). These are all questions that an author of rational fiction needs to ask himself, if the intent is to get something that actually resembles the superhero genre. Having people with special abilities go off to do their own thing unrelated to superheroing seems much more attractive, from my perspective.

Comments:

u/trekie140 [+9] (2 hours later)

I posted this in General Rationality three weeks ago, but I think it bears repeating for authors who don't understand what superheroes are really about and why it appeals to people.

The superhero genre is about as irrational as they come. The nearly universal premise is a person discovers they have abilities beyond what a normal person does, so they put on a mask to fight crime and help people as they choose while still living a normal life. In reality, this is not an efficient use of their abilities, nor is it particularly effective at fulfilling their goals on a macro scale.

However, one thing rational fiction authors need to understand about these genre conventions before they play with them is why they exist. When people see someone notice injustice and use the power they have to fight it, it inspires the audience to do the same. Superheroes are fundamentally just good samaritans, and therein lies the basic reason people get emotionally invested in superhero stories.

Seemingly a good way to compromise would be for the hero's job to to be helping others, such as a police officer, firefighter, or paramedic. However, this risks denying the central conceit of a heroic protagonist: autonomy. People recognize heroism when the protagonist chooses to help when they don't have to. When you institutionalize heroism, it risks taking the inspiration away.

I'm not critiquing any story or setting in particular, The Metropolitan Man was most certainly not a superhero story and I thought Worm actually stuck too closely to superhero conventions given the setting. I just think it's important to understand why people like irrational stories before you write rational fiction.

Note: I have not yet read Strong Female Protagonist.

u/None [+7] (5 hours later)

When you institutionalize heroism, it risks taking the inspiration away.

Tell that to the nation glorifying the US military for the past few decades :P

u/trekie140 [+1] (13 hours later)

We glorify all public service, except bureaucrats, but the best they can inspire you to do is join them or trust them. Superheroes inspire us to act on our own to help others.

u/None [+1] (19 hours later)

but the best they can inspire you to do is join them or trust them.

Or do your part for your country, especially those who serve it.

And then there's the issue of churches and charity, which works in institutions, sometimes very large ones (more than one social scientist has argued that religious people are generally more charitable)

u/trekie140 [+1] (23 hours later)

All true, but I'm talking about people's emotional reaction to stories, not what they do in real life.

u/callmebrotherg [+2] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (15 hours later)

When people see someone notice injustice and use the power they have to fight it, it inspires the audience to do the same. Superheroes are fundamentally just good samaritans, and therein lies the basic reason people get emotionally invested in superhero stories.

This sounds testable. Tracking the popularity of superhero media and altruism, maybe?

Also, how does the paramedic not have autonomy? If the paramedic doesn't want to help people, then the paramedic can just stop being a paramedic.

u/None [+2] (16 hours later)

This sounds testable. Tracking the popularity of superhero media and altruism, maybe?

You don't need to test superhero works in particular. In John Haidt's Happiness Hypothesis he makes a similar claim about a phenomenon called "elevation", where people react well to and want to do good after seeing moral paragons do good in a way that's distinct from watching simply very competent people do something nonmoral with skill.

u/callmebrotherg [+1] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (17 hours later)

But are moral paragons necessarily people who are not involved with institutions? I wouldn't be surprised at all to learn that moral paragons in fiction have a real-world effect on behavior, but the claim being made here seems to be that either we don't consider people moral paragons for joining institutions built around otherwise moral behavior, or not all moral paragons inspire people.

u/None [+5] (19 hours later)

But are moral paragons necessarily people who are not involved with institutions?

I don't think Haidt really made a distinction, or even focused on fiction. I was speaking generally on the whole "elevation" thing.

I personally don't buy the idea that the effect is diluted by people being in institutions, I also disagreed with the OP on it elsewhere.

I think the lack of institutions in superhero fiction is partly just the weird American individualism shining through; writers almost seem hostile to competent and involved institutions at times since it means there's an alternative to the hero riding solo.

u/whywhisperwhy [+1] (a day later)

Just a note that the original fiction work Superpowereds involves a competent superhero institution. Mostly seen through the eyes of the embedded superhero-training academy, but overall it seems to be logically maintained.

I can't think of any others but now I really want a rational PRT or story from the POV of administrator for a similar organization.

u/trekie140 [+2] (20 hours later)

My statement about institutions was more about noticing a trend in superhero stories, particularly the ones I enjoy, and theorizing what the cause of it was. It might just be my culture's obsession with individualism, but I tend to not identify characters as moral paragons when they have some obligation to do good. They usually either act on their own or are the leader of an institution.

I brought it up in the original post because I've read stores that fell flat because the author didn't seem to know the difference between writing a story about superheroes and supersoldiers. In the novel Wearing the Cape the heroes are basically just cops who get orders from Dispatch, so whenever they acted like normal superheroes I thought they were bad at their jobs for not following procedure and not being prepared.

u/callmebrotherg [+3] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (21 hours later)

I tend to not identify characters as moral paragons when they have some obligation to do good.

I'm still confused by this. If I'm a paramedic, then maybe I'm obligated to do good, inasmuch as "doing good" is part of the job description, but (1) I chose to be a paramedic and (2) I can choose to stop being a paramedic.

u/trekie140 [+5] (23 hours later)

I didn't say it was a rational feeling, it might be a bias but I can't know for sure because it's just taste in fiction that I think is popular. I mentioned it because I think it's important for an author to know their audience. I heard comic book fans complain that DC heroes in the New 52 were less interesting because they worked for someone instead of on their own. I know that paramedics are heroic, but I'd rather read about superheroes.

u/callmebrotherg [+2] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (a day later)

That's fair!

u/nerdguy1138 [+1] GNU Terry Pratchett (11 days later)

So what I'm hearing is we need a small army of Kim Possibles.

u/vallar57 [+1] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (4 days later)

The nearly universal premise is a person discovers they have abilities beyond what a normal person does, so they put on a mask to fight crime and help people as they choose while still living a normal life. In reality, this is not an efficient use of their abilities, nor is it particularly effective at fulfilling their goals on a macro scale.

I disagree though: you forgot about the other half of supersociety, which is villains, who go around using their powers for profit or power. Which is quite understandable.

Heroes' main purpose is not to fight crime per se, but to stop supervillains, who are mostly unique and quite powerful, and are generally unstoppable by conventional, unpowered, standartized and procedure-bound police force.

u/DocFuture [+5] (3 hours later)

Okay, there's a short story I've been meaning to write in the world of Fall of Doc Future, and this looks like a good incentive. It's called "The Old Man", and it's about The Volunteer. I should have it done within the week.

Edit: It's now up on my site, and linked under the main contest thread.

u/TennisMaster2 [+5] (17 hours later)

"What's this?! Someone wants to write a fanzine piece for the Doc Future world! I wonder what Doc Future would think of that? I should let him know!"

Eyes track upwards.

"Oh."

u/DocFuture [+2] (23 hours later)

8-)

u/Jiro_T [+4] (20 hours later)

Many of the most popular Japanese animation series are about people who have unique superpowers, wearing brightly colored distinctive costumes, beating each other up. Yet as superhero stories they're borderline. They're created under the same constraints as superheroes (visual medium, good versus evil, characters have autonomy), but somehow they've managed to all do so in ways that are different from superheroes, whether they technically fit under the definition or not.

u/TennisMaster2 [+1] (a day later)

Those series operate in a vacuum. The series defines the world and setting, or occurs microcosmically. High school, fantasy world, underground society or subculture, etc. Superhero stories are set on worlds with societal structures or concerns very much like our own and/or take place in integrated mainstream cultural settings. Gotham, Valhalla, the Milky Way, etc.

u/trekie140 [+7] (2 hours later)

While Worm did analyze and explain a lot of superhero tropes, there were three aspects of its setting that didn't make sense to me. I only read the first half since it started feeling more like survival horror than superheroes when the Slaughterhouse 9 showed up, so some of these might've been explained but they still nagged at me while I was reading. If you want to write a superhero story, I would like these to be avoided or addressed.

Firstly, most of the heroes don't seem to be interested in helping people, so why would they decide to become superheroes? None of them seemed to have been forced into crimefighting and it seemed like many of them had operated independently before joining the Protectorate, yet so few of them care about doing heroic things. Watchmen explained why people became "costumed adventurers" for selfish reasons, but Worm didn't and the setting is so different that I don't see how the same idea would apply.

Second, it strikes me as bizarre that superhero tropes are the norm when the Endbringers are a thing. Humanity is under siege by essentially unstoppable kaiju, yet fighting them is considered a side gig to the cops and robbers culture of heroes and villains. Additionally, I would've expected the Protectorate to be far more militarized to deal with those threats instead of relying on good samaritans to volunteer. I assume the Endbringer attacks are supposed to be similar to Crisis Crossovers in comic books, but they're so much more common and deadly that I don't understand how a normal superhero culture can exist.

Finally, I don't buy the explanation for why supervillains are more common than superheroes. Supposedly it's because powers are induced by experiencing trauma, but I fail to see why trauma victims would be more likely to commit crimes, let alone make a career out of it. The motivations of each character makes sense, since most villains appear to be gang members, domestic terrorists, and psychopaths; but I don't buy that they are more common due to the nature of superpowers.

u/aeschenkarnos [+9] (8 hours later)

I only read the first half

Pretty much everything you ask is explained in the second half. Alexanderwales explains below.

u/b14ckr05e [+3] (3 hours later)

In response to your last point, I believe the reason was partially because people who are trauma victims and go through a trigger event usually already have pretty crappy lives to begin with. Lives that tend to already start people off towards a life of villainy, rather than good. The trigger event merely cements it.

u/None [+1] (5 hours later)

Firstly, most of the heroes don't seem to be interested in helping people, so why would they decide to become superheroes?

Most of the story is from the perspective of villains...

None of them seemed to have been forced into crimefighting and it seemed like many of them had operated independently before joining the Protectorate yet so few of them care about doing heroic things

People like Assault were forced and a lot of the Case 53s took the job cause the PRT was the best place for them.

Besides, multiple people talk about and do heroic things. Miss Militia is considered a hero, the Vegas capes lament that they can't save Vegas completely. They are obligated by law to go to every S-Class event (the Protectorate that is) and helped catch people like Bakuda and a bunch of Wards volunteered to fight the S9 and others when they didn't have to. They also patrolled when the city was wrecked by Leviathan but obviously that stuff is hard to paper over.

As I said it's from the POV of the villain and the PRT is kinda put upon, they are probably more like cops than the uplifting image of Superman. You hear about cops when they do something particularly amazing but, in a crime ridden city how often do you spend time thinking about cops as "heroic"?

but I fail to see why trauma victims would be more likely to commit crimes, let alone make a career out of it.

I imagine the logic is like "someone who is more likely to receive the requisite trauma is more likely to be in the segment of the population that actually is most at risk for crime anyway" and/or "the trigger cause problems both immediately and in the sort of reckless use powers can cause".

u/None [+3] (6 hours later)

Having people with special abilities go off to do their own thing unrelated to superheroing seems much more attractive, from my perspective.

I can't think of the last work that actually did something with metahumans that didn't involve other metahumans.

I mean, 'superheroing' is probably justifiable for any short tale, it's the universe around it that's weird, with the masquerade and all. But no one truly escapes the metahuman conflict. Barring oneshots, what was the last fic that actually dealt with someone just running away from all of the crime and doing something interesting?

It's seems that, once you have to actually write without dealing with cognitively easy things like an enemy that can turn you into dust with their eyes the difficulty of actually writing something becomes much harder. It's harder to make a story where a teleporter runs a shipping company or stays (mostly) out of the "hero" scene and have it be interesting.

u/Geminii27 [+3] (12 hours later)

It's harder to make a story where a teleporter runs a shipping company

I've been assembling some ideas around something similar for a while (the invention of fixed point-to-point portals as a global monopoly). The conflict basically comes down to there being an awful lot of money invested in the status quo of an awful lot of industries around the world which, in one way or another, rely on charging customers money because some things are far away from other things. Global shipping of all kinds. Travel. Tourism. Commuting. Pipelines. Road and rail. Airlines. Duplication of things (like company outlets, or management hubs) in several locations because "you can't be in two places at once". Support industries, including such players as every oil/fuel company ever. Politicians and governments with histories of using us-them-over-there rhetoric.

That kind of money, influence, and power doesn't tend to like having the rug yanked out from underneath it by someone who won't even explain how they're doing it, and whose technology is proving frustratingly impossible to reverse-engineer, or even make sense of.

A lot of very, very wealthy people are about to become very, very unhappy...

u/trekie140 [+2] (13 hours later)

I think a simple answer to that situation is to say that superpowers are subject to regulation when used for business because they're considered economically disruptive. It's legal to use them for volunteer work, but when you charge something the government makes sure you don't put whole industries out of business. Private investigators and security services would probably be exceptions.

u/Kishoto [+2] (17 hours later)

Worm mentioned this in a way that seems believable. The thinker based (thinkers are heroes with powers geared towards doing mental based things like analysing trends, see the future or manipulate probabilities) heroes employed by the Government monitor the economy to ensure that no one is unduly manipulating the financial markets. Small scale things are fine but anything that could threaten to destabilize the whole thing is usually found and squashed before it can do so.

u/captainNematode [+3] (a day later)

I thought that was just for using stuff like clairvoyance, precognition, probability manipulation, super-intuition, etc., to "cheat" at the stock market and gambling? And the reason there's not more mundane utility in Worm was because 1) explicit xenobiotic idiot balls, and 2) the powers that were best suited for revolutionizing the world -- superscience Tinkering -- were closer to magical empowerment than anything involving actual engineering.

u/Kishoto [+1] (a day later)

It's been a while but I think it's for any power usage that could potentially crash the market. Things like legitimate business (such as Accord's) weren't inhibited but things that could destabilize things like someone that could spawn gold, or manipulate stocks, was watched for and curbed.

u/elevul [+2] Cyoria Observer (17 hours later)

Barring oneshots, what was the last fic that actually dealt with someone just running away from all of the crime and doing something interesting?

Dunno about fics, but the characters in Chronicle did some pretty interesting things with their powers, and at the end the main character decided to just enjoy his life travelling rather than doing superheroing: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1706593/

u/trekie140 [+3] (21 hours later)

I don't think Chronicle is what he's looking for. A lot of the film is just the characters goofing off with their powers, but the climax is a hero-villain fight straight out of a comic book. I got the impression from the ending that the main character had decided to become a superhero, essentially making this film his origin story, and the director's original plans for a sequel seemed to corroborate that.

u/aeschenkarnos [+2] (20 hours later)

The Specials has an inversion of this trope - in that world successful people with superpowers stay out of superheroing (a superspeedster literally does run a shipping company, and comes back to try to persuade The Strobe to give up his delusions and use his laser powers in industrial manufacturing).

However you're absolutely right, running the shipping company is not interesting, and that's basically why the offer is rejected. Superheroes are people who want to live interesting lives, regardless of optimality. I think they share that characteristic with almost all of humanity in that regard. Most folks could live far more optimally than they actually do.

u/None [+2] (a day later)

A speedster running a shipping company sounds boring, but that's fundamentally a business story, not a superhero story.

Instead of thinking about villains to fight, think about CEOs to maneuver against.

u/aeschenkarnos [+1] (a day later)

DCU/corporate dystopia cross, with the Earth 2 JLA as the villainous zaibatsus? The world is ruled by WayneTech, Amazon Corporation, Space Elevator, EmeraldPal, and Lightning Road ... can the upstart LexCorp, led by charismatic hero-scientist Luthor, defeat the entrenched powers and bring abundance to the people?

u/trekie140 [+2] (13 hours later)

I think the reason it hasn't been written is because not many people want to read it. You're not telling a superhero story, you're telling a story that just happens to include characters with superpowers. If you were going to tell a story about someone just doing their job, then why bother giving them powers? It might make things more visually interesting, but how else would superpowers change the story?

u/None [+1] (14 hours later)

I think the reason it hasn't been written is because not many people want to read it.

Well...yes, that's the point.

I also think the difficulty of actually making something complex like society with mutants is understated though

If you were going to tell a story about someone just doing their job, then why bother giving them powers?

Powers create interesting problems. I mean, this is /r/rational fiction, that's not a new idea is it?

u/OrzBrain [+1] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (7 days later)

It's harder to make a story where a teleporter runs a shipping company or stays (mostly) out of the "hero" scene and have it be interesting.

The Jumpers series of novels has this premise to a large extent and is pretty good. Especially the latest which is about using and abusing teleportation powers for space industry and payload launch.

u/captainNematode [+3] (a day later)

So what do people reckon would be the most effective applications -- by the yardstick of saving and improving lives -- of Superman's various powersets (e.g. Golden Age, Silver Age, New 52, etc.) in our world? I wrote a quick FB comment with some thoughts when 80,000 hours posted a career guide thing recently, which I then tossed into a blog post for posterity. Earning to give as a celebrity and athlete seemed the best for a relatively weaker Superman (depending on regulations), and stuff involving space (asteroid mining, satellite launching, moon/mars colonization) broadly struck me as best for his middle showings, disregarding his occasional as-the-plot-demands supergenius. His upper levels don't bear much discussion, since they're way too OP. What do y'all think?

u/alexanderwales [+6] Time flies like an arrow (a day later)

I agree on pretty much everything involving space; it's one of those things that only rarely gets touched on in the comics, but represents a huge amount of time and money saved for everyone involved. Last I heard, Elon Musk was targeting $1,000 per pound to put things into orbit. Superman's specific powers vary widely, since he's more of a mythological figure than bound to any one strict continuity, but most of the mid-tier incarnations can carry an oil tanker with some effort. If we figure that he can put 10,000 long tons (DWT of a small tanker) into orbit in a single trip, then that's twenty billion dollars for a single trip that he could probably finish during a coffee break.

There are logistical, engineering, regulatory, and market reasons for this being more complicated than that, but most of those problems can be solved by a team of people skimming 1/10,000 of the money off to deal with them, requiring no need for Superman to do anything but the heavy lifting. There are strong arguments to be made about Superman destroying an industry and stifling innovation in rocketry, but on balance I think it would be better to depend on him. Note that this does not take time away from defending the earth against existential threats, nor does it take appreciable time away from his valuable personal life as Clark Kent.

u/captainNematode [+2] (a day later)

Yah, I love reading about clever applications in mundane utility and logistics and stuff, but I dunno that many others would (e.g.s here, though I feel it's missing a lot in creativity). It's always seemed like the first step for Superman (and most any superhero) should be to hire a crack team of advisers with expertise in economics, health, civil engineering, politics, materials science, etc., that they might provide recommendations on how he'd best to apply his powers (or talent scouts to assemble that team). Though I suppose doing that realistically would require the author to have some expertise in all of those... still, some humility and admission of decision-making fallibility on Superman's part (before he screws everything up with Good Intentions) would be appreciated.

I hadn't really considered negative implications of the collapse of rocketry (or conventional mining, etc.). But I think action on Superman's part it would create far more jobs than it would destroy, and if he's really concerned he could fund his own rocket engineering firm (and hell, it might spurn innovation, given much cheaper access to test conditions or advances in zero-g, vacuum chamber manufacturing. If the limiting factor/sticking point in your rocket science is performance under gravity assist, or communication at long distances, or w/e, Superman can vastly cheapen the process of getting there in the first place). And in any case, I think I'd just write that off as the cost of progress -- windows and light-bulbs put candlemakers out of business but the world was not poorer for it. You wouldn't wan tall out eggs to be in Superman's basket, though, so developing space-faring technologies in parallel to Superman Rocketry Incorporated could well be motivated by that alone.

u/trekie140 [+2] (3 days later)

I was thinking something along those lines. Instead of ferrying people to and from orbit, Superman could offer to put stations in orbit that people would travel to and from normally. It would cut down costs on big expensive projects that would increase demand for smaller ones so innovation still proceeds.

Anyone with Superman's level of power would probably be subject to regulations that determine how much and what kind of impact they can have on the economy. The market wants both growth and stability, so that means assuring investors that superpowers can be exploited for profit with little risk.

u/trekie140 [+1] (3 days later)

There actually is a precedent for this in the comics with his work with Star Labs. I can also see him helping out with engineering projects, including space travel, but he might decline if it meant he wouldn't be able to leave in an emergency. If he was okay with setting aside time for this, he still wouldn't want the space program to become dependent upon him on the off chance he died or lost his powers and left people stranded in space.

u/LiteralHeadCannon [+4] (a day later)

I still maintain that, if Hollywood weren't so conservative with regards to safe box office bets, Metropolitan Man would be ideal for a fairly faithful film adaptation. It's a perfect Superman story, told very well, and could be made more cinematic than I think most imagine. It also happens to feature the sort of stuff this sub loves. If there were a Metropolitan Man movie, then it would easily be my favorite live action superhero film of all time.

I also think Worm would make a great animated series, with the caveat that animation is often associated with being marketed to children, which Worm decidedly is not and should not be.

u/trekie140 [+2] (2 days later)

I disagree wholeheartedly. Not that I think a Metropolitan Man film couldn't be good, but there's no way average Superman fans would like it. Man of Steel split audiences down the middle with its take on the hero, and MM is even darker. From what I've learned, most people seem to like Superman specifically because the stories are so happy and idealistic.

Even if by some miracle fans don't get as pissed off about Supes murdering a mob boss as they did when he killed Zod in defense of innocent people, there's still no way they'd tolerate the story ending with Luthor winning. The only way I could see Metropolitan Man as a successful film is if you changed all the character's names like with Fifty Shades of Grey.

u/aeschenkarnos [+2] (20 hours later)

IMO The Fall of Doc Future belongs on this list.

And on the subject of Flashes, The Ballad of Barry Allen (video here) deserves a shoutout for thinking through the consequences of actually having superspeed.

u/AmeteurOpinions [+4] Finally, everyone was working together. (50 minutes later)

On pain of causing a spat in our peaceful community, I will say this:

Of course Worm is rational. It's obvious. It's as rational-fiction-ish as you can possibly get if you haven't heard of rational fiction beforehand. How do you deny it. If you intentionally planned to create the perfect superhero story, incorporating all of the tropes and all of the outcomes of those tropes and harmoniously unify them, then you would get Worm.

u/alexanderwales [+6] Time flies like an arrow (an hour later)

The problem a lot of people have with Worm is that it's attempting to add patches onto the superhero genre so that the world can keep on spinning as it normally does, but with people running around in spandex and fighting each other. The mechanisms by which it attempts to accomplish this:

To me, there's a distinction between justifying something and rationalizing something. If there's a problem in Star Trek that can clearly be solved via teleporter and someone says "We can't get a lock because of the transphase inducers!" that's a justification that helps to suspend disbelief ... but it's just a handwave to get that issue out of the way. To me, Worm felt like it had a lot of justifications without that much rationality; there seemed to be lots of cases where the answer to why someone didn't do X was implicitly or explicitly one of those things spoilered above, which just served to sweep the issue of doing the rational thing under the rug so it could be ignored in favor of a story that was trying to be about people in capes fighting each other.

I mostly enjoyed Worm, and I think the characterization in particular is stellar, but for my own personal definition of rational fiction, it's on the other side of the line.

u/thecommexokid [+8] (5 hours later)

Interesting to note that your 3rd bullet point above was utilized in Methods of Rationality too. That excuse for seemingly irrational behavior has apparently occurred independently to multiple authors. Are there other examples, too?

u/CouteauBleu [+4] We are the Empire. (7 hours later)

I thought the use of [REDACTED] in HP:MoR was quite clever, because a lot of Dumbledore's actions make a lot of sense once you assume

On the other hand, lots of decisions Cauldron made in hand very arbitrary even after learning about

u/technoninja1 [+2] (14 hours later)

I remember reading a worm fanfic where Contessa mentioned that she once apparently prevented a civil war by burying a cupcake and beating another cape in a dance off.

u/Izeinwinter [+3] (13 hours later)

.... Christian Theology.

u/TheImmortalLS [+3] (22 hours later)

The Bible, Rationalist^TM version

u/aeschenkarnos [+1] (a day later)

That's "Conversations With God". ;) Cleans up the magic system and the contradictory character motivation problems.

u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (17 hours later)

This is why, once again, I hate prophecy so goddamn much.

HPMOR at least had the excuse that prophecies exist in canon, though I wouldn't have minded subverting that somehow. But in Worm, I would have been perfectly fine with the removal of Dinah and Contessa, or at least a huge nerfing of their powers. I think the story actually would have been better without Dinah in particular: it would have given characters more organic reasons to act as they did, instead of "The prophecy said so."

u/None [+3] (5 hours later)

Your third bullet point is off imo.

u/trekie140 [+1] (13 hours later)

I'm using BaconReader and I can't see your bullet points.

u/alexanderwales [+2] Time flies like an arrow (13 hours later)

Baconreader parses subreddit CSS the first time you enter a subreddit with the app. Spoilers are done via CSS, so it's probable that Baconreader failed in some way on initially entering the sub. Alternatively, Baconreader might just be failing to render the spoilers for some other reason. /r/rational uses standard spoiler code.

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