69 KiB
Too much rationality, too much intelligence a bad thing in fiction?
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Author: u/OrzBrain Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/5c9t84/too_much_rationality_too_much_intelligence_a_bad/
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Score: 24
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Created: 2016-11-10T19:33:16
Post:
I was reading the rational Animorphs and I got to thinking -- is too much rationality a bad thing in fiction? I mean, fiction is about entertainment, and entertainment is about bringing pleasure to the reader by allowing her to imagine fulfilling various human drives in extremely satisfying ways. And human drives are not rational, and past a certain point the more intelligent the characters are the less space there is for those unintelligent human drives, the less sense it makes to have scenes that fulfill those drives in the story.
Consider superhero fiction. One of the main human drives it satisfies is the love of power, of having the power to do amazing things, being able to shape reality to your will if you just try hard enough. What would you do, the story asks, if you had that kind of power?
The problem is that as you increase a character's intelligence more and more, you circumscribe her actions more and more. This is what Niven was talking about in Protector -- more intelligence means less free will, for a certain definition of free will where that means being able to satisfy frankly stupid human drives over one's stated goals.
In superhero fiction, for instance, the more intelligence there is, the less room there is for exciting and thrilling struggle, for throwing around flashy powers while you keep the reader on the edge of her seat, for literary conflict. A smart villain won't allow a beaten hero to live to return triumphant another day, a smart hero won't allow the villain to return to threaten all that is right and just another day.
The more intelligence the characters in a story have, the faster the outcome becomes a foregone conclusion, like how in a RTS game between perfect players the outcome comes down to how fast each side got their resource extraction up in the beginning and how much resources in the form of units they were able to preserve in the first few minutes during the rushes. A superhero fight between really intelligent opponents won't be flashy with monologues and chances for the hero and villain to recover from a bad move and all spectacular with them slinging bridges and such at each other. It will be over in an unsatisfying (to the reader's stupid human drives) instant, a momentary flash of movement and then one or the other dead, with it being faster the more destructive powers the combatants have, just as two countries having nukes removes the "glory and horror" from war and makes it just a matter of a few minutes of really big explosions.
Stories with characters that are too intelligent feel dead and cold and frightening, with no room for human expression and idiocy in them, with the author's hand obvious as she tugs and pulls at the events in the story to try to prolong it past what it should be.
How to fix this? Perhaps one can focus on the world as it looks to a superintelligence. It is only to average intelligence that the story looks short and cold. Perhaps you can take the reader inside the mind of something more than human, show them what it means to have greater intelligence, and then that brief flash of unsatisfying action can be slowed down to the comprehension of a mere human.
Does increased intelligence move much of the conflict from the physical to the mental, requiring the author to show that mental conflict in a really compelling manner to make the story interesting again?
Comments:
u/SimonSim211 [+22] (20 minutes later)
While intelligence might limit some characters, I think it opens up so much more space realistically (I personally hate it when the "hero" of the story just happens to find "ultimate loot 1, 2 and 3" and "specific counter to not yet seen opponent 5" just by chance; but if the character is intelligent enough to send someone else to do a risky fetch quest and thus they don't get ambushed and then blackmails the "ambusher", that I can enjoy), though the morals may need to be a bit towards Blue and Orange Morality.
But I do think it is harder to write stories that are rational, I had DMed A DND5E game where I tried to have a few rational NPCs, it made it a lot harder...
u/OrzBrain [+0] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (23 minutes later)
While intelligence might limit some characters, I think it opens up so much more space realistically
But does this hold true only to a certain point, and then past that intelligence point human drives become ridiculous in the story?
u/SimonSim211 [+5] (2 hours later)
I don't know, but I would guess that for a story to have multiple hyper intelligent powerful actors with misaligned goals, the writer has to be that much smarter than the average writer that we might see 1 in a century...
Please do tell me if it happens!
u/DaystarEld [+40] Pokémon Professor (28 minutes later)
I take the opposite perspective from yours on a number of issues here, which makes me think this might be more about preferences than objective judgement.
For me, the more unintelligent characters there are, the faster the outcomes become predictable, not the other way around. Unintelligent characters mean the story flows into the same tropes and wellworn paths that we've seen in the majority of fiction, because the majority of fiction doesn't involve intelligent characters. Maybe what you're saying is that stories with intelligent characters are too similar in outcomes to each other, but even then I'd argue that point.
Similarly, now that I'm older, throwing around flashy powers is boring when done by unintelligent characters. The less sense their actions make, the less engaged I am, because the more the veneer of suspense covering the fact that the fights are pre-scripted falls apart. I need smart application of powers to be entertained by even simple things like energy beams.
And you seem to be assuming that intelligent characters have equally ridiculous power levels, where the fight has to be over in an "instant." I don't see how that follows: the tools someone has at their disposal and the intelligence to use those powers has to be balanced by the writer to make the story entertaining: if they can't do that, it's their failure as a writer, not the result of having intelligent characters.
As for making realistic mistakes and satisfying human experiences of not being hyper intelligent all the time, that's also down to writer skill. There's a difference between handing a character an Idiot Ball to make them do stupid things just to propel your plot along and generate conflict, and giving them actual reasons to make sub-optimal choices, such as reducing their information, trickery on the part of their opponents, or justifiably compromising situations, like having your thoughts clouded by anger or pain.
Overall I think a lot of these come down to the skill of the writer. Just making characters smarter doesn't make fiction entertaining. That's a separate aspect of the process.
u/OrzBrain [+0] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (42 minutes later)
And you seem to be assuming that intelligent characters have equally ridiculous power levels, where the fight has to be over in an "instant." I don't see how that follows: the tools someone has at their disposal and the intelligence to use those powers has to be balanced by the writer to make the story entertaining: if they can't do that, it's their failure as a writer, not the result of having intelligent characters.
Well, I guess you could slow down things a little by having both intelligent characters almost completely paralyzed and their only "superpower" be their ability to move their eyes. :)
In the hands of a superintelligence even the littlest thing can be a super powerful super power. That's the whole argument that produces the AI in a box that can mind control its keeper with a text link. Prolonging it means the author is holding the characters back by the scruff of the neck.
For me, the more unintelligent characters there are, the faster the outcomes become predictable, not the the way around. Unintelligent characters mean the story flows into the same tropes and wellworn paths that we've seen in the majority of fiction, because the majority of fiction doesn't involve intelligent characters.
Similarly, now that I'm older, throwing around flashy powers is boring when done by unintelligent characters. The less sense their actions make, the less engaged I am, because the more the veneer of suspense covering the fact that the fights are pre-scripted falls apart. I need smart application of powers to be entertained by even simple things like energy beams.
Oh, I agree completely with this. As I grow older I require more intelligence in my fiction for it to engage me.
Where I may disagree is on why this is. Is it because I'm a greater person now that I'm older, putting away childish things, or is it because I require novelty for engagement, and intelligence is rarer than stupidity? If you could wipe your memory of all the flashy powers you've read about in books and seen in movies, forget the wellworn cliches of the genre and of storytelling in general, would you then be engaged by those stupid things just like before, and experience the same entertainment, the same fulfillment of your basic human needs in the medium of imagination?
Have you never experienced stumbling upon a new genre, rational superheroes for instance, and having the first thing you read in that genre be amazing, fulfilling all your "stupid needs"(basic human drives for dominance, pleasure, etc), and then found that you require more and more intelligence in all later things you read in the same genre to allow it to make it through your defenses against lack of novelty and into your mind so you could enjoy it?
Are stupid stories actually the perfect vehicles for satisfying your basic drives in imagination, but once you've read a few stupid stories you require increased intelligence (which as I've said is obviously rarer, requiring greater intelligence to write) for it to penetrate your "been there seen that" defenses against lack of novelty?
The base of this idea is that many human drives are stupid. I'm not saying they're bad, but they're stupid. They were not designed by something with intelligence in the first place, but by evolution, and they require some stupidity to allow for situations where they can be satisfied. In a story where everyone is past a certain point of enhanced intelligence there is no room left for the satisfaction of stupid drives. What you are referring to as "good writing" is skill at coming up with extremely unlikely situations wherein even someone who is highly intelligent will have room to indulge stupid drives.
You require really good reasons for intelligent people to act stupidly in the stories you read for it to be enjoyable. But they still have to act stupidly for it to be enjoyable.
u/CouteauBleu [+17] We are the Empire. (an hour later)
I guess it depends on how you define "too much intelligence". Twig, for instance, is about bio-engineered several-standard-deviations-above geniuses, and mostly feature characters making very smart choices against very powerful opponents, and yet because their resources are limited they end up having engaging action scenes and creative application of their resources.
Even when we get something close to a super AI (the primordial), the story deals with it in an interesting way.
u/OrzBrain [-1] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (2 hours later)
Well, I'm saving Twig until it's finished before I read it, so I can't comment knowledgeably. It sounds from this like the enjoyment in the story is in watching intelligence beat raw power, with camouflage on just how stupid the raw power is.
u/CouteauBleu [+4] We are the Empire. (3 hours later)
Nah. Most of the antagonists go from level 1 intelligent to actual geniuses.
u/chaosmosis [+1] and with strange aeons, even death may die (2 hours later)
Twig is very Indiana Jones gambitlike.
u/DaystarEld [+6] Pokémon Professor (3 hours later)
If you could wipe your memory of all the flashy powers you've read about in books and seen in movies, forget the wellworn cliches of the genre and of storytelling in general, would you then be engaged by those stupid things just like before, and experience the same entertainment, the same fulfillment of your basic human needs in the medium of imagination?
I think it's a mix of what's novel and what's intelligent. New things that are dumb are still dumb, and less enjoyable. They're still enjoyable, but less than they otherwise would be. Old things that are intelligent are enjoyable too, even if maybe not as enjoyable as something new and intelligently written.
You require really good reasons for intelligent people to act stupidly in the stories you read for it to be enjoyable. But they still have to act stupidly for it to be enjoyable.
You're treating "act stupidly" as equivalent to "make mistakes." There's a difference, and it has to do with information available to them, context, character flaws, and so on.
u/alexanderwales [+17] Time flies like an arrow (44 minutes later)
It's mostly a matter of execution.
You can totally have two superheroes monologuing at each other in rational fiction, but they do it because they're both trying to win the fight and trying to improve their public image at the same time. Or they're actually trying to convince each other and spare themselves the fight.
And you can have neato fights, but those are largely dependent on how you do your worldbuilding. If you give someone the power to explode heads from a distance, then no, you're not going to get a grand epic battle out of it. But if it's not possible for two opponents to kill each other in an instant, and if terrain matters, and if there are other considerations to the fight beyond just life and death, and if etc. then yes, you can get good battles where two intelligent opponents are acting rationally.
But I do think that this is harder than just having stupid fist fights that are dictated by plot instead of logic.
u/OrzBrain [+0] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (2 hours later)
You can totally have two superheroes monologuing at each other in rational fiction, but they do it because they're both trying to win the fight and trying to improve their public image at the same time. Or they're actually trying to convince each other and spare themselves the fight.
And you can have neato fights, but those are largely dependent on how you do your worldbuilding. If you give someone the power to explode heads from a distance, then no, you're not going to get a grand epic battle out of it. But if it's not possible for two opponents to kill each other in an instant, and if terrain matters, and if there are other considerations to the fight beyond just life and death, and if etc. then yes, you can get good battles where two intelligent opponents are acting rationally.
You are basically saying that if you have intelligent characters then you need to have a more intelligent writer in order to allow that writer to come up with better and more intelligent excuses for the supposedly intelligent characters to act in a stupid manner (but it's okay, because the world building/their public image totally justifies it, so you can then enjoy it because it's justified).
u/DaystarEld [+16] Pokémon Professor (3 hours later)
I'm not sure why you're linking intelligence with near-omnipotence, but it really seems like you are, and I don't think that's his or my point. Your examples don't seem applicable to any rationalfiction I've read. Can you point to some titles?
u/OrzBrain [-3] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (3 hours later)
I'm not sure why you're linking intelligence with near-omnipotence, but it really seems like you are, and I don't think that's his or my point.
Um, that's axiomatic, isn't it? Sufficient intelligence is equivalent to near-omnipotence (because you can accomplish anything it is possible to accomplish within your light cone) and near omniscience (because you can deduce any fact about reality, baring possible quantum interference on small scales/ too much precision).
That's the whole point of the power of AI, of the idea of an intelligence Singularity, darn near everything Eliezer Yudkowsky has ever written, the reason why the words "Artificial Intelligence" are words to conjure with, like the "AI in a box" thought experiment where the AI can mind control a human using text on a screen. That's why many people think a Strong AI will be the last thing humanity ever builds. That's why the emphasis on getting it right and making it friendly.
Intelligence is directly equivalent to omnipotence and omniscience.
u/reaper7876 [+22] (4 hours later)
The area between 'recursively-self-improved AGI' and 'average human intelligence' is massive. There's plenty of room for characters that fall between those two things, and it's very rare for protagonists to fall closer to the former than the latter. The baseline to consider a character intelligent is very similar to the baseline for considering a person in real life intelligent, and given that real life contains no omnipotents to my knowledge, I have no objection to intelligent fictional characters also lacking omnipotence.
u/LiteralHeadCannon [+5] (9 hours later)
"Very rare" seems overly generous to me. Try "nonexistent because of Vince's law".
u/reaper7876 [+2] (10 hours later)
What's Vince's law? I'm not familiar, assuming you're not talking about the one google's giving me that involves harsher punishments for repeated DUIs.
u/LiteralHeadCannon [+4] (10 hours later)
Was accidentally repeating LupoCani's mistaken reference to this post which explains Vinge's Law: if you know exactly what a very smart agent would do, you must be at least as smart.
u/OrzBrain [-1] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (4 hours later)
Okay. I was pointing out that intelligence as a absolute eventually squeezes out anything that can be interesting to a human from a story, because humans have many "stupid" goals naturally evolved and not designed, which cannot work on a framework where there is too much intelligence.
Too much intelligence eventually becomes anathema to storytelling as a law of narrative is my idea.
u/Salivanth [+7] (7 hours later)
Too many words in a story also eventually becomes anathema to storytelling, because the story eventually becomes longer than any human can hope to read in their lifetime.
That doesn't mean that stories that are longer are inherently worse, just because they're closer to that "law of narrative" that no story will ever realistically reach.
By the same logic, stories with intelligent characters are fine, even if "nigh omniscient" levels of intelligence make for a bad story.
u/LiteralHeadCannon [+4] (9 hours later)
Off-topic, but I'd go so far as to say that increasing the length of a story is an inherent improvement, and that when someone says that a story should have been shorter, if their criticism has any merit, it's that there's something wrong with the contents that make up that length.
If a country is run by a small, corrupt circle of billionaire princes, and 99% of the population have nothing, the problem with the country isn't that it has too much wealth, but that the wealth is in the wrong place. The length of a story is like the wealth of a nation - an inherent good that may be mismanaged. I'm aware that this is an uncommon belief, but it's always been something I've held firmly.
u/LupoCani [+10] (5 hours later)
Intelligence ≠ superintelligence. Intelligence isn't a switch the Author flicks, immediately bestowing godly AI-level thought processes on all characters. In fact, no AI-level character has ever been written, what with Vince's law and all.
Intelligence, in the quantities that are humanly possible to write, has none of the harmful effects you describe. The author isn't forcefully tugging events along, since proper decision-making makes the chain of cause and effect seem more natural than it otherwise would. Battles aren't foregone conclusions, the more intelligent the combatants are, the more intriguing and unexpected the twists and reversals can be. A smart hero may not spare the villain, but why would they need to? The villain villain is perfectly capable of escaping themselves without any heroic mercy, with any of a dozen back-up plans.
A stupid story happens because the plot says so. A smart story happens for conceivable, relatable reasons. This isn't "cold and frightening", it's making the story alive.
In all, your idea of "intelligent" fiction seems to base itself in superintelligent stories that haven't been written yet. The problems you describe are, I suppose, conceivable with some sort of post-singularity fiction, but I don't see how any of it could apply today.
u/OrzBrain [+0] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (5 hours later)
Well, rational fiction generally seems to strive towards having more intelligent characters. I know, the official rules just say no things that happen just because the plot demands it, but generally writers take that to also mean more intelligent. And is it not interesting to take that to extremes, and then examine what those extremes do to stories? Perhaps some basic rules of human nature can be gleaned. Or tips for writing. Or interesting effects that happen before the extremes, like the cold feeling I get inside from a story where everyone is too intelligent for anyone with much human stupidity (devotion to instinctual human goals) the live for long or be a person.
I personally feel most writers worship intelligence in characters to some extent, so is it not interesting to discover that intelligence in its pure form destroys human values and interest in stories?
u/thrawnca [+1] Carbon-based biped (5 days later)
better and more intelligent excuses for the supposedly intelligent characters to act in a stupid manner
Are you equating monologuing and duels to the death with stupidity? Because while they may often (even usually) be done for stupid reasons, and thus be low-status in terms of story quality, that doesn't preclude the possibility that there could be valid, logical reasons for them in some cases.
u/OrzBrain [+1] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (5 days later)
That's true, but my thinking went that coming up with valid logical reasons for monologuing and duels to the death is an example of the author/world coming up with intelligently constructed valid logical reasons for the characters to act stupidly. That's claiming that monologuing and duels to the death have some kind of inherent intelligence rating to them, but I'm thinking of them as an example of wasteful, inefficient, and maladaptive behaviors that appeal to human drives and are hence fun for the reader, which the story needs to justify happening even though the characters are intelligent.
u/EliezerYudkowsky [+13] Godric Gryffindor (11 hours later)
Suppose the average level of intelligence in the world was what we'd consider to be IQ 140. The writers, naturally, would tend to be a bit smarter than that. Is it impossible for them to write organically good literature? Do they need to write stories about people as dumb as the characters in our world in order to be able to write stories? Or does the intelligence everywhere in the fiction just organically go up with nobody thinking much of it?
You can't actually write characters smarter than yourself in a certain sense. And in fact there's a sense in which everyone in HPMOR had to be dumber than I was or they would have just walked all over my authorial world and seen right through my plots. Further, the variety in the characters is me giving them different pieces and facets of myself, with nobody getting the whole thing, because then there wouldn't be anything left for the other characters. So in that sense I did have to write characters dumber than I am. But once I'm up against that limit, why would I go any lower? If I was in a world where I was average, I'd be able to write average stories for that world; so why shouldn't I just write those stories here?
u/OrzBrain [+0] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (20 hours later)
Suppose the average level of intelligence in the world was what we'd consider to be IQ 140. The writers, naturally, would tend to be a bit smarter than that. Is it impossible for them to write organically good literature? Do they need to write stories about people as dumb as the characters in our world in order to be able to write stories? Or does the intelligence everywhere in the fiction just organically go up with nobody thinking much of it?
I think fiction in the IQ140 world would have all the same tropes and general plot elements that it does now, because those things are generated from the naturally incoherent human drives that were carved into the brain by evolution.
Stories and their tropes and cliches are a map of human drives (utility functions?) in all their messy and incoherent glory.
I think IQ140 world fiction would differ from reality in the intricacy and intelligence of the justifications provided for why the story is following those age old tropes and cliches, just as Worm is "better" than standard stupid superhero stories in the increased intricacy and robustness of the explanations provided for why the characters are doing the exact same things they do in stupid superhero fiction -- still fighting each other because of shard conflict drive, Reed Richards is still useless because Simurgh, etc.
I think this pattern would continue in worlds of increasing average intelligence, right up until the intelligence was high enough that humans could alter their utility functions, at which point their fiction would become unintelligible to us. If they still felt a need to have any.
Good writing is the use of intelligence to justify stupidity, to justify the story following the same old cliches in new ways.
u/None [+9] (16 hours later)
I'm going to wade in here because I think everybody is missing the point I would want to make.
Rational fiction featuring intelligent characters is only ever boring if there is only one, or perhaps two, clearly stated intelligent characters, using their brains to manipulate what are essentially underlings as they fight each other.
In good rational fiction, this is not the case. In good rational fiction, everybody is smart, and that means that there are so many players, and so many factions, that it becomes increasingly difficult to predict it all. That's part of why HPMOR was so interesting. We read is mostly from the perspective of intelligent, rational children, who simply did not know enough about their environment to fully understand all the gambits happening around them. They could be surprised. They could be ambushed, because with every move they made they were attracting the attention of new players with new motives they didn't know about.
To use your example from RTS games and perfect play; In good rational fiction, the hero goes in to fight the villain knowing he is good at RTS games and thinking he can beat them on that front. Only then halfway through the game it becomes apparent that the villain knew of their skill, and somehow skewed the game in their favour. Or the game is a distraction; somewhere else the villain's main plot is happening. In good rational fiction, players don't walk into perfect games where it is all about pure skill, not when the stakes are real. This is not the point of plotting (one of the hallmarks of rational fiction). In good rat fics, everybody and anybody is essentially cheating, and winning requires cheating better.
And in good rational fiction, if the main character did not think of this and take it into account (which they most likely haven't, unless it's the kind of boring story featuring super intelligent gods curb stomping the enemy), then they will only find out when the readers does and boom; suddenly you can have flashy action scenes, improvised battle plans, and all the other hall marks of fiction as they try to escape the 'ambush'.
u/nonoforreal [+7] (21 hours later)
You're making things absurd by insisting that they be taken to absurd extremes or not done at all.
You keep asserting that intelligence, in sufficient quantities, is essentially omniscience and omnipotence. Sufficient for what? Sufficient for omniscience and omnipotence. And?
You can say the same thing about lots of stuff. Fiction should be about slow characters instead of fast ones, because at his greatest the Flash is essentially invincible and so leads to boring stories. Fiction should be about weaklings, because well, at the extreme strong characters are literally omnipotent. Fiction should be an endless sprawling mess of exposition and minute detail and meaningless irrelevant side plots, because at the extreme if you just say what needs to be there to understand the story, you just explain the final novelty in the fewest words possible.
Fuck yeah it's boring if you do it like that.
Why stop at fiction? Medical care is a bad thing because at the far end, we'll bankrupt the entire world trying to keep a single human vegetable alive one more moment. Eating is a bad thing because eventually you'll explode like a monty python sketch.
Oh, wait. You said "Too much" intelligence is a bad thing.
That's a tautology. Too much anything is a bad thing by definition. It's right there in the "too much" part.
That doesn't mean that writing stories where the characters are as intelligent as real-world smart people is in any way worse than writing stories full of characters who are as stupid as real-world stupid people who are actively trying to re-enact their favorite stories about stupid people. Don't give me some shit about how smart people always act optimally and so their stories are repetitive and predictable. If you're having that problem, your real problem is that you have shitty characters and not enough conflict in your story.
Every character should have multiple valid and sane desires of debatable relative importance. They make decisions that are hard to predict because they actually value the results in slightly different ways that are hard to predict, and that interact in ways that are hard to predict. The rest of them cope well but not perfectly, because they're intelligent people, and not the living avatars of the SmartForce.
u/OrzBrain [+1] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (a day later)
All exercise of power is intelligence, isn't it? Just moving your arm is an exercise of intelligence. Even instinct is intelligence, just limited intelligence that is not conscious. Even if your body had all the potential power in the universe, could do absolutely anything because a vast amount of previous intelligence had gone into giving it those capabilities, without some onboard intelligence, such as a brain, it would just sit there. In fact, it wouldn't even breath.
All these concepts you are taking to extremes are aspects of intelligence. Being able to move fast is a product of intelligence. If you are more intelligent, then you can figure out how to move faster. Being able to stuff yourself until you explode is a function of power over your environment, which is a function of intelligence, and actually stuffing yourself until you explode is an example of using too much power to fulfill a goal that becomes destructive if you do it too well or too much.
Even evolution is a form of extremely stupid intelligence, blindly seeking local optima over vast time scales. Your body is a product of intelligence.
Shouldn't characters have a greater chance of acting optimally as their intelligence increases? Wouldn't the, ahem, intelligent thing to do in any given situation be to act optimally?
u/nonoforreal [+5] (a day later)
Shouldn't characters have a greater chance of acting optimally as their intelligence increases? Wouldn't the, ahem, intelligent thing to do in any given situation be to act optimally?
Ok, sure, why not. But what you have to understand is, the second you can't explain to someone of your own intelligence exactly how the "intelligent" character arrived at their conclusions, and have that explantion be sufficient to get them to understand the entire line of thought, your character is not actually intelligent, you're just fiating them as such for the purposes of the plot.
They are "intelligent" only in the same way world-class attractive actors playing "ugly" characters are ugly. You will find this happens way, way below "omniscience," and pretending otherwise doesn't mean the character is smart as much as that all the people who believe they are are stupid.
u/OrzBrain [+1] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (2 days later)
Very true. And yet fiating intelligence is also interesting. That is in essence what superpowers are. A power which would require a greater intelligence to create/build/possibly even operate, being used as a resource by someone without that intelligence.
Like a regular person found a laser gun. They can't build a laser gun, they can't even understand fully how it works, but it will vaporize things for them, and it must be the product of a greater intelligence that knew how to build it. It is, to some degree, almost a form of intelligence. Giving someone superpowers generally just means you tied that laser gun to their arm so you can't get it off without killing them (so the story can be about them using the gun, rather than all the people trying to get it for themselves).
u/nonoforreal [+5] (2 days later)
"Fiating intelligence is also interesting." Yet, you started this whole thing because you felt that it wasn't interesting. Your thoughts seem pretty muddled about it, honestly. A laser gun being, "to some degree, almost a form of intelligence" is absurd. It's technically arguably sort-of symbolically resembling true enough to allow someone to make a devil's advocate argument from while leering skeptically at them, but not much more than that. It's stretched so thin that whatever truth it has is useless.
Fiat is merely fiat, and if you have a plot that is nothing but fiat, you have an amateurish plot. It's exactly the sort of thing people have been getting sicker and sicker of since the internet made it easy to share one's insights on seeing through it.
u/OrzBrain [+1] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (2 days later)
A laser gun being, "to some degree, almost a form of intelligence" is absurd. It's technically arguably sort-of symbolically resembling true enough to allow someone to make a devil's advocate argument from while leering skeptically at them, but not much more than that. It's stretched so thin that whatever truth it has is useless.
Got it. So what you are saying is that any concept can be argued into resembling any other concept if you use enough intermediate steps and qualifications. However, the more steps you use the less predictive power the model has. In this case -- greater intelligence makes laser pistol - lesser intelligence uses laser pistol - lesser intelligence is using a product of greater intelligence meaning lesser intelligence is using an aspect of great intelligence -- is in your opinion too many steps for the resulting model to have predictive power, for it to have the quality of truth.
Obviously this kind of argument can be taken to absurd extremes. Lets have an example.
You mentioned the internet. Have you ever thought about how much the internet is like a chocolate donut? Both the internet and a chocolate donut contain information, both the internet and a chocolate donut are made out of a myriad of lesser things, molecules in case of the chocolate donut and linked computers in the case of the internet, both a chocolate donut and the internet have a dark side, both a chocolate donut and the internet have Theobromine in them (although the internet requires you to order the Theobromine while the chocolate donut requires you to eat the donut -- but then ordering and eating are almost the same concepts, both involve consuming something), both a chocolate donut and the internet have pornographic elements (who hasn't looked at the hole in a chocolate donut and thought about the sexual implications?), and neither the internet nor a chocolate donut could exist on the surface of a star without vaporizing.
Presto! The internet is exactly the same as a chocolate donut. Any differences are too small to mention.
u/UnlikelyToBeEaten [+6] (49 minutes later)
I've had similar thoughts myself, before.
I've thought about "what would I do if I could x" and for powerful enough x, invariably the answer is "sigh, I suppose I need to maximize its use to save as many lives / reduce as much suffering as possible, otherwise I would feel guilty."
This extends even to personal fantasizing, so to satisfy myself, I have to add a disclaimer like "this happens in a virtual world without other sentient beings" or "a magical being comes and eliminates all suffering, what do you do now" or whatever.
Anyways, besides that tangent, I feel the following way:
Your solution of "slowing down" time and ideas seems fine, except that I think it might be difficult to pull off realistically. You might have to do it in terms of metaphors of some sort and probably a great deal of suspension of disbelief. Still, if done properly, I think it could be very entertaining.
In this line, rational fiction is interesting in its own right because it is so rare, but in a different way from normal fiction. If you can show some of the planning that the characters do during the planning phase, and then show how those plans are circumvented and then the characters manage to use some secret fallbacks (that were nevertheless hinted at) or whatever to recover when it looks like they were sure to be eliminated, but still at some cost to the protagonist. I feel like (Significant Digits)[http://www.anarchyishyperbole.com/p/significant-digits.html] (hpmor fanfic) does this well, but I won't reveal how, for spoiler purposes.
Like running an epic level Dungeons and Dragons campaign, it's basically more about matching power than about absolute power. You could show the protagonist absolutely dominating some people and then have them face their match.
Also, bear in mind, rational fic doesn't necessarily mean "Overpowered" fic. It more means characters not doing obviously stupid things. You can have rational characters with low absolute power facing less rational characters with very high power, and still have them struggle and provide an interesting fight for the viewer.
Another option is to have a semi-rational but in some way "insane" villain (or at least one whose goals are sufficiently different from normal human goals), like Tarquin from Order of the Stick (warning: Order of the Stick spoilers ahead). He is shown to be very "genre savvy" in the sense that he writes a list to prevent his (non-rational) soldiers fall for the classic movie tricks, nevertheless, his eventual goal is to die in a dramatic manner due to his love of story. A sufficiently powerful and rational character that values narrative could force the protagonist to act narratively (or at least pretend to act narratively, whilst actually executing a secret plan) in order to defeat them. However, this falls more towards the comedy genre.
On a similar note, you could have an otherwise rational character with some major personality flaw which can be used to defeat them. You could also have a rational but evil character who just doesn't care about others, and after setting up what they feel to be sufficient precautions, then proceed to explore their power.
Let me know what you think!
u/CouteauBleu [+2] We are the Empire. (an hour later)
Well, Superman is also allowed to decide that he wants to divide his time between "saving people as efficiently as possible" and "selfishly be Clark Kent".
u/UnlikelyToBeEaten [+2] (2 hours later)
u/RMcD94 [+1] (2 hours later)
Don't really agree that that is his motivation at all. Just that he's happy to enjoy the life even if it means that ending
u/UnlikelyToBeEaten [+2] (2 hours later)
I suppose you're right.
Still, he avoids doing what's explicitly the most rational in exchange for what's narratively pleasing.
On the other hand, he does live in a universe where narrative structure can determine outcomes, so I suppose it's not so irrational.
u/RMcD94 [+1] (13 hours later)
Sure that's true too
u/OrzBrain [+0] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (3 hours later)
Don't really agree that that is his motivation at all. Just that he's happy to enjoy the life even if it means that ending
The audience wouldn't enjoy it very much if Superman acted intelligently and devoted all his time (or the maximum possible amount) to saving people. In order to try to relieve this various writers have tried to provide the justification that he needs time to "be human and connect to humans to care about people," but anyone who really thinks about it will get slightly uncomfortable and guilty feeling upon imaging all the people with whole lives ahead of them and valuable experiences and skills that are dying, being preventably snuffed out, while Sups takes the time to pretend to be a reporter or to go on a date with Lois.
But if he wasn't stupid in that manner there would be no "human" connection for people to identify with him. He would have no "life," he would just be a force that spends all its time saving people. He wouldn't be relatably human.
Superman has to act stupidly for fiction about him to be enjoyable (stupid defined as not fully following the rational path to making the world a better place, which is his supposed goal).
u/RMcD94 [+1] (13 hours later)
I was talking about order of the stick
u/OrzBrain [+1] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (2 hours later)
Let me know what you think!
I'm starting to think it all comes down to the idea that humans derive enjoyment from stupidity. From watching someone be outsmarted by someone else more intelligent, to experiencing joy in thinking of a situation that allows or gives an excuse to an intelligent character to act stupidly in an awesome manner. If someone it too intelligent that means they can see the path to succeeding at their stated goal, such as eliminating suffering in the world, and in many cases this path is incomparable with the stupid sub goals that evolution has given humans, such as dominate others, have sex with others, enjoy watching pretty explosions, crush and destroy your enemies while being wonderful (did I already cover that under "dominate others"?), be looked up to and adored by others, etc.
I wonder if humor is related to this dichotomy?
Thanks for linking to that strip where Tarquin explains his goals. That was really cool and hilarious.
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (3 hours later)
You started this thought with r!Animorphs. I'm curious if the rest of the thought applies directly to r!Animorphs (i.e. whether you think it's bad/boring/less entertaining/more predictable fiction as a result), or whether your thoughts meandered further and it isn't a direct commentary. If you don't mind sharing, that is.
u/OrzBrain [+2] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (4 hours later)
You started this thought with r!Animorphs. I'm curious if the rest of the thought applies directly to r!Animorphs (i.e. whether you think it's bad/boring/less entertaining/more predictable fiction as a result), or whether your thoughts meandered further and it isn't a direct commentary. If you don't mind sharing, that is.
Not really a direct commentary. Animorphs was starting to give me that cold fearful feeling that there was no room for human stupidity/humanity in it (I've only made it to chapter 14). The thing that started my thought going in that direction was the fact that without the intervention of a previously unknown robot thing, by this point the heroes would all be dead. Or without the intervention of the God/fate/probability manipulating entities you keep hinting at. It felt like the hand of the author preventing a foregone conclusion from coming to pass (those with the most resources will beat those with less resources if they both have equal intelligence, baring the whims of pure chance, and the author's hand forcing the plot to go as it should rather than as makes sense is generally disguised as the whim of chance. Or, you know, probability manipulating entities).
Also, I haven't ever read the non-rational Animorphs, and I was reconstructing in my mind what those books must have been about, which I was imagining was probably the joy of being able to become any animal and have all their skills and abilities with a human mind, and I was thinking about how much you had to squeeze and scrape to fit even a bit of that into a rational setting where the heroes and villains had enhanced intelligence without it endangering the heroes' goals, with people being stupid by having fun being their house cat or whatever and accidentally getting everyone killed.
Is it better to make the villains with greater resources less intelligent rather than needing probability manipulating entities and suddenly appearing robots to justify the heroes not just losing instantly? I'm not sure. And I get that the robots were probably a required artifact of the non-rational Animorphs, so I'm not really complaining that much about them.
u/DaystarEld [+5] Pokémon Professor (7 hours later)
Is it better to make the villains with greater resources less intelligent rather than needing probability manipulating entities and suddenly appearing robots to justify the heroes not just losing instantly? I'm not sure. And I get that the robots were probably a required artifact of the non-rational Animorphs, so I'm not really complaining that much about them.
Personally I think I would be enjoying it less if the villains weren't as intelligent and the Chee weren't included. I think it's all being handled very well, so it's balancing the various extremely powerful forces and the competing intelligences of the heroes and bad guys wonderfully, but if it were handled any worse it would likely fail on a number of levels, yes. Hence the point that writing intelligent characters in a story well requires intelligence and hard work.
Also, I haven't ever read the non-rational Animorphs, and I was reconstructing in my mind what those books must have been about, which I was imagining was probably the joy of being able to become any animal and have all their skills and abilities with a human mind, and I was thinking about how much you had to squeeze and scrape to fit even a bit of that into a rational setting where the heroes and villains had enhanced intelligence without it endangering the heroes' goals, with people being stupid by having fun being their house cat or whatever and accidentally getting everyone killed.
Ha, that's... very little of what canonical Animorphs were about. I can totally see how you might think that though, and it would have made for a much less depressing book series :)
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (8 hours later)
Gotcha. FWIW, the canon Animorphs books were unsettlingly heavy and dark, dealing with issues like PTSD and suicide and the moral justification of murder and war crimes and so forth. That was interspersed with a lot of the joy of becoming an animal, but it was more serious, on average, than (say) Avatar: The Last Airbender.
u/That2009WeirdEmoKid [+4] (44 minutes later)
I'm kind of confused by what you mean. Are you specifically talking about human characters? IMHO, if someone's intelligence is able to surpass instinctual human conditioning, they're either an enlightened being or an alien entity. Writing about characters with the level of intelligence you're implying isn't very realistic and would handicap the work, unless the whole point of the story is seeing their unique perspective. I honestly think it's all up to the writer and how they handle it.
You talk about there not being excitement in a fight between two intelligent opponents, but I completely disagree. I hesitate to use this as an example, but a show like Death Note wasn't exciting because of its flashy battles. It literally had none. It built up hype because of the escalating tension. It showed its character's line of thinking and created suspense with every decision they took. If a battle between incredibly smart individuals isn't exciting, it's not because intelligence diminishes fights, it's because of shitty storytelling. A good writer can make five seconds the most exciting/satisfying part of a story, just by its execution. A great one would make the build up to it just as exciting as the conclusion.
u/OrzBrain [+1] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (2 hours later)
Writing about characters with the level of intelligence you're implying isn't very realistic and would handicap the work, unless the whole point of the story is seeing their unique perspective. I honestly think it's all up to the writer and how they handle it.
Well, I want to learn how to do it, and do it well. Vernor Vinge manages it a little in Marooned in Realtime.
I never got into Death Note. I get that the base idea is "If you could knock anyone dead in the world you wanted, how would you use that to make the world a better place," but this crosscircuited with the idea "Lets kill people in prison who everyone knows are totally guilty because our laws aren't strict enough already and we need to have more capital punishment and this show is a conservative commentary on how we need stricter laws and more punishment of criminals," and then I threw up a little in my mental mouth and resolved never to have anything to do with Death Note.
u/That2009WeirdEmoKid [+4] (3 hours later)
Yeah, that's why I tried to be careful when I mentioned Death Note. I wouldn't call it a smart show, but it does have highly intelligent characters. I don't think it's about what you mentioned, though. Thematically speaking, it shows that Light is just a childish person with a god complex. I just enjoyed it as a good psychological thriller. It doesn't really explore any of the philosophical questions it raises, so I did end up disappointed with it in that regard.
On the subject of pulling off what you're talking about, I'd recommend focusing on the character, rather than the plot surrounding him. I think it's comparable to One Punch Man in the sense that you already know he's going to win, so it's more focused on exploring who he is. Obviously, it's bound to be more cerebral since it's about intelligence over raw strength, but the same techniques used to entertain the reader could be applied. Seeing how the character interacts with people, his detachment from the world, etc.
An extremely intelligent character is bound to be less concerned with threatening problems. To him, they could be trivial since he already knows how to solve them. This could cause conflict with those around him, since from their perspective, it's like he doesn't care. I dunno, I'm just an amateur here, so I'm probably missing something important here.
u/hillaryrapedobrien [+1] (4 hours later)
He could have a horrible personality and couldn't get anyone to do what he says. :D
Or he could have problems with what is ethical and what is practical, so that he tries so hard to do what is ethical even though that wouldn't be what is practical. Like if every conspiracy theory was true and he would know that and he would start shouting that around, everyone would just denounce him and laugh, because it's not really about truth, it's about people not wanting to have anything to do with those.
u/DaWaffledude [+2] (a day later)
I think you have a somewhat faulty understanding of Death Note. You aren't supposed to agree with Light, he's a villain protagonist. He repeatedly goes on long, hammy monologues with dramatic villanous music, while he's shaded in hellish red tones.
u/OrzBrain [+1] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (a day later)
I think you have a somewhat faulty understanding of Death Note.
I'm sorry about not being clear above. I don't have any understanding of Death Note. I once briefly skimmed the wiki to see what it was about, made the aforementioned mental connection, and then resolved to have nothing to do with Death Note unless something came along which made it seem much more appealing.
Other things which bothered me about it from the wiki description were that it seems to have a supernatural otherworld, but that this serves no purpose in the universe except to vaguely explain the Death Note, and that the Death Note is as close to an inherently evil power as I can imagine, being able to create nothing, build nothing, not even implying a greater power somewhere else because apparently the supernatural that produced it has no other real power, able to do nothing but subtract from reality.
It is interesting that I consider the Death Note to be inherently evil and uninteresting for these reasons but do not consider awesome military hardware in the same way way, even though it exists for the same purpose. I think it is because awesome military hardware implies enormous potential behind it that could be used for other purposes, while the Wiki was very clear that the supernatural that produced the Death Note somehow had no other potential or power.
u/TennisMaster2 [+3] (47 minutes later)
DayStarEld makes great points on intelligence. To add to that, rationality is merely acting optimally in order to satisfy your value-informed goals. Values are, I think, most often formed during one's upbringing. For example, a character raised on a cricket and ruminant farm that couldn't keep up its profits and was replaced with a factory farm, might value giving purpose to and having respect for all life. Their goals would relate to encouraging the latter and making the former a reality. No matter how intelligent you are, accomplishing those goals would prove a tremendous challenge.
Rationality means the alignment of your values, goals, and actions. It's up to the writer to decide how unique and interesting to make each of the three.
u/imuli [+4] Seeker (a day later)
Imagine that we live in a world that revolved around tic-tac-toe. We play the game with real suspense and curiosity about who is going to win. We write stories about these games! One day, some extraordinally intelligent writer comes along and ruins it all by writing a character that always drew or won, and worse explained it in a way that everybody else could understand, so now everybody always drew in their games. That would be too much intelligence in character (from the perspectives of the people in that world).
Our world doesn't revolve around such simple games as tic-tac-toe, or even a much more complicated unsolved game like go. It's a much much vaster game. There is no one goal of the game, each player has their own variation which (on the object level at least) changes over time. Worse yet, we are embedded in this game, and so as players become more intelligent it becomes more interesting for those players. It's going to be a very long time before humans can write intelligent enough characters to make this game as boring as tic-tac-toe.
u/rineSample [+3] (19 minutes later)
Thoughts on HPMOR?
u/OrzBrain [+5] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (29 minutes later)
Thoughts on HPMOR?
Harry, Voldy, and Dumbledore, and maybe Hermione were the only real characters in the story. No one else had enough intelligence to have actual free will and self-determination beside those characters. And Dumbledore was faking it with path to victory prophecy.
There was no place in that world for someone like Ron.
u/None [+4] (3 hours later)
There was no place in that world for someone like Ron.
Because the author decided not to. Ron with his canonical chess-mastery realistically extrapolated can also be an intelligent character, although with background/family issues influencing his decisions at the beginning.
u/OrzBrain [+1] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (4 hours later)
That's essentially just complaining that Ron didn't get an intelligence upgrade along with everyone else. I don't think he was actually any stupider than in cannon. Didn't cannon Ron spend part of a book being horrible to Harry because he idiotically thought he was the Heir of Slythern or something?
Perhaps I should have said, There was no place in that world for any human of average intelligence to be a person.
u/TBestIG [+4] Every second of quibbling is another dead baby (5 hours later)
Ron has jealousy issues from being the second youngest child in an absolutely massive family and being friends with the biggest celebrity in the wizarding world. Especially given that for the years he had these problems he was just a KID, being jealous and suspicious doesn't mean he's a complete idiot.
u/hillaryrapedobrien [+2] (2 hours later)
A smart villain won't allow a beaten hero to live to return triumphant another day, a smart hero won't allow the villain to return to threaten all that is right and just another day.
They can have an escape mechanism that opponent didn't know about or couldn't stop.
u/OrzBrain [+0] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (2 hours later)
They can have an escape mechanism that opponent didn't know about or couldn't stop.
And if the opponent was smart enough they would know about it or be able to figure out how to stop it. You are providing an excuse for an intelligent character to act stupidly so the story can go on and be more enjoyable. I'm saying sufficient intelligence removes those excuses. That what intelligence does. It allows you to succeed at your goal.
u/hillaryrapedobrien [+9] (3 hours later)
Intelligence is not omniscience. You don't necessarily have the possibility of knowing everything and it's not stupidity.
u/OrzBrain [+0] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (3 hours later)
Intelligence is not omniscience.
It is. Sufficient intelligence allows you to deduce any knowable fact about reality. If an AI is intelligent enough it can run a simulation in its mind of all the thoughts a person will and can have, deduce all their memories from the evidence of reality (needing less information to deduce them as it gets more intelligent), and know everything they have done and everything they will do in response to any possible stimuli.
u/thrawnca [+5] Carbon-based biped (3 hours later)
Sufficient intelligence allows you to deduce any knowable fact about reality
The whole of reality as extrapolated from a piece of fairy cake?
u/OrzBrain [+1] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (3 hours later)
Right. All physical laws, and then knowledge of how the universe should organize based on those laws.
Of course, the AI doing this might need a planet's worth (or more) of resources to build itself sufficiently wonderful eyes to be able to see every detail of the molecular interaction inside the fairy cake to be able to deduce all this. . . And it probably couldn't deduce all things outside its light cone (the light of the events hadn't reached it yet). And there may be some Heisenberg uncertainty principle problems cropping up after a while. But, in principle, yes.
Look, and I will show you the universe in a handful of dust.
u/LiteralHeadCannon [+6] (9 hours later)
I found your argument compelling until I read this thread and realized that you have a badly misinformed idea of what intelligence is and by extension what rational fiction is.
The Sherlock Holmes archetype (or, less controversially, the Encyclopedia Brown archetype) isn't a well-written intelligent protagonist; it's bullshit. Intelligence isn't a black box that magically outputs correct information.
u/OrzBrain [+1] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (a day later)
Intelligence isn't a black box that magically outputs correct information.
You are actually saying that intelligence is not a black box that you feed wants, information, and effort into and that then spits back out solutions or possible solutions? Really? What the heck would you say intelligence is then?
Are you saying that intelligence is not magical because it doesn't have to output correct information? But man's intelligence has put out quite a bit of correct information. As far as I know we are not now naked apes struggling to survive in the savanna. So, are you denying that if the box was better the information coming out would be better?
Sherlock Holmes is unrealistic, yes. But are you saying that if you made the black box better it is impossible that it could do the things Sherlock Holmes does? I'd bet if you made it better enough to do that, then it would be able to do a lot of other things Doyle never dreamed of, but are you arguing it is impossible to perform feats of deduction? And to perform them better if the black box worked better?
I don't get it.
u/imuli [+2] Seeker (a day later)
I rolled a die and got a number between 1 and 6, I divided that number by 3 and got a remainder of 1. What number did I roll?
Intelligence is bounded by information, no amount of intelligence will enable you to tell what number I got from that information. Likewise Sherlock Holms doesn't have enough evidence for the pronouncements in the book.
u/OrzBrain [+0] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (a day later)
If I was intelligent enough I could build a distributed no sparrow shall fall nano camera system and and observe and comprehend everything in the world, and then I could watch you rolling those dice no matter what countermeasures you took and know exactly what you rolled.
Information acquisition is a function of intelligence. The only way for you to keep a true transcendent intelligence in the dark is to perform the dice roll outside its light cone. And even then it may be able to make some good guesses based on simulated realities and models of you and those dice.
Intelligence is power, power is intelligence, and I am defining power as the capability to shape the world according to your will (your goals).
u/thrawnca [+1] Carbon-based biped (5 days later)
I could build a distributed no sparrow shall fall nano camera system
You'd need significant resources for that, beyond just intelligence.
u/OrzBrain [+1] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (5 days later)
Intelligence gives you the ability to acquire resources. If you were very intelligent you could make lots of money on the stock market or whatever easily.
u/hillaryrapedobrien [+3] (3 hours later)
Sure. If we are talking about gods, yes, knowing everything probably makes a bad book.
But your example was about superheroes. Not fancy probably impossible AIs who can simulate infinite multiverses in a nanosecond.
u/OrzBrain [+1] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (3 hours later)
Sure. If we are talking about gods, yes, knowing everything probably makes a bad book.
Matter of degree. The all knowing AI gods was to prove it was possible. Super intelligent superheroes can do less than that of course, but my point was that they still might be able to do more than you were allowing. The difference between the smartest and the dumbest human is so tiny, after all, and the difference in what they can do is so great.
u/hillaryrapedobrien [+3] (4 hours later)
-The enemy is ofc also smart.
-As the hero is now not omniscient, it's possible that enemy has something he doesn't know.
-As the hero can't now simulate worlds in a nanosecond, as a hyperbole, he can have limited time to prepare.
It's not about if superintelligent superheroes can do more than I allow them to. It's about if author allows them to know everything, there is no story there and they could probably save everything by building a time machine and moving a pebble somewhere in the past.
If the hero knows everything his nemesis has and is going to do and has already prepared for everything, he has won already.
u/OrzBrain [+1] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (4 hours later)
Right. And the more intelligent you make the hero or villain, the more intelligent must needs be the justification why that intelligence didn't allow them to know the critical piece of information that would allow them to win instantly. And when the intelligence gets high enough there is no room anymore for uncertainty of any kind, nor for any story that would be interesting to humans. Because humans find uncertainty and stupidity (or things that can only exist under those circumstances) interesting and pleasurable.
That was kind of my point.
u/CCC_037 [+3] (13 hours later)
If you make hero and villain roughly equally intelligent, to at least a first approximation, then it is quite plausible for either to pull something that the other does not expect.
u/hillaryrapedobrien [+1] (4 hours later)
Well my point kinda is that if you make an example of superheroes fighting, it doesn't make sense to try to imply they are extremely superintelligent if best they can do is a typical supervillain fight which ends because other kills the other one before they can escape. I think it was just a bad example if you were trying to talk about fucking intelligent instead of just somewhat intelligent.
edit: But hey, I'm tired and feverish. Maybe I'm spewing bs.
u/OrzBrain [+1] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (5 hours later)
Sorry. Maybe it wasn't the best example. I have a tendency to think of all rational stories as superhero stories to some extent, because the characters generally get the superpower of enhanced intelligence right off the bat, which allows them to do more with less, and then it generally kinda turns towards wish fulfillment.
u/hillaryrapedobrien [+1] (6 hours later)
I think superhero stories as a genre are more about the bashing and less about the smarts. Rational stuff I consider a genre on it's own, or a sauce you can apply to stuff, as maybe it doesn't work alone.