17 KiB
[D] Annual “Romance in Rational Fiction” thread
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Author: u/AmeteurOpinions Finally, everyone was working together.*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/7xkwi8/d_annual_romance_in_rational_fiction_thread/
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Score: 48
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Created: 2018-02-14T20:11:06
Post:
Happy Valentine’s Day, /r/rational. This thread is for discussion of romances and romantic elements in rational, rationalist, or rational-adjacent fiction in text or other media. Preferably from the past year, but you can talk about any story you wish. Also, this isn’t an actual official thread or anything, you can talk about this topic anytime. I just like doing it today.
Comments:
u/trekie140 [+25] (5 hours later)
It is a travesty that no one has yet talked about the fantastic sci-fi romance Always Human. Everything about that story is beautiful and this couple should be held up as an exemplar of how to properly communicate in a relationship. Read my full pitch here. (yes I finished it and the only thing I was disappointed by was the fact that it ended)
u/sharikak54 [+5] (5 hours later)
How worth it is the music? I just read the first page and love the art style, then at the bottom I found out there's music! Must not be working on mobile. Anyway, how hard should I try to fix the sound issue, in your opinion?
Edit: I found the button to turn on the music XD It's very subtle, I like it.
u/Kishoto [+7] (8 hours later)
Read it from the same rec thread months back; very much worth and very enjoyable. Beautifully done romance that felt very moving, grounded and realistic and also involved transhumanist elements without being an action/sci-fi/adventure story. That's rare. It also focuses on a same sex couple, which was a refreshing read as well as I don't often experience media with same-sex couples as the thrust of the story. Can't recommend enough.
u/Laborbuch [+6] (13 hours later)
I just read it in one go. Thank you for the recommendation. It is a lovely story with great art and well-executed characterisation.
u/LapisLightning [+1] (21 days later)
This was quite excellent
u/AmeteurOpinions [+24] Finally, everyone was working together. (an hour later)
Although I’m sure there are others, my personal favorite work was Wildbow’s Twig. This story had many, many excellent romantic moments between various characters, and the webserial format slowed the slow burn grow into more intense scenes. The story is a great case of a mastermind trying to optimize for happiness despite the conflicting desires and love polygons which occur.
u/LazarusRises [+15] (2 hours later)
u/That2009WeirdEmoKid [+6] (4 hours later)
Sazed in general was the best part of Mistborn. His existential crisis really drove the plot for me at times.
u/trekie140 [+6] (5 hours later)
I know some people didn’t like the end of his arc, but speaking as someone who is religious and struggled with my psychological need for religion, his journey really resonated with me.
As someone who’s always identified with book smart characters like him that support the heroes, I also found the end of the trilogy super satisfying for completely subjective reasons.
u/LazarusRises [+4] (9 hours later)
Wow I have never heard anyone badmouth Sazed's arc! I'm agnostic, and I agree: it is a deeply satisfying conclusion for a marvelous character. I can imagine how it would affect a religious reader.
u/trekie140 [+4] (18 hours later)
The only criticism I’ve heard about him was on the Rationally Writing podcast, where both the guys were atheists who were raised in conservative religions. They never sympathized with Sazed’s philosophy even if they thought he was well-written and made sense in the context of the Lord Ruler’s oppression, so they didn’t find the conclusion to his arc very satisfying.
u/Silver_Swift [+1] (14 hours later)
The end of his arc in the original trilogy is amazing, but the fact that Shadows of Self makes me really sad.
u/trekie140 [+2] (18 hours later)
I actually like what the Alloy of Law books did, Sazed’s arc in the old books was complete and it’s been hundreds of years since then. The world is different from when he made his decisions and Wax is the one who needs to deal with what’s gone wrong.
What seemed like a really good idea at the end of the old books isn’t working out as well as we hoped, which I think is appropriate for a pulp adventure story about a lawman fighting occult conspiracies during an industrial revolution.
u/Silver_Swift [+1] (18 hours later)
Oh, I very much like that Harmony's whole plan for fixing everything didn't work out quite the way he wanted (and it indeed results in an awesome setting). What I don't like is that very explicit Shadows of Self spoilers. I know it's consistent with how Gods/Shards work in the setting, it just makes me sad.
u/trekie140 [+3] (20 hours later)
I thought his plan was actually to [spoiler.](#s “send the shapeshifter to help Wax until he got the hang of heroism and then fake her death so she could assume other identities, but she played her role too well and they fell in love. It wasn’t Harmony’s intention to traumatize Wax, things just didn’t happen how he expected and making amends could have ruined the plan if not broken Harmony’s rules. It is something Sazed would never have condoned and Harmony apologized for what he did, but Sazed wasn’t a god who restricted himself to interfering with humans through subterfuge using the remnants of the old world. When Wax first spoke to Harmony he even said “this piece of me agrees with you”. It’s sad that it happened, and seeing how it makes sense why everyone did what they did makes kind of makes it sadder.”)
u/Kishoto [+2] (22 hours later)
Spoiler tag isn't working because you need quotations around the stuff inside the parentheses. I've read all of the books so I wasn't spoiled but just letting ya know :) .
u/Kishoto [+2] (19 hours later)
I can say I definitely didn't see the conclusion of his arc coming at all. Completely caught me by surprise.
u/MagicWeasel [+13] Cheela Astronaut (5 hours later)
I think that the big thing people don't realise about romance is that you can do it rationally - the "I CAN EXPLAIN!" moments in romcom are the prototypical example of "thorin throwing down the key", but there are plenty of romance shows and storylines that include people having adult conversations about their feelings and treating their partners with respect / etc. I recommend Jane the Virgin - which is not rational in plot, I stress - for this sort of rationality. Also it's absolutely hilarious.
I made a comment on this thread last year actually: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/5u4cku/d_its_that_time_of_year_again_discuss_romance_in/ddrirq8/ about my supernatural romance story (that I am still editing! it turns out writing something is REALLY HARD and what I thought was a mostly finished 30k word story in February 2017 is now a mostly finished 60k word story a year later, so go figure. I'd be happy to release a few chapters now but I haven't got enough in the tank to have a consistent release schedule unless I did it like monthly or something).
Like I've been saying since then and before then, though, I hope the genres that people write about in a Rational sense / post stories of become more varied over time.
u/Fresh_C [+10] (4 hours later)
This was mentioned 2 years ago, but Lighting up the Dark has some of the best romance I've seen in a rational fanfic. There's not a whole lot of it overall, but what's there is pretty moving I thought.
u/LopeLopez [+4] (2 days later)
I highly recommend The Fall of Doc Future [http://docfuture.tumblr.com/post/82363551272/fall-of-doc-future-contents]; well thought, rational science fiction in which people in relationships talk to each other.
u/nick012000 [+2] (4 days later)
rational science fiction
science fiction
in a superhero story with magic
That's not science fiction, bro. At best, it's speculative fiction.
u/LopeLopez [+1] (9 days later)
Yep, thanks for the correction.
u/ToaKraka [+7] https://i.imgur.com/OQGHleQ.png (an hour later)
In response to u/OnePunchFan8, whose comment the eternally-hated moderators have removed:
Sounds like a oxymoron.
- If an oxymoron works at all, it does so by subverting expectations.
- Subverting expectations is fun.
- Therefore, making oxymorons work is fun.
u/Kishoto [+1] (8 hours later)
I'm curious, u/OnePunchFan8;
- What was the original comment (permalink/screenshot?)
- Why was it removed?
u/OnePunchFan8 [+2] (9 hours later)
It was literally "sounds like a oxymoron"
I don't know, I can still see it. I tried screenshotting it but it didn't upload to imgur, so that didn't work :p
u/Kishoto [+2] (19 hours later)
Huh, I wonder why it was removed then.
Like others, I don't necessarily agree. But it doesn't seem like the kind of comment worthy of the mod hammer.
u/OnePunchFan8 [+1] (2 hours later)
Yes. I never said it was a bad thing.
Love is stereotypically illogical, it would be interesting to see logical love.
u/melmonella [+3] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (15 hours later)
UNSONG has a pretty logical love duo.
u/ToaKraka [-1] https://i.imgur.com/OQGHleQ.png (2 hours later)
I say that it is a bad thing, and that the oxymoron doesn't work at all. Love is illogical by definition—e.g., enjoying a partner, not for the topics of conversation or the pleasing form that he can bring to the table, but for his mere presence near you*. "Logical love" is, not love, but greed.
*Not the promise of alliance in unexpected hardship or of availability for companionable recreation that the partner's immediate presence implies, but the presence itself—indeed, the partner's mere existence.
u/Sailor_Vulcan [+19] Champion of Justice and Reason (3 hours later)
Love is a value. A rational value system doesn't need to preclude emotions, just needs to be self consistent. Like, you value love, what strategies are best for attaining it within the constraints placed by your other values? You love someone and it's almost their birthday? Okay, what actions can you take that would be most beneficial to their values (within reason)? How do you avoid unnecessary conflict with a partner? What sorts of strategies can you come up with for increasing the relationship's mutual benefit? Or if you think you might be in a bad relationship, knowing how to recognize that and call it quits, overcoming your love for the other person for the sake of your own safety and/or well-being.
Love is not inherently irrational. The reason most people who are in romantic relationships aren't all that rational about it is, I suspect, because most people in general aren't all that rational.
Let's remember not to confuse lack of emotion with rationality. ;)
u/None [+13] (5 hours later)
Love's not illogical.
We're a social species. Our brains, under FMRI study, function better in the presence of other humans. Exile from other human company is a form of punishment in all human societies without exception. All our stories are stories of interactions between humans or human stand-ins which we can humanize. We have trouble remembering things when they are not somehow associated with a personality; this is why subjects like math can be so difficult for many people.
Human company, human companionship, is the ultimate goal of our brains. All of human history is underpinned by humans interacting with other humans.
Rationality needs to take into account that our species is a social species with social needs and drives, which takes a basic, fundamental pleasure in all forms of physical contact, and all forms of human interaction - even angry, upset interaction is better than no contact. If you don't know how to get attention any way but negative ways, you'll do negative things so you can get what your brain craves. We will literally do anything for human interaction.
Loneliness, being completely alone, drives many people to suicide. We die without meaningful contact.
By this criteria, human interaction in its most positive form - love, be it familial or sexual or platonic - is the most logical thing we do.
u/Noumero [+7] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (4 hours later)
As per orthogonality thesis, an intelligent agent could have entirely arbitrary values, but still be rational if thon is optimizing for them rationally. Would an AI whose utility function is to maximize its proximity to a particular conscious human at all times be inherently "irrational"? I don't think so. Why would a human with a similar utility function — or an utility function fulfilment of which is dependant upon fulfilment of another human's utility function — be irrational?
u/thrawnca [+3] Carbon-based biped (16 hours later)
Love is illogical by definition
I disagree with your presence-based definition. As a counterexample, if the loved one is nearby, but experiencing great distress, this typically causes distress, not enjoyment, for the one who loves. Conversely, a parent who reads a letter describing the successes and exciting experiences of their (adult) child in another country may be genuinely happy about it, despite the distance.
Presence may often be desired in a loving relationship, but is neither strictly necessary nor sufficient.
I would instead favor a definition based on one's happiness being partly tied to the happiness of the one being loved. Enjoying seeing them smile, being saddened to see them hurt.
In isolation, this attitude would perhaps be quite suboptimal, but when it is mutual - both parties looking out for each other, desiring each other's success - it forms a very solid foundation for cooperation. So it's not inherently irrational at all.
u/OnePunchFan8 [+2] (2 hours later)
Well if the ultimate goal in life is happiness (as many would likely agree), logically you would do whatever across bring you maximum happiness, and if you were to be happy in the company of those you love, then logical love would be a good thing, no?
But then logical love wouldn't be an oxymoron anymore?
I don't know...philosophy is a a pain.
u/CouteauBleu [+3] We are the Empire. (9 hours later)
Holy crap, we have annual threads now? This community is old. oO
u/fljared [+5] United Federation of Planets (a day later)
In less than a month it will be three years since HPMOR ended.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
8 years old
u/themousehunter [+2] Sunshine Regiment (18 hours later)
Seconding Twig and Mistborn! would also like to shoutout Unsong's chapter 5 as an excellent chapter, with aaron's deliberately irrational habanero-eating for Ana
u/nick012000 [+2] (2 days later)
Depending on your definitions of "rational fiction" and "romance story", the Monstergirl Encyclopedia books could qualify. It certainly meets the definition of "rational fiction" in the sidebar, at least.