13 KiB
[META] /r/rational “Characteristics of Rational Fiction” Sidebar Rewrite Discussion Companion Thread: Individual Work Breakdown
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Author: u/ketura Organizer*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/8vtsyb/meta_rrational_characteristics_of_rational/
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Score: 24
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Created: 2018-07-03T16:55:10
Post:
While the main thread starts to go over the ins and outs of what rational fiction means in general, there is something to be said about performing a practical analysis of existing works to try and get a hold on the forest via the trees. Here is the place to discuss why any individual works are or are not rational.
To start, here is the data of the poll that was thrown together last week after the start of the meta thread (and here is a slightly massaged version of that data). A total of 28 individuals responded in various stages of completion, some of whom included their rationale behind rating different fics the way that they did.
There may or may not be anything valuable to see here: the survey itself was wrought with inconsistencies, ambiguities, and inherent biases such as the position of each fic (HPMOR got by far the most entries, due to being second on the list AND NO OTHER REASON I’m sure).
At least the graphs are pretty.
The first page of the survey is, I think, a bit more useful. This is mostly due to its more limited scope and range of answers, as you can see here.
Comments:
u/Makin- [+3] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (34 minutes later)
I think the idea was good, but maybe the works should have appeared in random order.
Maybe you can try again with better execution? I wouldn't mind filling it out again, I got pretty far but I was on a phone and the poll lagged, so I ended up giving up on completing it (add pages to the poll?).
u/ketura [+1] Organizer (42 minutes later)
Yeah, there were all sorts of things that would have been nice to have--sadly it doesn't look like Google forms does random question order, which was one of the things it really needed.
There also needed to be a good way to filter the list, so people could respond just on those they felt strongest on if they were pressed for time. That or a system that would only ask "have you read this" and would progressively unlock other questions based on responses.
At any rate it's served its purpose of giving us a kick start to begin with. If anyone with better statistical background wants to make a more fully featured survey and crunch the numbers, I would highly encourage you to do so!
u/None [+5] (an hour later)
Can I ask why Delphic wasn't on the list? Lower readership numbers?
u/ketura [+5] Organizer (an hour later)
A completely biased selection criteria on my end, I'm afraid. I started by listing all the perennial works I could think of, then added some "controls" (the decidedly non-rational works such as LOTR), then I went to rational reads and the subreddit top-all-time list to see if there were any major items I missed. By that point in the process, I was trying to select for works which were interesting edge cases or controversial, so as to hopefully get helpful data
I myself haven't read Delphic, but more importantly I don't know anything about it, so I didn't know what it would bring to the survey that by the end had nearly sixty entries. It ended up passed over as were several other works for the same reason.
u/Sophronius [+2] The Need to Become Stronger (18 hours later)
Pffff, The Need to Become Stronger is never included on these lists, even though it's one of the best rational fics out there. In my own, uh, 100% objective opinion.
Thanks for putting in the work to crunch this data. The fact that 'intelligent' and 'competent' are listed at the top of the desired criteria kind of fits with my overall impression that readers mainly want stories to make them *feel* smart, which is why power fantasies are so common here despite being inherently irrational. Even we chosen few are not without bias, it seems.
Edit: More specifically, the impression I have is that rational fiction readers want to read stories where people like us have higher relative status, which I suspect is a big reason why NTBS tends not to get included in these lists.
u/Silver_Swift [+4] (a day later)
Which is why power fantasies are so common here despite being inherently irrational.
I think this is kinda unfair on multiple grounds:
Having a competent and intelligent main character does not automatically make something a power fantasy, nor does having a main character that people can strive to be like. Take for instance Animorphs the Reckoning, the main characters are all competent, intelligent people, but I would classify that story as something like a thriller or horror story, which is on the opposite end of the spectrum from a power fantasy (and that is just the most extreme case among stories I have read).
Perhaps linked to the first point, power fantasies might be relatively more common here than in other places (presumably because HPMOR was one), but from a quick count of the 10-ish rational stories that I've read/am currently reading only HPMOR, Mother of Learning and Waves Arisen are clearly power fantasies.
Power fantasies are not inherently irrational stories (nor are they automatically bad stories, btw, I greatly enjoyed all three of the above mentioned stories). Why would they be? You can have a disproportionally effective main character that is someone the reader can project onto and still have a story that is set in consistent world, where characters make reasonable/consistent choices, without for the evulz bad guys, where the good guys win or lose based on their own choices, rather than plot conveniences or whatever other criteria you want a rational story to adhere to.
u/Sophronius [+5] The Need to Become Stronger (a day later)
Oh no, I totally agree that there's nothing wrong with having a competent, intelligent main character who displays a great deal of agency. That part is fine.
The part that is inherently irrational is where the rest of the world accommodates that character to the point where reality seems to bend around them. Stories like e.g. the Miles Vorkosigan Saga which is well-liked here all have that.
Specifically with rational fiction, the issue is that rationality itself is treated as high-status. Even in stories like Marked for Death, where the main characters are just cogs in a machine, it's still the case that their rationality makes them special. Every one of that world's leaders, including Jakuza bosses and other NPCs, have a high degree of rationality because the assumption is that anyone who isn't like us cannot be taken seriously. That's nothing like the real world, in which rationality is inherently about making painful tradeoffs and the most powerful people inevitably optimize for gaining power/status rather than rationality.
I have seen very few stories that adhere to that standard of realism. In fact, I think your example of Waves Arisen is one of the better ones precisely because rationality doesn't get treated as a superpower. I would agree that Animorphs doesn't really fall into this trap, but I can't really think of many others right now.
u/Silver_Swift [+3] (a day later)
Ok, phrased like that I have a lot less issues with it. I still think it isn't as prevalent a phenomenon as you think it is, but pinning down exactly to what extend a story exhibits this will strongly depend on what exactly you consider rational (especially to what extend you buy into the whole "rationality is winning" thing).
Which of Mother of Learning, Worm, the Optimized Wishing Project and UNSONG would you consider to be treating rationality as a superpower? Because I can see arguments for and against for each of those stories.
u/Sophronius [+2] The Need to Become Stronger (3 days later)
Oh jeez, hm. I kind of stopped reading Mother of learning after Zorian went back to XP grinding after confronting Red Robe, but from what I've read there wasn't any particular fantasy about being high-status. Worm doesn't show the main character as high status, but she is treated as special to the point where all the major events tend to center around her somehow. I haven't read Optimized Wishing Project. Unsong seemed mostly a deliberate attempt to portray rationality as a superpower, which is fine of course as a concept so I don't have any issue with that.
Maybe I was mostly thinking of Naruto rationalfics? Pretty much every single one of them is a power fantasy of some sort, honestly. The source material might be to blame for that one.
u/ketura [+3] Organizer (a day later)
My fault again; I haven't read any of the Naruto fics and so the ones that ended up in here made on pure notoriety.
u/None [+8] (2 hours later)
Thanks for explaining. I agree about triaging works - you were already near the limit on a survey very many people will take the time to complete.
I think any edge cases that Delphic might represent are already represented by other works on the list. Here's a quick list of some of the arguments I think people might make that the work isn't rational.
The work is written in the first person with a narrator, Hector, that is recognized within the work itself as being unreliable. He suffers from derealization/depersonalization and is drug-addicted.
Hector's goals are not grandiose humanist goals. He wants to "be a hero" but isn't engaged in prompting a technical revolution or saving the world.
The most rationalist / transhumanist character in the work, Doc Stevens, is treated as a dangerous villain/foil rather than a protagonist. A lot of the characters view his work with disgust and his motives with suspicion.
The super powers don't make sense / aren't treated the way society actually would / aren't treated consistently in the narrative.
To the extent that each of these points will get hammered-out with respect to other works, Delphic doesn't contribute anything unique to the list.
u/Gelifyal [+3] (21 hours later)
The super powers don't make sense / aren't treated the way society actually would / aren't treated consistently in the narrative.
This is usually what I look for in a rational story, so I'm surprised you listed it as something your story doesn't have. (The first three points are not something I look for when I look for a rational story, so I don't mind if it has it or not).
I'm curious now, since we're on the topic of the problems of our definition this week, how do you define rationality?
u/None [+4] (21 hours later)
I will answer your question later, but I wanted to quickly point out that I was listing potential criticisms. I don't believe this criticism actually applies - I have rational rules for my powers that I attempt to apply rationally, even if this is sometimes opaque to the reader.
u/None [+2] (22 hours later)
To me, rationality within the context of a story means:
A) Things operate according to underlying rules rather than narrative convenience, and
B) Characters behave consistent with their goals and values rather than to further narrative impact.
In RPG crafting circles, we talk about the simulationist / gamist / narrativist triad. Rational fiction is strongly at the simuationist corner.
u/Roneitis [+1] (11 hours later)
Surely a more useful measure for the graphs would be graphing the fics against the percentage of people thought that, for example, the fic belonged on r/rational who answered the survey for that fic? That would help out with the whole disproportionate bars, which really hides what people actually think.
HPMOR being a little low for general appeal for example /really/ indicates a disagreement over where it belongs, rather than friendship is optimal's near unanimous opinion.
u/ketura [+1] Organizer (11 hours later)
No doubt. I have little experience massaging data and doing arcane stat math on it; I pretty much hit the edge of what I know how to do once I got it all loaded into a normalized SQL database for querying.
The original data is in the OP if anyone feels like taking a crack at it. I can also provide an MSSQL *.bak file or some exports if anyone's interested in a more usable database version.