35 KiB
[META] What are some reasons why you enjoy rational fiction?
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Author: u/Makin- homestuck ratfic, you can do it*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/9fgttu/meta_what_are_some_reasons_why_you_enjoy_rational/
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Score: 40
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Created: 2018-09-13T10:28:53
Post:
I feel like this may help writers if they know of what works.
(I was slightly peeved by the weird destructive negativity in that other thread, so I decided to make this to offset it a bit... and then I forgot I wanted to do that for like a month.)
Personally, something I love is how earned victories in rational fiction tend to feel.
In the original Harry Potter, I don't feel anything in particular when Harry escapes the graveyard, because Voldemort had to fail at least three times for that to happen, and Harry's minor success in thinking to accio the cup (doesn't that mean he could have done that at the start of the third task instead of going trough the labyrinth??) doesn't offset that. Did portkeys even work two-way? I wouldn't have thought that would work. But I digress.
In rational fiction, the fact characters have to think things through on-screen, addressing every way it could go wrong, almost universally makes victories feel earned. Something I think helps is that it "proves" that we the readers could have thought of the right solutions ourselves. Ultimately the reason the characters win is their human ability to solve problems, which obviously the reader shares.
Anyway I don't want to turn this into a poor analysis post, so just share your own reasons why you enjoy reading rational fiction!
Comments:
u/CeruleanTresses [+57] (44 minutes later)
The main aspects that appeal to me (none of these are exclusive to ratfic, just more common):
It's more likely than other genres to involve certain themes I enjoy--transhumanism, "death bad", paperclip AI, weird alien morality, time shenanigans, meta exploitation, characters having long debates about ethics, etc.
The protagonists and antagonists tend to have grand ambitions. I enjoy reading about characters with strong motivations, and although that still applies to small-scale but passionate motivations like "I just want to go live a simple life in the forest and will do anything to make that happen," I really enjoy stories where a character is trying to change things on a universal scale. Especially when they're trying to "break" something terrible that's widely considered inescapable in the real world, like death, and especially when that desire comes from a place of compassion. HJPEV in HPMOR, Bastion in Unsounded, etc. It's a wish fulfillment thing for me.
The protagonists tend to do more self-examination about whether their actions and goals are ethical. It bothers me when a protagonist does something that's realistic but still kind of fucked up (like risking many lives to save their loved one) and it's not examined at all. In ratfic, if a character does something like that, I can reasonably expect them or another character to at least acknowledge that it was ethically questionable and explore the reasons why, and what character's choice says about their decision-making process, and whether or not they should change their approach going forward.
The villains tend to be humanized and have believable motivations. I prefer conflicts where I can at least sympathize a little with both (or all) sides, because that makes it easier to get emotionally invested.
u/Nimelennar [+22] (2 hours later)
I think #4 is the biggest factor for me.
While I do enjoy reading characters who actually think their problems through, learn from their mistakes, and are introspective abut their faults, what really gets me interested is when the villain is a real person and not a caricature.
I think Mother of Learning is especially good at this; characters like Quatach-Ichl and Sudomir (and even, to some extent, Xvim) were introduced as antagonists who seemed just to be committed to evil for its own sake, but we later meet and talk to those characters, and they all have ends which could rationally (if not ethically) justify their means.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+34] Mouse Army (56 minutes later)
Did portkeys even work two-way?
You probably did get this digg from HPMOR, but just in case:
Moody had once seen an addicted Dark Wizard go to ridiculous lengths to get a victim to lay hands on a certain exact portkey, instead of just having someone toss the target a trapped Knut on their next visit to town; and after going to all that work, the addict had gone to the further effort to lay a second Portus, on the same portkey, which had, on a second touch, transported the victim back to safety. To this day, even taking the drug into account, Moody could not imagine what could have possibly been going through the man's mind at the time he had cast the second Portus.
For me, I value internal consistency. Take "The Expanse". Plot relies on having a working space proletariat that can't afford water/air, having mined out the asteroid Ceres. Thats just not feasible.
Or "The Smoke Ring" by Larry Niven has a tiny civilisation of a 1000 people use Wood on the magnitude of 1 km^3 per year. Thats aboutish what modern earth uses! And those are huge plot points!
u/GopherAtl [+16] (4 hours later)
honestly, that whole bit imo just feels like it contorts things to make the most outlandish assumptions possible to make it seem maximally ridiculous. The port key was supposed to teleport you out of the maze - that was the first port key spell, the intended one. The one that sent him to the graveyard was the one overlaid on that, and it's not out of the realm of imagination that they could't just remove the original one without it being noticed, and instead had to overlay the new one with priority. A bit contrived, given we get no real explanation; certainly a bit convenient. But not that absurd.
Mind you, that doesn't make the plan as a whole much less ridiculous - I mean, just the bullet-point summary of that plan is insane, "Our victim is in a secure location, so we will have to get him out of there first. So, we'll have an agent infiltrate that secure place, remain there for the entire school year, rig this international tournament so he can illegally enter, cheat to help him so he doesn't just die in that tournament, and cheat further to ensure he wins the final round..." I mean, on the face of it that's a terrible plan; it depends on an agent being able to infiltrate and remain inside the school for the whole damned school year, that you can pull that off but couldn't possibly find an opportunity to just kidnap the kid? Really?
All that said, the portkey itself, of course voldemort didn't deliberately put a second portkey spell to send him back to safety.
u/thrawnca [+3] Carbon-based biped (12 hours later)
The port key was supposed to teleport you out of the maze - that was the first port key spell, the intended one.
Actually, that's fanon. Canon doesn't say it was supposed to be a portkey at all.
u/GopherAtl [+5] (13 hours later)
canon doesn't say a lot of things. Canon never says Harry has a penis, doesn't make it equally reasonable to assume he does not. It makes logical sense that the portkey would teleport them out to the crowd, who canon did show anticipating his appearance and ready to cheer their winner when Harry suddenly appeared holding the cup.
u/thrawnca [+3] Carbon-based biped (13 hours later)
It makes logical sense
Thus, it's quite popular fanon, and I don't have any objection to the idea. It just seemed worth noting since we're specifically contrasting canon vs ratfic treatment of the subject.
u/GopherAtl [+7] (13 hours later)
it's not explicit canon, but given that the crowd's response to one of the champions spontaneous appearance outside the maze was to cheer the victor, before they even noticed he was dragging a corpse behind him, strongly implies it, making it implicit canon, and not "just" fanon. The champion appearing by portkey was clearly anticipated, and it wasn't told explicitly because, first JKR didn't want the audience to know, and after, there was too much drama going on to derail with a post-hoc expositional aside.
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+12] Dai-Gurren Brigade (an hour later)
TBF, with the Portus, it would make sense if you just established that as a rule for the spell itself. A spell having always some kind of condition required for it to work is a common concept, and there's a nice symmetry to the idea of any Portus having to be necessarily bi-directional. I don't remember though if HP canon says anything to that effect (I guess not, if HPMOR takes that dig).
u/LieGroupE8 [+27] ** (2 hours later)
I always thought Rowling's intended interpretation of that scene was that the victory cup was designed by the tournament manager to be a portkey for the winner directly to the victory platform in front of the crowd. Maybe I'm misremembering, but when Harry grabs the cup and returns, he is in front of huge crowds, whereas when he grabbed it the first time, he was inside the maze away from the crowds, thus implying that if the cup had worked as intended, it would have instantly and dramatically revealed Harry as the tournament winner.
So when Fake Mad-Eye placed a second, pre-emptive portus on the cup, he had to be careful not to remove the first portus, because the tournament managers would be going down their checklists doing analytical spells such as "is this cup a portkey to the winner's platform as it should be?" Fake Mad-Eye was taking a chance that they wouldn't discover the second portus, but, depending on the how the magic works exactly, it was plausible that they wouldn't find it if they weren't looking for that possibility (which probably didn't come up on their tournament prep checklists).
Of course, a smart Voldemort would have simply ordered Wormtail to destroy the cup as soon as Harry got to the graveyard, but whatever. Maybe Fake Mad-Eye didn't communicate the existence of the original portus to Voldemort, who didn't think of that possibility when first forming the plan months before the tournament. Maybe Wormtail forgot to carry out his orders in the heat of the moment.
For this theory to work, Harry needs to know in advance that the cup was supposed to be a portkey to the winner's platform, so that in the graveyard he knows to grab the cup again. I don't remember this being stated in the book, but maybe Harry was informed of it offscreen during tournament prep. Alternatively, maybe Harry knew that some portkeys are two-way, and just went for a Hail Mary that this would work, getting lucky that the tournament portus was in-place. [Edit: Actually, neither of these things are necessary. If I remember correctly, the ghosts who come out of Voldemort's wand tell Harry to grab the cup, implying that they could sense the other portus in place.]
Wow, I wrote more paragraphs on this than I expected to. Post-hoc-rationalization FTW!
u/Rouninscholar [+7] (4 hours later)
Slightly simpler answer, is that after killing harry they wanted him to go back to where the portkey was supposed to go so as to not be as obvious about coming back? Who knows though. weird scenario either way.
u/zombieking26 [+22] (55 minutes later)
Simply put, I hate stupid main characters with a fiery passion. It drives me up the wall. I have an easier time relating to characters in rational fiction then most other types of fiction.
Edit: fixed
u/detrebio [+6] (an hour later)
Fiery passion for, or against?
u/CeruleanTresses [+20] (an hour later)
I choose to take the typo literally and conclude that they're deeply attracted to The Tick.
u/zeekaran [+3] (13 hours later)
I too am attracted to the Tick.
u/zombieking26 [+6] (6 hours later)
Yes, I absolutely adore characters who make idiotic decisions. That's why I read rational fiction /s
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+20] Dai-Gurren Brigade (36 minutes later)
It's definitely fun and satisfying to see a good solution to a conflict that seems naturally proceeding from established rules and not coming out of the author's ass. Since rational fiction basically commits to that kind of consistency, if well written it can deliver that sort of satisfaction. Of course this is not to say that it's the only sort of narrative conflict that works that way, or that it can carry a story alone. But for example, that sort of grounded conflict is a good reason why I enjoyed "Hunter X Hunter" (which for manga/anime is probably as rational as it gets) as much as I did.
Another thing is that, in fanfiction, it's a good tool for deconstruction. You take narrative tropes and try to pass them through real world logic without simply glossing over some of the implications with a handwave and suddenly you see all their hidden sides. This can be just fun (works well for a parody!) or actually insightful. For example "The Metropolitan Man" puts in real perspective how it would feel like to live in a world in which Superman exists. To make another anime example - not the most rational, but certainly a deconstruction, "Evangelion" does exactly this to the trope of a boy piloting a big mecha robot in war, suggesting that if you apply rationality to it it'd turn out to be less of an awesome thing and more of a shell-shocked-traumatised-forever-possibly-driven-to-insanity thing.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+11] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (2 hours later)
It's a little less likely to break my suspension of disbelief by making things happen that doen't make any sense even in the context of the backstory. Though when it does, it tends to bug me more.
u/Agnoman [+11] (19 hours later)
This subreddit had a link to a blogpost by Sam Hughes about the purpose of worldbuilding a few weeks back, and it had a line which stuck with me:
The result is, hopefully, something resilient and consistent; a universe which rewards exploration rather than punishing it.
This is, I think, a large part of the appeal for me. A big part of "rational" stories to me is that they put emphasis on creating a setting and a plot that holds up to scrutiny, which lets me dwell on a story or a world for a while and really ups the escapism aspect of fiction.
Plus I hate being distracted by gaping plotholes and inconsistencies.
u/Sparkwitch [+9] (2 hours later)
I enjoy watching characters be genuinely clever.
u/Veedrac [+8] (an hour later)
Characters with ethics.
u/MagicWeasel [+8] Cheela Astronaut (2 hours later)
I like it because I like hard sci-fi, and that tends to come with the territory in the rational genre. I also like the way it encourages people to do fanfiction from a different perspective.
u/lillarty [+9] (19 hours later)
I thought about this a fair amount when I realized that I don't actually care about most of what rational fiction defines itself off of. That's not to say I dislike it, just that I don't particularly value it.
The conclusion that I eventually came to is that I enjoy rational worldbuilding and munchkinry. I enjoy that in rational fiction (most of which is fantasy to a greater or lesser extent) it feels like the characters are more accurate representations of how a real person would react if they had some kind of unique ability.
Additionally, I'm much more of a fan of hard magic systems, and rational fiction almost universally has them. It's hard to be rational when the strength of magic is defined as being "as strong as must be at the time" or something vague like that.
u/eroticas [+7] (13 hours later)
What I enjoy is that every character in rational fiction is like me. Very easy to relate to. When we're reading The Scarlet Letter or whatever in 8th grade, do I relate to Hester? Not really, I think it's blatantly obvious that she should just throw the A away and move to a different town. She's already supporting herself as it is, there's nothing keeping her there. Or, let's try an even bigger gap...Do I relate to Odysseus? Even less so. I think he's a murderer, slaver, and rapist, and any notion I can form of him as a heroic character is merely me projecting how the ancients might think of him. (Even today, I don't understand why so many people think that, say, game of thrones has any heroic or good characters. They're all evil. I enjoy it as a show entirely about evil characters. It unsettles me to know that other people perceive any good characters here.)
I appreciate that the book helps me get into the mindset of the cultural gap of someone to whom these solution would apparently not occur, but rational fiction is probably one of the only genres that actually depicts my "culture" in the characters. Do I relate to canon Harry, who is ostensibly a modern person? Quite a bit! But I relate to hpmor!Harry even more. He's closer to me than canon harry is, in the same way canon harry is closer to me than Hester, in the same way Hester is closer to me than Odysseys.
Which means ...I don't have to be the guy who has to try not to ruin media for other people by complaining about what the characters could have done better, or pointing out that actually the lessons it teaches are deeply wrong, or perceiving some blatant inconsistency.
With rational fiction, I get to take a break from feeling like I am annoying and pedantic or missing the real point every time I do this, because the story encourages you to do it. My annoying habit is now considered genuine literary critique!
u/thrawnca [+5] Carbon-based biped (13 hours later)
The kids have been watching My Little Pony lately. I was rather horrified by an episode where vampire fruit bats (whatever that means) were attacking the fruit trees, and the attempted solution of magically removing their attraction to fruit was treated as horrible and ineffective and prone to side effects, while the kind and friendly solution was to set aside a "sanctuary" containing trees they could access freely.
My reaction is, You've got to be kidding me. Making pests not be attracted to the fruit is about as humane (equine?) as you can get, while feeding them just means lots of healthy bats making baby bats who will strip your orchards completely bare next year. There was no indication that the bats are sapient enough to make a deal, so any kind of sanctuary is a ridiculous idea.
u/causalchain [+2] (21 hours later)
I'm not sure, because don't the bats need to eat fruit to live? Making the bats not want to eat is equivalent to just killing them.
u/thrawnca [+3] Carbon-based biped (21 hours later)
Extermination of a non-sapient pest species is also a much better option than feeding them.
u/causalchain [+4] (21 hours later)
In the context of mlp, that would be a bad solution, for thematic reasons. Making a mainstream fiction rational should not equal changing it's essence, because otherwise there's a very good reason for things not to be 'rational'. A rational fanfiction is under no such restriction and is marvellously fun to read, specifically because they do not have the enormous audience of children (and smaller number of adults) that require Friendship and Ponies.
u/None [+3] (a day later)
But then the rational thing to do in this context would be the creation of a clever third option that doesn't involve implicit extermination of a pest species or blatant avoidance of the actual problem. Although I'm not clever enough to come up with one off the top of my head, I assume they could do something, considering they have literal magic at their disposal.
u/causalchain [+2] (a day later)
I agree. Unfortunately, I feel like the "sanctuary" was the Third Option they thought of.
u/FunkyFunker [+2] (2 days later)
In the episode it was said that the fruit bats help the trees grow more quickly and bear more fruit. They relocated the bats to an area of the orchard where the fruit was going to waste because the orchard is too large for the current generation to harvest fully. Also, all animals speak their own language and are able to hold a conversation with one of the main characters, except maybe fish. Furthermore, it was previously demonstrated that just changing the diet of a pest is a terrible idea when they tried this in an earlier episode, accidentally changing the diet of parasprites from fruits, specifically apples, to wood, causing the town, made out of wood, to be destroyed. We also see another magical accident from changing diets when a main character is turned into a fruit vampire, gaining fangs and bat wings. I can't remember if that was from the same episode though. So it really was the best plan they had.
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
I've only seen the HBO Show, but do you consider Jon to be evil? and if so why. What about Sam?
u/eroticas [+1] (2 days later)
Disclaimer, I don't watch the show particularly carefully, and didn't read any of the books.
I lose track of how many needless killings every character has done so far (Actually, I think Varys and also Bran's party might not have murdered needlessly yet. I'm not counting murders for the greater good in this count).
But as for Jon, I really don't thin Jon is an exception, I'm pretty sure he has killed more than one person who he could have easily spared. There is so much violence in Game of Thrones that viewers slowly stop considering it a moral monstrosity when a character casually skewers someone who could have been spared but I'm pretty sure Jon hasn't been unusually merciful.
Jon at one point betrayed the wildlings for basically no reason other than duty to the watch, which I don't count as a good reason, especially when it is fairly clear that the Wildlings fight for the more virtuous cause.
I can't count every instance, but over all throughout the story, Jon shows the same moral flaws as his father - he follows Duty and Honor rather than Good even when these are pointing in very different directions. When his duty has him to kill or betray good people, he does so. When his duty has him tolerate evil masters, he does that too. His failure to take the Wildling's side at the right moment made all the more clear by the times Jon (and Ned, for that matter) didn't raise his sword against evil people who happened to have authority over him. I know he allies with them eventually, but that happens for different reasons than Goodness.
Sam...I guess Sam technically hasn't done anything bad. But I chalked that up to being bad at fighting rather than virtue.
( And I may have spoken too strongly, some characters may actually be more neutral than evil, and some are at the very least innocent and haven't made a clear stand for anything yet. But actually good is very rare. Tyrion almost made it to good before he strangled the prostitute he was in love with for sleeping with his dad. I think maybe Varys is still in the running for Actually Heroic Good, actually.)
u/sparr [+5] (6 hours later)
I really dislike moments in fiction where I can tell that some previously established aspect of the story universe is being ignored/changed/broken. Rational fiction has a lot less of that.
Ditto for when later added aspects aren't compatible with previous parts of the story. "If that new feature exists, it would have shown up or been used two and seven chapters ago!"
u/zeekaran [+6] (13 hours later)
Most other fiction is just lazy by comparison. I have plenty of complaints about characters in ratfic, but they more than make up for it. The Martian is probably the most mainstream ratfic I enjoy and it is a perfect example of why the genre is so good. The protagonist takes his time to think things through and not be driven by irrational, inexcusably reckless passion. He's realistic and clever. He really earns his wins, and the plot is not usually moved forward by idiot balls or unfair twists.
u/GeneralExtension [+5] (21 hours later)
Reading sci-fi where the author doesn't say 'intelligence can't be copied', and instead has the AI reboot from a backup when they're destroyed, is amazing.
u/fassina2 [+4] Progressive Overload (15 hours later)
Geekporn.
Munchkinry.
Satisfying endings.
Non obvious plot twists.
Good writing.
Interesting tactics and strategies for combat scenarios.
Weak to strong MCs, that become strong using their intelligence instead of luck or plot armor.
Intelligent problem solving.
u/alexanderwales [+5] Time flies like an arrow (a day later)
For me, it's mostly the indulgence in intellect. I'm more likely to learn something interesting, or make some connection that I can apply to something else. Rational fiction is (ideally) about the way the world is, rather than being about the way that the world makes you feel -- a certain amount of unreality and symbolism is accepted in other media as a way of making a stronger point.
u/clawclawbite [+3] (9 hours later)
I enjoy seeing clever ideas and plans that use on screen information in ways that lead to at least some success.
I don't enjoy characters overlooking obvious solutions.
I like the long term payoff of good setting and background paying off much later.
u/elevul [+3] Cyoria Observer (18 hours later)
Consistency in the characterization and intelligent problem solving mainly.
u/ilI1il1Ili1i1liliiil [+2] (an hour later)
My enjoyment of fiction is contingent on me identifying with the protagonist. I can identify only if the protagonist is rational.
u/thrawnca [+2] Carbon-based biped (12 hours later)
I'm always bothered by seeing mainstream characters do really dumb things. With rational fiction, a) there's much less of that, and b) it's perfectly legitimate to point it out to the author, and they'll probably try to fix it, not just tell you to get over it and stop ruining the story.
u/cysghost [+2] Chaos Legion (13 hours later)
I enjoy the rational fanfics mainly to see new ways that the original characters were dumb, and what Rational Man would do, and how easy it can be to break the universe given a slightly not well thought out magical system.
u/xachariah [+1] (4 days later)
Did portkeys even work two-way?
A little late, but I want to point out that you're looking at this through the lens of Voldemort failing, rather than what Voldemort was planning to do. It's actually (mostly) a good plan.
Imagine if, in book 4 in the graveyard, Voldemort didn't crit-fail his murder of Harry Potter before he escaped. Voldemort would be secretly returned without anyone knowing, with his battle-ready death eaters, with a secret assassin right next to Dumbledore, with the minister of magic in attendance and other priority hostages all inside a teleport blocking zone. It's established in book 6 that getting into and out of Hogwarts is really hard and the main plot of the book, and they had a successful key ready with the cup. Voldemort would have won the war immediately on the night of his return, if he'd just killed Harry instead of indulging in a duel.
Of course, he never thought about what would happen if he couldn't kill Harry. This is why pre-mortem analysis is so valuable.
u/Seyt77 [-6] (8 minutes later)
I enjoy the extra effort writers put in rationalizing their fiction because it isn't easy. Too often rationalism is thrown out the windows just because it's easier to write a story a certain way. A shortcut. I dislike it but I see why most authors take it.
In the end rational fictions are great though sometimes its hard to make it rational when an author wants the work a certain way. Take Worth the Candle. It is mostly rational. Keyword mostly. The author wants to veer towards the work being about the MC and his hangups which makes the world unauthentic and robotic since all of it is just made for the MC and his friend. The characters are irrational as they are background scenery for the MC.
A rational world is one that can operate independently without the MC and still be left standing.
u/Makin- [+9] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (15 minutes later)
Damn, I have to admit I'm somewhat impressed that you managed to still be negative, but you might have missed the point of this submission if you're using it to complain about other rational works.
u/causalchain [+1] (21 hours later)
I don't think that's fair. You asked for what people like in rational fiction and he answered. u/Seyt77 doesn't like the same style as many others on this sub, but he appreciates that it's a lot closer to what he does actually like. So he says that he likes rational fiction for the effort they put in to make it that way.
u/Seyt77 [-3] (28 minutes later)
I enjoy rational fiction because i appreciate the work done for it. I figured I can explain my rationale which you do not like at all. I guess i hit a nerve or something but i stand by what i said.
Edit:you were complaining about harry potter's irrationality and you expect people not to do the same with their rational reasons? kinda hypocritical don't you think?
u/None [+8] (an hour later)
No, it is not hypocritical. The OP was complaining about canon Harry, because the actual HP novels are not rational. You took this opportunity to complain about Worth The Candle, which is a rational fic. Please dear god just take the L and let this conversation die. You made a mistake, own it and move on.
u/fassina2 [+5] Progressive Overload (15 hours later)
Honestly it sounded like valid criticism to me. Of course, we can disagree with him on his opinion or on how he expressed it.
But I don't think anybody here believes that any Rational fic is above any criticism, I understand nobody likes having the things they like criticized, but we should also know that if we downvote and shut down every opinion we disagree with we could end up like some kind of cult.
And I'm sure nobody here wants that..
u/Makin- [+5] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (22 hours later)
Oh, of course it's fine to criticize WTC, it's just I made this thread precisely to contrast the negativity of the other one and that was the very first reply.
I wanted to avoid the entire thread turning into another circlejerk, but it's absolutely fine to criticize works in better threads for it (i.e. literally any other thread).
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Yes, thank you. I honestly find this concern that we could end up like 'some kind of cult' due to circlejerking incredibly strange. If there's one thing this subreddit doesn't lack, it's people willing to criticize everything.
u/causalchain [+1] (21 hours later)
If I had gold I would give it to you
u/causalchain [+0] (22 hours later)
Why let the conversation die? What benefit does that hold? There is a conflict of opinion so we must resolve this, that is the essence of argument and half the motivator of rationality. More than anything here I want to know why so many 'rational' people think it's ok to just tell someone they're wrong and shut them up.
u/None [+5] (a day later)
I really appreciate the intent here (saying nice-sounding things that don't work in practice to score internet points, that is) but assuming that all conversation is inherently worthwhile and fruitful is naive and idealistic to the point of flat absurdity, especially on the internet. Sometimes the person you're talking to is arguing in bad faith, sometimes they're only in pursuit of emotional release and not meaningful discourse, and sometimes they're just too big a problem for you to solve. Shutting down actual, beneficial conversation is bad. But I said what I did precisely because it seemed obvious to me that that was not what was happening in this thread.
As an aside, if you often experience people telling you to shut up, it may have less to do with them than you think.
u/causalchain [+2] (a day later)
I get the whole 'I can't listen to everyone', but I consider this corner of the internet the kind of place where I can listen to everyone, and can expect that others will listen back. I suppose I should have just said this.
From my perspective, the argument being made was entirely useful, so I saw a meaningful discussion being cut off by public disapproval because they did not agree with one of the views being shown. I thought that our differing perspectives on the discussion originated from our different opinions on the arguments themself, so I was led to believe that people were deciding the value of a discussion by how much they agree with the points being made. When I felt this, this irked me. Please tell me if I misinterpreted something.
u/None [+3] (a day later)
Okay, can you be a little specific? What about "Worth The Candle is bad because it's about the protagonist" is so valuable a discussion thread? Or did you mean "you're a hypocrite for criticizing a non-rational novel then being negative about my criticisms of a rational fic"? I honestly don't see anything worth pursuing in either of those. His complaint about WtC was blatantly just "I dislike Joon as a character" in code and his accusation of hypocrisy I already handily refuted. What else was there to say on either matter?
u/causalchain [+2] (a day later)
Seyt was describing that their utopian fiction (which they used the word rational to describe, which was probably a poor choice) has a complete and independent world that is not main-character-plot-based, which is something that (in general) the fiction on this sub do much better than fiction outside of the sub. They said how WtC mostly achieves this, but not completely as ultimately the entire world is bent around the main character's actions and that breaks the immersion for them. I think that's a completely valid opinion to have and they were just using WtC as an example to explain their opinion. Clearly people misunderstood them (probably the incorrect use of 'rational'), and thought Seyt was just bashing on WtC, which I honestly didn't see it as until I read peoples' responses.
They then saw people smashing on them for it and they were probably as confused as I was, so they responded with calls of hypocrite. I think that makes sense for someone to do in that scenario, though it's probably not the correct thing. I'm sorry for directly arguing with you, as I think the cutting-off happened immediately from the stream of downvotes, much before you replied.