I had not heard of Worth the Candle before, so it was not. You have made me curious now, so I will look into it and its revision mages. Given films can be re-wound and video games can be reloaded from save points I imagine there are lots of comparable things out there. In fact I am slightly surprised to have only seen a few.
I think the issue is that if you already have a setting with lots of other things in it (invisibility cloaks etc) then any new thing that gets added needs to be be limited in capability or availability to stop it from “taking over” the setting/plot. (Time turners in Harry potter are a good example, where the books just dismiss them by fiat, and the Methods of Rationality embraces time-turner-centric plots, so lets them “take over” to some extent.) I think this is why comparable things elsewhere are usually much more limited (like the mending cabinet in Lock and Key). If its a heroic style plot with combat then you probably also want death to be largely permanent.
I was ultimately disappointed by it—somewhat like Umineko, there is a severe divergence from reader expectations. Alexander Wales’s goal for it, however well he achieved it by his own lights, was not one that is of interest to me as a reader, and it wound up being less than the sum of its parts for me. So I would have enjoyed it better if I had known from the start to read it for its parts (eg. revision mages or ‘unicorns’ or ‘Doris Finch’).
Was ‘redaction’ inspired by Worth The Candle’s ‘revision mages’?
I had not heard of Worth the Candle before, so it was not. You have made me curious now, so I will look into it and its revision mages. Given films can be re-wound and video games can be reloaded from save points I imagine there are lots of comparable things out there. In fact I am slightly surprised to have only seen a few.
I think the issue is that if you already have a setting with lots of other things in it (invisibility cloaks etc) then any new thing that gets added needs to be be limited in capability or availability to stop it from “taking over” the setting/plot. (Time turners in Harry potter are a good example, where the books just dismiss them by fiat, and the Methods of Rationality embraces time-turner-centric plots, so lets them “take over” to some extent.) I think this is why comparable things elsewhere are usually much more limited (like the mending cabinet in Lock and Key). If its a heroic style plot with combat then you probably also want death to be largely permanent.
Also, thank you for mentioning Worth the Candle. I had not heard of it before but am now enjoying it quite a lot.
I was ultimately disappointed by it—somewhat like Umineko, there is a severe divergence from reader expectations. Alexander Wales’s goal for it, however well he achieved it by his own lights, was not one that is of interest to me as a reader, and it wound up being less than the sum of its parts for me. So I would have enjoyed it better if I had known from the start to read it for its parts (eg. revision mages or ‘unicorns’ or ‘Doris Finch’).