In writing it’s even simpler—the author gets to create the whole social universe, and the readers are immersed in the hero’s own internal perspective. And so anything the heroes do, which no character notices as wrong, won’t be noticed by the readers as unheroic. Genocide, mind-rape, eternal torture, anything.
Not true. If you’ve got some time to kill, read this thread on The Fanfiction Forum; long story short, a guy who’s quite possibly psychopathic writes a story wherein Naruto is turned into a self-centered, hypocritical bastard who happily mindrapes every woman around him, and the people on the forum spend 60-odd pages lambasting him.
People are a lot more willing to criticize the morality of the story if they didn’t find the story itself to be competently written. Notice the amount of social criticism that’s been leveled at Twilight.
Seems to work the other way if the story’s written to convince people of a moral point, though.
Agree with the morals → enjoy reading crude stereotypes of your moral opponents. Get enough enjoyment from that and the story’s a net positive even if it has no other redeeming qualities.
I don’t have permission to view that, says the board. But, just taking a wild guess here, that wouldn’t be a Perfect Lionheart fic would it? Because unless the same forumgoers are also lambasting the Bible and David Eddings, one can’t help but suspect that it’s not the content so much as the writing which triggers the hate.
Yeah, you have to register to view the board, and yeah, it’s the Perfect Lionheart fic. The reason that thread’s gotten so many posts and the story’s gotten so much negative feeling about it, though, is because it started off looking good, was well-written (as far as the technical aspects of writing like spelling, grammar, and so on go), and had occasional teases in a scene here and there that it might manage to redeem itself.
If it was simply poorly written it would have been dismissed as just another piece of the sea of shit that makes up 90% of ff.net.
So Chuunin Exam Day, then? I’ve never read it, but I’ve heard of it.
Considering that I was able to identify the author and possibly the exact fic from the information that the morality was being heavily lambasted, may I suggest that readers noticing nonlampshaded evil doesn’t actually happen all that often? TV Tropes is good at noticing Moral Dissonance, but literally nowhere else that I’ve ever heard of. It took a critic on the order of David Brin to point out that Aragorn wasn’t democratically elected.
I think people just think of it not being evil to be a dictator as part of the fantasy setting. I’d be more moved by an example in an everyday setting.
Unfortunately half the examples of Unfortunate Implications on TV Tropes are places where the work’s universe has rules that create problems for currently popular systems of ethics (the implication being it’s wrong to imply such rules might be true). Or otherwise violating prevailing moral fashions.
Not true. If you’ve got some time to kill, read this thread on The Fanfiction Forum; long story short, a guy who’s quite possibly psychopathic writes a story wherein Naruto is turned into a self-centered, hypocritical bastard who happily mindrapes every woman around him, and the people on the forum spend 60-odd pages lambasting him.
People are a lot more willing to criticize the morality of the story if they didn’t find the story itself to be competently written. Notice the amount of social criticism that’s been leveled at Twilight.
Seems to work the other way if the story’s written to convince people of a moral point, though.
I.e., agree with the morals → don’t notice the bad writing?
Agree with the morals → enjoy reading crude stereotypes of your moral opponents. Get enough enjoyment from that and the story’s a net positive even if it has no other redeeming qualities.
I think proximity also matters. There are no modern romantic heroes, but there are modern heartthrobs with questionable gender politics.
I don’t have permission to view that, says the board. But, just taking a wild guess here, that wouldn’t be a Perfect Lionheart fic would it? Because unless the same forumgoers are also lambasting the Bible and David Eddings, one can’t help but suspect that it’s not the content so much as the writing which triggers the hate.
Yeah, you have to register to view the board, and yeah, it’s the Perfect Lionheart fic. The reason that thread’s gotten so many posts and the story’s gotten so much negative feeling about it, though, is because it started off looking good, was well-written (as far as the technical aspects of writing like spelling, grammar, and so on go), and had occasional teases in a scene here and there that it might manage to redeem itself.
If it was simply poorly written it would have been dismissed as just another piece of the sea of shit that makes up 90% of ff.net.
So Chuunin Exam Day, then? I’ve never read it, but I’ve heard of it.
Considering that I was able to identify the author and possibly the exact fic from the information that the morality was being heavily lambasted, may I suggest that readers noticing nonlampshaded evil doesn’t actually happen all that often? TV Tropes is good at noticing Moral Dissonance, but literally nowhere else that I’ve ever heard of. It took a critic on the order of David Brin to point out that Aragorn wasn’t democratically elected.
I think people just think of it not being evil to be a dictator as part of the fantasy setting. I’d be more moved by an example in an everyday setting.
Have you read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio_of_a_Space_Tyrant ?
Nope, sorry!
Wah, but… how can people not see that Tyrant Hope Hubris becomes evil?
Gur tubfg bs Qernzre cerqvpgf uvf snyy! Gur glenag uvzfrys cbvagf vg bhg uvzfrys juvyr vapbtavgb! Uvf rfgenatrq jvsr gur fnzr, nsgrejneqf! Cvref Nagubal rira anzrq uvz Ubcr Uhoevf!
Anyways, if you can stand Piers Anthony it is an OK read.
Yah agreed. It definitely plays with the theme… which is kinda fun.
I was mainly saying it’s an example not in the fantasy setting ;)
It’s more along the lines of “If I were king, what would I do… and how would I become king anyways?”
Unfortunately half the examples of Unfortunate Implications on TV Tropes are places where the work’s universe has rules that create problems for currently popular systems of ethics (the implication being it’s wrong to imply such rules might be true). Or otherwise violating prevailing moral fashions.