At a guess, I would say: looking for recurring patterns in fiction, and extrapolating principles/tropes. It’s a very bottom-up approach to literature, taking special note of subversions, inversions, aversions, etc, as opposed to the more top-down academic study of literature that loves to wax poetic about “universal truths” while ignoring large swaths of stories (such as Sci Fi and Fantasy) that don’t fit into their grand model. Quite frankly, from my perspective, it seems they tend to force a lot of stories into their preferred mold, falling prey to True Art tropes.
I wonder why it is that so many people get here from TV Tropes.
Also, you’re not the only one to give up on their first LW account.
Possibly: TV Tropes approaches fiction the way LessWrong approaches reality.
How do you mean?
At a guess, I would say: looking for recurring patterns in fiction, and extrapolating principles/tropes. It’s a very bottom-up approach to literature, taking special note of subversions, inversions, aversions, etc, as opposed to the more top-down academic study of literature that loves to wax poetic about “universal truths” while ignoring large swaths of stories (such as Sci Fi and Fantasy) that don’t fit into their grand model. Quite frankly, from my perspective, it seems they tend to force a lot of stories into their preferred mold, falling prey to True Art tropes.
Because it uses as many examples from HP:MoR as it possibly could?