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Unpopular opinions we have on fiction

"Let's go! open up, it's time for Unpop!"
Alright, time for my mandatory Unpopular Opinions Post. Let's get this over with.
"You're late. You know the deal. You can Omelaspost for a Funny, or you can make an interesting post for an Insightful."
Here in Unpopular Opinions Poster Civilisation, no one chooses to make interesting posts. It's better to make the one joke everyone knows for the Funny, rather than risk your entire life for just one Insightful rating.
"Tomorrow you better not be late, or I'll have you posting for Informative reactions as punishment."
"Yes sir, sorry, I won't be late next time."

Down here, us Omelasposters only get one Rating a day. One Funny rating is just enough to get your post:reaction ratio to the next day. But that's the life of Unpopular Opinions Poster Civilisation. If you wanna survive, you have to Unpopular Opinions Post. Every Omelasposter has the same goal, and that's to make it to the top thread, where all the Brothers Karamazovposters live. Except, most Brothers Karamazovposters are born on the top thread. If you're an Omelasposter, there's only one way up, and that is through the Temple of Unpopular Opinions. The Temple of Unpopular Opinions is the only structure on SV that combines the bottom thread to the top thread. To make it up, you have to post an impossibly hard Unpopular Opinion Reply that no Omelasposter has ever completed. And that's assuming you even get the chance to post the reply in the thread. The inside of the Temple is protected by a barrier and the only way an Omelasposter gets past the barrier is if they've earned a gilded post. I've never even tried getting a gilded post before, but if I'm going to rank up to a Brothers Karamazovposter one day, I'm gonna have to.
 
Alane1 said:
It's not any stranger than heroes who fought in World War II still being active I suppose
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There's a degree of difference there. Readers can accept old heroes still being present in the modern day, be it through time travel, supernatural longevity, or whatever. It's especially easy to digest if it is part of their backstory.

The issue with unaging dad Batman is that it warps both his and his wards' backstories. Refusing him to age even a little hampers the still important and remembered stories of his adopted children, how they grew up and moved out or died too young before coming back to life, etc. It gets a little hard to swallow and keep suspension of disbelief that all of this happened when these kids are in their twenties and Bruce is somehow still in his thirties.

Either they should make him age, even a little, or they should stop giving him new wards.
ELDRITCH OCTAHED said:
I think the Jurassic World trilogy was pretty good overall, and that Jurassic World itself was the second best film of the series. Jurassic World actually captured the Indominus rex extremely well, showcasing the exact concept of the books- these are terrifying genetic monsters, not regular animals.

And people wildly overstate how much control Owen had over the raptors, Blue goes basically entirely feral in the final movie, even slicing open his hand.
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I like the new series ok, most likely because I did not grow up with a deep attachment to the original JP movies, and I think Camp Cretaceous/Chaos Theory is one of the best things to come out of it. I also appreciate the clear thoroughline of the trilogy starting with its name: it's about the new park Jurassic World, but it also preludes how the trilogy builds to the dinosaurs finally emerging onto the wide world and having to co-exist with modern Earth, truly creating a "Jurassic World" (except the newest film seems to be walking that back so lol lmao). I don't find Owen that annoying, and I did like Fallen Kingdom making Claire the main character and how what happens at the end ties into her state of guilt at the start.

There are a lot of elements to like out of the JW continuity. But also, the trilogy never really rises above decent for me. First movie is a fun watch with some large holes in its plot; Fallen Kingdom has the Claire focus I like, but also has a second subplot that doesn't really tie together well with the movie's events until the very end, and it does the genetic monster dinosaur again; and Dominion has a great starting premise that it abandons very early for a mess of a story.

They are very brainless, which is fine for adventures movies, but it always feels like they could be more interesting instead of just gesturing at deeper meaning but never quite managing to do it (Fallen Kingdom being the one I'm thinking of). The original Jurassic Park didn't feel like it was just spectacle and high-octane thrills, but that it had something to say. So I can understand why JP fans aren't really fond of these movies.

I actually like the family unit of Owen, Claire, and Maisie, it was kind of a bummer that neither of them returned for Rebirth (especially Maisie, whom I feel has all the qualities for a protagonist to whom Owen and Claire passed the torch to).
 
MysticKnightJoe said:
I mentioned FF7 Rebirth above a bit so guess I'll drop a more unified hot take: I don't think where it ended was right for that part of the story. Like honestly moreso than any lore change I think the pacing has been really thrown out of wack a bit and I have trouble imagining where the third game will even start. I don't think Aerith's death really worked as a final bit, the game should have ended at the Northern Crater.
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There are too many changes to events to really end Rebirth in the same way that Pursuit does in the original, and Turmoil doesn't really have that much material to work with so leaving a trek up north to the crater as the opening part makes sense. We don't really know what Sephiroth is really up to now so it's not as if a remake version of That Which Waits in the Northernmost Reaches would hit the same plot beats. As it stands Rebirth focuses on the emotional note that is Aerith while still having the ambiguous element of what is going on with Cloud, as opposed to knocking him into the Lifestream and having the the next game open on having to find him.
 
Ford Prefect said:
There are too many changes to events to really end Rebirth in the same way that Pursuit does in the original, and Turmoil doesn't really have that much material to work with so leaving a trek up north to the crater as the opening part makes sense. We don't really know what Sephiroth is really up to now so it's not as if a remake version of That Which Waits in the Northernmost Reaches would hit the same plot beats. As it stands Rebirth focuses on the emotional note that is Aerith while still having the ambiguous element of what is going on with Cloud, as opposed to knocking him into the Lifestream and having the the next game open on having to find him.
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Yeah that's a fair point. I did really love Rebirth quite a bit overall, so this was a minor gripe. Really if it ended at the winter lodge before the Northern Crater that would just be an awkward span of just moving to the next beat. I think my ending thought is I am very curious how the third game will handle the final part.
 
Something I definitely get confused about is the attitude towards the Giganotosaurus in Dominion. Before the film came out, people were loudly complaining about how the director called it a "Joker" sort of villain, and how it was unrealistic, but when the movie actually came out the fans complained that it acted too much like a regular big animal.

TBH, I thought it was superior to the Spinosaurus.
 
I kind of liked the fact that most T Rex depictions in media are on par of that from jurassic park. It's always the bony look, never any fat on the t Rex. Same with the roar, because t rexes don't roar, they just growl.

I think it's because the look from jurassic park is the most recognized look of a t rex, because if someone makes a t rex replica like that of, say, the reconstruction of sue the t rex from the Chicago field museum, it might not really work due to the fact it looks too fat or something.
 
Jurassic Park's T-Rex, long may she reign, is unfairly the Ur-example in modern depictions, IMO. Even Godzilla was shaped after her that one time we don't talk about.
 
Kingcrusader said:
I kind of liked the fact that most T Rex depictions in media are on par of that from jurassic park. It's always the bony look, never any fat on the t Rex. Same with the roar, because t rexes don't roar, they just growl.

I think it's because the look from jurassic park is the most recognized look of a t rex, because if someone makes a t rex replica like that of, say, the reconstruction of sue the t rex from the Chicago field museum, it might not really work due to the fact it looks too fat or something.
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To nitpick, they found a larynx in an ankylosaur, so theropods likely had the ancestral capacity of vocalization. I can absolutely see a rex roaring, albeit it wouldn't be anywhere near the JP version's roar.

Honestly, I like the new chunky depiction, feels very muscular and powerful.
 
Not my hot take, but here goes:

I know this is a politics-adjacent take, but can we avoid getting too mired in politics arguments over it?
 
On that subject, I think the final destination series, all of it, would have been done better as the standalone one and done X-Files episode it was originally proposed as.
 
I'm not sure if this is an unpopular opinion for readers, but I've seen a few authors do this thing and I get the impression not doing it is unpopular in some way.

Sometimes the author uses various idioms in their stories, as in idiomatic expressions from regular English use (or whatever the language might be) written in the text. This is obviously fine, but I did notice a few authors seem to assume nobody knows the meaning of that idiom, whether reader or character, and drags out the reveal for far too long.

The example which comes to mind and prompted this post is Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett. There, a character is told about how her situation is a "crab bucket", and she spends most of her character arc in that book wondering what it means, until near the end when she is finally told about Crab Bucket Mentality, ie preventing others from attaining success even if it does not directly impact themselves.

And throughout the book, I kept wondering if it was going to be a twist in how the Discworld setting interpreted that idiom, only to be disappointed when it's exactly the same as RL and Pratchett was treating the idiom's meaning like a dramatic reveal.

A positive example would be in one of the Vorkosigan series books (I think Cetaganda, although it might be Brothers In Arms), where the protagonist's superior tells him "I am not a mushroom", and the narration immediately elaborates "to be kept in the dark and fed fertilizer". No need to drag out the definition, and it explains the idiom to readers who might be unfamiliar with it, while not wasting the time of readers who already know.

There are a few more bad examples I recall reading about, although I can't remember their sources, due to mostly being first volumes of various fantasy/sci-fi series which turned out to be forgettable at best. Stuff like "tall poppy syndrome" (including the word "poppy", which implies existence of that plant in the fantasy setting), "prisoner's dilemma", and in one occasion "Romeo and Juliet" (despite Shakespeare not existing in that setting). The authors took at least a few chapters before explaining these idioms to the characters and readers, like it was intended to be a mystery.
 
Adloquium said:
And throughout the book, I kept wondering if it was going to be a twist in how the Discworld setting interpreted that idiom, only to be disappointed when it's exactly the same as RL and Pratchett was treating the idiom's meaning like a dramatic reveal.
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I didn't get that impression for what it's worth, the focus seemed pretty clearly on Glenda's character development. It's a big deal because the character realized what it means and it was pivotal for her outlook, not because we were supposed to be baffled.
 
DanZapman said:
I didn't get that impression for what it's worth, the focus seemed pretty clearly on Glenda's character development. It's a big deal because the character realized what it means and it was pivotal for her outlook, not because we were supposed to be baffled.
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Yeh, a huge part of Glenda's initial outlook should be pretty obviously flawed to most readers. She's basically a sympathetic version of the character who's always smothering another person's dreams in these sorts of stories. So it's less about the correct answer, and more about the chain of reasoning.
 
Adloquium said:
A positive example would be in one of the Vorkosigan series books (I think Cetaganda, although it might be Brothers In Arms)
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It's Cetaganda, for the record. (Though it's not hard to imagine Duv Galeni agreeing with the sentiment during certain parts of the latter, if I'm remembering the course of events correctly.)

Adloquium said:
Stuff like "tall poppy syndrome" (including the word "poppy", which implies existence of that plant in the fantasy setting)
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I think sometimes you've just got to take it as a translation convention. Especially give how fraught with peril making up your own idioms can be.

-Morgan.
 
Morganite said:
It's Cetaganda, for the record. (Though it's not hard to imagine Duv Galeni agreeing with the sentiment during certain parts of the latter, if I'm remembering the course of events correctly.)



I think sometimes you've just got to take it as a translation convention. Especially give how fraught with peril making up your own idioms can be.

-Morgan.
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Wasnt it T.H. White who opens the sword and the stone mentioning 'well of course they wouldn't actually be drinking port, that'd be historically inaccurate, but the important bit is that theyre drinking it on an occasion we'd find appropriate to call the drink port!'
 
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MysticKnightJoe said:
I've watched a fair amount of X-Files and I detect no lies from Robert Evans
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His take is 100% based on the harmless goofball vibes the actor David Duchovny gives off, and 0% on the character Fox Mulder. Fox Mulder, the ticking timebomb of insanity? The ultra-WASP who graduated top of his class at the FBI academy in the 80s, the model G-man were it not for his obsession with the paranormal, is the exception to ACAB? A hypothetical "real-world" Fox Mulder's theories about the alien master plan would turn into Great Replacement style anti-Semitism the instant you looked any closer. I guess you could say he's not ACAB because he's too preoccupied with thwarting the ZOG's race-mixing conspiracy to stomp on minorities and leftists enough, but that's thin even for a shitpost.
 
Jenny said:
Not my hot take, but here goes:

I know this is a politics-adjacent take, but can we avoid getting too mired in politics arguments over it?
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No lies detected.

The Lone Gunmen absolutely would have stormed the capital on January 6th, except they'd be there for a different, unrelated protest and got swept up in the mob. It pains me to say this, but Scully would almost certainly say, "It's a tough situation," when asked about the 2020 BLM protests. CSM would 1000% be publishing Anonymous op-eds in the WSJ about being one of the "adults in the room."
 
skanszy said:
Fox Mulder, the ticking timebomb of insanity? The ultra-WASP who graduated top of his class at the FBI academy in the 80s, the model G-man were it not for his obsession with the paranormal, is the exception to ACAB? A hypothetical "real-world" Fox Mulder's theories about the alien master plan would turn into Great Replacement style anti-Semitism the instant you looked any closer.
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This seems like a case where the question of "how much was the character shaped by their environment?" comes up. Because it doesn't actually seem that insane to believe in aliens and conspiracies and so forth in a world where those thing sactually exist? Removed from that context, his behavior could change entirely.

-Morgan.
 
skanszy said:
His take is 100% based on the harmless goofball vibes the actor David Duchovny gives off, and 0% on the character Fox Mulder. Fox Mulder, the ticking timebomb of insanity? The ultra-WASP who graduated top of his class at the FBI academy in the 80s, the model G-man were it not for his obsession with the paranormal, is the exception to ACAB? A hypothetical "real-world" Fox Mulder's theories about the alien master plan would turn into Great Replacement style anti-Semitism the instant you looked any closer. I guess you could say he's not ACAB because he's too preoccupied with thwarting the ZOG's race-mixing conspiracy to stomp on minorities and leftists enough, but that's thin even for a shitpost.
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I disagree, I think Mulder would be so totally gormless that he'd show up at InfoCon or something and be genuinely flabbergasted it's all just a cover for some bargain basement anti-semitism. He'd be all hyped to talk about alien abductions and how's he totally hasn't seen a UFO (wink wink) then be caught flat-footed when Alex Jones starts ranting about the gay frogs.

I dunno, there's just something so funny to me that Mulder (at least early on) is like the conspiracy nut equivalent of GOB from Arrested Development, the kind of guy who thinks the Great Replacement weirdos are just gullible rubes, while his particular brand of paranoid is self-evidently true.
 
Alright here's a slightly controversial one. American psycho is hilarious and I'm tired of pretending it's not. Yes it is a story about toxic masculinity and the inhumanity of corporate culture taken to the extreme. It is also a story where prostitutes, dogs, and the homeless gets brutally tortured by a painfully suicidal weirdo. But seeing a bunch of alpha businessmen huddled around comparing bone white versus ivory on Name cards like it's a dick measuring contest is comedy gold.

I don't know if its delibrite, but Patrick Bateman's internal monologue sounds like a very sassy and very gay man, I swear he complains about mismatched colors on jewelry or finger nails more than any other Romance or Highschool themed novel I've ever read.
 
Arthur Frayn said:
I disagree, I think Mulder would be so totally gormless that he'd show up at InfoCon or something and be genuinely flabbergasted it's all just a cover for some bargain basement anti-semitism. He'd be all hyped to talk about alien abductions and how's he totally hasn't seen a UFO (wink wink) then be caught flat-footed when Alex Jones starts ranting about the gay frogs.

I dunno, there's just something so funny to me that Mulder (at least early on) is like the conspiracy nut equivalent of GOB from Arrested Development, the kind of guy who thinks the Great Replacement weirdos are just gullible rubes, while his particular brand of paranoid is self-evidently true.
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This is the way I want to imagine Dale Gribble in the modern age. Still a conspiracy nut, but even more convince that HIS conspiracies are correct due to the nefarious Qanon Government PsyOp.

Dale - "Why would I think less of John Redcorn being native American. The man is clearly a chiropractic GOD!"
 
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Rodger33 said:
But seeing a bunch of alpha businessmen huddled around comparing bone white versus ivory on Name cards like it's a dick measuring contest is comedy gold.
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Haven't seen it in its entirety, but I'm kinda sure that's the point? The original author was, at the very least, making fun of consumerism and corporate guppy culture like that (i.e. all of those guys in that room dickwaving while having the exact same job and shtick).
 
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