I have no fondness for the Jackson Hobbit movies, and even less for the additions made to the text, but I think this is a pretty wrongheaded criticism of the scene in question. The "spark" Yudkowsky is talking about isn't a character having an inner life, it is Yudkowsky being able to personally endorse that character's actions.
OK, but the vector that Yudkowsky is pushing his endorsement or lack thereof along is something I think is worth looking for in fictional characters, if not in ALL fictional characters:
Namely, intelligent determination.
The combination of flexible thinking, good judgment, and a great desire to see through one's projects represents an important combination that most real-life successful people display. Fictional characters that display these things too can be very interesting and inspirational.
Obviously,
obviously, not all characters need to possess or aspire to these traits. But there's a lot of good art you can build around stories where everyone displays or at least aspires towards good judgment, flexible thinking, and determination to not give up on important projects or the hope of accomplishing great deeds, at least not until all options are exhausted
and they've spent extended periods of time trying to brainstorm new options.
...
Now, it can be legitimately in character for Thorin to give up. See also this
answer to the quote, which parallels yours but along different lines ("this is one way to set up a scene where Thorin does give up in disgust here").
So a genre where deliberate efforts to resist giving up, to be adaptable and keep trying to use one's resources in new and inventive ways so long as breath remains in body, are a cornerstone of the 'strong/main' characters of the story? Yeah, I can get behind that.
Both elements militate against patience in the scene in question. He's shoved down his doubts, come all the way to the Misty Mountains, and used the ancient lore. His kingly pride expects a destiny to roll out the red carpet. Being thwarted is a further humiliation. His tendency to despair surges back, saying the old lore is meaningless and this has all been a fool's errand. Both tell him he looks like an idiot standing there.
Thorin, in this scene, isn't rational. He's driven by powerful, conflicting drives and emotions. Having a proud and sullen king behave unwisely isn't a betrayal of the character's inner life. It is how you present it in fiction. Yudkowsky's complaint represents an inability on his part to understand characters whose psychology differs from his own.
I mean, that's fair.
At the same time, it's understandable for readers of a certain subculture to crave protagonists whose mindset is relatable to the kind of person who is (or who admires, or who aspires to be) determined, sensible, flexible, and humble enough to know that life won't always make things easy for them.
The shit Yud said about Thorin is exactly the entire problem with how rational fiction thinks about storytelling in a nutshell. Because it displays a total lack of awareness of different ways of writing an interesting character. Thorin being the kind of sullen, byronic fantasy bougie baby man who would throw up his hands and stomp off in the opposite direction in a huff at the slightest sign of resistance that he can't hit with his sword isn't some flaw. It's characterization, it's drama, it's a character having flaws that are actual flaws that can actively make the story more interesting as opposed to the really softballed, downplayed kind of flaw that amateur internet writers give their characters because they're afraid of alienating an audience or their stories being nitpicked as a logic driven puzzle box.
And, y'know thats a problem I've seen with every rational fiction iIve actually red. That the writer doesn't seem to want to deal with different types of personalities, cultures, or ways of interacting with the world that might directly conflict with rational ideals and it makes the story and world seem very flat and makes the author seen deeply incurious about the world around them.
Especially considering that so many of them go out of their way to write fantasy. Because fantasy is a genre where you'll find a whole lot of different character types you can use. You got glory hound Warriors, you got nobleman obsessed with their honor, you got highly religious characters and priests, you got rustic peasants. You have whatever crazy batshit mentality wizards can have. Especially wizards, you'd think that they'd have a lot of weirdness in how they think about the world. All these potential personalities that can make your world seem more alive, and more distinct from our own tend to get marginalized or villainized in rational fiction so all the characters who are actually permitted to do things are the ones with mindsets modern first world nerds can more easily comprehend.
This is legitimately a significant drawback of the genre.
Though part of the problem is that there just aren't that many good authors
in the genre, because it's a small freaking genre and dominated by fanfiction writers. Yudkowsky himself is very good at writing stories
within the conventions of that genre but at the expense of overall literary talent. Isaac Asimov had a similar balance of strengths and weaknesses as a fiction writer back in the 20th century- and if anything he had an even worse case of Yudkowsky Writing Syndrome than Yudkowsky does.
Just wanted to say thanks for saying what I wanted to in the other thread. Like, the example I have of Like Skywalker also seems to have gone completely ignored.
The rational choice is to finish your training and go face Vader afterwards.
The not rational choice is to listen to your dumb early 20s emotions and go charging off into the unknown with a blaster and a laser sword and almost get killed trying to fight the evil overlord who is also your dad.
Luke does the latter. Does that make him a bad character? If we go by Yudkowsky's POV, then yes.
I thought about a response to that when I read it, but kind of didn't have time at the right time.
Yes,
if you think that Yoda's warnings are truly reliable, the rational response is to complete your training. And Luke's story is,
right there in that one place, less compelling if you don't have him run off to Bespin.
On the other hand, that doesn't mean that by having Luke complete his training, you've automatically created a version of Star Wars that is lesser-than when compared to Lucas' version. It's just different.
...
Now, this wouldn't entirely work with the pacing of the movies, but as a plot...
Yoda counsels Luke differently: "Underestimate your friends not. Even without training in the Force, resourceful they are. Especially- your sister."
"...I have a sister?"
So they give him a redacted version of his own backstory- still keeping the fatherhood thing secret, because
rationally they know this is one of his big red buttons and they want him willing to kill Vader. The assholes.
...
Lando Calrissian betrays Vader's stormtroopers in a heroic act of resistance. Lando, Leia, and Chewie work together to escape. They outmaneuver Vader somehow. Leia, somehow, traps him in a way he cannot easily escape, stopping him from personally giving chase- at least for long enough to get away. They escape in the
Millennium Falcon without Luke's help. Events unfold as in canon, with Han going to Jabba and so on.
Luke completes his training and reunites with the others. They need information on where Han was taken, and other relevant facts like curious gaps in the Imperial war budget that hint at some new superweapon. They go to get this information. Vader shows up again.
Luke matches Vader in power because he's trained, and Vader actually breaks out the "I am your father" line because
he's starting to lose. Luke is conflicted. Vader escapes, exploiting Luke's moment of weakness to sabotage the heroes' goal and/or injure Luke.
Now we have a Luke who is strong enough that his
ability to kill Vader is not in question... but he's still conflicted about killing his father because, well, family is important to a double-orphaned boy who grew up under the conditions Luke grew up under. People point out to him that Vader has committed horrible atrocities, but this is the kind of conflict that a Rational Fic character can have and have it work, in my opinion.
...
The scene back on Dagobah is all the more piercing because Luke has in a real sense been all the more betrayed. Yoda and Obi-Wan told him his backstory
but left out this critical fact. Luke cannot help but distrust them and feel as if he's being used- which becomes a key component of what makes it a real moral quandary when the Emperor offers him a place at his side as his trusted lieutenant and adoptive heir.
...
Now, we can fiddle around with details of the 'rescue Han' sideplot, things like that, but the core point is, there are ways to make the story compelling without
specifically writing it around Luke doing the reckless thing for the sake of saving his friends.
Realistically, Yudkowsky or someone like him wouldn't do as good a job as Lucas overall- but that's due to the inherent limitations of Yudkowsky's artistic skill, not because you can't tell good stories where the protagonist avoids making reckless choices.
EDIT: Reread the Yudkowsky quote to make sure I didn't miss something. He blames Thorin despairing on the Hollywood writers and posits a "more intelligent" Thorin who solves the riddle among other things.
Except even in the source material it's Bilbo who solves the riddle when the rest of the party is despairing over having traveled all this way and nothing to show for it. They don't even want to search for the door when they see the ruins of Dale until Bilbo prods them into it and are contemplating sending Bilbo and the Ring through the front gate when Bilbo sees the thrush knocking.
Like, the Jackson Hobbit films aren't great but they translated the feeling and mood of that part of the book into that scene fairly well, even if book Thorin doesn't have a full on Byronic tantrum about it.
I think the big thing here is that Yudkowsky is describing a genre where Byronic heroes are viewed as high-faluting types who, when the chips are down, don't really have what it takes. It's, well, anti-romantic. And that's a valid criticism... but it's the kind of criticism that is counter-criticized by "romanticism isn't the only way to write stories either."
