Remove ads

SV has an even problem

Power fantasies are intrinsic to quests. Even the basic total agency afforded to voters over the main character or mechanism of movement is a power fantasy, leaving aside it being a power fantasy in the quest. That's fine because quests could not function without that agency. But it also obviously lends itself to power fantasies and rejects loss of agency much louder than even popular fanfiction. It has to, because to do otherwise would make it a terrible quest. Even the most railroady quests give the illusion of choice and don't explicitly take it away from the player, or constrain those choices within specific turns on the railway.

It has this in common with video games. Bioshock took narrative control away from the player, but its genius in the central conceit of agency was that the player did everything freely following the instructions of Atlas, and that became the basis of their mind control. It wasn't "built into" the mechanics. You weren't literally forced to do what Atlas said by the game taking control of your character from you until the actual cinematics about it. A game where you actually had no control in the broadest sense of actually being able to play it wouldn't be a game at all, because the whole point is that one way or another it's interactive. That, again, lends itself to power fantasies, but it's obvious games are a very big medium and there are many games that despite giving control to you don't 'feel' like a power fantasy at all.

It's just that games are big and have been around a long time, quests have not, and there are very few metaquests that explore questing as a medium, because it's so small.
 
@logiccosmic
Thanks for posting this, I've noticed the problem too.

It's more a problem with the source material getting written into the fanfiction/getting written into works it wasn't in as fanfiction. The things most of the users on this website like often have hyper-competent main characters, so fanfiction gets written with hyper-competent main characters.

So power fantasy fanfics get written because the people on this website like power fantasies. It's not so much a problem in terms of it being a thing (unless you get into the mindset it can lead someone to develop) as it is being an over-saturation problem. The solution is/would be to write non-power fantasy fanfics. It looks like some people are already advertising some of those here.

To sum it up: there's nothing inherently wrong with power fantasies, SV just has lots and lots of them compared to other kinds of fanfiction and if people don't like that they should write non-power fantasies to even it out. Or pay @Strypgia apparently.
 
Pandemonious Ivy said:
Has the demographics meme been worn out yet? I'm feeling a tickle in my throat.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
i dunno are you in the right D E M O G R A P H I C to stop experiencing this meme?

i think not!

Fandom Lord said:
Seeing as it was a particularly dishonest misrepresentation of the actual argument in the thread on which this is based, it was dead before it was born.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

psssssssst, that's not your queue to complain about things that happen in other threads.
 
Last edited:
Chloe Sullivan said:
The one psych professor I had who actually talked about it say he's fairly certain that the ventilation theory of anger management is total bullshit.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I mean, all I've heard on the topic so far has made it pretty clear it's horseshit. In fact, "venting" might actually make your anger problems worse, as it can increase the psychological arousal of expressing anger, increase aggressiveness against others, and "teach" you how to be more angry.

Article:
Express it. A second approach to deal with anger is to express it. This view treats anger as a kind of inner pressure or corrosive substance that builds up over time inside the person and does harm unless it is released. Catharsis theory fits in this second approach because it holds that expressing anger produces a healthy release of emotion and is therefore good for the psyche. Catharsis theory, which can be traced back through Sigmund Freud to Aristotle, is elegant and appealing. Unfortunately, scientific evidence shows that venting one's anger only makes things worse. Venting harms the self and others. Expressing anger is also linked to higher risk of heart disease,[7] just like stiffing it inside. However, expressing anger has another drawback—it increases aggression against others.[8] Even among people who believe in the value of venting and catharsis, and even when people enjoy their venting and feel some satisfaction from it, aggression becomes more likely after venting, even against innocent bystanders.[9]

One variation of venting is intense physical exercise. When angry, some people go running or try some other form of physical exercise such as kickboxing. Research shows that although physical exercise is good for your heart, it is not good for reducing anger.[10] The reason physical exercise doesn't work is that it increases rather than decreases physiological arousal, such as heart rate and blood pressure. When people become angry, their physiological arousal increases. (It is possible, however, that prolonged exercise will eventually reduce anger, if it continues until the person is extremely tired—because then the arousal is finally dispersed and people feel too exhausted to aggress.)

To use another analogy, venting anger is like using gasoline to put out a fire: It just feeds the flame. Venting keeps arousal levels high and keeps aggressive thoughts and angry feelings alive. Maybe you have heard of the joke, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" The answer is: "Practice! Practice! Practice!" My question to you is: "How do you become an angry, aggressive person?" The answer is the same: "Practice! Practice! Practice!" Venting is just practicing how to behave more aggressively, such as by hitting, kicking, screaming, and shouting.

This is a pretty interesting article!
 
Stormwhite said:
Okay, but like...why does it have to stay true to the 'essence' of the original work. Putting aside what 'essence of the original work' even is for a moment, like...let's take a look at @EarthScorpion 's Worm fanfic, for example. It doesn't really use much of anything from the original Worm, other than some names and general ideas. It's clearly not original fiction.

But I wouldn't class Imago as staying true to Worm, at all. Why should it have to?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I think fanfiction has to engage with the original work in some fashion and Imago definitely does that given that in many ways it's a repudiation of the themes Wildbow emphasized.

I think that a lot of fanfiction engages in that fashion. And it's a perfectly valid method to write.

But there's a difference between a repudiation of themes and curbstomp fiction and I think a lot of power fantasy tends towards the latter.
 
logiccosmic said:
SV idolizes power. That's the simple truth. It's more complex than that; it's the easy resolution of problems, the veneer of competency, and much more. But, the issue is, what does the story become about? Is it just a series of punch the man downs? Or does it devolve into fluff with no purpose? (Not to say fluff is bad, or a story expressly going for fluff is bad either). Yes, this is an oversimplification of the topic, but that's why I want to have this discussion, so we can talk about it honestly. And I'm 100% guilty of it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

My absolute most popular fic is one of Taylor having the power of Kung Fu and beating the shit out of nearly everyone in Brockton Bay.
My second most popular fic is one of Taylor going off the rails with FIRE, CATHARTIC FIRE! and the burnination of most of Brockton Bay.
My favourite fic to write is one about a birdgirl SI who fell in love with Taylor but then after taking her place in the Golden Morning since Khepri wasn't an option, was flung into the Mass Effect universe, where we explore her loss, how she struggles to deal with it, and the everlasting question of 'Can I bear to make friends knowing that as soon as I can find a way home to my lover, I'm going to abandon them for her?' and other extended character arcs and development.

Even at it's most popular, the climax of an epic plot point, my favourite fic to write came in at about 2/3's as popular as the 1k word filler chapter of Sophia having a panic attack over realising Taylor's a kung fu cape and that she's falling head over heels for 'prey'. (I suppose one fun note about that chapter is Sophia's sexual orientation isn't even in question for her at all, just the fact that she sees the girl she has a crush on as prey).
My favourite fic to write is also losing readers with every update, and I can't tell if that's because of issues (so few people ever speak up about why they stop reading, and given how many people have stopped reading, this would be... well, frankly, invaluable. We can't improve if we don't know what we're doing wrong), or just attrition due to size. Which leads me to believe pacing issues. Which makes me think we might be able to get readers back by condensing several chapters into just one post, but that's... that wouldn't work well for a number of reasons I really shouldn't go into here because I'm derailing myself enough as it is (and aren't Eye good at that?).

So, as I see it, if you want a fic to be popular, you've basically got a small checklist/flowchart of things to go through:
Will the fic be violent? Go all out, damn the consequences, Here Be Dragons style. Taylor should not find any challenge worth her time short of Endbringers!
Will the fic be fluffy? Everyone will be friends, or converted. Include some chibification of things for that exotic AU flavour. Endbringers are a favourite. The conflict will have consequences, but it will be near zero.
Will the fic be comedy? Just go straight up crack. Walking on Corpses, The TECHNO QUEEN (*krakathoom*), that one fic where Taylor's parents steal Contessa's hat collection, I Wanna Be The Goat.

Admittedly I'm not reading as much stuff as I used to, and mostly stick to the Worm fandom when I do (as you could probably guess from my examples...), but SV seems to prefer... simpler things? I'm fairly sure I'm just rambling unnecessarily at this point, but I recently watched this great video that discusses the Ratchet and Clank games, how the original was so great, and how the reboot lost everything that made the original great, and I can't help but think it might be useful here?


Readers are confusing. And quite often concerning.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
But there's a difference between a repudiation of themes and curbstomp fiction and I think a lot of power fantasy tends towards the latter.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think that's why curbstomp fanfiction tends to involve crossovers and/or adding new things to the source material. Rather than be limited to 'winning' with just the power levels of the source material, the power fantasy author wants to 'win' by that much more.
It's the difference between defeating Voldemort with normal Harry Potter universe powers and curbstomping Voldemort while piloting Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
 
i will be fighting this battle until i die apparently
Arthur Frayn said:
Perhaps "genre" is a better label than "medium", but saying "We live in a world of fan fiction because Marvel Movies and The Force Awakens" is to rob the word "fan fiction" of any meaning; you're conflating adaptations/interpretations with fan fiction on the grounds that they're both ostensibly inspired by an existing work. What differentiates fan fiction is right there in the name; it's un-official stories being written by fans.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Calling it a "genre" is equally problematic, because when you actually dig into it, it has no similarities with any other kind of genre. Comedies are a genre because of an affect of storytelling, that of making people laugh. Fantasy is a genre because of the story elements that comprise something. Musicals are a genre because music in the play or film is directly how the story is advanced. These are all genres that describe the "what" the text is by itself. Meanwhile, what makes something fan-fiction is its relationship to another text - that's completely different.

You say that because something has an "official" corporate stamp it can't be fanfiction, and if it doesn't it is. Yet I'm sure we can all find plenty of, say, Warhammer 40k or Star Wars EU or Dungeons & Dragons novels that are complete garbage that sunder the actual setting, and can meanwhile find "un-official" fanworks that are vastly more true to the themes and characterization of the original text it's based off of.

Dividing fanfiction up by "has a corporate stamp, or doesn't" is entirely arbitrary and is allowing capitalism to define the very nature of what art can be.
TFA might have a plot that leans a little too hard on ANH but saying that it's effectively indistinguishable from fan fiction is ridiculous. There is a literal world of difference between something like Captain America: Civil War (which draws its primary inspiration from the comic run of the same name) and a fan written story on AO3 (that's the abbreviation, right?). Even if we disregard IP laws (which always always always come up when people want to defend fan fiction), Civil War is a film that's re-interpreting a story from one medium to another (comic to film) and is using the original story as a springboard to tell another one. I don't doubt that there's the .0000001% of fan fiction that manages to make that leap and bring something new to the table, but to defend fan fiction as a whole by claiming that the Marvel movies, the new Star Wars films, etc. are effectively the same is no defense at all.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Let's see how your definition engages with some works in the literary canon and more popular media as well. From your own words: "What differentiates fan fiction is right there in the name; it's un-official stories being written by fans."

Wide Sargasso Sea is, a prequel to Jane Eyre written over a hundred years later by a different author, is
  • "Non-offical" work, because Brontë was long since dead at its time of publication, and Jane Eyre in the public domain.
  • Written by a fan of the original novel.
QED, Wide Sargasso Sea is fanfiction.

Applying this to the Star Wars EU novel of series "The New Jedi Order" by Troy Denning, "The New Jedi Order" is,
  • "Non-offical" work, because Disney has acquired Lucasfilm and decreed all the old EU material must go.
  • Written by a fan of the original films.
However, before Disney took over, it was "official" - therefore something has been changed from non-fanfiction into fanfiction even though absolutely nothing in any of the works changed. All that happened was some people that manage the Star Wars IP waved their hands. If your definition of what is and is not fanfiction can be changed at a literal whim, perhaps it's got some issues.
Moreover, what I meant by "shallow" was two fold, and it's not really related to how stories are written out (more on that in a second); what I meant was that almost all fan fiction, even that rare .00000001% that manages to bring something new to the table, is indulgent. It's rooted in a desire to get more of something you love, a desire to spend more time with characters you like, to see them fuck, to have them hang out with you, to have them fuck you, etc. Unless you're sitting down to write a story that's deliberately going to upend and critically examine a setting, fan fiction is about baking yourself a chocolate cake and then eating it. It's borderline masturbatory (and I mean that literally), and while I don't think there's anything wrong with that (sometimes you want to see these characters bone or do goofy shit, I get it) fan fiction is likewise restricted by the fact that it has to somehow stay "true" to the essence of the original work. What that means is that the characters get reduced to caricatures, because the reader needs to immediately understand "Oh yeah, this is that character I love doing that thing I love!" Again, there's nothing wrong with this, but it is an inherently shallow and indulgent approach to storytelling.

Basically, there's nothing wrong with fan fiction being a big dumb gooey chocolate cake, but we shouldn't try to legitimize it or say that it's the equal of the original work. This is what bothers me so much about things like headcanons and the like; it's elevating the individuals relation to and interpretation of a work above the original, which is (IMO) completely backwards.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Dante's Divine Comedy is,
  • "Non-offical" work, because hey, it didn't end up in the Bible.
  • Written by a fan of the original - what with Dante being a Christian and all.
Oh, would you look at that - it's fanfiction QED your own definition. Again.

And, hey, remember that time in Dante went down into Hell and saw his rivals all being tortured and heard people waxing about how he was the shit? And how it's drawing from the Bible but absolutely none of that is in there? God, what trashy SI!IRL!OOC!OC!bashfic it is! What fools we have been all this time. Hmm. I guess someone will have to tell every literature department that has ever taught and teaches it that it's actually shallow artless nonsense.

Your definition is brittle, reductive, unwieldy and sanctimonious. It gives nonsense outputs quite easily, as I have demonstrated - and, well, I'm just going to quote myself from another thread on this topic:
Rook said:
Let me explain my attitude like this.

I don't have a hard line where something stops being "meaningfully fanfiction". I can't define that for you. But I can say my line encompasses a lot more than yours.

I consider the Superman mythology to consist almost entirely of fanfiction. I consider Wide Sargasso Sea to be fanfiction. I consider much of Shakespeare to be fanfiction. But according to you, I guess Julius Caesar is bad because he didn't make sure to stick as closely as possible to Oliver North's translations of Herodotus. I'll be sure to let Neil Gaiman know most everything he's done with Norse mythology is wrong, too, while we're at it, but oh wait he's just ripping off shitty Christianized bashfic. Everyone knows Loki has no association with fire and brimstone, Biblical demons GTFO.

Yes, these are all in their own ways different from fanfiction as it is normally thought of, for various reasons. Most contemporary what-we-would-call fanfiction isn't concerned with being a self-functional text (there are, however, plenty of examples to the contrary, even on this very website - this is important); most fanfiction is written either for purely the sake of the writer, or for them and other fans of a specific text; in this regard there are substantial differences and the definition doesn't cohere all these things entirely. But it holds well, and I most definitely will hold to it.

Transformative fanfiction can be good art. It can be great art. If you open your mind a little, it - bluntly - is a staggeringly large amount of great art throughout human history, and I dare say comprises the lifeblood of cultural continuum.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
In the arts, definitions are tools. We use them to shape our understandings of things, like lenses to give us interesting new perspectives. Apply them to familiar things to make them seem different. Definitions are fluid by necessity because we're always changing as people. I may not think what I do in one year or ten or thirty. It's entirely possible to disagree with me and hold your own, different definition, but the one you have right now is bad and it's limiting and there's a whole new way to think about things right here.

Just be open to it.
 
Last edited:
Rook said:
If your definition of what is and is not fanfiction can be changed at a literal whim, perhaps it's got some issues.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Meh, canon's been tied to ownership for about as long as private property has existed.
"Canon" is like freedom of speech: it only exists because enough people agree it does and those same people don't agree on what it actually is. And money has lots of power over it.

It's not like fans haven't declared things non-canon even when the creator claims they are.
 
Rook said:
i will be fighting this battle until i die apparently

Calling it a "genre" is equally problematic, because when you actually dig into it, it has no similarities with any other kind of genre. Comedies are a genre because of an affect of storytelling, that of making people laugh. Fantasy is a genre because of the story elements that comprise something. Musicals are a genre because music in the play or film is directly how the story is advanced. These are all genres that describe the "what" the text is by itself. Meanwhile, what makes something fan-fiction is its relationship to another text - that's completely different.

You say that because something has an "official" corporate stamp it can't be fanfiction, and if it doesn't it is. Yet I'm sure we can all find plenty of, say, Warhammer 40k or Star Wars EU or Dungeons & Dragons novels that are complete garbage that sunder the actual setting, and can meanwhile find "un-official" fanworks that are vastly more true to the themes and characterization of the original text it's based off of.

Dividing fanfiction up by "has a corporate stamp, or doesn't" is entirely arbitrary and is allowing capitalism to define the very nature of what art can be.

Let's see how your definition engages with some works in the literary canon and more popular media as well. From your own words: "What differentiates fan fiction is right there in the name; it's un-official stories being written by fans."

Wide Sargasso Sea is, a prequel to Jane Eyre written over a hundred years later by a different author, is
  • "Non-offical" work, because Brontë was long since dead at its time of publication, and Jane Eyre in the public domain.
  • Written by a fan of the original novel.
QED, Wide Sargasso Sea is fanfiction.

Applying this to the Star Wars EU novel of series "The New Jedi Order" by Troy Denning, "The New Jedi Order" is,
  • "Non-offical" work, because Disney has acquired Lucasfilm and decreed all the old EU material must go.
  • Written by a fan of the original films.
However, before Disney took over, it was "official" - therefore something has been changed from non-fanfiction into fanfiction even though absolutely nothing in any of the works changed. All that happened was some people that manage the Star Wars IP waved their hands. If your definition of what is and is not fanfiction can be changed at a literal whim, perhaps it's got some issues.

Dante's Divine Comedy is,
  • "Non-offical" work, because hey, it didn't end up in the Bible.
  • Written by a fan of the original - what with Dante being a Christian and all.
Oh, would you look at that - it's fanfiction QED your own definition. Again.

And, hey, remember that time in Dante went down into Hell and saw his rivals all being tortured and heard people waxing about how he was the shit? And how it's drawing from the Bible but absolutely none of that is in there? God, what trashy SI!IRL!OOC!OC!bashfic it is! What fools we have been all this time. Hmm. I guess someone will have to tell every literature department that has ever taught and teaches it that it's actually shallow artless nonsense.

Your definition is brittle, reductive, unwieldy and sanctimonious. It gives nonsense outputs quite easily, as I have demonstrated - and, well, I'm just going to quote myself from another thread on this topic:

In the arts, definitions are tools. We use them to shape our understandings of things, like lenses to give us interesting new perspectives. Apply them to familiar things to make them seem different. Definitions are fluid by necessity because we're always changing as people. I may not think what I do in one year or ten or thirty. It's entirely possible to disagree with me and hold your own, different definition, but the one you have right now is bad and it's limiting and there's a whole new way to think about things right here.

Just be open to it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

 
Fandom Lord said:
Meh, canon's been tied to ownership for about as long as private property has existed.
"Canon" is like freedom of speech: it only exists because enough people agree it does and those same people don't agree on what it actually is. And money has lots of power over it.

It's not like fans haven't declared things non-canon even when the creator claims they are.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...


Why are you defining 'fanfiction' as tied to ownership? If something enters the public domain, do all its derivative works retroactively stop being fanfiction?
 
Fernandel said:
I mean, all I've heard on the topic so far has made it pretty clear it's horseshit. In fact, "venting" might actually make your anger problems worse, as it can increase the psychological arousal of expressing anger, increase aggressiveness against others, and "teach" you how to be more angry.

Article:
Express it. A second approach to deal with anger is to express it. This view treats anger as a kind of inner pressure or corrosive substance that builds up over time inside the person and does harm unless it is released. Catharsis theory fits in this second approach because it holds that expressing anger produces a healthy release of emotion and is therefore good for the psyche. Catharsis theory, which can be traced back through Sigmund Freud to Aristotle, is elegant and appealing. Unfortunately, scientific evidence shows that venting one's anger only makes things worse. Venting harms the self and others. Expressing anger is also linked to higher risk of heart disease,[7] just like stiffing it inside. However, expressing anger has another drawback—it increases aggression against others.[8] Even among people who believe in the value of venting and catharsis, and even when people enjoy their venting and feel some satisfaction from it, aggression becomes more likely after venting, even against innocent bystanders.[9]

One variation of venting is intense physical exercise. When angry, some people go running or try some other form of physical exercise such as kickboxing. Research shows that although physical exercise is good for your heart, it is not good for reducing anger.[10] The reason physical exercise doesn't work is that it increases rather than decreases physiological arousal, such as heart rate and blood pressure. When people become angry, their physiological arousal increases. (It is possible, however, that prolonged exercise will eventually reduce anger, if it continues until the person is extremely tired—because then the arousal is finally dispersed and people feel too exhausted to aggress.)

To use another analogy, venting anger is like using gasoline to put out a fire: It just feeds the flame. Venting keeps arousal levels high and keeps aggressive thoughts and angry feelings alive. Maybe you have heard of the joke, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" The answer is: "Practice! Practice! Practice!" My question to you is: "How do you become an angry, aggressive person?" The answer is the same: "Practice! Practice! Practice!" Venting is just practicing how to behave more aggressively, such as by hitting, kicking, screaming, and shouting.

This is a pretty interesting article!
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I'm going to have to in and read the whole thing because personal experience calls bullshit, but that is neither here nor there.

On to the reason for this thread. As someone else said, most people have a problem writing a character as they are at the time you place the story, not what they become by the end. I can't say I'm quite able to bypass this, but this is part of the reason the one story I'm writing centers more around the SI than the established characters or, when I hit worlds that I can do it in, OC's. Does the SI have more power than he should? At times yes, due to setup he damn well has more general knowledge. But at the same time I can admit i screw up characters. @Chloe Sullivan can verify this and set me straight when it happened. I changed a good bit of a fairly large scene because of what was said about it, and I am thankful for the help.
 
Stormwhite said:
Why are you defining 'fanfiction' as tied to ownership? If something enters the public domain, do all its derivative works retroactively stop being fanfiction?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Because the person seen as the 'owner' is given legitimacy when it comes to how people see canon? It ties into the second part about canon only existing because people agree it does.
 
Fandom Lord said:
Because the person seen as the 'owner' is given legitimacy when it comes to how people see canon? It ties into the second part about canon only existing because people agree it does.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Okay, but why is canon relevant. Why is whether something is fanfiction or not relevant to its value? Ultimately art is art, it doesn't matter if it's derivative because like, ninety-nine percent of media is derivative in some shape or form.
 
Stormwhite said:
Okay, but why is canon relevant. Why is whether something is fanfiction or not relevant to its value? Ultimately art is art, it doesn't matter if it's derivative because like, ninety-nine percent of media is derivative in some shape or form.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I didn't say it was. It's not relevant to its value. I was just commenting on your comment on what canon even is.
 
Fandom Lord said:
Meh, canon's been tied to ownership for about as long as private property has existed.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
No, not really. The idea that an author owns their story, directly and absolutely, is historically speaking a rather new concept. It comes out of Romantic notions of individual genius and originality, and the late-capitalist conception of intellectual property that came with the rise of large publishing houses, and posits artists as businesspeople selling intangibles. But for the vast majority of history, once a story was written large parts of it were essentially public domain. Authors would write stories about characters conceived by other people pretty much freely;

"When Virgil wrote The Aeneid, he didn't invent Aeneas; Aeneas was a minor character in Homer's Odyssey whose unauthorized further adventures Virgil decided to chronicle. Shakespeare didn't invent Hamlet and King Lear; he plucked them from historical and literary sources. Writers weren't the originators of the stories they told; they were just the temporary curators of them. Real creation was something the gods did." - Lev Grossman, How Harry Potter Became The Boy Who Lived Forever.
 
Last edited:
Imrix said:
No, not really. The idea that an author owns their story, directly and absolutely, is historically speaking a rather new concept. It comes out of Romantic notions of individual genius and originality, and the late-capitalist conception of intellectual property that came with the rise of large publishing houses, and posits artists as businesspeople selling intangibles. But for the vast majority of history, once a story was written large parts of it were essentially public domain. Authors would write stories about characters conceived by other people pretty much freely;

"When Virgil wrote The Aeneid, he didn't invent Aeneas; Aeneas was a minor character in Homer's Odyssey whose unauthorized further adventures Virgil decided to chronicle. Shakespeare didn't invent Hamlet and King Lear; he plucked them from historical and literary sources. Writers weren't the originators of the stories they told; they were just the temporary curators of them. Real creation was something the gods did." - Lev Grossman.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You're being more literal than I meant.
 
Tada Taro said:
But even then, the amount of power given to the main characters in your typical power fantasy can be too much. This reminds me of a quote by a great poet:

"No man should have all that power"
- Kanye West, Power​
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

No one man should have all that power, actually! (Everyone should have it).

Don't mangle it, because West spent 5000 hours writing this song!

Actually, I respond in jest, but this new view of the quote does have interesting and relevant implications for the oft-suggested fix to power fantasies -- that is, not to dumb down your protags, but rather, to "level up" other characters.
 
Last edited:
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top