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at some point suspension of belief has to be given for 'this should be interpreted as the character's flaw, not the writer's'
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Mar 18, 2015 05:01
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I know Yud isn't endorsing what's being said in this instance and is wanting to make Malfoy look bad there, but it's still awful writing. It makes no sense for him to be talking that way. Maybe it would fit in the mouth of a raunchy teen, but not in a snooty 10-year old's.
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Mar 18, 2015 05:16
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I hate to burst anyone's tender illusions, but an eleven-year-old making an offhanded declaration of rape is far from impossible. I've heard it more then once with my own ears. It doesn't even have to come from sociopaths, it's well within the possible range for even moderately dispossessed children. Generally they do it for pretty much the same reason Draco is doing it here, to sound adult and shock/impress male peers. As for the author's probable intent, to show that Draco is evil, that's something Rowling herself struggled with. http://time.com/3644311/jk-rowling-harry-potter-draco-malfoy/ posted:“I have often had cause to remark on how unnerved I have been by the number of girls who fell for this particular fictional character (although I do not discount the appeal of Tom Felton, who plays Draco brilliantly in the films and, ironically, is about the nicest person you will ever meet,” Rowling writes. “Draco has all the dark glamour of the anti-hero; girls are very apt to romanticise such people. All of this left me in the unenviable position of pouring cold common sense on ardent readers’ daydreams, as I told them, rather severely, that Draco was not concealing a heart of gold under all that sneering.” A hard bitchslap like this, especially considering how dense his readers proved in accepting another character was evil, is arguably necessary. I thought that this was the problem people were having, they were blinded by their own naive delusions of the purity of childhood. Then I remembered what Harry's reaction was.  On the plus side for JKWS, I'm pretty sure this is the only time Luna is ever mentioned. I can provide a REALLY unpleasant interpretation of her if anyone wants. 
Added Space fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Mar 18, 2015 |
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Mar 18, 2015 05:46
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i81icu812 posted:This is not the part that was edited. So something was even worse and got edited out! We haven't actually seen the edited part yet, which incidentally was edited for completely different reasons.
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Mar 18, 2015 05:58
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Added Space posted:I can provide a REALLY unpleasant interpretation of her if anyone wants.  Also, I don't get the Comed-Tea. Not the concept, I understand it perfectly well. I just don't get what kind of silly joke the name is supposed to evoke or why it's named the Comed-Tea. If it's supposed to be a name that's a joke off of comedy, then the "d" in Comed-Tea really wrecks the humor and just leaves me confused as heck.
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Mar 18, 2015 06:00
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reignonyourparade posted:We haven't actually seen the edited part yet, which incidentally was edited for completely different reasons. Yep! Something to look forward to! i81icu812 fucked around with this message at 06:09 on Mar 18, 2015 |
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Mar 18, 2015 06:06
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nm, figured it out
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Mar 18, 2015 06:12
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Mar 18, 2015 06:22
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posted:
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Why?
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Mar 18, 2015 06:30
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Is that something that Eliezer wrote too?
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Mar 18, 2015 06:41
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JosephWongKS posted:Is that something that Eliezer wrote too? No, no. Link if you really want it:   http://www.fimfiction.net/story/14011/1/in-a-strange-land/prologue-defeat
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Mar 18, 2015 06:48
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Added Space posted:No, no. Link if you really want it: First comment I saw when I clicked on the link was: quote:
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Mar 18, 2015 06:51
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That's okay! Eliezer wrote his own MLP fanfiction  It features a perfect AI seducing the human race into a VR world. The protagonist gets an achievement for taking his partner's virginity.You're welcome/I'm sorry. VV Oh was it? Ah well. Seraphic Neoman fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Mar 18, 2015 |
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Mar 18, 2015 06:53
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Added Space posted:No, no. Link if you really want it: So, what the hell does this have to do with anything, then? Is this by one of the guy's fans? Also, I thought that AI MLP fanfic was by one of Elizier's fans, not him, if I recall from the LessWrong Mockthread.
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Mar 18, 2015 06:53
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Oh, did I neglect to mention the above conversation contained Harry Potter telepathically communicating with his six wives while talking to a human Twilight Sparkle who was insecure about her new bust size? Also, Luna later assess the sexual desirability of said naked, injured, unconscious teens.  e: Sorry for the derail, just felt like spreading the pain. Added Space fucked around with this message at 07:09 on Mar 18, 2015 |
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Mar 18, 2015 06:55
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Added Space posted:I hate to burst anyone's tender illusions, but an eleven-year-old making an offhanded declaration of rape is far from impossible. I've heard it more then once with my own ears. It doesn't even have to come from sociopaths, it's well within the possible range for even moderately dispossessed children. Generally they do it for pretty much the same reason Draco is doing it here, to sound adult and shock/impress male peers. If you say so, I'll believe you. Back in grade school the furthest stuff like that went among my classmates was just cursing a lot on the bus and during lunchtime.
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Mar 18, 2015 06:56
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Chapter 7 – Reciprocation Part Nine quote:
At least Harry is still of sufficiently sound mind and morality to be shocked by Draco’s threat / desire to rape Luna “as soon as [he’s] old enough. quote:
And he’s outraged about the wizarding world’s corruption. Good. quote:
I take back what I wrote about Malfoy being Eliezer’s secondary self-insert – he’s clearly also there for the purpose of making Harry look better / more heroic. That said, Harry’s still much more concerned about keeping in the good books of a would-be rapist than with denouncing / distancing himself from the would-be rapist, so I don’t think Harry actually comes off as well as Eliezer clearly intends. Also, if you feel the need to use rape or threatened rape to make your protagonist look better, you are a terribly lazy writer and possibly a terrible person as well.
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Mar 18, 2015 07:18
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Using rape as a tittering schoolboy swear was mildly popular in my youth. Usually used as "you got raped," or "I'm going to rape you" in the sense of someone getting trounced in a competition. Though it was sometimes used in the same manner as it was in this story, such as "she's so annoying, I'd love to rape her to teach her a lesson." Kids are shitheads. Kids also usually don't fully understand the full implications of their statements.
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Mar 18, 2015 07:20
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JosephWongKS posted:What. And...this is the guy...Yud wants Harry to hang out with?
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Mar 18, 2015 07:23
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Pvt.Scott posted:Using rape as a tittering schoolboy swear was mildly popular in my youth. Usually used as "you got raped," or "I'm going to rape you" in the sense of someone getting trounced in a competition. Though it was sometimes used in the same manner as it was in this story, such as "she's so annoying, I'd love to rape her to teach her a lesson." Kids are shitheads. Kids also usually don't fully understand the full implications of their statements. I think he loses a bit of the benefit of this by then having the character launch into 'And here's how you get away with pretty much any crime if you're sufficiently connected in magical Britian.' Also, I think this is intended, also, to show that the Wizarding World is backwards and 'Never Had An Enlightenment' (I believe the edited out bit was in this passage, talking about how this was just like certain 'unenlightened' parts of the mundane world, by which I mean people who are not white and european/american) as well. He's using rape as a lovely character device to show how morally bankrupt and backwards wizards are and why they need Harry to save them, which is just lazy bullshit.
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Mar 18, 2015 07:26
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Pvt.Scott posted:
Perhaps, but in this case I'd argue that Eliezer's Draco has given much thought to and does understand the full implications of his rape threat: quote:
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Mar 18, 2015 07:27
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Yeah, I wasn't really trying to defend the writing, mostly just pointing out that this was "a thing" at some point in time in my slice of America. Did I read it wrong or did Harry suggest he and Draco murder someone to become better friends before Draco dropped the revenge rape bit?
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Mar 18, 2015 07:35
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Pvt.Scott posted:Yeah, I wasn't really trying to defend the writing, mostly just pointing out that this was "a thing" at some point in time in my slice of America. Did I read it wrong or did Harry suggest he and Draco murder someone to become better friends before Draco dropped the revenge rape bit? Yes. quote:
Though Harry later clarified that he was just speaking in jest: quote:
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Mar 18, 2015 07:49
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It's a lazy way of showing Draco's damaged brain, but mostly it's jarring coming from someone who's supposed to have been tutored in politics and manipulation, it's crude in every sense.
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Mar 18, 2015 08:40
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petrol blue posted:It's a lazy way of showing Draco's damaged brain, but mostly it's jarring coming from someone who's supposed to have been tutored in politics and manipulation, it's crude in every sense. Once again, Draco's vaunted tutoring (which Harry is in awe of) led to him directly going 'Hey, I'ma manipulate you now. WATCH THIS!' Harry, once again, is not a very smart lad. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 09:38 on Mar 18, 2015 |
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Mar 18, 2015 09:33
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:And...this is the guy...Yud wants Harry to hang out with? Later, Harry straight up stats that he's politically useful so he's trying to convert him into a good guy, because hey, if you could pick anyone to turn into a good guy, Lucius Malfoy's son will probably get you the most bang for your buck. A plot thread that evidently gets dropped with some of the revelations from the ending-chapter spoilers. HPMOR goes through seeming like its going to be three different stories as at it goes along and gets progressively weirder.
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Mar 18, 2015 09:56
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Even the D&D-meets-HP story got boring after a few chapters when the joke wore thin, I can't imagine reading this for the entire ludicrous wordcount. Godspeed.
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Mar 18, 2015 10:17
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reignonyourparade posted:HPMOR goes through seeming like its going to be three different stories as at it goes along and gets progressively weirder. I think that is actually one of its biggest problems, that Yudkowsky clearly had no idea where he was going with the plot and so it just sort of rambles on and on, dropping plot threads as he gets bored with them and never resolving anything, just moving on to the next thing.
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Mar 18, 2015 13:16
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Pierson posted:Even the D&D-meets-HP story got boring after a few chapters when the joke wore thin, I can't imagine reading this for the entire ludicrous wordcount. Godspeed. Honestly, the main reason I keep reading it is the cop subplot. Its a hella lot more interesting than munchkining 3.5 Tiggum posted:I think that is actually one of its biggest problems, that Yudkowsky clearly had no idea where he was going with the plot and so it just sort of rambles on and on, dropping plot threads as he gets bored with them and never resolving anything, just moving on to the next thing. Supposedly, he had the troll scene planned out three years in advance. I remember him talking about it afterwards, how he had this scene in his head for years, and how it took that long to get there. Course, that was the scene that made me stop reading. So.
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Mar 18, 2015 13:52
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So I've read through most of this thread and I'm curious about two things. First what is the motivation reaching for everything possible to complain about?. Like 99% of the complaints in this thread are things like: JosephWongKS posted:Rather gratuitous pandering to D&D fans here. And not even up-to-date pandering either - AD&D was released in 1989, and by the time Eliezer started writing HPMOR in 2010, D&D 4th Edition had already been out for 2 years. (Its referencing AD&D because the story takes place in 1990. I bet if he referenced 4th edition you would complain that it was anachronistic.) JosephWongKS posted:The Pouch of Holding shouldn’t have responded to “okane”, though. “Okane” is Japanese for “money”; for “gold” he should have said “kin”. ( His bag of gold is a bag of money.) Which are completely inane. You guys also extend the author absolutely no charity. Of course when you extend the author no charity the story comes off terrible. But you can do this for any story. So why this one? Reading worm, when Tattletale's power was first introduced I thought for a moment that it was ridiculous that she didn't realize Taylor intended on betraying then. Then I realized she probably did and was letting Taylor to abuse the knowledge of that somehow. This resulted in a very heartwarming conclusion that Lisa let Taylor onto the team simply because she could tell Taylor was suicidal and needed friends. Edit, you clearly understand this concept as you say: quote:Yes yes, the Quidditch scoring system is designed solely to let the Seeker (i.e. Harry) shine and is terrible for an IRL game. However, the scoring system is perfectly designed for a story centred on Harry, and that’s all that matters for the story. You do realize that many of your complaints are the exact same thing as about complaining Quidditch in JKR's books? It isn't a flaw of Rowling book's that Quidditch is a badly designed sport. Or that no one in the history of wizard kind ever realized that sacrificing your self from others protects them harm. Or that spells and magic items introduced in later books could have trivially resolved the plot in earlier books. Why didn't Dumbledore just go back in time with Hermione's time turner instead of sending two children back? If he had gone back he could have captured Pettigrew and saved Sirius. This isn't a "flaw" of the Prisoner of Azkaban. What matters is how these choices serve the story. Much of what you guys take HPMOR to task for, is like taking Rowling to task for the above. There are some really big things issues with HPMOR (Hermione), but 99% of this thread is just reaching for anything to pick at no matter how valid the complaint. Which leads to my second question: What is about this story that makes people so upset? angry? IDK but clearly there is a lot of hate for it and its not clear to me why. People keep referencing Harry's character flaws as making them angry or upset or something, but I don't see this level of contempt for the numerous other stories with lead characters who are even worse people. Thats not to say I don't see contempt for the characters, what I don't see is people taking the story to task because of it. I guess I just don't understand the motivation for the hate. Some one care to explain? I think the closest I've seen of this behavior before is Kvothe from the name of the wind. Kvothe seemed to really upset people in a similar manner, and I didn't understand there either. Legacyspy fucked around with this message at 14:40 on Mar 18, 2015 |
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Mar 18, 2015 14:27
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Legacyspy posted:You guys also extend the author absolutely no charity. I felt the same way as you do, the first time I encountered this story. Fairly optimistic and ready to suspend my disbelief. It never payed off.
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Mar 18, 2015 15:02
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Legacyspy posted:
Same reason you boo the villain in a pantomime.
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Mar 18, 2015 15:42
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tonberrytoby posted:Yudowsky wore out all the charity. That's pretty much how I felt. http://su3su2u1.tumblr.com/tagged/Hariezer-Yudotter/chrono If you look over the story as a whole you realize there were a lot of good ideas that were abandoned before being completely developed. The bulk of the story is ham-fisted "manipulation" which often ends with the characters going along with an obviously bad idea for little reason. There's also Harry preaching about science that's either shakily presented, not accepted, or made up by the author. Harry starts out as an annoying little poo poo with no friends and ends as an annoying little poo poo with no friends. The author tries to backpedal hard in the last few chapters by having Harry realize what a massive gently caress-up he's been, but after a half million words I'm no longer capable of caring. The author is intent on showing how smart Harry is, so reality bends to make his conjectures correct. This is the opposite of how science is supposed to function. The only development any character gets is to bring them closer to Harry's way of thinking. The world building the author tries to do is inconsistent and incomplete, so any attempt at cleverness comes off as the author bending his own unspoken rules to allow his pet character to succeed.
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Mar 18, 2015 15:52
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It's because the writing deserves no charity. With Rowling (and any, y'know, good books), I'm willing to suspend my disbelief because I'm enjoying it and I want to read more so I am willing to accept some silliness. There, however, are no redeeming factors for this. Or Patrick Rothfuss, since you mention that - it's not about the lead being portrayed as a bad person, on the contrary, it's about the entire loving world being presented in a way that makes the lead look like less of a poo poo - and that for no reason at all. Similarly, you could argue that nitpicking on the author's nitpicks is just fair treatment.
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Mar 18, 2015 16:33
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Also, JWKS threads are for mockery.
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Mar 18, 2015 16:43
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The point went over your head like loving sputnik and now it's just orbiting up there. The main problem with this whole work is that it, and its main character, serve as vehicles for the author's philosophy. Harry isn't portrayed as a remotely convincing eleven year old boy (or for that matter a human being), he is what the author needs from a mouthpiece in the current scene. He is supposed to be "enlightened" and "rational" but that boils down to him acting like an idiot while vomiting jargon everywhere; he only looks good because the author makes the world insane and the other characters stupid in order to polish his turd of a hero. Harry fails as a mouthpiece and as a character, but somehow these failings are supposed to excuse each other. The work wants to be judged as serious philosophical musings at one point and by the standards of a children's book at others, which leads to problems in pacing and tone.
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Mar 18, 2015 17:07
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Why are we making fun of this, rather than being forgiving? It's about magnitude of stupid and the quality of the writing. Other stories have terrible main characters (e.g., the characters in series like A Song of Ice and Fire are often horrible). But that's not everything to the character. There's usually something else redeeming about them - their humanity, their struggle with failures, their focus on a relatable goal, their sheer magnificent badassery (e.g. Tyrion Lannister), stuff like that. For instance, we like Frank Underwood in House of Cards even though he's a sociopath because he has moments of compassion, humanity, and an overall goal that we can get behind. His relationship with his wife is fascinating, he seems truly invested in his America Works program, and not just for the electoral benefits, he has limited loyalty, etc. Compare that to Yud's Harry, who has very limited moments of humanity (his discussion with his parents, which can be charming) and a whole lot of obnoxious better-than-thou snark. Unlike Frank, he's not self-aware that he sounds like a douche and he doesn't do it for effect. This is partly why I hate that fantasy series about the rapist leper, and didn't finish it. Sure, most of the series is about him being depressed and thinking he's a bad person. But if he's an unlikable person, why am I reading or caring about him? Anti-heroes work when there's a humanity to them and something identifiable about them. Think about the Watchmen heroes, Deadpool, Iron Man sometimes, Batman, etc. Furthermore, the quality of the writing makes a huge difference. Good writers can make very unlikable characters fun. That's another part of why we like the Lannisters (or at least reading about them) or Frank Underwood. Yud doesn't have that. He's got super jarring transitions, very little sense of character consistency, and to the extent that the spoilers imply he's just trying to 'foreshadow' some underlying secret in Harry's life, he's written it in a way that makes Harry read like a sociopath rather than hinting at the reveal. You can see the importance of writing when we figure out which of Harry's fourth-wall-breaking mental notes work, and which ones fall flat. For instance, his "Overthrow government of magical Britain at earliest convenience" comment. Standing alone, that's funny. But in context? Harry's horrified that Draco's actually planned how to get away with rape and perjury so that he can punish someone for writing newspaper headlines. A snarky checklist simultaneously diminishes the horror of rape and the crimes Draco's contemplating (yes, yes, teenagers say stupid poo poo like this all the time) and undermines Yud's claim that Harry is a truly good person who wouldn't actually condone Draco's conduct. Similarly, Yud's not in on the joke. Think about Frank Underwood and House of Cards, where it's clear that the writers and Kevin Spacey think that Frank's a terrible person. They occasionally give us signs that they realize he's bad, and that can help make the story tolerable. Or the Lannisters, who are bad people and George RR Martin knows they're bad people. In contrast, there are no signs of self-awareness here. Yud's writing makes it feel like he actually thinks that robot Bayesian rationality is the right answer (even when he doesn't properly apply it), and people have backed that up with references to his other writing. EDIT: I just had a thought about the "Teenagers joke about rape" thing. You could portray a teenager who told a rape joke, or even had a quasi-serious discussion about how to get away with rape, and still have that teenager be serious. Frankly, anyone who knows teenage boys who play games has heard rape jokes. But you know they're jokes, or that the discussion is purely theoretical, because you have other reasons to believe that the people in the discussion are still good people. That's why Draco comes across so poorly here - all Harry (and we) know about him is that he's rich, manipulative, and has a plausible rape scheme. BUT. But we don't know that Yud's Harry is also a good person. He's told us he's a good person, but we haven't seen him do anything to be a good person. (This is why show-not-tell is so important) Instead, we have seen Harry act in a way that's entirely consistent with the Malfoy rape plan. Think about what he's done: get a letter, force Hogwarts to prove magic exists, lie to people trying to help him, steal from a bank, scold people when he admits he's stolen money, be slightly charming around his parent, make a lot of promises inside his head, be rude to a bunch of people who are trying to be nice to him, manipulate them while he's doing it, be rude to Ron when Ron tries to be nice, and hang out with Draco even though Draco's being an rear end in a top hat. None of that suggests that Harry wouldn't hop on the rape train. Arcturas fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Mar 18, 2015 |
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Mar 18, 2015 18:29
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Just checking, but this is still the comedy forum somethingawful.com, right? A website founded on mocking the worst the internet has to offer?
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Mar 18, 2015 18:33
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JosephWongKS posted:That's the notorious / infamous part of Chapter 7 that you guys were talking about right? It can't get even worse than this, right? i81icu812 posted:Just checking, but this is still the comedy forum somethingawful.com, right? A website founded on mocking the worst the internet has to offer? Yeah, I've been reluctantly reading along because I feel like I need to keep an eye on the big threads in this forum, got to that post, my skin tried to crawl into my eyeballs, but then I went "well, this is Something Awful after all." Mocking the horrible is part of the mission statement.
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Mar 18, 2015 20:03
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Arcturas posted:A snarky checklist simultaneously diminishes the horror of rape and the crimes Draco's contemplating (yes, yes, teenagers say stupid poo poo like this all the time) and undermines Yud's claim that Harry is a truly good person who wouldn't actually condone Draco's conduct. Yeah because if you don't turn into a blubbering little baby you're a horrible person. Sounds to me like you're bad at rationality.
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Mar 18, 2015 20:39
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