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Alicorn comments on The Sword of Good - Less Wrong
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The inability to suspend moral disbelief is one of many things that can interfere with the enjoyment of basically good fiction. When I am screaming at characters that they FAIL ETHICS FOREVER, I'm rarely having fun.
Characters who FAIL ETHICS FOREVER can still be entertaining. For example, plenty of villains clearly have little regard for ethics. Authors who FAIL ETHICS FOREVER are usually less desirable. For example, Terry Goodkind. I've rarely felt personally insulted by a work of fiction, but, well, Naked Empire somehow managed to contain the purest, unadulterated essence of Ethics Fail I've ever encountered - it even managed to contradict the explicit moral lessons of the earlier books in the series!
I agree that screaming at characters that they FAIL ETHICS FOREVER can interrupt enjoyment of a story, but it is far worse to never realize that their actions are, in fact, contemptible.
Oh, I agree - but I try to postpone this contemplation until after I've finished the story, if I can.
No, maybe disgusting, definitely enraging, but usuallynot contemptible. Agamemnon is an exception, but he's pretty much the villain in a story without clear villains. Odysseus is heroic in the extreme, not contemptible, but his heroism has nothing to do with good intentions or outcomes, only with displaying his desirability as an ally.