In the vein of the Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion threads this is the place to discuss anything relating to Alicorn's Twilight fanfic Luminosity. The fanfic is also archived on Alicorn's own website <strike>(warning: white text on black background)</strike>.
Previous discussion is hidden so deeply within the first Methods of Rationality thread that it's difficult to find even if you already know it exists.
Similar to how Eliezer's fanfic popularizes material from his sequences Alicorn is using the insights from her Luminosity sequence.
Spoilers for the fanfic itself as well as the original novels need and should not be hidden, but spoiler protection still applies for any other works of fiction, except for Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality chapters more than a week old so we can freely discuss similarities and differences.
EDIT: Post-ginormous-spoiler discussion should go to the second thread. (If you have any doubt on whether you have reached the spoiler in question you have not.)
While I enjoyed the start of Luminosity quite a bit, I really didn't like the last chapter (55). I suppose it's where my misgivings about the story came to a head. Full disclosure: I have gotten consistent reports that I would not enjoy the Twilight novels, and so have not read them (but have checked out the twilight wiki to write this post), and this will weaken my first objection, but I still feel it worth making.
The premise is that it's Bella with a brain; the personality is the same, most of the limitations are the same (I imagine Meyer's Bella gets pointlessly upset when interrupted), but she's got rationality training and thus behaves rather differently. I was genuinely pleased at the mention of the journals and the acknowledgment that thoughts and emotions change- that's such a great example of knowing your limitations and rationally responding to them.
Except, Bella also plans to take over the world.
That isn't a rationality boost. That's a core personality overwrite. The main reason that bothered me is while I wasn't surprised to see HP:MoR become Ender's Game (for a time, at least), I really didn't expect the same "one genius takes on the world!" stuff in Twilight. It was a domestic fantasy, and now it's going to be The Punisher? Great.
Does every rationalist protagonist come out of the box thinking they're the queen or king? It makes sense for the ten-year old whose INT far surpasses his WIS; it doesn't make sense for the family-centered teen. What could possibly possess Bella such that she decided to risk everything important to her for political gain when she learned of thousand-year old vampires who ruthlessly enforce vampire law? Idiocy? I thought this was Bella with a Brain, not Bella with Revolutionary Aspirations.
Which, I suppose, leads to the main reason this bothered me: for the first ~20 chapters, I was planning to recommend this to my friends and family who enjoyed Meyer's Twilight; after that, my desire to do so gradually waned; now, I would not recommend it. Which is such a shame, because the start really was promising, both as an interesting story and as a rationality teaching tool.
The phrase "Twilight for boys" is bouncing around my head- both because of the plot changes and the style changes. Meyer describes things the way she does for a reason; that's part of what makes her books interesting to her audience. The sparseness of Luminosity really got harsh after a while- it was palpably obvious that all of the details of Bella's life were being drained away. (By her political aspirations? Foreshadowing?) I haven't gone back to check, but every personal description I remember came in the first few chapters. After that, no one is distinctive- only their names, powers, and affiliations come up.
Another way I'm thinking about this: are there any romance novels (or something similar enough) that you really like? Because that's what Twilight was, and replacing it with something else kills it in a way that's hard to explain if you don't like any romance novels. One of the books I cherish is a romance novel about a gay football player and his boyfriend. I read it whenever I'm feeling down or lonely and it cheers me up. There's still conflict- it's a story, after all- but the conflicts are ones I care about as a gay guy looking for a mate. Reading about byzantine power struggles is sometimes entertaining, and I suppose possibly it's training for a future as a leader or in a bureaucracy, but not what I care most about in my life. I'm not a plotter, I'm an optimizer.
Perhaps I'm burdening you too much with my expectations, but I find myself worried when the primary plot you and EY have come up with is "death has to go." There's really a lot more to life than trying to prolong it, guys. That's what makes spending any effort at all on prolonging life worthwhile. With Harry Potter, there's enough other stuff bouncing around that it doesn't take over the story- there's still magic to figure out, and Voldemort to oppose, and the Dumbledore-Malfoy war to deal with- but with Twilight, there's really only Bella, Edward, and family. And so when you add "Bella's plan to replace the Volturi" to the mix, you unbalance things so massively that the flavor of family is entirely overpowered and we're left with a Punisher story. Not only is that a distasteful bait and switch, it misses a great target: how to behave rationally with your loved ones to maximize their and your happiness. That's something that would be immediately enlightening in the minds of readers (particularly Twilight readers), and instead we get vampire politics and war.
I dunno, but I've never read one that doesn't.
If you considered yourself able to take over the world (which all ultra-rationalist characters (whether pro- or antagonists) seem to) then actually taking it over would be one of the most rational things you could do.