Thanks for the laugh. The idea of self-aware characters is an interesting one. If you take your main characters seriously, it shouldn't be long until they're convinced they're either insane or in a simulation centered on them. Especially given smart characters, there's a suspension of disbelief in them not noticing that the world is only a quest-backdrop for them to interact with. Once the protagonists were aware of their plot-powers / plot-armor (which they may interpret as having some reality-altering powers of unknown origin), the author would have little choice but to bend the plot. Not unlike the Hunger-games stand-off threatening suicide. The alternative, effectively lobotomizing the main characters' agency, would be worse than just compromising your story, it would compromise your characters.
In effect, the model of a character you create isn't unlike a tulpa, a voice in your head. If you make them sufficiently smart, a necessary consequence would be some kind of self-awareness, or the very suspension of disbelief you wanted to avoid in the first place ("smart" characters acting dumb).
If you take your main characters seriously, it shouldn't be long until they're convinced they're either insane or in a simulation centered on them.
I wish my author took me seriously.
"If you give George Lukács any taste at all, immediately become the Deathstar." — Old Klingon Proverb
(To be fair, the author was drunk.)
Next chapter: "Analyzing the Fuck out of an Owl"
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Criticism appreciated.