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Manfred comments on Rationality Quotes November 2014 - Less Wrong
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Brandon Sanderson
That's often true, but there are counter-examples, like my all time favorite : the Foundation cycle. In it, especially the beginning of it (the Foundation novel and the prequels), it's truly the heroes who are doing something awesome - the Foundation and all what's associated to it - and the villains who try to prevent them (and even that is more complicated/interesting as simple "vilain").
It's also often the case in Jules Verne fiction, or in the rest of "hard scifi", be it about trans-humanism (permutation city for example) or about planetary exploration.
The trope is Villains Act Heroes React, and the Foundation stories don't actually defy this AFAIC recall.
It does in various points of the saga, some examples I can give easily, other are spoilers so I'll ROT13 them.
In the first tome and the prequels, it's Harry Seldon who tries to develop pyschohistory and setup the Foundation, and different "villains" react to that. It's true that afterwards the Foundation is mostly reacting to Seldon Crisis, but those crisis are part of Seldon's Plan (so, of the hero planning ahead awesome things).
In the last tome, Foundation and Earth, it's clearly the heroes who start their own quest of finding back the Earth.
Now the spoiling parts (rot13) :
Va gur cerdhryf vg'f pyrneyl Qnarry jub gevrf gb chfu Fryqba gb qrirybc cflpubuvfgbel, naq Qnarry vf gur erny "ureb" bs gur rkgraqrq Sbhaqngvba-Ebobg plpyr.
Va Sbhaqngvba'f Rqtr, juvyr gur znva ureb vf vaqrrq ernpgvba gb orvat chfurq ol inevbhf punenpgre, vg'f abg ivyynvaf jub ner cynaavat gur jubyr riragf, ohg Tnvn, jub vf n cebqhpg bs Qnarry, fb ntnva, bs gur erny "nepu ureb" bs gur fntn.
There are other similar examples in other parts of the cycle, but less obvious ones.
The outline of the Hero's journey calls for the story to begin with the hero in a mundane situation of normality.
Sounds to me like the cliche isn't always positive.
A counterexample to the initial claim, which is probably more true of epic fantasy than of fiction generally: In Ayn Rand's fiction, it is indeed the heroes who have great and awesome schemes; the villains just want to wet their beaks, or to stop people from doing great and awesome things, depending on how villainous they are.
It might be more accurate to say that Ayn Rand's heroes start with grand and awesome schemes. There's a lot of speechifying in between, but in terms of action they always seem to degenerate into some form of "screw you guys, I'm going home" by the end.
I haven't read it for a long time, but I remember thinking that the first third of Atlas Shrugged is a much better book than the whole thing -- because up to that point, it's a novel about building something great in the face of adversity, and after that the adversity wins and it becomes a novel about spite and destruction on all sides. Also because it's way too long for its plot, but never mind that.
It's not clear to me that this is a counterexample. Ayn Rand's fiction strikes me as mediocre in general, but what strength it has seems to flow from following this principle.
[edit]I seem to have misread the parent, and am agreeing with it.
At least one of us is misreading the other's comment: I was suggesting Rand's fiction as a counterexample to
which seems to agree with, not be contradicted by, your "flow[s] from following this principle".
Ah, yes. I missed the "initial claim" bit, and thought you meant this was a counterexample to Sanderson's whole claim.
The dialogues in the film versions of Atlas Shrugged always felt bland and lame to me until I realized that the "good ones" were saying their lines as "good ones." When I read the book, I felt instinctively drawn to imagining the "good ones" saying their lines as "villains." When you read Dagny as the villain, her dialogues feel much more potent.
Really? Perhaps I should reread at least some of Atlas Shrugged from that angle, but I don't see how wanting to run a railroad competently can be read as villianous.
Pretend to be a radical environmentalist or something.
I see this for John Galt and to a lesser extent d'Anconia, and basically not at all from Dagny.
"If you think that I need your men more than they need me, choose accordingly. If you know that I can run an engine, but they can't build a railroad, choose according to that. Now are you going to forbid your men to run that train?"
"I didn't say we'd forbid it. I haven't said anything about forbidding. But... but you can't force men to risk their lives on something nobody's ever tried before."
"I'm not going to force anyone to take that run."
That was the moment when I first sensed she was the villain. She knows the construction of the line involves uncertain and untested safety conditions, so she won't "force" anyone to work there, because she doesn't need to: she knows the workers need the job anyway, and they have actually very little choice. You can clearly feel the implied manipulation behind her statement.
I remember reading that section entirely differently, but it's been a few years and so my memory might be off. I got the feel that people were jockeying for the honor of being on the first run, because it was exciting, and so employing force to find workers is entirely unnecessary.
has anyone been keeping a reading list selecting exclusively for heroes with awesome schemes?