= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
MathiasZaman comments on Open Thread April 8 - April 14 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (242)
I thought about it before I typed it out and I found that most authors do want to show or teach something, but that this is often something obvious. Harry Potter (canon) teaches us that Nazis are bad, that you shouldn't trust an oppressive government, that bureaucracies can be dangerous, that you shouldn't torture people... but when I read the novels (at the appropriate age, I grew up with them) I had already learned those lessons.
What Anathem, Snow Crash and HPMOR taught me were things I wouldn't have picked up on my own.
It's interesting to note that HP canon is aimed at children/teens, and that books aimed at those demographics tend to be more open about teaching something. It would be interesting to consider how often fiction aimed at adults is didactic, and how open adult didactic fiction is about its message.