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beccaelizabeth"From the beginning, there is a sort of “negotiation” of the suspension of disbelief between the reader and writer; a contract of sorts. We would be equally upset with battlestars appearing in Lord of the Rings as we would be with Nazgul aboard Cylon heavy raiders." (quote from here, context spoiler filled for BSG and not about what I'm about)
I read that and thought, Stargate and Doctor Who would happily have that kind of mix. Stargate had undead System Lords, Doctor Who has ... well, everything, gods and monsters and everything else. Stargate started out with false gods and starships, so I guess its only promise was that somewhere underneath there was Sufficiently Advanced Science. Doctor Who had a bloke in a box. Goodness knows what it promised back in the day. These days it's just going to do all kinds of everything, and not even necessarily involving the Doctor.
LotR has very clear genre boundaries... hang on, LotR defined its genre. But, clear edges. But even within them, you could put metal men and star beings in there, you'd just have to tweak the phrasing.
And if you have Sufficiently Advanced Science, say a VR like the Matrix or a 3D reality that includes nanotech or biotech at high enough levels, it gets unrealistic to put many limits on it. I mean, the point of technology is to allow humans to do everything we can dream of. There's already people trying to body mod to the point of being fantasy species. Give it a hundred years and it'll work better than our wildest dreams (and worse, in unexpected places, because technology is like that).
I know with Highlander I have previously complained, loudly and at length, about them introducing elements that were New Magic. Highlander had one kind of magic, the Quickening, and all it did was keep people alive and healthy and unaging. Which is a pretty big all, all in all. And from the get go 'take their head and with it their power' was in there, but power wasn't really defined. But later in the TV series they added powers like mind control and projecting illusions, and it didn't really break things. They made the power occasionally try and take over the recipient, which led to some good story. They kept tweaking it. So it's not that new elements were inherently a problem, it was that some of them didn't work. Even the idea in the audios, that Q can be removed without taking a head, that memory can be drained out by parts and pieces and swapped around that way, it could work. It's just they did it to existing characters and in the process made them characters we'd never met before, when I was there to learn the familiar characters some more. ... also it's a world changer if more than one person finds out, so it borders on breaky right there. Plus it shifts the ground on the central question, making it no longer 'when if ever is it right to kill' and turning this Q modification into the central moral issue. So, problem. And the introduction of a demon messes with the moral question too, because instead of having a debate and a human conflict, we have A Demon Made Him Do It, and, boring. But even there, with the demon, which I hate, I can think of ways to work it in better, I can think of ways to make it work. Link it to the central magic, the Quickening, the existing dark power accumulation of the dark Q, make it the collective demons of Immortal mankind, and you have something to work with. ... and I sound like I'm defending aspects of Highlander I really really didn't like, but what I mean is, written right, integrated correctly, and with an eye to the central questions the story has been exploring, they could work.
So I think I disagree. It's not that there's anywhere a story cannot go, given a particular beginning. It's that it takes work to get there, and to integrate it, and to sell the reader on the illuminating or amusing powers of this new element. Much like any new character.
I read that and thought, Stargate and Doctor Who would happily have that kind of mix. Stargate had undead System Lords, Doctor Who has ... well, everything, gods and monsters and everything else. Stargate started out with false gods and starships, so I guess its only promise was that somewhere underneath there was Sufficiently Advanced Science. Doctor Who had a bloke in a box. Goodness knows what it promised back in the day. These days it's just going to do all kinds of everything, and not even necessarily involving the Doctor.
LotR has very clear genre boundaries... hang on, LotR defined its genre. But, clear edges. But even within them, you could put metal men and star beings in there, you'd just have to tweak the phrasing.
And if you have Sufficiently Advanced Science, say a VR like the Matrix or a 3D reality that includes nanotech or biotech at high enough levels, it gets unrealistic to put many limits on it. I mean, the point of technology is to allow humans to do everything we can dream of. There's already people trying to body mod to the point of being fantasy species. Give it a hundred years and it'll work better than our wildest dreams (and worse, in unexpected places, because technology is like that).
I know with Highlander I have previously complained, loudly and at length, about them introducing elements that were New Magic. Highlander had one kind of magic, the Quickening, and all it did was keep people alive and healthy and unaging. Which is a pretty big all, all in all. And from the get go 'take their head and with it their power' was in there, but power wasn't really defined. But later in the TV series they added powers like mind control and projecting illusions, and it didn't really break things. They made the power occasionally try and take over the recipient, which led to some good story. They kept tweaking it. So it's not that new elements were inherently a problem, it was that some of them didn't work. Even the idea in the audios, that Q can be removed without taking a head, that memory can be drained out by parts and pieces and swapped around that way, it could work. It's just they did it to existing characters and in the process made them characters we'd never met before, when I was there to learn the familiar characters some more. ... also it's a world changer if more than one person finds out, so it borders on breaky right there. Plus it shifts the ground on the central question, making it no longer 'when if ever is it right to kill' and turning this Q modification into the central moral issue. So, problem. And the introduction of a demon messes with the moral question too, because instead of having a debate and a human conflict, we have A Demon Made Him Do It, and, boring. But even there, with the demon, which I hate, I can think of ways to work it in better, I can think of ways to make it work. Link it to the central magic, the Quickening, the existing dark power accumulation of the dark Q, make it the collective demons of Immortal mankind, and you have something to work with. ... and I sound like I'm defending aspects of Highlander I really really didn't like, but what I mean is, written right, integrated correctly, and with an eye to the central questions the story has been exploring, they could work.
So I think I disagree. It's not that there's anywhere a story cannot go, given a particular beginning. It's that it takes work to get there, and to integrate it, and to sell the reader on the illuminating or amusing powers of this new element. Much like any new character.
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Date: 2011-11-06 03:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-29 04:05 pm (UTC)Like you said, it's about integrating that stuff into the story by describing it in terms that work with the setting. Which Tolkien apparently did so well that people hardly even notice it's there.