Of "Biblical Monsters" and 'death spiral stories' in general. · 5:20am Mar 9th, 2013
Somehow, I have been blocked from adding comments for that needlessly dark, predictable, featured shallow one-dimensional characters more in line with 1950's melodrama films than real people, and which escalated to its bitter end at the speed of a freight trait with a warp engine strapped onto the caboose.
As if that can stop me from commenting.
Anyway, predictability: After paragraph one you know exactly what the outcome will be, and absolutely everything that happens from then on goes to making sure nothing but that outcome is possible. Indeed, in my very first comment I predicted EXACTLY the ending, right down to Celestia showing up and the THE END. Good god... that would have failed a creative writing class. My old high school drama teacher, Mrs. Butler, would have been exceedingly disappointed were I to turn in something so uncreative.
This is what I call the 'inescapable trap' or the 'death spiral' set-up, and it has all 4 of the factors I anticipate when I come upon these dismal, cliche melodramas.
Firstly, ALL the characters are written as shallowly and one-dimensionally as possible, picking from a handful of standard stereotypes, (in this case a Christian zealot and an atheist meeting the starry-eyed innocent traveler they then brutally murder because they're clearly insane), and having the entire cast act as stupidly as possible to ensure that they have no rational thinking capabilities.
Secondly, place them all in a location from which there is no easy escape (something shared with prototypical horror films of little worth).
Thirdly, every event leads directly to the climax with absolutely no hesitance or deviation. There are no moments of reflection, no refusal. If anything is thought, it's the characters reminding themselves how right they are in their course of action. I have seen this constantly in grimdark fics where one of more of the main characters becomes a murderous psychopath.
Fourth and finally, the only twist is to have someone or something show up right at the very end to suggest how badly everything is going to go, then cut off right at that moment without showing repercussions. Again, a standard, centuries' old cliche that barely works when it's done well, simply because it's done to death. For some reason, many writers seem to think this makes them look clever. All it ever looks like to me is a half-conceived idea.
This setup never feels 'real'. It's a heavily contrived type of story that suffers horribly from the heavyhandedness of a god-author who shoves his characters around like puppets rather than allowing them to express who they are and why they do things. Their decisions are all rash and hastily contrived, they follow their scripted instructions like a rocked sled screeching toward a reinforced concrete wall. And never, ever, do they reconsider their actions until AFTER they've already done it. No matter how the characters are initially portrayed, in all of this type of story they all end up feeling exactly the same; namely because they ARE. They're cookie-cutter copies of thinly veiled archetypes.
Indeed, I swear this story is exactly like a short fiction I read a decade ago. Peaceful alien shows up near two idiots and is murdered, then the mothership shows up looking for him. Yes, oh yes! It IS exactly that story! I hated that one too. There was even a "Twilight Zone" episode like it. It wasn't one of the acclaimed episodes, given what I've just described as the weaknesses of this genre. It was one of the easily thrown-together episodes, giving the inexperienced audiences a quick kick in the gut. It works a little better in television, since you're seeing rather than reading, thus the experience is different, and it's forgivable to take such shortcuts when one has to jam an entire story into less than half an hour.
But writing. That's the open range! There is NO excuse for such blatant, glaring weakness when the length of the story and the time it takes to perfect it are entirely under the author's discretion.
Alas, I see all too frequently that the masses are gobbling up this type of poor fodder. One has only to look at the Bestseller lists to realize intelligence is a rare commodity in popular literature these days. Impossibly frivolous, overtly sexual, or unrelentingly grim; those make up the majority of the public's reading lists.
Anyway, if you're not looking for much in the way or originality and a story in which a happy, innocent pony dies horribly at the hands of two psychos who man a lighthouse (hint: I'm thinkin' there's a little something 'queer' about their relationship. How else would a radical Christian and left-wing atheist possibly stand each other? Am I right? I mean, I know I'd have killed both of them after a week! Really, I hated those characters so much from the first lines they spoke.) it's right up your alley!
Yes, this is a 'humans are absolute bastards' fic. I am going to throw that Earth into a black hole. Meh, ours too. It's not as if a collapsed star can kill Super Kami Guru! *ascends unto the heavens in a huge pillar of light and fire*
EDIT: A quick Internet search found me one of the Twilight Zone episodes which uses an almost identical theme: http://tzone.the-croc.com/tzeplist/gift.html
More searching found that this micro-genre of sci-fi episode and written story was once quite common, but fell into disuse, primarily because it came off as disingenuous when not thought out well.
I actually thought about reading Biblical Monsters as it was in the feature box some time ago. Never got around to it as I think I never even bookmarked the thing either.
901979 For those as well-read as I am in the vastness of classical fiction, I recognized the story at once as one I'd seen frequently in 1950's sci-fi. See: Twilight Zone episode "The Gift" as one prime example. And even it was done better than this. There was a realistic humanity to the characters, a sympathy that you do not feel from "Biblical Monsters". The characters are flat and stereotypical. Even Twilight acts with an unrealistic level of extraordinary stupidity. She's in an alien universe, and immediately starts blathering about everything ponies can do to change Earth. Even though one human is clearly hostile to her, she never once picks up on the hint that maybe she should shut up.
And the humans: Hmm, powerful creatures from another dimension who could show up en masse and do things that violate all laws of physics. Hurr durr, let's kill this one! Cuz killing one of their princesses won't piss them off and make them want to exterminate us like roaches!
Now I can see the Bible-thumper stereotype doing this, but to have the other guy jump on board without hesitation... terribly weak. They deserve to die. Anyone that stupid has inferior genes which clearly should be purged from the species regardless!
Keep in mind, this throws out all the growth she's shown in leadership and foresight. She didn't even approach the Crystal Empire's problem so frivolously, and that was something she CHOSE to take on, in a world she already knew. She's intelligent, and intelligence tells you to be cautious when in an unfamiliar land.
902042i got some fanfics that tick me off as well when it comes to the characters or plot even being out right implausible as you want to sympathize with one character but immediately gets jerked around because of another character's stupidity or jerk behavior, suddenly the main character is the jerk.. ugh... sorry, its a long story with this one story i'm reading currently.
902115 I really do think people need to read up on how to avoid cliche and melodrama. There are a large number of instructional sites with articles from professional writers containing many hints and suggestions on how to avoid the common mistakes.
904633 oh believe me I know when a story is going to head down a certain direction within one scene. some people, i admit sometimes I enjoy sappy and downer endings but no that doesn't slide these days. I can't write drama to a believable level anyway as its always resorting to crap you see on tv now a days. I swear, stories don't get higher ratings unless a baby is involved somehow then your story sky rockets in one way.
904679 What saddens me most is how the brainless followers of these stories have the gall to say that we have no right to criticize the lack of effort put into them. I would like very much to see their pathetic attempt to justify why they think these stories are 'good'. I believe I would laugh myself sick reading their inane, nonsensical drivel.
"Scootamom" is one that completely derailed when suddenly it introduced enemies from "Babylon 5" with no foreshadowing at all from previous chapters. Never mind that B5 is over, never mind that Mr. Morden was BEHEADED and the Shadows and Vorlons stopped fighting and left thew galaxy with the First Ones, so crossing this over with Pony MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE from any storytelling standpoint; no, the twits are just eating that disaster of a storyline up.
And then there was one of the vampire Vinyl Scratch fics, which somehow became a metaphor for gay rights... never mind how illogical it is to compare homosexuals to unnatural monsters who occasionally attacked and killed ponies. I could give an entire lecture on how horribly constructed that story was in terms of internal believability and self-contradictions. The Princesses basically said, "Monsters are ok!" and nopony questioned anything. Luna was a vampire... which made NO sense, since she had still gone through Nightmare Moon in the fic. The supposed anti-monster ponies who were looking to expose the monsters had literally dozens of chances to expose everything or just outright kill their monster enemies... and didn't, just because 'it wasn't in the script', as I like to say about narratives clearly skewed to favor one plot direction no matter how flawed it it.
Ah well, FiM has gone the way of most fanfic sites at last, where illiterate imps from the dregs of public high schools gather to praise each other for derivative, unoriginal garbage. There is a reason few professional writers want to bother reading fanfics, after all. It's almost always a complete waste of time.
I'm actually a fan of this story, but I also enjoy reading negative reviews, even of things I like. And I must admit, looking back now, it is somewhat shallow. If I remember correctly, there is even a parallel with Captain Cook's story in the fic, specifically the part about how he died. That sounds very clever until you realize that he was some asshole who casually tried to take the local king hostage, which is why the natives killed him. I'm pretty sure Cook is not on the level of "magical purple princess of friendship" in that regard.
4324089 If both the human characters had been portrayed as somewhat clearly mentally deranged from the outset, it might have worked better. As it was, at least the atheist should have considered this a 'first contact' scenario and found any rantings from the Christian more annoying than usual.
It actually sounds like the opening line of a joke: An atheist and an evangelical are stuck on a lighthouse when this magical purple unicorn appeared... stop me if you've heard this one!
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I remember being really envious of the story because it managed to cause enormous outrage without being overtly offensive (it still pales in comparison to how blatant things like Cupcakes or Fall of Equestria are). I just can't quite piece together what made that story work well enough that even I got seriously worked up over it.
Does it resort to cheap tricks? Obviously. But that was kind of the point, considering what the goal at the end of the story was. I can't deny that the author achieved their goal. Also, there's another way to look at it: the whole idea is that Twilight arrived at the most unfortunate place possible, i.e among two guys working in some remote-as-fuck place, no doubt already half-succumbed to cabin fever. If we take that as the premise, paranoia overcoming the human characters after a series of miscommunications is hardly surprising. Then again, it's a little baffling too, since she looks like a freaking cartoon pony. Only the most deranged religious nuts would assume they're being haunted by demons.
Okay, so one could argue that they became convinced that her appearance was just the "cute n cuddly look" Satan would use to deceive them. This would also justify the entire religious subtext, I suppose. Still, I don't remember there being that much buildup to their decision. Either that, or some sign that they snapped completely. They still act like two normal guys... who also plotted a way to ambush and murder a purple pony princess. Congrats.
To the fic's credit, at least the humans weren't some stereotypical "third world people", as if to imply that Twilight needs to arrive in some clean and cozy Western nation, or else she'd get her head smashed in. It's a neat premise, but somewhat shoddily executed, and once again probably only famous because it arrived during the peak of the fandom.
4324510 I think you nailed it. There was very little build up. The two people who had been discussing things with each other rationally up until then very suddenly went off the rails and slaughtered a little talking unicorn based on a very hasty conclusion they formed from some sort of instantaneous psychosis.
In contrast, I'd have accepted a story where Twilight ended up getting her heart cut out by Aztecs after 1,000 words, because at least that makes use of something we knew went on back then!
Or if she showed up in ISIS-held Iraq... where they would still cut her heart out... and eat it... and then post the video to Youtube. Crazy bastards...
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Aztec human sacrifice was a little more complicated than just "take any random dude and cut his heart out". I doubt they'd have killed Twilight. If anything, they'd have worshiped her as a goddess.
Very creative. Or she might get blown up by a US airstrike?
4325769 Pfft, only if I was in charge!
*slams his fist repeatedly on the big red nuke button* DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE!!!!!