I love writing arguments. · 6:05am Nov 24th, 2015
A very popular type of argument in fan fiction is the "Straw Argument", sometimes known as "The Reason You Suck Speech", in which one character serves as a voicebox for the author to explain everything that is wrong with a different character, and the different character basically just splutters. It generally reflects a total lack of ability to empathize with or understand where the other character is coming from.
And it's boring as shit.
I made the mistake of writing a few of those, when I was younger. But it's not just better to write a more robust argument with good points on both sides, it's so much more fun. When every character in the argument is right in some ways and wrong in others, it's just glorious. You put yourself in the mind of Character A and write their point, then you switch to Character B listening to this and you write down their counterpoint.
It works best if you love them all. You're probably always going to be unbalanced writing an argument between your least favorite character and your most favorite character, which is why I won't do it (they may sling insults at each other, but not a genuine argument) unless I'm willing to delve into my least favorite character's mindset. But between two characters that you love, it's awesome. Especially if the show or media product genuinely gives you stuff to work with and doesn't just make one character always right. (The fact that everything about Magneto's ideology is morally wrong doesn't change the fact that the events that have taken place in the Marvel Universe have pretty much proven that Xavier's strategy is not working, and that Magneto's strategy, while morally reprehensible, is practically more likely to eventually produce a positive result than Xavier's strategy, based on the way things are going in the MU. What they both really need is someone else to slap them upside the head and help tweak Xavier's strategy so it might actually work, because Magneto's strategy will result in an enormous body count even if it succeeds. But neither of them will think of that, so they get to have really juicy arguments with each other, because they're both wrong.)
Ohhhh, arguments between people in fiction and real life can be extremely troubling for me, because many times, I'm able to see why the person sees it that way, and then I end up agreeing with both, so in truth, I never have a solid opinion on it and it looks more like I'm just agreeing with everyone to avoid fighting/being disliked/etc.
You've a good point, though. It can be pretty fun to write those kind of arguments when you love both of them. It's very...intellectually fulfilling, if that makes any sense. You get to present both sides without having to pick one, and think things through.
Generally speaking, unless one of the characters is a complete idiot or incredibly uneducated, both will have valid points.
To take an argument on which I suspect we're both on the same side, Christian Creationism vs. Darwinian Evolution. While the Creationists are scientifically wrong, they aren't thinking in scientific terms. They are operating on the assumption that the Universe is organized to support Christian morality, and do so in some fairly direct ways. They are absolutely right that the assumption that humans are animals, in the way that many people actually mean it, can and has been used to support destructive amorality; also that some of the (popularly-presumed) implications of Darwinian Evolution can be used to support extremely evil actions.
Where they're wrong, of course, is in their assumption that bad moral consequences of people extrapolating from a theory means that the theory is objectively wrong. They don't realize that the linkage between Truth and Morality is more complex than simple moral lessons, and one of the reasons why is that the Universe wasn't laid out for our exemplary convenience. (We evolved to learn useful lessons from it, which is the other way round and has rather different implications).
Point is, if I was writing a dialogue between an (intelligent) Christian Creationist and a scientist, I would give the Christian Creationist some of the better arguments the Creationists actually use. He'd still be wrong, but he wouldn't be so obviously wrong that he himself would notice it.
I know an author who needs to read this and I'm going to send it to them right now.
Yeah, I've definitely fallen into this trap a few times, most recently with Starlight Glimmer and Discord. Not sure how that one could've been made even, but let's face it, that wasn't my goal at the time. Definitely going to need to bear this in mind in the future.
When I first started reading your work, I noticed the start of a lengthy argument and I was all "oh no, a straw-man argument." Then I got to see the protagonist get shut down by a lengthy return. Now the longer one character in your stories gets to speak, the more I know the other character will as well, and it's great not being able to predict who I think will win the argument at the end of the exchange.
So... does this mean that you DON'T like The Rise of Darth Vulcan?
3565459 Who is the author?
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The problem with Starlight Glimmer is that she's just wrong. Communists had a good point -- capitalism had a terrible track record for exploitation and causing human misery at the point where Marx and Engels published their work. The Russians turned to communism because they were starving. In the end we have seen that communism doesn't scale -- it can only work to the extent that all participants love each other, which works well in a family but at best extends to a group of neighbors, certainly not as far as a town, let alone a state. But they didn't know that, then.
However, Starlight Glimmer doesn't actually have a reasonable point. It's quite possible for ponies who are very different from one another to work together in harmony and be friends; we see it all the time. There is no good reason whatsoever for ponies to give up their special talents and be all the "same" in order to be friends. Starlight and her commune members may have had tragic lives where their special talents made it hard for them to make friends, but that applies to so few ponies, there's no point in making a movement out of it (plus, after they came together in a village with the intent of befriending each other, they remained friends even after regaining their special talents. So maybe they just needed a good ice-breaker.)
So, yeah. It's really hard to avoid strawmaring Starlight Glimmer, because her ideology is really stupid. Only very lonely ponies could get suckered in by her beliefs. I think she believes them sincerely, but it's obvious that she's wrong.
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Never actually read that one. I've read a few in its genre, such as the one about the incredibly fabulous lich, or the one where a guy gets turned into Sombra, but I've never read Darth Vulcan. But yeah, if it's full of strawman arguments I probably wouldn't like it.
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It'd be rude to say.
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It'd be rude to say.
Dang, there's so much good discussion here, whereas all I have is a relevant Monty Python reference.
Well, on the bright side, there's never a bad moment for a Monty Python reference.