My Semi-Logical Proof of Why the Story Tags "Sad" and "Tragic" are NOT "Conflicting" or "Mutually Exclusive." · 2:33am Dec 22nd, 2012
DISCLAIMER: THIS BLOG POST IN NO WAY IS MEANT TO DISPARAGE, DEFAME, SLANDER, OR IN ANY WAY CONNOTE NEGATIVITY TOWARDS FIMFICTION.net, ITS MODERATORS, OR ANYTHING, REALLY.
So, I was posting a thirty minute challenge I set myself (1K words about the Shortest Horror Story Ever, soon to be published--hopefully), and suddenly, le wild moderator message appears.
I clicked on it, expecting to see the customary "your story has been approved" message, but was greeted by this... monstrosity:
"Your Story 'A Knock at the Door' Has Failed Moderation
Conflicting Tags: 'Sad' and "Tragic'"
... or something to that effect.
What follows is my unedited PM to Mystic, the moderator that sent the message. I hope that this makes sense, and if any of you fellow debaters/law school students/argument scholars and theorists could point out any flaws in my case (major ones, only, though. The minor, unimportant ones are obvious.), I would be most obliged!
Anyways. Here goes:
"
Would it be possible for you to clarify the difference between tragic fics and sadfics?
I can understand that tragedies can be comedies, as Shakespeare certainly managed to include elements of humour in Romeo and Juliet, but can't a fic have both a bad ending and be mournful?
I mean, it just doesn't make sense. Anyways, I'll change the tags to purely "Sad" for now, but I'd honestly appreciate it if you could explain why fics cannot both have a bad ending (tragic) and be objects of lamentation.
Some more rationale for my approach is below:
In order to support my case, I shall endeavour to show that the following statements may be taken as axiom:
a) The submitted fic ("A Knock at the Door") is a "tragic" genre fic
b) The submitted fic is a "sad" genre fic
ab) The submitted fanfiction is both "tragic" and "sad" inclusively
c) The genres "tragic" and "sad" as laid out on the FAQ are not inherently mutually exclusive--which shall serve to establish my case beyond all reasonable doubt
The entire goal of this shall be to urge a change in the classification structure--the removal of the instant-fail for so-called "conflicted tags."
N.B.: This response is not intended, in any way, to criticize or disparage the staff of FIMFiction.net, the site itself, or anything--without limit--that is not explicitly stated above. Please do not take this response as an "aggravated writer" response, as I am merely attempting to show why there is an inherent flaw in FIMFiction.net's system that can--and should be--mitigated and/or solved.
Now, to prove statement "a:"
According to The Free Dictionary's definition of "tragedy," (which, may I note, is not in conflict with the FAQ's) a tragedy is:
"a. A drama or literary work in which the main character is brought to ruin or suffers extreme sorrow, especially as a consequence of a tragic flaw, moral weakness, or inability to cope with unfavorable circumstances.
b. The genre made up of such works.
c. The art or theory of writing or producing these works.
2. A play, film, television program, or other narrative work that portrays or depicts calamitous events and has an unhappy but meaningful ending.
3. A disastrous event, especially one involving distressing loss or injury to life: an expedition that ended in tragedy, with all hands lost at sea.
4. A tragic aspect or element."
(this is a direct quotation from their website, in case any further clarification is necessary)
Thus, the submitted fanfiction would qualify as a "tragic" genre fiction--id est a fanfiction in which, to use the most relevant and in-context definition, the main character (in this case Twilight Sparkle) is "brought to ruin" by some means, most usually via morals or a personal failing--due to the fact that Twilight Sparkle is brought to ruin by her "Enhancement"--a personal decision that she made.
Taking into account the assumption that I am, in fact, not misrepresenting my story and that a staff member did, in fact, read the fic, we can see that, when taken in context, the major plot (if a 1K fic can be said to have one), or in this case, the memory sequence, deals with Twilight Sparkle's apparent ruin--her apparent tragedy.
Barring any of the above assumption being discredited (which I would deem rather... unbecoming), I have proven statement "a" beyond the most reasonable doubt.
Thus, with statement "a" proven, I can now move on to statement "b:"
This site's defintion (as per the FAQ) states that the genre "sad" encompasses: "stories whose primary purpose is to make the reader feel depressed or sorrowful."
N.B.: I am entirely aware that this site includes a qualifier ("not 'tragic'") in said definition, but as it is the purpose of my message to provide at the very least, a forward-informal proof (classification of proof systems, easily searchable) showing that "sad" and "tragic" are not mutually exclusive, I shall ignore this for the time being.
Uh huh. I'd certainly say that the submitted fic evokes a sadness. After all, Equestria basically is obliterated. Is that not sad enough for you? Barring your tastes being significantly different from mine, I have shown example-based (hard-inductive) proof of statement "b."
Thus, I must now prove statement "ab." For that, I shall define a conditional:
If a and b, then ab.
This should be fairly obvious--I hope I don't need to prove this as the cornerstone of my case.
Taking into account that events a and b are true, since the conditional follows logically from my previous statements, by the Law of Syllogism, statement "ab" is correct.
All that remains is to prove "c."
Now, I shall take an aside here, and prove that ~c (the negation of "c") cannot be true (so that "c" must be true, by Contradictory Proof).
1. Assuming ~c is true:
- A fiction cannot have both elements of "sad" and "tragedy" present
or
- Such tags cannot be used together
Disproving the first one is relatively easy.
I have proven "ab," which is in direct contradiction to ~c. Therefore, ~c is false, and c by that definition is true. Statement "c" is now true.
The second one is perhaps the hardest--and most important--part of my case:
Now, here is where I bring back into play that qualifier ("not 'tragic'"). The only way for that qualifier to apply (meaning a conditional "~c sub a") would be for your definition of "tragic" to be in some way restricted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said "The more experiments you make the better." Thus, the more chances you give fanfictions to flourish (more experiments)--by removing the conflict insta-fail--the better. Think of it this way: If you were to give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters, they would eventually crank out all the works on this site, as well as Steven Hawking's seminal novels--you name it. The laws of statistics stand resolutely and firmly behind this--irrespective of your beliefs.
I understand that a historical adage may not be the strongest form of proof, but it shall suffice as one example of such.
Further proof may be wrought from this:
d) "A Knock at the Door" is not bad writing inherently because it has "conflicting" tags
e) Non-bad writing should be encouraged
Ergo: Conflicting tags do not premeditate bad writing.
Compared to incoherent stories, let's take for granted that the submitted story is not bad. I hope that you agree. At any rate, I am sure that such examples exist--of "not bad" stories like mine.
To prove "e," I would advise you to read--in depth--mine and IncoherentOrange (a member of this site)'s debate regarding shipping. The link to the debate in full is here, and although it focusses mainly on shipping, it inductively proves that non-bad writing--and indeed, all creative expression--should be encouraged. I trust you believe in this, as you are on a site devoted to exactly that.
Thus, there is nothing inherently wrong or bad with the two tags--meaning that they are not mutually exclusive.
To quickly define "mutually exclusive"--
According to the University of Princeton, the phrase means: "contradictory: unable to be both true at the same time."
To take it in context, that would mean that it implies an inherent flaw in the writing. As there is none present, by Modus Tollens I can conclude statement "c."
Summa Gratis: Thank you for reading this. I hope that my proof of statement "c"--that the two tags are not mutually exclusive, and thus that a problem exists in your moderation--was adequate. I shall be distributing, sharing, and posting this proof whenever I see fit, and in final disabusement and clarification:
My aim, throughout this brief logical foray, was not to disparage or in any way criticize the moderation team, or ANYTHING besides that which I have EXPLICITLY stated. Do not take it as such. I hope that this proof has proven conclusive enough to prompt the required action--modification of the moderation process.
Thank you one more time for reading this, and in the meantime, I shall be editing my tags to ensure that my work manages to pass this--admittedly flawed, but only in a minor way--moderation procedure.
"
I rather liked how quickly I was able to come up with that!
emotibot.net/pix/3987.jpg
omg tl;dr nub lrn 2 engrish.
Seriously, though, exceptionally well argued and I'm curious about the story now.
636778
It's up.
Really? It IS well argued? (YES!)
I hope the mods pay attention to it.
Should I PM-spam them from a separate accound under a different IP? Nah. I'll just PM them every once-in-a-while.
It is well argued, one doesn't even need to look at your fiction to see it. In fact, part of tragic fictions purpose is "Catharsis", whose definition is:
- As taken from googling the definition of catharsis.
Now, I think that we can all agree that sorrow, sadness, and agony are all strong emotions. So if one attempted to create a tragic fiction that caused people to feel sadness, it would not cease to be a tragedy.
SPOILERS BELOW
Another example, you can watch Romeo and Juliet, and feel sad that the two of them died at the end.
An addendum to my previous statement regarding InfinityXanadu's story in particular. The story, while tragic, did not elicit feelings of sadness, only disgust for Twilight Sparkle. Thus I feel that it's present tag settings are fitting. This should not however be taken to mean that a fiction can be both tragic and sad.
The way I look at it, sad and tragedy is 2 tags. Therefore you are listed under twice as many searches and that makes it harder on whatever things hold information.
Or whatever. I didn't really pay attention to what the message was saying.
636931
I was referring mainly to the "sadness" or melancholic, bitter feeling evoked by reading about the misuse of science. And killing off EVERYONE, although it is pretty much my standard, seems adequate to be deemed "sad." Your comments are fair enough, though. My intention, however, wasn't to make youhate Twilight--merely to feel sadness at how horribly her Enhancement twisted her mind. Whatever, though. Perhaps that allegory was a bit too subtle. Or non-existent. To each, his own.
636984
Ah, but the proof merely drew upon an example as inductive proof. It can be generalized as such, though: Sad and Tragic, by their very nature, are not mutually exclusive genres.
637003 Takes too much memory. It isn't so much that they conflict as they make it hard to find other stories since stories with multiple tags can be found by many searches.
637007
Then I'd argue for a consolidation of the two. It provides the greatest readability while reflecting critical accuracies
637039 Shush. Let our moderators go about thinking they know what's best. We don't want them making more mistakes.
637045
Too late. In the words of Mystic: It's forwarded to the "appropriate admins."
It'd be kinda cool to axtually advocate for a change, though. Interesting...
637064 Yeah it would... and about that thing we were talking about...
Honestly though, you're trying to state that the "Sad" tag is meant to be used on any story that makes the reader sad. That's not the point of it. In a "Sad" story, the whole plot is supposed to be depressing. In a tragedy, likely the story is going well for the protagonist, and things are looking positive, up until the point where the "tragic" event happens, at which point the story becomes sad. I haven't read your story, but I'm inferring that it would more likely fall into the Tragedy genre - Twi is trying to enhance her abilities, and it LOOKS like it's going to work, but then it doesn't and everyone dies. That's not "Sad" (though it is sad [the emotion, not the tag]), because at the exposition and for most of the plot, the mood is not generally one of hopelessness, etc.
Again, I haven't actually read your story, so I can't guarantee the accuracy of my statements, but that's my perspective. Maybe you could link your short in a google doc or something.
638152
All I'm stating is that the tags "Sad" and "Tragic" aren't mutually exclusive. You imply they're not interchangeable, so the only burden lies in proving that, somewhere under the sun, an example of inclusiveness exists. And to play definitionist: the FAQ defines "Sad"-ness as being a quality of purpose. So really, I could just SAY that the purpose was to evoke depression. Counterexample good enough for you?
I certainly think so.
639020 While I can definitely concede that there must be some story out there that is both Sad and Tragic, I think you can understand that in a practical sense, the current admission rules were created so that idiots who aren't actually thinking about genres don't simply tag "Sad" and "Tragic" for no other reason than they want more tags. Very few authors put as much thought into what "Tragedy" actually means as yourself.
640301
And thus my usage of "logical." Countereexamples, my friend...
And if we plan our rules based on bad writing, then we run the risk of stifling other kinds...
But I can accept your rebuttal as valid. Give me a few days to come up with a suitable response... and thanks for helping me refine it!
IX
636931
Yes, I am murdering this old, long-dead horse. With an axe. But I found an interesting response while trolling Et in Arcadia Ego (bachae.blogspot.com/2012/03/post-nietzschean-anti-nihilism.html), so here goes (yes, it's copypasted, but it makes sense):
" Some especially bright monkeys evolve an ability to solve more complicated problems, evolve more complex modes of thought. Abstraction. Modal operators. Subjectives. Counterfactuals. Symbols, signs and signifiers. Language. A fire is lit. From the evolutionary advantage of our forebears, we inherit the ability to see meaning in meaninglessness. From s*** we extract pure Shinola™. We begin to see meaning everywhere. We ascribe meaning to everything. We decode meaning.
We create meaning.
Nothing means anything. Nothing can mean anything. Nothing is meaningful.
I meet a lady. Mating and the evolutionary imperative: form a pair bond, co-operation as a survival strategy, reproduce the species. But from it, I decode 'love'.
I create love.
In a universe with no love, I decode love. In a universe with no meaning, I decode meaning. I create meaning. I separate “the sparrows from the nightingales”ii, “the warships from the ferry boats”.
Nothing means anything. Nothing can mean anything. Nothing is meaningful.
I decode love. I decide what 'love' means. I decide how best to exemplify it. From a random ordering of biochemical bits, I decode love.
I see some pebbles in the road. I count them. I decide there are 'four', not 'three' or 'five'. I decode 'four'. Later, I find more. I put them also into my hand. I decode 'addition'. I hurl them from me, I decode 'removal'. I decode 'permanence', I decode 'change'. Ultimately, I decode 'something', I decode 'nothing'. I decode 'from nothing comes something'.
I see a fuzzy object. I say, “You're a kitty!”iii I don't decode cats, but in deciding that this is a cat and not a dog, I decode 'cat'. On seeing my old friend Professor Von Meeces, I make friends anew. I decode 'Professor von Meeces' from a fuzzy object.
I decode 'number', I decode 'color', I decode 'form'. I decode 'goodness'. I decode 'justice'. I decode 'truth'. I decode 'greatness'. I decode 'honor'. I decode 'virtue'. I decode 'hate'. When I observe a phenomenon, I decide, “That's justice.” Et in Arcadia ego.
I decide what these things are. I decide how to best exemplify them. I can shoot my own arrow of longing beyond myself and decide how to model what I have decoded. What I have created. What I decode, I create; what I create, I can show; what I show, I can be. What I create, I can be, just as hard as I can. What we create, we can be."
To cross-apply this, we can conclude:
C1) "Sad"ness and "Trag[edy]" are meaningful when and only when they are ascribed meaning by me (or you).
From C1, we can conclude either:
C2 sub 1) Tags are meaningless because stories have no meaning until they are read by you.
C2 sub 2) Tags are meaningful only to the author.
C2 sub 1 is undesirable, so for the purposes of practicality we'll conclude C2 sub 2. But either one fits rather well with my case, correct?
1218462 Careful, I know plenty of professors who view their biggest failures as being the students that turned to nihilism.
1218868
Indeed. It's just fun to employ, though. You could always take a Pyrhhonian approach and just call it a reasonable solution in this category...