An explanation of "Elpis" · 4:24am Dec 20th, 2014
I wrote an explanation of "Elpis" in response to The Royal Guard's rejection of it. I realized while writing it that I hadn't understood the story completely. So odds are pretty good that some of you didn't, either. Here's my explanation (revised since I sent it back):
Thanks for taking time to read & critique "Elpis". I'll respond to your key points in the hopes that you'll reconsider your judgement.
As a side note, the story’s pony content is largely theoretical. Celestia’s role could be filled by nearly anything else, and if all instances of MLP:FiM terminology, such as “ponies” and “Equestria,” were replaced by other words, nothing in it would bear any resemblance to the show.
The world of Equestria is one where ponies live in much greater harmony with each other than we do in ours, and yet the world they live in is full of greater and deadlier threats than ours is. Rather than dismiss Equestria as a utopian fantasy, “Elpis” takes it seriously, and proposes that the harmony of Equestria is possible, but only at a cost. “The ones who walk away from Omelas” posits a strictly hypothetical situation (happiness can be paid for by suffering) to frame a moral argument. “Elpis” posits it as a serious question in social engineering: What if perfection in society is attained at the cost of stability? (This is, after all, the basic premise of conservativism.)
Celestia’s most important quality in this story is her eternal optimism that she will one day figure out how to build a harmonious and stable society. Hence the name, "Elpis", identifying Celestia with the goddess of hope. But the ancient Greeks also used the word "elpis" to mean "wishful thinking".
I really like conservation of energy being a thing in stories unless a really, really good reason for it not to be is given up-front.
The story is a cyclic creation myth. To make it compatible with the conservation of energy, you could use repeated big bang or "big bounce" theories. But this would be a bad distraction. When you make an effort to do something in a story, readers take that as a cue that it’s important. This story should not justify its physics, because I want the reader to know that the important stuff is symbolic, not literal. I don’t want readers wondering what the Butler eats or breathes. The repeated creations in the story aren't supposed to correspond to actual sequential universes in our reality, but to represent the space of possibilities of worlds and societies, to show that Celestia has justified knowledge that building a stable, harmonious society is very hard. Spending words explaining how this cyclic universe was compatible with the conservation of energy would lead the reader away from that symbolic meaning, to a literal meaning of no importance.
The line “It seemed the universe hated harmony, and pushed back harder the closer it came to it” made me think, “Wait a second.” The only musical state the universe prefers is silence, and it sure doesn’t have an adverse reaction to consonance, so this must be harmony in a broader sense. But the issue with that is the universe loves to be in a low-energy state, and harmonious describes that state rather well. After all (literally here), one of the better supported theories about the end of the universe is everything tending to zero energy density, and that’s pretty “harmonious.” Furthermore, the universe did end up pretty darn harmonious, at least from its fourth definition: an interweaving of different accounts into a single narrative. That’s what happened through Celestia. All the accounts were incorporated into her.
I’m using harmony just as the show uses it. The story is not about the conservation of energy, but about “conservation of harmony” [1]. I could relate it to the second law of thermodynamics (entropy increases), saying that harmony represents order, and violence and discord represent disorder. The more harmonious a society Celestia manages to build, the greater the entropy that accumulates around it and eventually destroys it. (That's why Discord doesn't exist as an independent god on the order of Celestia; he is the waste-product from her creation of order.)
I could probably relate it better to Newton’s third law (for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction). But the principle I’m thinking of isn’t isomorphic with any one simple physical law [2], and it doesn’t apply to disorganized systems or societies. It’s that, in a society whose members have already tried to make it good (as they define good), it’s hard to make any changes for good that don’t have bad consequences at least as great as the good they do. If one tackles any social problem directly, in the most-obvious way, there’s usually some unintended consequence that causes even greater problems. A classic example is when the British in colonial India offered a reward for killing cobras, and some Indians responded by breeding cobras to kill them and turn them in for the reward. [3] Complex systems are self-optimized in some way, so perturbing them along any single dimension is bound to make things worse in terms of whatever they're optimized for. Interventions can work if we change the system to optimize what we want it to optimize, or if we adjust it on several dimensions at once [4].
If it really is possible for people of our technological level to have a society with Equestrian levels of harmony, it seems likely there’s a hidden cost.
Also, this passage was very confusing.
“Even reifying it into its component elements had only made the final fall harder and faster.” How were its elements not already physical elements?
This refers to the Elements of Harmony. This implies that it was Celestia's idea to have harmony physically manifested in its six component elements, and also that having the Elements reified that way made the cosmos more volatile (the hidden cost).
The whys and the whats of the story escape me, though.... I couldn’t properly relate to what was happening, why it was happening, what led to that point, and to some extent, why the outcome mattered.
The story begins after the Equestria we know has been completely destroyed, and the only living being left is Celestia. The story reveals that she is a creator god, but one who must work within certain rules. She is trying to create a world that lives in harmony and happiness, but each time, strife breaks out and destroys the world again. The rules she must obey say there is a cost for this. The cost is that she must remember everyone in every world she creates. There is one notch in the Road for every world she's created, and to create another and start again, she must travel the Road, and remember each world as she does, and this is what drains her as she travels down it.
The Butler says she should give up, and let the dead souls lie (implying they are the same souls each time around). The story's question, which it doesn't answer, is whether Celestia's hope is heroic, or whether it is a foolish cruelty to herself and to everyone else to make them start all over again in what appears to be a hopeless quest for lasting harmony that may be even theoretically impossible, instead of settling for a good-enough world like the one we know.
[1] In a society already at equilibrium.
[2] Maybe something about soap bubbles on wire frames would be relevant.
[3] Many other examples come more easily to mind, but I can’t mention them with getting labelled as a liberal or as a conservative.
[4] Or if the system hasn’t had time to optimize the thing in question, or can’t for some reason.
I kind of got the idea when I read it. I didn't understand what the road was. It wasn't so much symbolic as confusing.
Explaining it is good and all... but you shouldn't have to. If the reader can't figure it out, then it should be a mystery that's okay to wonder about.
If you have to explain something about your story for your readers to "get it" then you're doing it wrong. Not that I'm not guilty of this, but I believe it's true.
Honestly, I liked the bit of ambiguity that the story left for me as I read. Reading this blog post, it sounds like you never intended to fully 'explain' everything to the reader, but given the contours of the story in question, explaining everything would have ruined it for me. My brain kept trying to dissect and analyze things as I read, and that alone kept me engaged through the end. (not to say the rest of it wasn't great as well, of course)
Now that I think back on it, this left me with as many questions as answers, which in some cases - like this one - can be a good thing. After I finished the story, I recall asking myself, 'What happens when the road has become so long, she cannot reach far enough forward to start over?' and 'If that is even possible, will Celestia even realize when she has gone as far as she can go?' (In other words, is it possible for her to know that world #5000 is the last one she can make, as she'll never survive the road to reach #5001)
2665520
Agreed. Though for a weird story like Elpis I'd be pretty happy if more than 1/3 of readers "got" most of it. I'd hope most of the rest of them thought it was cool even if they didn't get that much.
I got more or less what you were saying when I read it. I didn't get the idea about the conservation of harmony, exactly, but I did get most of the rest.
But I've had at least one case myself of a reviewer completely missing the point of symbolism and critiquing my story as though it were about a series of literal events and not (in my case) a dream-sequence that isn't meant to be literal. It's honestly incredibly frustrating to have everything you're trying to do go whooshing over the head of somebody who's supposed to have some kind of skill with literary review.
That rejection wasn't harsh enough. Horses can't fly. Greek isn't cannon. You said there were no shadows, but all particles radiate so there should be some shadows. "Sun" should be capitalized. Celestia should be dead from lack of oxygen in space. You never explain how Celestia's memory works, how is she able to replay centuries of memories in her mind? Is it 1080p? Power doesn't hold worlds together, that's gravity. Why hasn't Celestia tried to use the mirror pool plus Star Swirl's time traveling spell to get basically infinite chances of saving Equestria? I'm not sure if you've ever seen an alicorn wing, but they don't just crumble to dust. The Butler's tail can't be like a shadow since you said there were no shadows.
Given that Twilight made a dragon grow to be 100 feet tall, it is very unlikely that their universe has what we would consider conservation of energy, so I'm not really sure why they're even complaining. It is a creation myth, they always are that way.
Honestly, that is just a bizarre complaint about the story.
I'm not sure how much a lot of these complaints matter. The story is ultimately pretty straightforward. It just seems like an odd rejection notice to me. Either whoever it is is taking it far too literally, or they don't like the story and are trying to come up with justifications for it because they either don't understand the real reason or don't want to say what it is because it feels too arbitrary to them (which doesn't necessarily make it wrong, but often makes it hard for people to articulate).
While I get that "Elpis" isn't the easiest story to absorb, I can't help but think that the breathtaking formalism on the part of the person you were responding to indicates nothing more or less than that the story got routed to the wrong person to handle its genre.
It reminds me of nothing more than a very old Shorter, in that the individual points, and in fact everything taken as a whole, are substantially correct and well thought out—but are so thoroughly divorced from what the story is/the way the world works as to be wholly irrelevant to the point of discussion:
Daniel Davies's Shorter Stephen den Beste: After careful consideration, I have reached the conclusion that France would be unwise to enter the Gulf War on the side of Iraq by unilaterally attacking the United States of America.
. . . Great, now I'm inspired to give it a shot myself.
Shorter Royal Guard Rejection:
Mythology fails to hold up to the standards of hard sci-fi.
2665624
This, basically. This The Royal Guard must have really not understood the story to waste so much time discussing questions of quantum physics in a story that, well, isn't at all about quantum physics. There's missing the point, and then there's this.
Rant oncoming.
25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9fxxglYdE1rw7g0mo1_500.gif
sigh.
Well...no offense to anyone and their sensibilities, but I really hate this argument. It's a subjective claim masquerading as an objective one, because it all relies on how you define "resemblance to the show", which can be wide and varied and arbitrary. Not only that, but it applies to plenty of well received and loved pony fics (again, all depending on how you choose to define the criteria for what counts as resemblance and what doesn't).
It's a thoughtless argument that likely stems from an emotional reaction to a story not fitting with what the reader considers to be basic headcanon shared by all fans. It enforces upon the author thematic restrictions, which is ridiculous (take away any literal and outwardly visible earmark of mlp and if the story doesn't maintain some thematic, metaphorical or other attachment to equestria (arbitrarily defined by the reader here), then the story isn't a good fanfiction). It puts what one sees as "pony enough" above the art of writing, which is probably the worst sin of all in a creative community that's all about writing.
People who use this argument ought to be slapped. Especially, especially when you have massive amounts of gore filled and highly erotic porn stories constantly filling up the front page and making the feature box all the time.
It's nowhere near "show vs tell" levels of stupidity, but it's up there.
No offense to anyone, of course.
2665676 I don't blame them in this case. A clop-fic isn't close to Faust's vision, but it does usually use the same characters. There's only one pony in Elpis, and she turns to a slug by the halfway point, and she doesn't get much chance to act like Celestia does in the show. So it isn't easy to see the connection.
2665582
'tis to be expected in an experimental story like this, especially one so heavily philosophical (which I understood to be the case, so at least I didn't get whooshed too bad).
Every time I've had an editor say, "I don't understand this," I do far better to rewrite until they don't have to ask. But that's always been with fairly straightforward literal narratives. The rules are different for philosophizing. My experimental/philosophical stories never went anywhere and nobody cared enough to ask about them, so... I obviously don't know what those rules are.
I'm just saying that, at the point where you have to explain it for people to appreciate it, you've already lost that battle. With that person, at least.
I think this helped me understand the story a little better.
2665680
But you see all the restrictions and assumptions created by a statement like "doesn't get to act like Celestia in the show," right? That's what bugs me so much about that complaint. Sure, it's understandable, but only for a reader who isn't really thinking about what they're saying, or are being narrow minded without realizing it.
Not that it makes you a terrible person or that this reviewer in particular is some kind of failure, but...it's just a bad argument. And it in no way pertains to this story.
(Also, a clop fic using mlp characters doesn't dodge this complaint, since the argument "succeeds" by removing any literal and direct link to the world, then condemning the story for having no other connection, and since in mlp:fim all the ponies aren't a bunch of sex hungry addicts, applying the 'not pony enough' argument would fail pretty much any clop story.)
2665680 Ah, but a great deal of the reader's emotional investment in Celestia is based on the link back to the show. Is a cultural backdrop that contextualise her acts and gives them meaning. A random "god" wouldn't resonate in the same way unless you first established a world and mythology for them to inhabit.
What a silly critique. I can certainly imagine someone making a thoughtful critique or even rejection of your story but that ain't it.
Well, I have to admit that when I first read "Elpis" I thought Okay, Bad Horse is working through that whole despair-vs-hope thing again. Which made me sympathetic to the story, but a less-than-impartial critic. This fellow's impartial, but his impartiality seems to come from completely missing the point.
And I wonder how anybody could do that, because to me the thing that stood out, potentially as a flaw, was how heavy-handed the symbolism was. I mean, if your themes had taken physical form then Despair would be a giant sea-monster terrorizing Los Angeles, and Hope would be a giant mecha-warrior walloping it with a container ship like Buford Pusser* in Walking Tall.
Which is a self-indulgent way of writing, and self-indulgence is a flaw--at least to the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant academics and their wannabe hangers-on who for the moment still constitute the American literary establishment (or such as remains of it). But sometimes you just wanna write that way, and if you can't do it on a fanfiction website, where can you?
*He actually used a baseball bat, and he was walloping Klansmen. Difference in degree, not kind.
2665796 Yeah, it would've been harder to tell outside of fan fiction. One great thing about fan fiction is it lets you write very compressed stories.
2665676 I've used "not pony enough" to explain why I didn't enjoy a story before, there are certain (subjective) thematic and aesthetic standards that I feel comprise a story that's My Little Pony and not just generic fiction featuring horses.
Whether that's a valid criteria for the Royal Guard to use is another question entirely. Knighty has clearly decided not to use any criteria of that sort, because Knighty's goal is the maximum amount of pony fiction possible, quality or enjoyablity are simply not appropriate standards for that goal. A more selective list, such as Equestria Daily, can set whatever cockamamie standards they want to, and the only thing an outsider can really expect of them is to be fair in the application of those standards: this is why it's not BS for EQD to not accept any humanized stories: it's EQD's list. If you don't think their standards reflect "the best of fanfiction" then don't use their recommendations.
So from their group page: "The Royal Guard is a new system added to Fimfiction intended to flag stories of high quality via well-defined and transparent standards. " Looking through the standards they posted, "sufficiently pony" doesn't show up at all, not even under another name, so this is a - unfair? - reason to reject the story. But not because the complaint has no place anywhere it has no place being seen as objective.
That argument about physics reminds me of some drama in Moment's comment section
I kinda got that last part about foolish cruelty when first reading, but not really. For me, it was oversimplified as, "hey, ain't it bad for her to push the reset button again though? Because... it'll be bad again? Maybe? Probably?" Yeah, not as precise.
Sometimes I wonder why I stumble into these discussions, when the disparity of intelligence is probably quite high...
Well, when I stumble into them without the full intent of trolling someone :P
How often does this happen when you write stories, BH?
Like, I was under the impression that things like a full understanding of your own story was vital right from the get go during outlining to develop things like themes further as you're writing. Or at least to have something to anchor to so you can focus.
Is it wise to continue on with a story without fully understanding it? Or is having only a good understanding of your story just one of those risks you have to accept?
I'm thinking it is, seeing as how Elpis is published.
This is how you answer your own question.
Eheh, there are times where I've kinda abandoned writing a story or haven't started writing because I don't fully comprehend everything I'm trying to get at, among other things. Like characterization. And taking risks. Definitely that.
2666780
I wouldn't know when I don't understand a story. I can only know when I think I used to misunderstand one. Maybe I still misunderstand all my stories.
You read all my angsting about Pretty Pony Princesses. Usually I know basically what I want to do, but the details aren't clear. Like, I wanted "Long Distance" to be about Twilight feeling isolated, but feeling like she had to have something to offer ponies to get them to talk to her, so she couldn't just say "I'm lonely, please talk to me." But I didn't expect the Mayor's attitude to be so important to the story until after I wrote the first version of it. I meant "Mortality Report" to pity the mortals instead of pitying the immortals, but the business about Celestia wanting to be a mother took it over. In "Detective + Magician", the story changed a lot while I was writing it. It was originally supposed to be a happy, comic shipfic between Sherlock and Twilight. Then Trixie took over, and issues of race and self-loathing, and it took a sharp left turn into Sad.
In this case, I knew that the story was hope vs. despair, but I didn't realize until after writing it that Celestia could be criticized for what she did. I didn't think of presenting it as "try for perfection again vs. settle for less" instead of "try again vs. leave everyone dead" until I wrote the response in this blog post.
2666336
Sorry for the late response :3
(Also, sorry this turned out so long! >.< And sorry to you too, Bad Hose. Sorry to everyone, really :P )
No, you're right, if you're going to make a selective list of stories, you can have whatever criteria or standards you wish. But I would say in this case that you ought to label your list as subjective and not otherwise, because if the list is presenting itself as being objective, you can't really have the "whatever you wish" part fulfilled.
I mean, an objectively good story (if it exists) would have to be said to be good whether an individual reader agrees or not, right? (they may think it's bad, but that doesn't mean it is, factually, bad) A subjectively good story is good only if the reader thinks so. So if a reader (or group of readers) creates a list and says "these are my standards only", than you can't really argue if a particular story doesn't qualify, because how could you argue someone is wrong about what they like? It's like saying you're wrong for disliking apple juice, or you're favorite color is wrong. But, if the reader says "these are the standards for a good story", then it's assumed they've removed their own biased perceptions from the equation, right? It's no longer about what they like, it's about truth. In this case, you can argue for a particular story, or about the list of qualifications. Are they truly objective criteria, and does the story really fulfill them? Is the apple juice actually apple juice, or is it healthy for you or not?
"The Royal Guard is a new system added to Fimfiction intended to flag stories of high quality via well-defined and transparent standards" sounds to me like a claim to objectivity. These stories are good because they are good, factually, not just because we personally think they are. Though perhaps I'm wrong, and it's not their intention to argue this. But if I'm right, then, well, it's very important they are actually objective, isn't it?
And, in lieu of that, I argue that the complaint "take away all references to mlp and there's nothing in this story that resembles the mlp:fim universe" is entirely subjective. Not that it can't be used to explain why you as a reader didn't like it, because it definitely can be; I simply claim you can't use it to buttress the position of "this story is factually bad". An objectively good story is good whether or not a particular reader thinks so, right? So the dislike or lack of enjoyment isn't justification for withholding the story from entry into the list. (the real zinger is: how can you determine a story's objective quality if you dislike it? Perhaps you can't, because it doesn't exist, it can only be subjective...?)
I think I made a mistake in summarizing the complaint as simply "not pony enough," because it engenders the wrong idea, I think, compared to what I'm trying to express. I mean, "Not pony enough" certainly sounds like it has some real merit beyond simple opinion; after all, at some point or another a story has to be "not pony", yes? Like A Christmas Carol. Absolutely nothing to do with mlp:fim.
Except...you could argue all good stories are about human experience, and mlp:fim is very much so about human experience (one piece of evidence you may point to is the fact that so many people strongly relate to it); A Christmas Carol is also about human experience, and therefore, since both it and mlp share a common attribute (they pertain to human experience), A Christmas Carol is also, in a way, about ponies, and vice versa. Not literally, but metaphorically or philosophically. And why couldn't that be enough? Who decides this?
See, that's my problem with "not pony enough". At some point, someone has to draw a line in the sand and say "this is where 'pony enough' begins," and this is done based on personal preference. Or so I argue anyway. You're always going to be able to find a meaningful connection between pretty much any story, fictional or otherwise, and mlp:fim. Whether that connection is seen as being acceptable enough is entirely up to the individual reader (or group of readers), and is thus based on opinion.
You could even apply the reverse of the criticism Bad Horse received to A Christmas Carol; remove all references to human life on earth and replace them with pony, and the story is no longer a "human enough" story...? In fact, it now seems very pony, doesn't it? A tale of three spirits that lead a stallion back into harmony with his neighbors and family. Sounds pretty mlp:fim to me. Does this mean it's no longer a human story? Does it mean that, in its original form, it's more pony than we thought? Does a story have to literally reference ponies (why not spiritually or thematically?), and if so, why in the world ought it need to reference anything else, whether thematic or otherwise?
Now I said I didn't like simplifying this to "not pony enough", and the reason is because of this: the most basic starting point for a story being pony enough, in most people's opinions, I think, is that it at least references actual ponies. I believe everyone assumes this (I could be wrong). But, the way in which the "not pony enough" complaint was expressed here--"remove all instances of mlp:fim in the prose and the story has nothing to do with mlp:fim"--removes that very same basic starting point, and then condemns the story. I dislike the "not pony enough" argument when it's wielded as truth instead of opinion or preference, but this form of it I dislike severely.
Say you were given a child's rendition of a rainbow, and wanted to determine whether the drawing was of a real rainbow or not. Where might you start? Well, it ought to have all seven colors, right? Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The drawing, you notice, has all seven, but the rainbow is straight, not curved. Rainbows are curved, you think. The drawing isn't of a real rainbow.
You then go to the child and instead of saying, "real rainbows have all these colors AND they're curved," you tell them, "this isn't a picture of a real rainbow, because if you took away all seven colors you included, it would look nothing like a rainbow."
See the problem I have with it? It's a bad criticism. Of course if you removed any reference to mlp:fim in your story, it wouldn't look like an mlp:fim story. Guh. What you're really trying to say is that there is more which you need to add.
For rainbows, which all peoples can see and observe, the necessary additions are easy to know. But when it comes to whether a story is good enough, there is no one, singular tale we can all observe as being good to which we can compare all others to. The same for "pony enough". And because of this, I argue you can't objectively determine whether a story is pony enough or not; only if it fits your personal preferences, in which case the complaint has no place in a list of stories that claims to be objective in its assertions of quality.
....
And now I'm going to to sleep, because I am super pooped. Goodnight! ^.^
Wow. There's missing the point and then there's... whatever that was.
When I read Elpis I thought it was an uplifting tale, sort've, because I took the next attempt as the one in the show. It never occurred to me to judge it based on thermodynamic law.
2666911
I think this is the result of being true to the characters and situations you're writing. Forcing a character to conform to outlined actions/attitudes when it becomes obvious she wouldn't when that point in the story is fleshed out, is bad writing.
The best stories (IMHO) are explorations for the author as well as the reader.
2667719
I think that people making a claim to objectivity in such circumstances, are fooling themselves, and anyone who believes the claim is someone who would buy a used car from a place called Honest John's.
2669518
Well...I would buy a car from a place called Honest Applejack's...
It's a very fascinating question, though. Is there an objective set of standards by which to measure a story's quality? Are there certain traits that all good stories share, is there even a single story that all people consider good, and if not, for those who don't like it, are they correct in their judgements or biased? Is it possible to not enjoy a story at all, possibly even hating the experience of reading it, and yet consider it "good", or do we only label the stories we like as good?
I don't know the answer to any of these questions. I don't know if we can ever discover them. Not because it's technically impossible for us, but, because we're discussing something which we as humans like to do (writing), we're invested in the discussion. We have a stake in it. Our pride, our hopes, our emotions, our beliefs about ourselves and our world. And of course, when we're invested in any kind of venture, we can't observe it very clearly or impartially, because we have certain desires pertaining to its outcome which the truth may show to be destined to fail, and not liking that we reject the truth during our considerations.
So the truth about whether objectively good stories exist may be right in front of our faces, and we're just ignoring it, because we don't like it. We are human, after all.
*shrugs* I dunno.
2669567
Well, that's the case with my reaction to Biblical Monsters. I absolutely loathe the story, but will admit that it is on a professional level of competence in every regard. So if we're talking good characters, good word choices, good grammar, and good dialog, then yes, it's a good story. If we're talking a good emotional reaction, then no; it's a silk sack of shit. But that's my subjective viewpoint.
So... yeah, I think there is a way to objectively label a story "good" using structure and technique alone, but it's a method that is meaningless if the goal is to draw reader's attention to stories that they would enjoy. Subjective reviews and recommendations are much more useful, which is why I follow certain review and feature blogs (like OMPR and the RCL), and not others.
Jesus christ, their objections to the story had nothing to do with the story, but with the fact that the physics didn't match up with physics as they are known about our universe at this time? THIS IS A SITE FOR FANFICTION ABOUT MAGICAL PONIES. AND THE STORY WAS CLEARLY MORE THAN JUST A LITTLE ALLEGORICAL.
Gah.
2670773
As if anything from the show consistently lined up with real world physics rather than "it's magic", anyway.
That's... a degree of point-missing that seriously damages their credibility in my eyes.
2670773 2670879 2671587 2668403 I didn't mean for this to become a criticism of the Royal Guards, who are all volunteers, and are doing a great job (by which I mean, of course, that they've featured several of my stories). I'm going to remove that criticism-inspiring section from the post.
2671858
I don't know that it's unwarranted, though. I agree with TheJediMasterEd--I thought the symbolic level of the story was very obvious. Bringing conservation of energy into it implies either bloody-minded literalism or sheer obliviousness to a degree that says very clearly, to me, 'this person is not competent to assess the qualities that make a story a story and not an essay'.
I'm sure whoever that is is a fine person in many other respects, but I am not exaggerating when I say I literally cannot understand that great a degree of missing the point. It's like... someone walking into midtown Manhattan, looking around, frowning, and saying "I really like short buildings being a thing in cities unless a really, really good reason for it not to be is given up-front."
It's probably more politic to edit your post, but I don't know if you can do so to both not make me wonder about the group and still make your point.
2671943
Agreed. Might as well say that the sun really doesn't revolve around the Earth, making MLP unwatchable.
It's such a strange objection that I find myself wondering if it's even genuine or an attempt to rationalize negative feelings.
2671858
You can if you want, I suppose, though it'll probably make your defense a lot less coherent since you won't be able to mention what you're explaining away.
2669592
Yeah, I think I agree, there is a way to objectively rate a story, at the very least on its mechanics and structure. Though would that leave room for experimentation? I dunno. I certainly agree that the mechanical elements of a story are far less important than whatever goal it sets out to accomplish, which is most likely going to be an emotional reaction of some sort. Or to convey an idea.
There have certainly been plenty of stories (both in fanfiction and outside of it) which didn't do much for me, though I could appreciate them for what they were trying to say or some other merit, like the prose or something.
2671858 it's not a criticism of the group or an individual, but the specific event of this critique. I have read many of the stories than later get inducted into the archives, and the vast majority of discussions either mirror my own thoughts or make me appreciate the story in a new way. This might be a function of those posts being congratulatory reviews rather than wholly critical ones.
This neither adds or subtracts anything to my personal view of the story told, because it's just so far off the mark. It is noteworthy, to me, because of that and because I expected any criticism of this piece to be metaphysical, not scientific. It's not like this story is hard sci-fi in the first place.
2671858
I wasn't intending to be criticising the reviewer, merely their review. As has been stated by other commenters, the review seems to be viewing Elpis as a science-fiction piece and criticising the fact that it isn;t 100% 10-mohs hardness sci-fi, when it is a clearly magical story. It's not that the Royal Guards are bad, it's just that this one reviewer seems to have missed the point of the story so hard I'm having trouble understanding it.
2672463 2672427 2671943 I'm not blaming you for replying. The purpose of this post is to explain the story, not to explain their rejection. So I didn't need to include that particular big excerpt in this post. Maybe I should've rewritten my whole explanation and not quoted them at all. It just would've taken a lot of time. I probably spent 2 hours writing that reply.