Bad Science and Badfics: The Role of Confirmation Bias in Character Derailment · 9:54pm Sep 15th, 2016
Who amongst you, my good ladies and gentlemen, wishes to pursue a career in science? You there at the back? Excellent. As it happens, my hypothetical sir or madam, I know a little about the topic. If you wish to be a good scientist, and I assume that you do, then there is a demon which must be confronted and slain. An enemy, whose presense you must always be wary of.
Confirmation Bias.
This will lead back to pony, trust me on this.
For the sake of any who are unfamiliar with the term, here is the definition, as stated by Wikipedia:
Confirmation bias, also called confirmatory bias or myside bias, is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses, while giving disproportionately less consideration to alternative possibilities. It is a type of cognitive bias and a systematic error of inductive reasoning. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. People also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position. Biased search, interpretation and memory have been invoked to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence), belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect (a greater reliance on information encountered early in a series) and illusory correlation (when people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations).
This is something that one must always be on the lookout for; even now, I must occasionally stop and think: am I seeing what is actually there, or am I seeing what I want the data to show.
I suspect, my good ladies and gentlemen, that some of you may be thinking: this is all very nice, but what does it have to do with ponies, cartoons about ponies, and fics written about the same
Quite a lot, actually.
Allow me to illustrate with an example. At various times in the past, I have discussed Spike.
Poor Spike; few other characters get quite as mangled as he. I'm quite sure that veterans of Fimfiction will be quite familiar with how Spike is typically portrayed in badfics, but for the sake of any newcomers, his depiction typically takes two forms:
The First, I like to call Angry Badass Spike. Angry badass Spike, we must always remember, is a Dragon. To paraphrase his own typical words: (ripped shamelessly from one of my old reviews)
“I’m the biggest badass there ever was. I can rip through anything with the sheer force of my badassness alone. None may stand before my vast anger and raw power. All shall look upon me and know: that is a badass. Chuck Noris and Miles Gloriosus periodically check that they haven’t spontaneously developed vaginas, such is my unadulterated manliness. My supreme badassness. My perfect manlyassbadness. Blessed be I, in my Stu-ish Might.”
The second, I like to call Wangsty Abused Spike. Unlike his happy go lucky canon self, this Spike is a veritable ball of teen angst. He angsts about Rarity, who abuses him horribly by accepting his help and then having the unmitigated gall to not sleep with him. He angsts about Twilight, who abuses him horribly by giving him chores. He angsts about ponies in general. He is used, he is abused, he is mistreated. Nobody loves him, everybody hates him, he might as well go and eat worms all day.
What these depictions both have in common is that they have very little to do with Spike as he actually exists in canon; Spike is not an unstoppable badass whose mere gaze can turn armies, nor is he a wangsty and depressed ball of abused misery. Yet these portrayals have not come from nothing; they are far too common, and have been developed independently far too many times, to be a mere coincidence.
Much of this touches upon concepts that I have discussed before: Spike is a male youngster amongst a primarily adult, female cast. Further, as a dragon, he is a different species, and thus can be viewed as an outsider. This makes him an excellent audience surrogate for many young male fans. As such, he is a prime candidate for them to project aspects of themselves onto, and often serves as a self insertion vehicle.
To summarise as typical chain of events: authors, watching the show, identify with Spike. Authors begin to project themselves onto Spike; an angsty teen authors will envision Spike as going through much of the same angst as themselves. Our hypothetical authors will begin to construct a version of Spike that is more in line with their own thoughts and feelings; this Spike will, therefore, begin to differ more and more from his canon self.
Some authors go beyond this; rather than merely identifying with Spike, they begin to tie their own identity to him; they have projected so much of themselves onto the character that they begin to see the character as synonymous with themselves.
By the time such authors begin to type out their various fics, the Spike in their head will be an altogether different creature from canon; his character will have been entirely derailed.
Yet this derailment does not tend to happen randomly. As an author begins to identify with and project onto a character, in this case Spike, they will begin to cherry pick incidents that they believe supports their developing hypothesis. Further, as they are projecting themselves onto Spike, they will also project their own hypothetical responses in place of his.
In other words, they are guilty of confirmation bias with regards to their interpretation of Spike. They have reached their conclusion, and now only seek evidence that confirms it, and only evidence that confirms it.
And thus we see a pattern. Young, primarily male teens seldom appreciate chores. Hence Twilight giving Spike work as her assistant is taken as evidence that she abuses him as cheap labour.
Those same young authors, like Spike, will likely have crushed on another person with whom they were not able to pursue a relationship. Hence Spikes anger at being strung along and "friendzoned" by Rarity.
This is the trap that confirmation bias sets for the unwary author. In looking only at canon events through the lens of a preexisting bias, they see only what they wish to see, as opposed to what is actually there.
In canon, Spike self identifies as Twilight's "Number One Assistant" and desires to be useful. That is one point about his character that has always been consistent. He wants to be helpful to Twilight. He likes helping Rarity. Yet one who has concluded that Spike is being mistreated or abused will ignore or else twist this. Justifications and handwaves will be forthcoming.
To put this in terms of the definition above, ambiguous data will be interpreted as supporting, contradictory data will be downplayed or misinterpreted and any supporting data will be assigned disproportionate significance.
And in the end, we will have a thoroughly derailed, OOC Spike.
This is only one example; Spike is far from the only character this happens to. A similar process led to 'lil orphan Scootaloo, as well as playing a role in Tyrantlestia, the New Lunar Republic and various neglected and unappreciated versions of Princess Luna. To name but a few.
Now, my good ladies and gentlemen, I ask for your views. Is this a phenomenon you yourself have observed? What sort of fics do you see this in? Is this a thing at all.
As always, I await your responses with interest.
I think you named the big three up front, but my money is down for Shallow Rarity (seen less often but pernicious even in reasonably good stories), as well as Hick Applejack (this one requires some distinction that is best learned from having lived in the country for any length of time).
The biggest one isn't actually a character but a world interpretation I've touched on before: The Mare/Stallion Split of Equestria. Fans tend to imagine that Equestria is a matriarchal society, therefore men suffer the same kind of bias women deal with in our world or else are wildly outnumbered. I tend to blame Xenophilia for this, because nowhere in canon is either of these things in evidence.
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Xenophilia might be the trope codifier, but not the origin. The origin is the Japanese Girls School Effect: For most of Season 1, and for a good while afterwards, mares outnumber stallions on screen a lot. By the end of Season 2, the ratio evens out to 60/40%, and goes on to near 50/50 from then on.
Some ideas stick around even though the evidence for them has been thoroughly jossed.
4211336
Shallow Rarity is a rather annoying sight, isn't she. As Rarity is my favourite, this interpretation is one I dislike intensely.
A lot of this, particularly the oppressive matriarchy, stems from the same sort of cultural projection that bought us the inexplicably republican Princess Luna. I wrote an essay on the topic here.
Hick Applejack is one I have noticed, but I suspect that you get more of the intricacies of that if you are American. Racist Applejack and Homophobic Applejack, subtropes of the Hick, have been seen often as well.
4211356
That ties into early evidence bias; a fallacy whereby disproportionate weight is assigned to data obtained early in a set.
It is also indicative of a tendency people have to ignore simple Doylist explanations in favor of unlikely and premature Watsonian interpretations. Particularly Watsonian interpretations that let their OC's have a harem of adoring females...
I find people using their wholly imagined gender disparity crap to try and excuse their shitty harem fics, and then getting saucy when you point out that there's absolutely no evidence for such a thing, to be an extremely annoying case of this. You'll see them saying "But in most crowd shots, it's all mares!". Yeah. In Season One. Also in Season One, and even in later seasons, there'll be like four Lyras, seven Minuettes, a couple of Time Turners, a bunch of Minuette recolours, and in one hilarious shot, five Trixies, in any given crowd shot. Are we to assume then that the ratio of Trixie to other ponies is five to one? Where are the Trixie harem fics? It doesn't make any sense.
Another fun one is shipping. People are like, "Oh, Rainbow Dash looked at Twilight for a second so they must be in wuv!" And then when you point out that they have completely different personalities and that opposites do not, in fact, attract, they get all pissy and start citing examples that could mean literally anything else. I find it more than a little annoying that I can't go two stories without tripping over a shitty ship fic that's full of confirmation bias. And god forbid if someone presents an alternate ship with—dun dun dun—evidence. All hell breaks loose. It gets very tiresome.
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Personally, I tend to avoid stepping into debates about shipping, in much the same way as I tend to avoid stepping between two fighting wolverines. And for much the same reason. Some of those people are nuts. Legitimately insane.
4211383 I'm not a shipper. I can't stand shipping of any kind. I find it boring and formulaic and unsupported by canon. But I've seen people arguing about it and I'm just there like 'wut'. I've seen people threaten death at each other over shipping. Seriously. What the fuck?
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We should be thankful it isn't supported by canon; fandoms where there are actual canon ships can often become complete clusterfucks. The shipping wars in the Harry Potter fandom in particular comes to mind. There are people who are ravenous in their hatred of Ron Weasley to this day.
4211376 Currently drafting: Trixie Harem Fic.
I actually have a very different perspective on shipping, for the most part. I think shipping is entertaining and perfectly fine provided you don't take it as gospel law or demand canonicity. Moments in series are often inflated out of context, but there's a big difference between a shipping story that builds on that idea well and one that does not.
Shipping wars are, of course, wholly pointless and detrimental and when not tongue in cheek should be expunged forever.
And the thing about shipping is that I find it more constructive than simple projection because getting it to work in a story requires the basic skills of actually being able to write romance, since canon won't ever do it for you. You really have to do the legwork to sell a ship, and so it's a great place to get your feet wet, as it were. (Also I'd be lying if I said I don't go for femslash in a big way).
It's not great to be heavily invested in a ship to the point of getting angry when things don't work that way, but generally as alternative interpretations of characters and canons go, I find they range from "harmless" to "intriguing" to "adorable", with the occasional "No" thrown in.
4211481
This. I'd be a hypocrite if I criticized people for shipping, since most of my fics are Fluttercord. However, I can't stand shipping wars and the way people go on and on about whether something is canon or not to the point of calling Fluttershy a "slut" etc. It just gets nasty, and people behave weirdly like jealous girlfriends. Just no. Shoot that shit down, and fast.
I draw the line at foalcon though. That shit can die in a grease fire and I wish it would.
Personally I always wondered why Spike never went to school with the other kids his age, but that was about it for me.
My most annoying example of confirmation bias: Celestia and Luna are demigods. Back in S1&2 some of the best fanfic was about how Celestia could singlehandly fight off a bunch of dragons, etc. Since then, Celestia's been knocked up and down the block, and Luna has also been beaten by angry clouds. Chapter books (not canon, but still) say they gain their immortality from being rejuvenated by the sun and moon. But you still see authors literally defining them as goddesses over and over in new fiction today.
Also, remember how Hasbro tweeted pretty explicitly that Twilight Sparkle is Not immortal? How many authors like to write about her as immortal anyway? That's probably the most widespread example of fanon ignoring canon because of confirmation bias that I can think of.
4211908 Technically, the tweet said that Twilight will not outlive her friends, which could also be interpreted to mean that all of the Mane 6 will become alicorns. Also, it's not clear how much actual weight Meghan's tweets have.
4211969 Yeah, it did say that, but what do we think the most likely meaning of that tweet was? Twilight and all her friends will become alicorns and live forever, some big plan they had 3 seasons ago and have never enacted, or Twilight is mortal and is going to die at the same time as the rest of the Mane 6? (Or Spike, Shining Armor, Moondancer, Sunset Shimmer, unless you think the plan is for them to all become alicorns and drago-corns as well).
And saying Meghan's tweets don't have weight because you don't like them? That's a picture-perfect example of confirmation bias in action.
4211997 Actually, Meghan herself said that her tweets aren't canon, or words to that affect.
4212017 Ok, I believe that. The writers do like to tweet lots of different stuff, a lot of it off the cuff.
But as an example of confirmation bias, I'm going to start by assuming you would prefer it if Twilight was immortal. If Meghan had tweeted out "Twilight Sparkle is totally immortal," would you still bring up the fact that her tweets, aren't canon? If you only focus on discrediting information that disagrees with what you want to be true, then that's confirmation bias in action.
4212055 Ok, got it. Anyway, I don't think it's likely to be addressed at all on the actual show, since that would probably be to heavy a topic for little kids.
4212074 That's true, you have a good point there, it would be a pretty shitty episode watching Twilight cry in front of five graves.
On the other hand, I have heard rumors they might do an episode about Applejack missing her parents, that would be interesting.
Stumbled on you via your review of Cynewulf's 80 Days story, but this post is the one that made me realize I needed to follow you post-haste.
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Thanks for the follow, and welcome aboard
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Ugh I hate Harem fics. It's usually just an excuse for the author to ship their, usually lame, OC (or OC not so cleverly disguised as Spike) with as many cast members as possible. Often only ignoring the ones they don't like.
Despite the fact that the show itself has no less than five canon marriages, and not the slightest hint of harems. Yes I know it's a kids show but I don't recall even a background shot of a stallion hanging around with a group of mares. And no Big Mac getting swarmed in Lesson Zero doesn't count.
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I wish I had even half the skill to do this idea proper justice, as a comedy fic of course.
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The problem with tweets is that they're at best secondary canon. Even if Meghan, or Lauren, or Larson, or anyone else involved in creative tweet something with the full intention of it being canon, until it's in the show there's nothing from preventing a future creative team from changing it.
4212338 That's true. But only dismissing tweets when you disagree with what they say is an example of confirmation bias.
I makes me think of those fics where a brony goes to sleep and wakes up inside a Canon pony. Usually getting some sort of love interest or, at worst, a harem.
4212091 Got it.
This definitely exists, I've observed it before but have never given it a name, it happens with justifying the NLR very often.
4211376
thank you for blessing me with this mental image