Devil's Advocate: Media Edition

[Pseudonym]

snip

Sure, you can explain away any plot hole if you want to by appeal to magic or whatever. But you shouldn't want to. It usually makes the fiction far worse which is why people don't bother.

This whole argument misses why people discuss plot holes to begin with.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I can. I did. The Simpsons joke explanation of "A wizard did it" totally works in the DB universe. It wouldn't be the least plausible thing to happen in that universe. But if they were to answer the question by saying, "it shouldn't have worked, but it did. And because it worked nobody cared enough to wonder why," is explanation enough. Or they could start a whole time travel saga that works it out by saying that timeline's dragonballs were replaced with some that had gone for long enough. Then it would be a dangling thread instead of a "plot hole." Point is, in fiction there are no such things as plot holes. A writer can accidentally or on purpose break in-universe rules they establish, because they are THEIR rules to do what they want with.

There is a certain unspoken contract that the writer needs to take when telling a story: that it will remain internally consistent with its own established rules. If that happens to be that the world isn't consistent with our own, or even if it's established that the world itself is fundamentally chaotic, that's fine, as long as it's still consistent with its own rules.

If that contract is broken it becomes more and more difficult to be engaged with a story. If anything can happen, regardless of what is previously established, then how can the author expect me to remain invested or even to follow along. If a rule is broken, it needs to be shown why it was possible, if a character goes through a personal change we need to see how it happened. In real life, if something outrageous happens, like a bolt falls off of a passing aircraft and just happens to fracture the skull of a notorious mass murderer just before their next spree, we have no choice but to accept that it happened, because reality is concrete. However, because fiction is not real, authors need to work all the harder to make us buy into their reality. There's a reason plot twists are more satisfying when you can look back and see all the clues and foreshadowing leading up to it.

Technically, yes, an author can explain everything away with "a wizard did it." They can break their established rules, have character change on a whim, magic up whatever a character needs out of thin air, and even have the main antagonist keel over from a sudden unexplained heart attack, but it won't make for an interesting or satisfying story.

Also, I would say that almost all plot holes are unintentional. And if a writer accidentally breaks their own rules they aren't really doing what they want with THEIR rules. If I accidentally stub my toe, I'm not really doing what I want with my foot now am I?

 

[Kyrian007]

There is a certain unspoken contract that the writer needs to take when telling a story: that it will remain internally consistent with its own established rules. If that happens to be that the world isn't consistent with our own, or even if it's established that the world itself is fundamentally chaotic, that's fine, as long as it's still consistent with its own rules.

If that contract is broken it becomes more and more difficult to be engaged with a story. If anything can happen, regardless of what is previously established, then how can the author expect me to remain invested or even to follow along. If a rule is broken, it needs to be shown why it was possible, if a character goes through a personal change we need to see how it happened. In real life, if something outrageous happens, like a bolt falls off of a passing aircraft and just happens to fracture the skull of a notorious mass murderer just before their next spree, we have no choice but to accept that it happened, because reality is concrete. However, because fiction is not real, authors need to work all the harder to make us buy into their reality. There's a reason plot twists are more satisfying when you can look back and see all the clues and foreshadowing leading up to it.

Technically, yes, an author can explain everything away with "a wizard did it." They can break their established rules, have character change on a whim, magic up whatever a character needs out of thin air, and even have the main antagonist keel over from a sudden unexplained heart attack, but it won't make for an interesting or satisfying story.

Also, I would say that almost all plot holes are unintentional. And if a writer accidentally breaks their own rules they aren't really doing what they want with THEIR rules. If I accidentally stub my toe, I'm not really doing what I want with my foot now am I?

And I disagree. The reason it bothers me, is the idea of a "plot hole" is a distraction taking focus away from what is actually wrong with a story. The person critiquing says "oh, this plot hole just takes me right out of the story." And that's wrong. It actually doesn't. That person doesn't LIKE the story and the "plot hole" is just a convenient explanation they invent because "that's just dumb" doesn't sound "intelligent" enough for them. An author CAN change previously established rules AND make that change either not matter enough or write it into something later AND make it good. And when that happens, nobody really cares about the supposed "plot hole." People only dog on the so-called "plot hole" when they DON'T LIKE either that specific part of the story, or the story in general. And that's the part that bothers me the most, If you Don't Like the story... JUST SAY you don't like the story. SAY you Don't Like that writer. Stop trying to make it about anything but personal preferences. The problem with "plot hole" is its a conversation stopper. Its an excuse. "Why don't you like X, well because of Y plot hole." No, that's not a valid explanation. That gives NO reasons why the story of X is bad, it just tries to stop the conversation with a catchy buzzword. If someone has a problem with the way a story is written or structured, they should have a better explanation than trying to explain it away with a buzzword. Or just admit the story doesn't hold their interest and admit there isn't any better explanation than "I don't like it, I just lost interest."

 

[Kyrian007]

snip

Sure, you can explain away any plot hole if you want to by appeal to magic or whatever. But you shouldn't want to. It usually makes the fiction far worse which is why people don't bother.

This whole argument misses why people discuss plot holes to begin with.

It should "miss" that point. That point is worth missing. "Plot hole" is just a buzzword in a clickbait title that starts a "conversation" about pointless technical minutia that distracts from any substantive criticism. Let's go back to the Simpsons example, "In Episode BF12, you were battling barbarians while riding a winged Appaloosa, yet in the very next scene, my dear, you're clearly atop a winged Arabian! Please to explain it!" And frankly, that's every "plot hole" question. The 'why' of pointless minutia as opposed to making real observations about a story.

Donald Bellisario said it writing for Quantum Leap. "Don't examine this too closely." He was right. EVERY time travel story falls apart under scrutiny. Does that mean we should NEVER EVER try and tell a time travel story? How about zombie apocalypse? Every one "handwaves" the fact that zombies don't actually exist. Its called "suspension of disbelief" and if you can't maintain it, don't blame it on inconsequential nitpicks. It might be the fault of the author to hold your interest, but it isn't the fault of the "winged Arabian." If that (or something like that) is something that bothers you so much, dig deeper. There's obviously a much more profound and basic flaw that is keeping you from actually enjoying the narrative enough to maintain suspension of disbelief.

 

[Worgen]

It kinda makes sense for there to be racism and racial profiling in Zootropolis, seeing as just a few thousand years ago one race lived off eating the other. And then there's the fact that certain species are 100 times weaker/stronger than other species. Sure, maybe for a rabbit you can make an exception to join the police force, but what if a mouse wants to join or one of those sloths?

I feel they could have solved all the issues with that just by changing one scene in the movie, plus it would have shut up the fox news talking heads. The scene near the end with the tiger sitting on the subway next to the bunny who holds her child closer, they used that scene to show speciesism, but they needed to add something to it to really make it work. As it stands the scene shows something powerful and potentially dangerous next to something weak that has a reason to fear it. They needed to add a larger more dangerous "prey" critter on the other side of the tiger and instead of fear of the tiger show it being aggressive and the tiger having to look meek next to it.

 

[Xprimentyl]

snip

Sure, you can explain away any plot hole if you want to by appeal to magic or whatever. But you shouldn't want to. It usually makes the fiction far worse which is why people don't bother.

This whole argument misses why people discuss plot holes to begin with.

It should "miss" that point. That point is worth missing. "Plot hole" is just a buzzword in a clickbait title that starts a "conversation" about pointless technical minutia that distracts from any substantive criticism. Let's go back to the Simpsons example, "In Episode BF12, you were battling barbarians while riding a winged Appaloosa, yet in the very next scene, my dear, you're clearly atop a winged Arabian! Please to explain it!" And frankly, that's every "plot hole" question. The 'why' of pointless minutia as opposed to making real observations about a story.

Donald Bellisario said it writing for Quantum Leap. "Don't examine this too closely." He was right. EVERY time travel story falls apart under scrutiny. Does that mean we should NEVER EVER try and tell a time travel story? How about zombie apocalypse? Every one "handwaves" the fact that zombies don't actually exist. Its called "suspension of disbelief" and if you can't maintain it, don't blame it on inconsequential nitpicks. It might be the fault of the author to hold your interest, but it isn't the fault of the "winged Arabian." If that (or something like that) is something that bothers you so much, dig deeper. There's obviously a much more profound and basic flaw that is keeping you from actually enjoying the narrative enough to maintain suspension of disbelief.

Whether we like it or not, as the audience of a work of fiction, it?s not our place to say objectively how it should or shouldn?t be. A painter can paint a green sky with purple clouds; I might not like it, but in his painting, I must accept that the sky is green and the clouds are purple, and that?s without the painting being overtly called ?Noonday Sky Over Chernobyl.? We can appreciate how we feel something would/could/should be by our own logic and reasoning, but as the fictional world we?re experiencing need not exist and align with ours at all? *shrugs* a wizard could have done it. Not nearly as satisfying as a rational resolution, but in a world that doesn?t exist, Occam?s razor is the first thing that need not apply.

On the other side, I do believe what some deem ?plot holes? are likely mistakes, oversights and/or unintended inconsistencies by the creator; calling them ?plot holes? is just a catchall. I feel every creator?s goal is to entertain which assigns a tacit participatory role to the audience, and hindsight being 20/20, I?m fairly certain that, given the chance, they would like to have filled those ?holes,? sensibly preserved the integrity of the worlds they built, and saved the audience any additional mental exercises suspending their disbelief by assigning culpability to a wizard. I?d wager it?s rare that a creator intends to task the audience to make stuff up to resolve cognitive dissonance; they?re likely Bob Ross ?happy little mistakes? the creator glosses over hoping it doesn?t get scrutinized too much.

In the end, however, I?m inclined to side more with you Kyrian. In terms of entertainment, I either like it or I don?t; I don?t require that it pass scrutiny under an electron microscope to do its job and I don?t lose sleep when it doesn?t if I?ve been entertained overall. That?s largely the charm and appeal of ?80s films; nearly every single one of them was likely pitched prefaced with the phrase ?Just go with it, ok??

A bolt of lightning gives a military robot sentience turning him into basically a loveable, metal 5-year-old with a shoulder-mounted laser canon.​

A ?flux capacitor? and a speed of 88pmh is pretty much all you need for time travel in either direction and altering the past in very large ways has very precise and intended implications in the present.​

An elaborate maze of boobytraps and a pirate ship, intact and filled with treasure, have been hidden inside of a mountain for centuries? just a few blocks from the suburbs where it?s discovered by a group of children.​

That?s the kind of absurdity that has engraved itself into my brain from childhood; I honestly couldn?t care less how the T-Rex managed to get into the visitor?s center; it was an epic moment in cinematic history and thoroughly entertaining! Entertainment is a lot more, well, ?entertaining? when you just go with it.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

snip

Sure, you can explain away any plot hole if you want to by appeal to magic or whatever. But you shouldn't want to. It usually makes the fiction far worse which is why people don't bother.

This whole argument misses why people discuss plot holes to begin with.

It should "miss" that point. That point is worth missing. "Plot hole" is just a buzzword in a clickbait title that starts a "conversation" about pointless technical minutia that distracts from any substantive criticism. Let's go back to the Simpsons example, "In Episode BF12, you were battling barbarians while riding a winged Appaloosa, yet in the very next scene, my dear, you're clearly atop a winged Arabian! Please to explain it!" And frankly, that's every "plot hole" question. The 'why' of pointless minutia as opposed to making real observations about a story.

Eh, I feel there's a difference between that kind of nitpicking over minutia and actual plotholes. Your Simpsons example is just a continuity error, a plot hole would be something like the shard of mirror Harry Potter has in Deathly Hallows Part I he uses to talk with Aberforth. In the books you know what it is, it popped up way in book five...but the films lack that scene. This mirror has appeared out of nowhere and yet we are expected to know what it is. Essentially for it to be a plot hole it has to affect the plot, which really sounds kind of obvious now I type it out

 

[Xprimentyl]

snip

Sure, you can explain away any plot hole if you want to by appeal to magic or whatever. But you shouldn't want to. It usually makes the fiction far worse which is why people don't bother.

This whole argument misses why people discuss plot holes to begin with.

It should "miss" that point. That point is worth missing. "Plot hole" is just a buzzword in a clickbait title that starts a "conversation" about pointless technical minutia that distracts from any substantive criticism. Let's go back to the Simpsons example, "In Episode BF12, you were battling barbarians while riding a winged Appaloosa, yet in the very next scene, my dear, you're clearly atop a winged Arabian! Please to explain it!" And frankly, that's every "plot hole" question. The 'why' of pointless minutia as opposed to making real observations about a story.

Eh, I feel there's a difference between that kind of nitpicking over minutia and actual plotholes. Your Simpsons example is just a continuity error, a plot hole would be something like the shard of mirror Harry Potter has in Deathly Hallows Part I he uses to talk with Aberforth. In the books you know what it is, it popped up way in book five...but the films lack that scene. This mirror has appeared out of nowhere and yet we are expected to know what it is. Essentially for it to be a plot hole it has to affect the plot, which really sounds kind of obvious now I type it out

I?ve not seen all of the Harry Potter movies and never read the books, so I?m speaking from a speculative point, but that doesn?t sound like a plot hole so much as it does an omission, particularly since the mirror is clearly and officially explained somewhere if just not in the film. The world of Harry Potter is very much about magic and wizardry, so this mirror your speaking of could simply be explained as yet another magical tool in a world rife with them. I?ve already seen Potter walk through a wall into a secret world of magic; a magical mirror isn?t necessarily an immersion-breaking use of deus ex machina that demands explaining. If nothing else, call it lamp shading and move on.

 

[Kyrian007]

snip

Sure, you can explain away any plot hole if you want to by appeal to magic or whatever. But you shouldn't want to. It usually makes the fiction far worse which is why people don't bother.

This whole argument misses why people discuss plot holes to begin with.

It should "miss" that point. That point is worth missing. "Plot hole" is just a buzzword in a clickbait title that starts a "conversation" about pointless technical minutia that distracts from any substantive criticism. Let's go back to the Simpsons example, "In Episode BF12, you were battling barbarians while riding a winged Appaloosa, yet in the very next scene, my dear, you're clearly atop a winged Arabian! Please to explain it!" And frankly, that's every "plot hole" question. The 'why' of pointless minutia as opposed to making real observations about a story.

Eh, I feel there's a difference between that kind of nitpicking over minutia and actual plotholes. Your Simpsons example is just a continuity error, a plot hole would be something like the shard of mirror Harry Potter has in Deathly Hallows Part I he uses to talk with Aberforth. In the books you know what it is, it popped up way in book five...but the films lack that scene. This mirror has appeared out of nowhere and yet we are expected to know what it is. Essentially for it to be a plot hole it has to affect the plot, which really sounds kind of obvious now I type it out

I?ve not seen all of the Harry Potter movies and never read the books, so I?m speaking from a speculative point, but that doesn?t sound like a plot hole so much as it does an omission, particularly since the mirror is clearly and officially explained somewhere if just not in the film. The world of Harry Potter is very much about magic and wizardry, so this mirror your speaking of could simply be explained as yet another magical tool in a world rife with them. I?ve already seen Potter walk through a wall into a secret world of magic; a magical mirror isn?t necessarily an immersion-breaking use of deus ex machina that demands explaining. If nothing else, call it lamp shading and move on.

Another one of my favorite examples is Star Wars. "No, I am your father" is an example of what some call plot hole. The information we had been given up to that point was a: being specifically told that Darth Vader killed Anakin Skywalker by someone who had firsthand knowledge, and b: circumstantial evidence corroborating that like why wouldn't the fact that his brother took in a kid who calls him Uncle Owen have tipped him off that he might have a kid. Now obviously they corrected this in Jedi with "a certain point of view" but nobody was complaining about Empire being awful because of a "plot hole." They weren't because "No I am your father" was BADASS. A great Harry Potter example is the time-tuner. It actually would solve every problem they have in the story... and the only time it is used is to let a kid use it to attend some extra classes? But it really isn't a plot hole because the Harry Potter series was better than a short story about some old wizard time traveling to an orphanage and strangling some psycho kid in his bed... The End. Going back to George Lucas, I don't think there were any "plot holes" in his "Chronicles of the Shadow War" books. But it wouldn't matter if there were, "plot holes" couldn't make those books more awful than they already were. The thread was about Devil's advocate, and I rarely get more disagreement on a subject as I do on my take on plot holes. But do a search on the term, and all you get is page after page after page of "listicles" (uhh, I hate that word.) "Plot hole" really should be defined as "a phrase used in clickbait titles."

 

[Asita]

snip

Sure, you can explain away any plot hole if you want to by appeal to magic or whatever. But you shouldn't want to. It usually makes the fiction far worse which is why people don't bother.

This whole argument misses why people discuss plot holes to begin with.

It should "miss" that point. That point is worth missing. "Plot hole" is just a buzzword in a clickbait title that starts a "conversation" about pointless technical minutia that distracts from any substantive criticism. Let's go back to the Simpsons example, "In Episode BF12, you were battling barbarians while riding a winged Appaloosa, yet in the very next scene, my dear, you're clearly atop a winged Arabian! Please to explain it!" And frankly, that's every "plot hole" question. The 'why' of pointless minutia as opposed to making real observations about a story.

Eh, I feel there's a difference between that kind of nitpicking over minutia and actual plotholes. Your Simpsons example is just a continuity error, a plot hole would be something like the shard of mirror Harry Potter has in Deathly Hallows Part I he uses to talk with Aberforth. In the books you know what it is, it popped up way in book five...but the films lack that scene. This mirror has appeared out of nowhere and yet we are expected to know what it is. Essentially for it to be a plot hole it has to affect the plot, which really sounds kind of obvious now I type it out

I?ve not seen all of the Harry Potter movies and never read the books, so I?m speaking from a speculative point, but that doesn?t sound like a plot hole so much as it does an omission, particularly since the mirror is clearly and officially explained somewhere if just not in the film. The world of Harry Potter is very much about magic and wizardry, so this mirror your speaking of could simply be explained as yet another magical tool in a world rife with them. I?ve already seen Potter walk through a wall into a secret world of magic; a magical mirror isn?t necessarily an immersion-breaking use of deus ex machina that demands explaining. If nothing else, call it lamp shading and move on.

Another one of my favorite examples is Star Wars. "No, I am your father" is an example of what some call plot hole. The information we had been given up to that point was a: being specifically told that Darth Vader killed Anakin Skywalker by someone who had firsthand knowledge, and b: circumstantial evidence corroborating that like why wouldn't the fact that his brother took in a kid who calls him Uncle Owen have tipped him off that he might have a kid. Now obviously they corrected this in Jedi with "a certain point of view" but nobody was complaining about Empire being awful because of a "plot hole." They weren't because "No I am your father" was BADASS. A great Harry Potter example is the time-tuner. It actually would solve every problem they have in the story... and the only time it is used is to let a kid use it to attend some extra classes? But it really isn't a plot hole because the Harry Potter series was better than a short story about some old wizard time traveling to an orphanage and strangling some psycho kid in his bed... The End. Going back to George Lucas, I don't think there were any "plot holes" in his "Chronicles of the Shadow War" books. But it wouldn't matter if there were, "plot holes" couldn't make those books more awful than they already were. The thread was about Devil's advocate, and I rarely get more disagreement on a subject as I do on my take on plot holes. But do a search on the term, and all you get is page after page after page of "listicles" (uhh, I hate that word.) "Plot hole" really should be defined as "a phrase used in clickbait titles."

To be honest, Kyrain, I have to question your understanding of the concept if your choice of illustration includes things as simple as unreliable narration.

A plot hole is at its core a specific type of bad writing, much like Deus ex Machina. A good example of this can actually be found in Peter Jackson's adaptation of Lord of the Rings, specifically due to a scene inserted in the Two Towers. We already know that the Ringwraiths have some sense of the One Ring, and we also get a scene at the end of the Two Towers where Frodo essentially tries to give the Ring to a Ringwraith while in a trance, giving up its exact location as Osgiliath. Cue the next film, and for some reason Sauron and his forces are completely oblivious and focusing exclusively on Minas Tirith, despite it long since having been established (and established again at the climax) that recovery of the ring is Sauron's top priority.

We get a similar issue that crops up in Shyamalan's adaptation of the Last Airbender with regards to the captured earthbenders. In the series proper, the earthbenders are imprisoned on a metal ship out at sea where they don't have access to rock. In the movie, they're kept on land, literally standing on their greatest weapon. Broken spirits only explain so much. For all intents and purposes, this set up is analogous to every prisoner in a jail being armed to the teeth, so it's a setup that strains credulity in a "nobody is that stupid" sense, to say the least,

The film version of Into the Woods also hits a surprisingly subtle one by fusing the characters of the Baker and the Narrator from the original adaptation. Long story short, the story of Into the Woods is revealed at the end to be the Baker himself, and in which he reveals details that the Baker himself is unaware of (such as the fact that Rapunzel is his sister).

What makes these all plot holes is that they create inconsistencies or even contradictions within the story. They're instances within the story that defy logical explanation even after accounting for the nuances of the setting. These is usually not enough to torpedo a work on their own, but they are always things that would have benefited from being changed. In saying that "Plot Holes do not exist" you are effectively saying that "writers never make mistakes with regards to their stories".

 

[Kyrian007]

What makes these all plot holes is that they create inconsistencies or even contradictions within the story. They're instances within the story that defy logical explanation even after accounting for the nuances of the setting. These is usually not enough to torpedo a work on their own, but they are always things that would have benefited from being changed. In saying that "Plot Holes do not exist" you are effectively saying that "writers never make mistakes with regards to their stories".

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. They don't. They can't. Its THEIR story to tell. If something seems like a mistake, and they don't bother to correct or explain it... it doesn't (and can't) mean they are wrong. It means they don't think its important enough to bother with. Again, you may not like what they choose to say or explain... and it may be bad you may not be wrong to dislike it. But they wrote it, like it or not that's just how it works now.

Its not really that they don't make mistakes, everyone does. Its more that its useless and pointless to point out the mistakes of someone who literally has the power to take pen in hand and say "whops, looks like YOU were wrong, not me." An author, a writer has the power to be retroactively RIGHT about ANYTHING in a work of fiction they create. And if they don't, they obviously don't think it was important enough a detail bother with it. And if someone who cares enough to CREATE a work of fiction doesn't think its important enough to bother "fixing" a "mistake"... why should I?

Oh, and you forgot to look at context when you wrote off the Star Wars example as unreliable narrator. Yes, it is unreliable narrator... through the lens of having seen Jedi and having that explained. What I said was

"Nobody was complaining about Empire being awful because of a "plot hole." They weren't because "No I am your father" was BADASS."

Was. At that time. You know, before Jedi came out. When no one knew or had any reason to expect we were dealing with an unreliable narrator. When it would have been a "plot hole." In that context.

Would it have made Star Wars bad if we never saw Obi's force ghost from that point on to explain his "point of view?" If Luke never asked Yoda about Obi's lie, or if Yoda just said "he must of had his reasons"... would it have changed things that much? I AM glad they had that conversation. I think it was the better way to go to let Obi explain his actions. But it wouldn't RUIN my enjoyment of Star Wars if they hadn't.

 

[Casual Shinji]

God of War is not the death of the gaming industry as some loud, smug, critics on YouTube are whining about. The game ain't perfect, but it knows how to use most of its mechanics well, is a meaty game with no content cut out, and nothing is locked behind a paywall. For a single-player AAA game, it's a rarity in this day and age. For those wondering, I am referring to Gaming Brit and others who held such "concerns". As much as I am happy for DMC5, it has some extra costume locked behind a pre-order paywall. It's not as bad as some other practices, but stupid and all the more unnecessary.

I wouldn't say it's a popular opinion, it's just popular among a small circle of youtubers. It crops up everytime a game like this gets released and is praised. When Uncharted 4 released and got positive reception BriHard made a video about how videogames aren't fun anymore, because one game not to his liking got praise. It's like these people are terrified the linear, AAA, cutscene-heavy, rollercoaster type games are going to take over all of gaming if one gets critical and commercial succes. Eventhough these games are far and few between, and are heavily outnumbered by the "worthy" games.

It kinda makes sense for there to be racism and racial profiling in Zootropolis, seeing as just a few thousand years ago one race lived off eating the other. And then there's the fact that certain species are 100 times weaker/stronger than other species. Sure, maybe for a rabbit you can make an exception to join the police force, but what if a mouse wants to join or one of those sloths?

I feel they could have solved all the issues with that just by changing one scene in the movie, plus it would have shut up the fox news talking heads. The scene near the end with the tiger sitting on the subway next to the bunny who holds her child closer, they used that scene to show speciesism, but they needed to add something to it to really make it work. As it stands the scene shows something powerful and potentially dangerous next to something weak that has a reason to fear it. They needed to add a larger more dangerous "prey" critter on the other side of the tiger and instead of fear of the tiger show it being aggressive and the tiger having to look meek next to it.

That still wouldn't have made the racism message work. It'd be interesting to see how such a society would work in a movie, where some species are so physically and mentally superior or inferior to others, and what if you are born a sloth or a koala (one of the dumbest mamals on the planet), but painting it as a one-to-one reference to real-life racism just completely falls flat. There's no history of one race eating the other to survive, or one race being ten times the size of another.

 

[Asita]

Oh, and you forgot to look at context when you wrote off the Star Wars example as unreliable narrator. Yes, it is unreliable narrator... through the lens of having seen Jedi and having that explained. What I said was

"Nobody was complaining about Empire being awful because of a "plot hole." They weren't because "No I am your father" was BADASS."

Was. At that time. You know, before Jedi came out. When no one knew or had any reason to expect we were dealing with an unreliable narrator. When it would have been a "plot hole." In that context.

Would it have made Star Wars bad if we never saw Obi's force ghost from that point on to explain his "point of view?" If Luke never asked Yoda about Obi's lie, or if Yoda just said "he must of had his reasons"... would it have changed things that much? I AM glad they had that conversation. I think it was the better way to go to let Obi explain his actions. But it wouldn't RUIN my enjoyment of Star Wars if they hadn't.

...That would be because I have both the theatrical and literary education to recognize the simple fact that that is not and never was a plot hole. Return of the Jedi is unnecessary to chalk that scene up to unreliable narration. The scene itself draws attention to the fact that Obi-wan and Vader's claims are directly at odds with each other and that one of them has to be lying. Vader's line is a refutation of Obi-wan's claims.

"Obi-wan never told you what happened to your father?"
"He told me enough! He told me you killed him!"
"No. I am your father!"
"That's not true...That's impossible!
"Search your feelings, you know it to be true!"

The only thing this contradicts is what one person said happened. That does not make a plot hole, as it is not an instance that defies explanation in the context of the story. In fact, the explanations kinda falls into your lap with "Obi-wan lied" and "Vader is lying" being the very obvious options. It's no more a plot hole than multiple accusations over the course of a murder mystery. That one or more of the accounts must be wrong does not create a plot hole.

Again, that you invoke something so simple to explain suggests to me that you don't actually understand the concept. You've invoked scenes where things simply weren't directly explained at length, you've invoked one character contradicting another, you've invoked characters not acting like you might. Hell, you seem to have cited fictional creatures like zombies as a potential example in stories that contain them. You have invoked thinking of it in terms of any contradiction - including things as simple as one character contradicting another - or things that a person disagrees with rather than moments in the story that defy explanation in accordance with the internal logic of the story. There is quite the difference.

In some ways, what you seem to be arguing and how you're arguing it reminds me of a scene in Scrubs. The episode saw the cast get excited over the possibility of Cox "pitching a perfect game", were none of the 27 patients in the ICU die during his 24 hour shift. Cue the end of the episode and one of the patients dies at 11:55, five minutes short of a "perfect game". In a moment of defiance, Elliot refuses to call it on the grounds that after working so hard and coming so close to achieving it, she's not going to call time of death just yet. Cox in turn responds that not only is a "one-hitter" spectacular in its own right, but that by refusing to call it Elliot was cheapening "what should be an endless pursuit of perfection just because you want the world to laugh with you tonight". It feels like you're taking people identifying inconsistencies in the plot far too personally and you're cheapening the art of writers improving their craft by bending over backwards to try and excuse moments in the story that they could have done better.

 

[Worgen]

It kinda makes sense for there to be racism and racial profiling in Zootropolis, seeing as just a few thousand years ago one race lived off eating the other. And then there's the fact that certain species are 100 times weaker/stronger than other species. Sure, maybe for a rabbit you can make an exception to join the police force, but what if a mouse wants to join or one of those sloths?

I feel they could have solved all the issues with that just by changing one scene in the movie, plus it would have shut up the fox news talking heads. The scene near the end with the tiger sitting on the subway next to the bunny who holds her child closer, they used that scene to show speciesism, but they needed to add something to it to really make it work. As it stands the scene shows something powerful and potentially dangerous next to something weak that has a reason to fear it. They needed to add a larger more dangerous "prey" critter on the other side of the tiger and instead of fear of the tiger show it being aggressive and the tiger having to look meek next to it.

That still wouldn't have made the racism message work. It'd be interesting to see how such a society would work in a movie, where some species are so physically and mentally superior or inferior to others, and what if you are born a sloth or a koala (one of the dumbest mamals on the planet), but painting it as a one-to-one reference to real-life racism just completely falls flat. There's no history of one race eating the other to survive, or one race being ten times the size of another.

Actually we do kinda have a real life equivalent. Men and women. Men tend to be bigger and stronger and women have to deal with us and can never quite be sure upon meeting one of us, if we will be cool or not.

 

[Casual Shinji]

That still wouldn't have made the racism message work. It'd be interesting to see how such a society would work in a movie, where some species are so physically and mentally superior or inferior to others, and what if you are born a sloth or a koala (one of the dumbest mamals on the planet), but painting it as a one-to-one reference to real-life racism just completely falls flat. There's no history of one race eating the other to survive, or one race being ten times the size of another.

Actually we do kinda have a real life equivalent. Men and women. Men tend to be bigger and stronger and women have to deal with us and can never quite be sure upon meeting one of us, if we will be cool or not.

Yeah, but that's not what the movie was trying to draw parellel to with its predator vs. prey dynamic. The whole idea that predators represent minorities just doesn't work, since white people have zero history of being preyed upon by non-whites.

 

[Asita]

That still wouldn't have made the racism message work. It'd be interesting to see how such a society would work in a movie, where some species are so physically and mentally superior or inferior to others, and what if you are born a sloth or a koala (one of the dumbest mamals on the planet), but painting it as a one-to-one reference to real-life racism just completely falls flat. There's no history of one race eating the other to survive, or one race being ten times the size of another.

Actually we do kinda have a real life equivalent. Men and women. Men tend to be bigger and stronger and women have to deal with us and can never quite be sure upon meeting one of us, if we will be cool or not.

Yeah, but that's not what the movie was trying to draw parellel to with its predator vs. prey dynamic. The whole idea that predators represent minorities just doesn't work, since white people have zero history of being preyed upon by non-whites.

That's...not what it's about. It's not so much about racism specifically as much as it is about prejudice, which can become racism, but is not necessarily racism. There's not an obvious privileged or oppressed group, and that's by design. The central idea is not 'group A is a victim of group B', nor is any group obviously analogous to a real-world demographic. The closest we come to it is seeing how quickly everyone embraces a racist conclusion in a time of apparent crisis, which strikes me as playing closer to antisemitism in Nazi Germany than racism in a general sense or modern context (possibly barring Trump stoking fears of Mexicans and Muslims from 2016 onward).

The idea is not that some institutional forces are at play with obvious victims and villains, we see prejudices based on size and preconceived notions of aptitude, based on heritage and broad classification (predator and prey), and based on species stereotypes across the board. Everyone shows some degree of bias, stereotyping or prejudice, but it's only in a few of them that it's so prominent as to be a defining feature of their character. That's the point, and that's what makes the transition to racism on predator/prey lines near the end so terrifyingly easy. The unrecognized biases bubbling under the surface were suddenly given an outlet. As per the creative team itself, they wanted to explore the effect of bias on society and did not want to reflect any specific racial analogs in the film.

 

[BrawlMan]

God of War is not the death of the gaming industry as some loud, smug, critics on YouTube are whining about. The game ain't perfect, but it knows how to use most of its mechanics well, is a meaty game with no content cut out, and nothing is locked behind a paywall. For a single-player AAA game, it's a rarity in this day and age. For those wondering, I am referring to Gaming Brit and others who held such "concerns". As much as I am happy for DMC5, it has some extra costume locked behind a pre-order paywall. It's not as bad as some other practices, but stupid and all the more unnecessary.

I wouldn't say it's a popular opinion, it's just popular among a small circle of youtubers. It crops up everytime a game like this gets released and is praised. When Uncharted 4 released and got positive reception BriHard made a video about how videogames aren't fun anymore, because one game not to his liking got praise. It's like these people are terrified the linear, AAA, cutscene-heavy, rollercoaster type games are going to take over all of gaming if one gets critical and commercial succes. Eventhough these games are far and few between, and are heavily outnumbered by the "worthy" games.

That's what I meant when I said some. I know most of the regular, casual, and die hard GoW fans love 4, it's just I am sick of these YT guys bitching and smelling their own farts. If you don't like the game or the new direction, that fine, but don't act like you're better or smarter than the casual consumer. They need to get their heads of their asses, because most of the people developing or publishing these games are listening to you like your some gospel choir. You're throwing ***** fits in your own homes or rooms.

 

[Casual Shinji]

That's...not what it's about. It's not so much about racism specifically as much as it is about prejudice, which can become racism, but is not necessarily racism. There's not an obvious privileged or oppressed group, and that's by design. The central idea is not 'group A is a victim of group B', nor is any group obviously analogous to a real-world demographic. The closest we come to it is seeing how quickly everyone embraces a racist conclusion in a time of apparent crisis, which strikes me as playing closer to antisemitism in Nazi Germany than racism in a general sense or modern context (possibly barring Trump stoking fears of Mexicans and Muslims from 2016 onward).

The idea is not that some institutional forces are at play with obvious victims and villains, we see prejudices based on size and preconceived notions of aptitude, based on heritage and broad classification (predator and prey), and based on species stereotypes across the board. Everyone shows some degree of bias, stereotyping or prejudice, but it's only in a few of them that it's so prominent as to be a defining feature of their character. That's the point, and that's what makes the transition to racism on predator/prey lines near the end so terrifyingly easy. The unrecognized biases bubbling under the surface were suddenly given an outlet. As per the creative team itself, they wanted to explore the effect of bias on society and did not want to reflect any specific racial analogs in the film.

Whether it's about racism or prejudice that can become racism, it just doesn't work in this setting (as it's being portrayed), because this world has an obvious history of one catagory needing to eat the other, which is never mentioned how this was solved by the way. And there still being very clear physical and mental advantages to being one species over another. The movie kinda wants to have its cake and eat it, wanting us to laugh at sloths being really slow and lemmings blindly following one another, yet at the same time trying to tell us not to look down on others for their differences.

 

[Kyrian007]

Again, that you invoke something so simple to explain suggests to me that you don't actually understand the concept. You've invoked scenes where things simply weren't directly explained at length, you've invoked one character contradicting another, you've invoked characters not acting like you might. Hell, you seem to have cited fictional creatures like zombies as a potential example in stories that contain them. You have invoked thinking of it in terms of any contradiction - including things as simple as one character contradicting another - or things that a person disagrees with rather than moments in the story that defy explanation in accordance with the internal logic of the story. There is quite the difference.

Not really. NOTHING defies explanation in fiction... because its fiction. There aren't any limits, internal logic or otherwise. Should a writer chose to, anything can be explained (whether it should be or not which is the better discussion.) I've used simple examples mainly because the "glaring massive unexplainable" plot holes some people think defy explanation are actually no different than examples like simple contradictions. And also because they generally pop up in fiction most of us can easily recognize. I could do pretty deep dives into the "plot holes" of a few non-magical vanilla humans having abilities their bloodlines can't back up in The Deryni Chronicles. But why bother, I couldn't guarantee anymore than a handful of others would recognize the material. Which is kind of too bad, as they are fairly good examples of unexplained handwaves that make a story more interesting than it would be if it had held strictly to its internal established rules. Bottom line, a good writer can break the established logic of their own story with a tantalizing dangling thread or just a convenient unexplained mystery happening... and still leave the reader wanting more. While conversely a bad writer can perfectly justify every event it their story by its own internal logic... and still write something too bland and boring to hold a reader's interest.

 

[Worgen]

That still wouldn't have made the racism message work. It'd be interesting to see how such a society would work in a movie, where some species are so physically and mentally superior or inferior to others, and what if you are born a sloth or a koala (one of the dumbest mamals on the planet), but painting it as a one-to-one reference to real-life racism just completely falls flat. There's no history of one race eating the other to survive, or one race being ten times the size of another.

Actually we do kinda have a real life equivalent. Men and women. Men tend to be bigger and stronger and women have to deal with us and can never quite be sure upon meeting one of us, if we will be cool or not.

Yeah, but that's not what the movie was trying to draw parellel to with its predator vs. prey dynamic. The whole idea that predators represent minorities just doesn't work, since white people have zero history of being preyed upon by non-whites.

White people do have a history of preying on non-whites.