1470 réponses à ce sujet

[remydat]

Heretic,

The comment was about an author saying something is incomprehensible. So no he is not assuming I am smart and can figure it out because there is nothing to figure out. If it is incomprehensible no amount of thought by me is going to make it comprehensible. If I could just fill in the blanks and figure it out then my doing so makes the author a liar because I figured it out without him telling me and in doing so disproved his argument that it could not be understood.

So you seem confused. I have no problem with a writer not spelling everything out and leaving me with clues to figure stuff out. The issue is him telling me it cant be explained which is telling me he couldnt figure it out and so wants me to just let it go.  There was a time when the universe was incomprehensible to cave men.  By this logic we should have stayed cave men and never tried to understand things.

Modifié par remydat, 14 mai 2013 - 04:54 .

[The Heretic of Time]

remydat wrote...

Heretic,

The comment was about an author saying something is incomprehensible. So no he is not assuming I am smart and can figure it out because there is nothing to figure out. If it is incomprehensible no amount of thought by me is going to make it comprehensible.

That is true? And what's so bad about that? What is so bad about accepting that some things indeed are incomprehensible? There are plenty of incomprehensible things in real-life. Why can't a fictional universe have incomphrehensible phenomena?

If I could just fill in the blanks and figure it out then my doing so makes the author a liar because I figured it out without him telling me and in doing so disproved his argument that it could not be understand.

Thinking you understand something and actually understanding something are two different things.

The reapers might very well be incomprehensible, but that doesn't mean we can't speculate on it.

Quantum-physics are still a big mystery to the scientific community, but that doesn't stop scientists from speculating and trying to make sense in very creative ways of something that is essentially incomprehensible at the moment.

So you seem confused. I have no problem with a writer not spelling everything out and leaving me with clues to figure stuff out. The issue is him telling me it cant be explained so dont bother trying to think.

What about: "it can't be explained in a comprehensible way, but I do want you to try and think about it."?

Modifié par Heretic_Hanar, 14 mai 2013 - 04:57 .

[remydat]

Did I say it was bad? I said I personally dont like reading stories like that. I had 3 games to speculate about motives. Now I want the author to have the decency to give me enough information so I can discern his version of the truth. That is why I engaged with the story in the first place. If I wanted the story to end with me having to continue to speculate then I would write my own stories or headcanon instead of paying money to read his.

Why the hell would I pay money just so I then need to finish the story for him? Should I pay someone so I can cook my own food? I know restaurants like this exist but I avoid them for this very reason. I am telling you what I choose to spend money on. You are free to spend to your money on incomprehensible characters. I refuse.  To each his/her own.

Modifié par remydat, 14 mai 2013 - 05:10 .

[Shepard108278]

I think that was a good interview. I had a few issues with the ending that we minor but all that was fixed with EC and Citadel so imo they are doing great.

[dreamgazer]

The lesson BioWare should learn about spelling out the motives of mile-high, near-invincible mechanical Cthulhu?

Perhaps we shouldn't use mile-high, near-invincible mechanical Cthulhu.

[Caprea]

Heretic_Hanar wrote...

If the author decides to ommit information and leave things ambiguous, it doesn't mean that the author isn't too brigt and pretends the audience in dumb. It actually means the opposite. It means the author expects his audience to be smart and creative enough to fill in the blanks themselves, something you clearly aren't capable of.

Which would have been a much better way to go with the whole Reaper thing. The notion that they're a probably millenia old sentient machine race whose motives are way beyond our grasp would have had a much greater impact than them turning out to be the Catalyst's toys.

I really don't see what the whole problem with transcendence and incomprehensibility in fiction is. It has always mattered to people in real life, so why not in fiction? And in ME, the characters were actually actively confronted with such an incomprehensible, "transcendent" being. Truth be told, I found that pretty awesome. ...Well, until ME3, that is.

Modifié par dea_ex_machina, 14 mai 2013 - 05:47 .

[Reorte]

Heretic_Hanar wrote...

That is true? And what's so bad about that? What is so bad about accepting that some things indeed are incomprehensible? There are plenty of incomprehensible things in real-life. Why can't a fictional universe have incomphrehensible phenomena?

It can but they need to be handled very, very carefully to be seen by the audience as convincing incomprehensible phenomena and not the author just using that as an excuse to be random.

[CptData]

Doubt they've learned it.

I might be wrong, but if the spinoff doesn't feel like ME1 but like ME3, they didn't learn it. Right?

[remydat]

There is nothing in real life that is incomprehensible that man does not try and comprehend. In fact that is precisely how we advance as a species. Ancient Man dreamed up gods to explain the world and that was not good enough for modern man so he used science instead.

To just accept something is incomprehensible is to deny one's own humanity given the history of the species.

[Megaton_Hope]

David7204 wrote...

I won't deny that the Reaper motive was very poorly done and unsatisfying. Because it was. But proclaiming that such a thing was inevitable is just pigheaded hindsight bias, which is sadly all too common on the BSN.

Guy really loves his ad homs.

Debate's good for you. It teaches you to think.

Doesn't if you do it wrong.

[dreamgazer]

Megaton_Hope wrote...

David7204 wrote...

I won't deny that the Reaper motive was very poorly done and unsatisfying. Because it was. But proclaiming that such a thing was inevitable is just pigheaded hindsight bias, which is sadly all too common on the BSN.

Guy really loves his ad homs.

Unfortunately. 

[The Heretic of Time]

remydat wrote...

There is nothing in real life that is incomprehensible that man does not try and comprehend. In fact that is precisely how we advance as a species. Ancient Man dreamed up gods to explain the world and that was not good enough for modern man so he used science instead.

True.

This is where you go wrong though:

To just accept something is incomprehensible is to deny one's own humanity given the history of the species.

To accept something is incomprehensible is the first step into learning the true nature of the phenomenom that is as of yet incomprehensible.

A lot of stuff in our universe is still very incomprehesible to us. I know that, scientists know that, you know that too. That doesn't mean that this stuff will always stay incomprehensible to us (but it might).

Science is the adventure into the deep unknown, to discover, to make the unknown known and to make the incomprehensible comprehensible. 


However, motives, feeling, emotions, desires, all that stuff has nothing to do with science. There are plenty of real-life examples where crazy psychopaths do crazy stuff with unknown motives. Sometimes their motives are incomprehensible. 

See, you don't need to be a 2 kilometers tall giant space Cthulhu in order to have incomprehensible motives. Plenty humans can do incomprehenisble things with incomprehensible motives.

[string3r]

The reapers should have been left a mystery, but maybe there could have been subtle hints as to what their motives were.

[drayfish]

David7204 wrote...

Debate's good for you. It teaches you to think.

I want to legitimately thank you for making me laugh this morning, David.

Truly, hearing you - of all people - self-righteously pontificate about how debate operates, and declare yourself the saviour of reasoned thought that the BSN needs, has been one of the funniest reads I've enjoyed recently.

You seem to forget that a forum actually retains countless records of your own writing - which is all too frequently filled with arrogance, insult, oversimplification and needless, petulent, vicious aggression.  That you would consider your frequent, pathetic tantrums (shouting 'you are stupid!' and 'you are moronic' at someone because they don't agree with you, with no justification and no valid counter-argument) 'satire' is wonderfully farcical - but obviously not for the reason you intented.

Indeed, it's almost as funny as when you tried to arrogantly compare yourself and your infantile argumentative thuggery to Raymond Chandler's no-nonsense noir detective earlier in this thread.  One is a slightly jaded, but noble figure, pursuing truth wherever it made lead, who will not abide pettiness and cruelty.  The other is you, reducing yourself to a handful of hysterical, non sequitur insults - 'you are a fool!'; 'why am I surrunded by fools?!' - while you stamp your feet and dismiss rational argument because 'you don't like it'.

I can pretty safely say that the only thing your style of 'debate' has ever made me 'think' (and I've typed this to you several times in the past) is:

'What a pity.  This guy would probably have something to add to a discussion if he could just grow up.'

Modifié par drayfish, 14 mai 2013 - 11:13 .

[someguy1231]

David7204 wrote...

Debate's good for you. It teaches you to think.

Then why don't you practice what you preach. The only "debate" I've seen from you is ad hominems and other insults towards your opponents.

[spirosz]

someguy1231 wrote...

David7204 wrote...

Debate's good for you. It teaches you to think.

Then why don't you practice what you preach. The only "debate" I've seen from you is ad hominems and other insults towards your opponents.

I've had a few calm debates with David before.  It's possible, when he's not in his "thats stupid" phase. 

[remydat]

Heretic,

And like I said I accept that is true in a real world context. I as a mere human have limited perspective. However an author is the god of his universe and in that role as god he is omniscient. It is his story and he knows the precise motives of the characters in his story because he is the creator of those characters. So he cant IMO rely on the excuse that it is incomprehensible because it is his f**king story.

Further, science can continue the search. Humans have now until our extinction to continue to search for answers. However once a story ends and the writer is done with that universe he created the search for answers ends. The universe is effectively destroyed because the story is over. So for the god of this finite universe to not explain things he has within his power to explain is a betrayal of human nature. He has effectively prevented us from finding answers by concluding his story and hence the life of his universe without providing answers for his readers.

Finally, a sociopath lacks empathy.  He or she kills in part because they have no moral compass that prevents them from hurting others if it means achieving their goal.  That mental illness is explanation enough of their motives.

Modifié par remydat, 14 mai 2013 - 11:46 .

[Clayless]

Heretic_Hanar wrote...

Robosexual wrote...

That's not the case. There's a difference between omitting information and creating something that's literally impossible to imagine for anyone. Something that's more than a paradox, something that's incomprehensible.

AKA No motivation. Not motivation that just wasn't included.

What's the difference between "no motivation" and "motivation that wasn't included" in this case though?

It's directly stated that the writer couldn't think of one because it's impossible. Not that there's motivation not included, but that the motivation was impossible to think of.

What's the difference from the perspective of the player? There is no difference. Both cases leave the motivation of the reapers up for the audience to decide and speculate on.

Technically there is no such thing as "no motivation". Everyone always has a motivation. All intelligent beings have a motivation, always, with no exception. I just think it would have been better if the creators of Mass Effect left the motivation of the reapers ambiguous and up to the players to speculate on.

Intelligent beings have motivation, but if it's written that they don't then they don't. They just did things for no reason because the writer couldn't think of anything.

That wouldn't make the Reapers more interesting, it's just lazy writing.

[Reorte]

Heretic_Hanar wrote...

See, you don't need to be a 2 kilometers tall giant space Cthulhu in order to have incomprehensible motives. Plenty humans can do incomprehenisble things with incomprehensible motives.

There usually is something comprehensible about their motives, even if it boils down to "they're insane." We don't always get a chance to find out what they are but that doesn't mean that they don't exist. Even the craziest nutcase very rarely acts completely randomly, and their behaviour is usually explicable once you've worked out the basis of their assumtions and views.

When it comes to fiction every charcter should have some motivation, even if it's never really stated. A writer who falls back on "inexplicable motives" or "vastly superior intelligence" or similar as an excuse to fit in essentially random behaviour (perhaps because he wants something to happen and there's no sensible way otherwise that the character would) is just a hack and a large proportion of the audience will see right through it.

[TheRealJayDee]

dreamgazer wrote...

Megaton_Hope wrote...

David7204 wrote...

I won't deny that the Reaper motive was very poorly done and unsatisfying. Because it was. But proclaiming that such a thing was inevitable is just pigheaded hindsight bias, which is sadly all too common on the BSN.

Guy really loves his ad homs.

Unfortunately. 

It's the Auld Wulf school of debating!

[David7204]

Gosh, isn't this heartwarming.

Interesting how the innumerable amount of completely baseless insults against Mass Effect and BioWare are entirely ignored. But that's okay, isn't it? Be as nasty as you like, but God forbid someone responds in kind.

Modifié par David7204, 15 mai 2013 - 12:17 .

[liggy002]

In my opinion,

Star Child and the entire concept of the endings was the main problem not so much the lack of closure with the characters. Priority:Earth was extremely underwhelming. I stated my case with my feed back. I was not listened to. It's their prerogative to address what feedback they choose, but it is also my right to not buy their next game.

So, I will not be buying it under any circumstances.

[liggy002]

string3r wrote...

The reapers should have been left a mystery, but maybe there could have been subtle hints as to what their motives were.

That just wasn't going to happen.  Too many people wanted answers.  The explanation we got was retarded.  Unfortunately, it is what it is.

[David7204]

So what do you think would have been necessary elements for Priority: Earth to be good?

[drayfish]

David7204 wrote...

Gosh, isn't this heartwarming.

Interesting how the innumerable amount of completely baseless insults against Mass Effect and BioWare are entirely ignored. But that's okay, isn't it? Be as nasty as you like, but God forbid someone responds in kind.

If you legitimately cannot tell the difference between critiquing a text and shouting pathetic, vile insults at another human being because they don't share your completely singular opinion of that text, then I think we've stumbled upon the problem.