733: Big Trouble Under the Big Top

Archived reviews of Adventures in Odyssey episodes!

Was it worth the price of admission?

5 stars: The greatest show on earth!
1
6%
4 stars: An entertaining performance.
4
24%
3 stars: A three ring circus, nothing more.
3
18%
2 stars: I've seen better.
6
35%
1 star: Never coming back again!
3
18%
 
Total votes: 17

User avatar
Pound Foolish
Tallying up
Posts: 137
Joined: August 2012

Post by Pound Foolish »

Why is it people are so determined to dislike Emily and nearly every episode she's in? A bit of bias here?

The interesting thing is, while many Emily Haters insist the show is bad, the AIO blogging world approved. That is, let us remember, those who, unlike us, care enough about AIO and listen to the show closely enough and formulate their opinions enough to write a blog about them. Even the Odyssey Scooop, the biggest and most successful AIO fan site in existence, all but raved about it in its podcast.

It's easy to see why. The voices are distinctive, the music colorful, and some of the jokes quite witty.

The reasons people give for disliking it fall flat. For instance, the complaint the appears recurringly above that the villain was too obvious. This harks back the Mystery of Clock Tower, where people preposterously complained it was too easy who was responsible. Matthew even said he was likely the villain (though with no good reason.) In such a case, the mystery is clearly not who did it but why and how. After all, some perfectly good mysteries are more how-dunnits if you will than who-dunnits. Some may not enjoy how-dunnits but that is a matter of taste, not a flaw in the mystery.
Image
User avatar
Petrichor
Popsicle kid
Posts: 458
Joined: July 2012

Post by Petrichor »

Wow, it's awesome having your opinions discounted simply because the critics don't agree with them. \:D/ Seriously, though. Disliking this episode doesn't mean you're stupid or not a true fan. I don't even think anyone was condemning this episode merely because of Emily's part in it. She happened to be in an episode that some people didn't like, but that doesn't mean they're mindless Emily Haters or whatever you want to call them. It just means that they didn't like the episode. :|

I'll confess that it's been a while since I heard this episode, but I recall disliking it. I found that the characterization was pretty poor, and a good chunk of the dialogue felt really forced and stilted.
If you liked the episode for the reasons you listed, that's absolutely fine. Just don't insult other people for disliking it. =P
Image
User avatar
SirWhit
I'm finally a No0b
Posts: 725
Joined: May 2014
Location: Buckingham Palace, Planet Mars
Contact:

Post by SirWhit »

Pound Foolish wrote:Why is it people are so determined to dislike Emily and nearly every episode she's in? A bit of bias here?

The interesting thing is, while many Emily Haters insist the show is bad, the AIO blogging world approved. That is, let us remember, those who, unlike us, care enough about AIO and listen to the show closely enough and formulate their opinions enough to write a blog about them. Even the Odyssey Scooop, the biggest and most successful AIO fan site in existence, all but raved about it in its podcast.

It's easy to see why. The voices are distinctive, the music colorful, and some of the jokes quite witty.

The reasons people give for disliking it fall flat. For instance, the complaint the appears recurringly above that the villain was too obvious. This harks back the Mystery of Clock Tower, where people preposterously complained it was too easy who was responsible. Matthew even said he was likely the villain (though with no good reason.) In such a case, the mystery is clearly not who did it but why and how. After all, some perfectly good mysteries are more how-dunnits if you will than who-dunnits. Some may not enjoy how-dunnits but that is a matter of taste, not a flaw in the mystery.
God forbid people have opinions, right? I honestly don't care what the rest of the AIO world thinks. So what if the blogging world approves? So what if the Odyssey Scoop raves about it? I'm going to think whatever I want about it whether the greats at the Odyssey Scoop or the bloggers agree, and in this case, I didn't like it.

The voices were fairly distinctive, and the music was pretty good, but the voices sounded nasally in the beginning, with Emily's narration, and Matthew's interruptions. My main problem is with the ending. OK, so Nina's the culprit. Time for her to get hauled of by the police---wait, what? You're forgiving her? She nearly killed some of you and could have injured someone severely! What is wrong with you people? Why are you just forgiving her? SERIOUSLY??? And the person forgiving her is the one that was so intent on getting law enforcement in on the act anyway. I don't understand that.

Look, not everyone who hates or dislikes this show is an Emily-hater, and by suggesting that, you're being biased by grouping everyone with a certain opinion into one category. Now who's showing bias?
User avatar
TigerintheShadows
Ignorance of the law is no excuse
Posts: 4171
Joined: August 2009
Location: Guess. I dare you.

Post by TigerintheShadows »

Yeah, no one was really bothered just because it was Emily. I'd say that there's more bias in a post that argues that the only reason anyone would dare dislike an episode in which Emily appears is that it has Emily in it. We're not all Emily-hating sheep. ;) I wasn't even bothered by the fact that Emily was being herself; I think her character has improved since Album 51.

After looking over the review page, I honestly saw more discussion of the moral of the episode, that it felt tacked-on and non sequitur to the rest of the episode. That's been a complaint with several episodes of years past ("My Favorite Things" comes to mind), and I think it's at least somewhat valid.
Pound Foolish wrote:Some may not enjoy how-dunnits but that is a matter of taste, not a flaw in the mystery.
But isn't whether or not you enjoy an episode a matter of taste? I may not enjoy, say, Connie/Mitch episodes because I think they were too nauseating with each other, but that's a matter of my personal taste—that does not, on its own, make their episodes objectively bad. So if someone enjoys who-dunnits more than how-dunnits, of course they're going to dislike an episode where the culprit is obvious.

That aside, I don't think the episode was really trying to be how-dunnit. If it had, I think more people might not have cared so much about the culprit being obvious. But the question clearly wasn't how, it was who. The central question of the mystery characterizes the mystery, and when people find the "who" to be obvious, it cheapens the episode for them. Of course, many times people find who-dunnits where the culprit is obvious but the question is "how" to continue to be enjoyable, but the "how" has to be told in an entertaining and intriguing way while the characters are still questioning "who", and if it's not entertaining to a certain person, then of course their personal taste is going to lead them to dislike it, objectively bad mystery or not.
Image
"Death's got an Invisibility Cloak?" "So he can sneak up on people. Sometimes he gets bored of running at them, flapping his arms and shrieking..."
"And now the spinning. Thank you for nothing, you useless reptile."
"It unscrews the other way."
AIO tumblr sideblog
User avatar
Marvin D.
i haz xpirenancee!!1
Posts: 19547
Joined: November 2009
Location: Amsterdam
Contact:

Post by Marvin D. »

Pound Foolish wrote:Why is it people are so determined to dislike Emily and nearly every episode she's in? A bit of bias here?

The interesting thing is, while many Emily Haters insist the show is bad, the AIO blogging world approved. That is, let us remember, those who, unlike us, care enough about AIO and listen to the show closely enough and formulate their opinions enough to write a blog about them. Even the Odyssey Scooop, the biggest and most successful AIO fan site in existence, all but raved about it in its podcast.

It's easy to see why. The voices are distinctive, the music colorful, and some of the jokes quite witty.

The reasons people give for disliking it fall flat. For instance, the complaint the appears recurringly above that the villain was too obvious. This harks back the Mystery of Clock Tower, where people preposterously complained it was too easy who was responsible. Matthew even said he was likely the villain (though with no good reason.) In such a case, the mystery is clearly not who did it but why and how. After all, some perfectly good mysteries are more how-dunnits if you will than who-dunnits. Some may not enjoy how-dunnits but that is a matter of taste, not a flaw in the mystery.
Marvin D. wrote:You've got to love overzealous relaunch fans who're all ready to eagerly lambast those who moderately or strongly dislike the new reason, not even taking the time to fully read a well-written review and instead rushing out to make a quick, condescending post that reeks of a "My-subjective-opinion-is-better-than-your-clearly-wrong-one" attitude.

Yeah, no. Not impressed.
\:D/

Also, what Tiger said. Emily was not my issue in this episode--she still is not my favorite character and never will be--but that had absolutely nothing to do with why I disliked the episode as much as I did. The only bias I see here is coming from you.

I would tack on more but that would probably be too rude and I don't have it in me to do that yet.
"I still see Marvin as a newbie that is just as cool as an oldie." --snubs

Most Sarcastic Poster | Most Likely To Be Eaten By a Dinosaur and Smote by God |
Biggest Joker and Grammar Nazi | Best Writer
User avatar
Pound Foolish
Tallying up
Posts: 137
Joined: August 2012

Post by Pound Foolish »

First off, to everyone:

I held up the opinions as opinions from people who are authoritative in taste as the AIO fan world goes. Of course you are all entitled to your opinions, nor are your opinions necessarily wrong. That just goes without saying. I didn't mean to indicate otherwise.
Petrichor wrote:Wow, it's awesome having your opinions discounted simply because the critics don't agree with them. \:D/ Seriously, though. Disliking this episode doesn't mean you're stupid or not a true fan.
Goodness, no!

Mr. Whit's End, first I was thinking, "This guy drives me crazy... I like him!" So I read your user name, and tah-dah. Well met again, my vile twin.

Yes, that's fine. Group-hug endings aren't for everyone. And I'm glad this is the first AIO has ever done. It was cute and fuzzy... once. If it's done even once ever again, it probably won't be.

But while not liking the ending makes sense, it's hard to imagine those characters, particularly Estophan and Pockets, calling the police on a sweet young lady who just wanted to be part of their family.
TigerintheShadows wrote:Yeah, no one was really bothered just because it was Emily. I'd say that there's more bias in a post that argues that the only reason anyone would dare dislike an episode in which Emily appears is that it has Emily in it. We're not all Emily-hating sheep. ;) I wasn't even bothered by the fact that Emily was being herself; I think her character has improved since Album 51.
Alrighty, so you mildly like Emily and so your disliking the episode had nothing to do with her character.

About the Emily-Hater remark
That's a term on my board, and I'm used to using it, so I forgot people might take offense here. My apologies.

As far as being biased against episodes because of Emily, there is evidence for that. Many Odyssians range from disliking Emily to finding her unbearable. They tend to be the ones hammering Emily episodes.

People who don't like Emily are after all going to be biased against the episode and more inclined than someone who approves of her to think the episode bad. That's only natural.

And it seems those who dislike Emily dislike nearly every episode she's in. The most likely explanation, then, is that they're biased. Unless Bob Hoose, Nathan Hoobler, and the various other excellent AIO writers who write the Emily episodes all somehow write poorly by pure coincidence every time theywrite an Emily episode.
TigerintheShadows wrote:That aside, I don't think the episode was really trying to be how-dunnit. If it had, I think more people might not have cared so much about the culprit being obvious. But the question clearly wasn't how, it was who. The central question of the mystery characterizes the mystery, and when people find the "who" to be obvious, it cheapens the episode for them.
Well put, ol' pal, or new pal rather. Though, it's well and good some dislike the episode just because of taste. However, the episode is objectively good.

The episode just made it all rather obvious. For instance, the other characters had attention grabbing personality, voices, and jobs. Nina had a lah-dee-dah I'm just an innocent average Joe pay no attention type personality, voice, and job. (Just like the culprit in The Mystery of the Clock Tower did which, as I said, likewise cast suspicion on him deliberately.)

So most people of course knew it was Nina, even if it was just by instinct. So again, that's doesn't make the episode objectively bad. The episode is objectively good, though that doesn't mean it's to everyone's tastes. Agreed?
Image
User avatar
Marvin D.
i haz xpirenancee!!1
Posts: 19547
Joined: November 2009
Location: Amsterdam
Contact:

Post by Marvin D. »

Objectively good?

Objectively good?

*slow headdesking*

Que Dios nos ayude.
"I still see Marvin as a newbie that is just as cool as an oldie." --snubs

Most Sarcastic Poster | Most Likely To Be Eaten By a Dinosaur and Smote by God |
Biggest Joker and Grammar Nazi | Best Writer
User avatar
SirWhit
I'm finally a No0b
Posts: 725
Joined: May 2014
Location: Buckingham Palace, Planet Mars
Contact:

Post by SirWhit »

No, but Zara. who if I remember correctly was adamant about involving law enforcement anyway, didn't seem like the type to have a sudden change of heart.
User avatar
TigerintheShadows
Ignorance of the law is no excuse
Posts: 4171
Joined: August 2009
Location: Guess. I dare you.

Post by TigerintheShadows »

Pound Foolish wrote:And it seems those who dislike Emily dislike nearly every episode she's in. The most likely explanation, then, is that they're biased.
The same could be said of people who dislike, say, Liz-centered episodes because they don't find the change in her character from bratty to kind to be believable and still remember "You Win Some, You Lose Some". Disliking an episode because a certain character is in it doesn't suddenly become a good thing or a bad thing whenever certain specific characters are involved. I get where you're coming from, that you want to defend your favorite character and the episodes in which she appears—I do the same for my favorites, for this fandom and others. But when you have an episode where a certain character whom you dislike features prominently, that's going to color your perception of the episode, and you're probably not going to find it enjoyable. I absolutely agree with you that a person's bias against a character shouldn't be the only justification for their dislike of an episode, but the reviewer's bias isn't a completely bad thing when it comes to episode reviewing, which in the end comes down to a person's biased opinion.

On the Emily front, I do admit that I found her to be quite a grating character. I didn't like how flat and unreal she felt, how she reminded me of the qualities I found most irritating about characters like Hermione Granger—Emily was bossy, unrelenting, and more than a bit arrogant, and I didn't really see many good points or flaws to balance her out—not to mention that as a vocalist, I found her voice to be very, very irritating. Then came along shows like "Emily, the Genius" and "Great Expectations", shows that fleshed out her character and revealed her insecurities, and she started to feel like a real child character from the AIO I knew. She felt real, she felt genuine, and she felt like a character with whom I could connect. But with the mystery gimmick, she comes across as very haughty and pompous to me, and the mystery gimmick is a huge part of who she is for the show. For me, I dislike many of these mystery shows because of Emily's character—not because I've suddenly found myself hating her guts with a volcanic passion, but because I find her character to be written in the most obnoxious and frankly two-dimensional manner possible.
Pound Foolish wrote:So again, that's doesn't make the episode objectively bad. The episode is objectively good, though that doesn't mean it's to everyone's tastes. Agreed?
Hmm...I find this to be a bit of an oxymoron. If you find something to be good, it's usually a matter of your subjective opinion and not of objectivity. Many, many things in this world are objective, but whether or not a form of media is good or bad is usually not one of those things. Most people who watch movies or TV shows or read books go into it with certain expectations that differ from person to person, and not everyone is going to come out of their experiences with the same objective opinion. You'll always find that minority (or half or maybe even majority) who didn't find something to their personal tastes, and really, that's okay, because we don't all have to like the same things. :)
Image
"Death's got an Invisibility Cloak?" "So he can sneak up on people. Sometimes he gets bored of running at them, flapping his arms and shrieking..."
"And now the spinning. Thank you for nothing, you useless reptile."
"It unscrews the other way."
AIO tumblr sideblog
User avatar
Knight Fisher
I fish in the darkness
I fish in the darkness
Posts: 5322
Joined: May 2011

Post by Knight Fisher »

If Clowns > 0 Episode = Bad.
To LGBT ToOers: The world is so much wider than your family and church. There are accepting people out there.
Image
User avatar
Pound Foolish
Tallying up
Posts: 137
Joined: August 2012

Post by Pound Foolish »

TigerintheShadows wrote:
Pound Foolish wrote:So again, that's doesn't make the episode objectively bad. The episode is objectively good, though that doesn't mean it's to everyone's tastes. Agreed?
Hmm...I find this to be a bit of an oxymoron. If you find something to be good, it's usually a matter of your subjective opinion and not of objectivity. Many, many things in this world are objective, but whether or not a form of media is good or bad is usually not one of those things. Most people who watch movies or TV shows or read books go into it with certain expectations that differ from person to person, and not everyone is going to come out of their experiences with the same objective opinion. You'll always find that minority (or half or maybe even majority) who didn't find something to their personal tastes, and really, that's okay, because we don't all have to like the same things. :)
An entirely different subject, but stories, movies, music and all art forms can be objectively bad. For instance, they can have poor style or grammar. Though it isn't style and grammar that make a story good, so the distinction between a good story and a less good or bad one is debatable, rather than a clear point of fact.

For instance, no matter how many people love Twilight it doesn't make it a better book. Conversely, if everyone were to hate LOTR, it wouldn't make it bad. So whether entertainment is good or bad is not a matter of opinion but an objective fact, just like everything else in the universe.
Image
User avatar
Shadowpaw
Town Founder
Posts: 2777
Joined: March 2005
Location: Calgary, AB
Contact:

Post by Shadowpaw »

Pound Foolish wrote:For instance, no matter how many people love Twilight it doesn't make it a better book. Conversely, if everyone were to hate LOTR, it wouldn't make it bad. So whether entertainment is good or bad is not a matter of opinion but an objective fact, just like everything else in the universe.
I actually think you just made the opposite point you were trying to make. Because of how many people love Twilight, that is it exactly what makes it subjective. Objective is without bias. No form of entertainment or art can be judged objectively.

Liking OR disliking something is always subjective. Objectiveness deals with facts, whereas subjectiveness deals with opinions. Just because you think LoTR is good, doesn't make it objectively good. It's not objectively good. "It is written by J.R.R. Tolkien" That is objective, because it's a fact. "It is a good." That is subjective, because it's an opinion, no matter how many people have the same opinion. You could go further and argue something like "94% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King a 'fresh' rating"... that is an objective fact. But that doesn't make the movie objectively good because people are still viewing it with their own bias.

Here's a good article on the subject.
Image
User avatar
Peachey Keen
Smile for the camera
Posts: 1198
Joined: July 2008
Location: Where The Wind Comes Sweeping Down The Plain
Gender:

Post by Peachey Keen »

I still think that this episode is the only thing that held Album 57 from being the absolute best album AIO has done in years.

It was quite a bland and cartoonish episode. I feel bad for the person who wrote A Jay in the Life in the scholarship contest. That script won, but they never produced it and then they chose one of the other entries to replace it. I haven't read the Jay script, but I'm positive it would have been better than this one!
User avatar
Pound Foolish
Tallying up
Posts: 137
Joined: August 2012

Post by Pound Foolish »

But, Tiger Pooh, (still haven't come up with a good pet name for you) people's opinions' don't change reality. The fact is, a book can be poorly written. There can be grammatical mistakes, there can be headjumping, there can be poorly constructed characters with little depth. Still, we cannot prove a book is good, so people sometimes get confused. Sometimes people think that because we can't prove something, it must be subjective. For example, we cannot entirely prove God created the universe, not quite beyond a shadow of a doubt anyway. So, some think that that's just a matter of opinion. In fact, there is no such thing as subjective reality. Whether you enjoy a book can be influenced by your tastes, your health, the amount of sleep you had last night, what Mr. Jones said to you last week. But that has no effect on the book itself. (Affect? Effect? I'm tired.) But the words are always the same. As with an audio drama.

Peachey, you are partially right. Alas that A Jay in the Life was never made. And why wasn't it? As if to add insult to injury, because it conflicted with an Odyssey Adventure Club episode. Likely though, that poor writer at least had some say in whether or not they ditched the script.
Image
User avatar
jennifertwt
Catspaw Rocks!
Posts: 790
Joined: April 2008
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Post by jennifertwt »

Affect=actively influencing
Effect=being influenced

Glad to finally put that BA in English to work. :-)
Jennifer Lundgren
Stockholm, Sweden
User avatar
Leonard Meltsner
I'm memorable
Posts: 1542
Joined: January 2010
Location: Odyssey, of course!! Isn't that implied in the name of the forum?

Post by Leonard Meltsner »

It's not that bias changes the content of a story, making it subjectively good or bad. It's that our concepts of good and bad fiction are inherently biased and subjective, because there's no true definition of "good or bad fiction".

Also, Austin's right. It's truly a shame about the episode. To my knowledge, the writer didn't have a say in the script-ditching. The reason for the change was that the characterizations in the script, while appropriate when it was written and selected as winner, no longer fit with the direction that individual character arcs were taking in the show at the time the episode would've fit in.
Image
Eugene-"Well, the sequence of events occured with extreme rapidity, but I shall attempt to recall them. I was powering my two-wheeler along this concrete pathway, when your personnage suddenly appeared directly in front of me blocking my course. My reflexes immediately sprang to life in an attempt to navigate an evasive manouveur around you while still maintaining course and speed, but I evidently over-compensated, and my Schwinn careened off the hardened path, taking me with it, and up-ended us both in this shrub, a Rhododendron of the heath family I believe, deducing from the leathery evergreen leaves, as distinguished from the deciduous Azalea, which as we all know is..."
Isaac-"You mean, you crashed into this bush cause I got in your way."
Eugene-"Well, that of course is another way of expressing it." Isaac the Benevolent
User avatar
Marvin D.
i haz xpirenancee!!1
Posts: 19547
Joined: November 2009
Location: Amsterdam
Contact:

Post by Marvin D. »

Pound Foolish wrote:But, Tiger Pooh, (still haven't come up with a good pet name for you) people's opinions' don't change reality. The fact is, a book can be poorly written. There can be grammatical mistakes, there can be headjumping, there can be poorly constructed characters with little depth. Still, we cannot prove a book is good, so people sometimes get confused. Sometimes people think that because we can't prove something, it must be subjective. For example, we cannot entirely prove God created the universe, not quite beyond a shadow of a doubt anyway. So, some think that that's just a matter of opinion. In fact, there is no such thing as subjective reality. Whether you enjoy a book can be influenced by your tastes, your health, the amount of sleep you had last night, what Mr. Jones said to you last week. But that has no effect on the book itself. (Affect? Effect? I'm tired.) But the words are always the same. As with an audio drama.
Therefore, Emily Dickinson's poems are objectively bad because they're experimental in nature and flout conventional grammar, opting for frequent em dashes and highly abstract, lofty language that's created a veritable maze that's left literature majors and English professors poring over them for years? Creating paper-thin characters for a specific purpose is objectively bad?

You fail to give me so much as one "objective" standard that we can use to determine a work of art's ostensiblly inherent goodness/badness. All that you say is that "Well, just because we can't prove it doesn't mean it doesn't exist!" That's not a reason. That's grasping at straws.

I don't buy it. Your perception is innately biased and will continue to be that way. Your interpretation is fiction--just as mine is. Not fiction in the sense of the word meaning 'unreal,' but in that you perceive reality--which one could argue is an illusion, as Einstein said--differently than I do. It's all subjective. You cannot be so presumptuous as to boldly declare something like this as "objectively good/bad." Reality is different for each person: who are you to say what's right? You might believe that your reality, based on the ideological and religious beliefs that you prescribe to is the "real" one, but what says that that's right? It doesn't work like that. Who decides, then, what is objectively good? There aren't even words to describe my incredulity, to be completely frank.
Last edited by Marvin D. on Thu Sep 11, 2014 7:08 am, edited 2 times in total.
"I still see Marvin as a newbie that is just as cool as an oldie." --snubs

Most Sarcastic Poster | Most Likely To Be Eaten By a Dinosaur and Smote by God |
Biggest Joker and Grammar Nazi | Best Writer
User avatar
SirWhit
I'm finally a No0b
Posts: 725
Joined: May 2014
Location: Buckingham Palace, Planet Mars
Contact:

Post by SirWhit »

*clicks the imaginary like button*
User avatar
TigerintheShadows
Ignorance of the law is no excuse
Posts: 4171
Joined: August 2009
Location: Guess. I dare you.

Post by TigerintheShadows »

Pound Foolish wrote:But, Tiger Pooh, (still haven't come up with a good pet name for you)
I much prefer nicknames, not pet names. ;) And no matter what you call me (though I am partial to Miss Carnivore), I would prefer that I not be referred to that way in a debate setting. It makes me feel as though I am being condescended to.

And yeah, +1 what Marvin said. It's been like, three months since I debated this, so I guess I've kind of stopped caring about it? I mean, I don't have a problem with someone posting, but I don't consider it a topic worth pontificating over at this point.
Image
"Death's got an Invisibility Cloak?" "So he can sneak up on people. Sometimes he gets bored of running at them, flapping his arms and shrieking..."
"And now the spinning. Thank you for nothing, you useless reptile."
"It unscrews the other way."
AIO tumblr sideblog
User avatar
Pound Foolish
Tallying up
Posts: 137
Joined: August 2012

Post by Pound Foolish »

In the spoiler is a completely unrelated ranting prelude to my post. If you do not wish to read an unrelated ranting prelude, do not click it. :)
Why is it that nobody seems to care much about the new season? In fact, we Soda Shoppers had to start the topics on it, and people are still barely replying. It's as if you all said,'"It's fairly good. Not great maybe, but we can't really rant about it so there's not much to say." But when I defend a favorite episode, you guys kinda swamp me. "Ooh, some poor fool is defending album 51. Let's all post until he gives up his stance." I mean, seriously, I post just a few posts defending Big Trouble Under the Big Top, an episode that was out months ago, and I get about five posts arguing with me!
Leonard Meltsner wrote:It's not that bias changes the content of a story, making it subjectively good or bad. It's that our concepts of good and bad fiction are inherently biased and subjective, because there's no true definition of "good or bad fiction".
Our concepts are biased. So it can be hard to narrow down if fiction is indeed good or bad. But the point is, good and bad fiction exists.

I asked Tiger to admit it's an objectively good episode, because she had been unable to prove otherwise. If you lose a debate, then at least in the context of that debate, you admit you're wrong.

Now for...
Marvind D.

Firstly. The point was things like poor grammar are likely to be an objective problem in a book if done accidentally. If a genius like Emily Dickinson chooses to deliberately use them to her advantage the results can hardly be expected to be the same. That is another matter entirely.

Further, most writers will agree that there are indeed objective stylistic mistakes an author can make, and that most books do indeed have objective problems that are indeed bad.

Anyway, we are discussing fiction. Poetry tends to have more leeway in things like grammar.
I don't buy it. You perception is innately biased and will continue to be that way. Your perception is fiction-- just as mine is.
Absolutely. We are not arguing perception at this point. The question is, "Can stories be objectively bad or good?" People can never be sure if they have determined if a work of fiction is good or bad, but that is not the point. The question, again, is if stories can be objectively good or bad. That is, if they have a standard of excellence apart from human perception.

Secondly. We know that there is at least one objective standard of whether fiction is good or bad. If it has bad morals, if it is overly steamy or gory for example, then it is a bad book with bad morals. Not because people perceive it to be, but because it is. The bad morals come through the work of fiction and no other way. You may assume that is the lone exception. But why? Where there is one, there may be more. We don't find one and say, "There is one, that means there are probably no more."

P.S. So, you people's premise is that the excellence of fiction is subjective? It's whatever we perceive it to be? Very well then.

I perceive that the excellence of fiction is not subjective.
Image
Post Reply