Fantasy Tropes/Cliches that Annoy You

[Xuc Xac]

This brings to mind an ancient trope I tire of:

Normal person from this world travels to special magic world. Narnia, Wizard of Oz, Phantom Tollbooth, Harry Potter, even Doctor Who. This mostly annoys me because it's so ubiquitous I'm tired of it, not because of any inherent problems with the concept (although it is a little insulting to my abilities of imagination to have it presumed that I require a viewpoint person who is like me). At this point I'd much rather read about natives in the strange land than people from my land visiting it.

An outsider from the normal world who needs to have everything explained to them (so the audience can also be filled in) is vastly preferable to a bunch of natives talking to each other like "As you know, princess, your father, the King of Thisland, who has ruled this land for 40 years and has been at war with the Kingdom of Overthere since he was 16 (the same as you are now), depends on you behaving properly at the upcoming peace talks when the diplomats arrive later today."

[Vitruviansquid]

What about when it's raining in a Dickens novel? He included a lot of unnecessary detail because he was paid by the word.

I have not read any Dickens lately enough to remember, but if Dickens write that it was raining, you might ask why he choose his unnecessary detail to be that it was raining, and why did he not instead write that it was sunny, or snowing, or unseasonably hot, or partly cloudy, or foggy, or thundering or anything else.

You might also ask how come if Charles Dickens simply needed more words, he didn't just fill fifty pages with the word, "bananas," and stick it somewhere in the book.

[Frozen_Feet]

As far as the Masquerade goes, Men in Black is something of a parody of the concept, but K's words to J stand out: the world being threatened by destruction is not Ultra Special Occasion that could be averted if Everybody had Right to Know.

It's Tuesday.

And that's why it doesn't make sense to let the secret out. Because if people were allowed to know, it would be non-stop Red Alert the World is Ending and all semblance of normal life would go down the drain.

[Malimar]

An outsider from the normal world who needs to have everything explained to them (so the audience can also be filled in) is vastly preferable to a bunch of natives talking to each other like "As you know, princess, your father, the King of Thisland, who has ruled this land for 40 years and has been at war with the Kingdom of Overthere since he was 16 (the same as you are now), depends on you behaving properly at the upcoming peace talks when the diplomats arrive later today."

Or the author could just... not do that? I'm not completely an idiot, I can come to grasp a setting without having every detail explained to me. Or just explain everything that needs explaining in narration instead of dialogue, that works too.

[Vitruviansquid]

Or the author could just... not do that? I'm not completely an idiot, I can come to grasp a setting without having every detail explained to me. Or just explain everything that needs explaining in narration instead of dialogue, that works too.

I'd hypothesize that, in the first place, the character who needs everything explained to him existed because authors wanted to avoid having to dump exposition in the narration.

[PhoenixPhyre]

What you are saying has radically changed from what you were saying at the start, but this is the process of understanding, I suppose.



Based on the part I bolded, it sounds more like you have a problem with teachers and getting assignments from them.

It is perfectly reasonable to read a book and leave it thinking "I didn't understand that at all, there seemed to be no message in there." Not all books are written for all people. You can imagine that heterosexual men might not really get the point of the Twilight series after reading it, that people who have had no education whatsoever in western history wouldn't understand most of Lord of the Rings, and so on. There is something to be said for endeavoring to put yourself into the mindset of a different person in order to try to understand the book's perspective and something to be said about how a good text will try to explain its perspective to absorb more readers, but if I'm writing a novel specifically about the experiences of an extremely small minority (let's say, vampire-obsessed ethnically Hmong intersex teenagers) then it is very possible most people won't get it.

It is reasonable and mature to understand that not all texts are meant for you. But the way you are characterizing literary criticism, as your teacher threatening to fail you if you don't get the "Big Darn Point," is not fair. You are throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. Just because a book does not seem to have a unified, single message, that does not mean the book is totally bereft of messages nor does it mean it is worthless to try to understand what messages there are. Many authors write books to make or communicate meaning of the world as they see them (J.R.R. Tolkien, once again), which will entail multiple messages getting sent, after all, J.R.R. Tolkien will have a unique view about warfare, about what is right and wrong, about how men should deal with struggles, about early Medieval epics, and so on. So your analogy to the Trojan horse is half accurate - a story is a wrapping for ideas - but think of it more like the Trojan Horse with many big and small angry Achaeans sitting inside - each soldier is an idea that works together with the others to make a complete package that must be delivered together. They wouldn't have build the Trojan Horse if they didn't need it to enter Troy.

Have you ever thought about why were these fantasy worlds in books so compelling that you could escape to them? It is because these fantasy books have messages that resonated with you whether you were aware of them or not. You might realize that when you read fantasy books to explore other worlds, some worlds turn out to be more interesting to explore than others. You'll have noticed this because some of those worlds carry messages with resonated more with you than did the others. Literary criticism is the project of trying to understand why some of these worlds are more interesting and why some are not. To do that, we have to tease out the messages present in these works, the premises they operate under, the structures they take, and so on.

Literary criticism is often marred by ignorant, arrogant people who fail to realize that some texts they cannot appreciate were simply not written for them. These people telling you that entire classes of books are wrong and bad have never applied literary criticism to them. Had they applied literary criticism, they would realize that Twilight says something about how the blandest and most unremarkable are special to someone out there. Harry Potter says plenty on the subject of escapism, how this thing that most children crave and that conservative culture has long deemed unworthy of your time ("stop reading about elves and start thinking about your future, young man!") actually has the capacity to ennoble you and make you mature. That's not even saying how almost all these books I've encountered feature characters who are strong of mind and spirit and use these virtues to handle every adversity that comes their way.

So when people tell you that your Drizzt books or your Ciaphas Cain books or your vampire novels have no value because they don't spread a message, you should recognize that it is they who can't see the messages within these books. Had someone sat your English teacher down to read Wheel of Time and asked him/her to write a report about the messages therein, he/she might learn to appreciate them!

What does it mean to be "alright at coming up with worlds?" If you are alright at it, there must be people who are bad at coming up with worlds and people who are good at coming up with worlds, right? What are the qualities that make a world good or bad? And then where do those qualities come from? How do we replicate those qualities over and over to become better at building worlds?

Thanks for asking if I've ever thought about something that's been one of the largest parts of my life for 20+ years. That's some professional grade condescension right there.

I'll be frank. Yes. I do completely reject literary criticism, root and branch, as the bitter fruit of a poisonous tree. That does not mean that I reject all attempts to analyze and understand what works and what doesn't in fiction. Only those techniques and ideas that have become prevalent in modern times. They ooze (as this post does) with condescension--explaining other peoples' beliefs and values to them with the attitude of "If you'd only pay attention, surely you'd agree with me." They speak from a sterile, ivory-tower viewpoint completely unconnected with how ordinary people think or behave; what's more they show disdain for those they study unless they follow the crippling precepts of the schools. Most of the time, no evidence other than ipse dixit is provided--"believe me," they cry, "for I am an expert." When they do cite evidence (my favorite is when they use popular accounts of neuroscience findings or best of all arguments from quantum mechanics as proof), they betray their utter ignorance of the evidence and what it really means to anyone with half a brain. Hint--if you're citing quantum mechanics as proof of anything biological, you're doing it wrong and don't understand what you're talking about. Believe me, I'm an expert in quantum mechanics. Also, if you're reading press accounts or even Nature or Science reports, you don't understand what's really going on. Those are never even close to the truth of the research.

But that's not it. In fact, all of that would be forgivable if those that style themselves literary critics actually gave good advice. I've read the darlings of literary criticism, the literary fiction that gets great reviews from academics and critics. They're universally boring. Turgid, self-conscious, so wrapped up in making sure it's sending the right message and using all the words in the socially-acceptable ways that it has lost any sense of fun, any sense of wonder. It's the Star Wars Prequels compared to the original trilogy. It takes itself so seriously that it's impossible to for me to have any fun with it--in fact it makes the glaring flaws and worldbuilding issues (which are omnipresent) even more glaring and less overlookable. And when it comes to fiction, that's the only unpardonable sin--being boring.

I don't think there's anything more to be said on this topic. We will never agree, nor should we pollute this thread any further.

[Segev]

Thanks...

I don't think there's anything more to be said on this topic. We will never agree, nor should we pollute this thread any further.

Pardon me, Sir. I believe you dropped your mic. *hands it back respectfully*

[Vitruviansquid]

Thanks for asking if I've ever thought about something that's been one of the largest parts of my life for 20+ years. That's some professional grade condescension right there.

I'll be frank. Yes. I do completely reject literary criticism, root and branch, as the bitter fruit of a poisonous tree. That does not mean that I reject all attempts to analyze and understand what works and what doesn't in fiction. Only those techniques and ideas that have become prevalent in modern times. They ooze (as this post does) with condescension--explaining other peoples' beliefs and values to them with the attitude of "If you'd only pay attention, surely you'd agree with me." They speak from a sterile, ivory-tower viewpoint completely unconnected with how ordinary people think or behave; what's more they show disdain for those they study unless they follow the crippling precepts of the schools. Most of the time, no evidence other than ipse dixit is provided--"believe me," they cry, "for I am an expert." When they do cite evidence (my favorite is when they use popular accounts of neuroscience findings or best of all arguments from quantum mechanics as proof), they betray their utter ignorance of the evidence and what it really means to anyone with half a brain. Hint--if you're citing quantum mechanics as proof of anything biological, you're doing it wrong and don't understand what you're talking about. Believe me, I'm an expert in quantum mechanics. Also, if you're reading press accounts or even Nature or Science reports, you don't understand what's really going on. Those are never even close to the truth of the research.

But that's not it. In fact, all of that would be forgivable if those that style themselves literary critics actually gave good advice. I've read the darlings of literary criticism, the literary fiction that gets great reviews from academics and critics. They're universally boring. Turgid, self-conscious, so wrapped up in making sure it's sending the right message and using all the words in the socially-acceptable ways that it has lost any sense of fun, any sense of wonder. It's the Star Wars Prequels compared to the original trilogy. It takes itself so seriously that it's impossible to for me to have any fun with it--in fact it makes the glaring flaws and worldbuilding issues (which are omnipresent) even more glaring and less overlookable. And when it comes to fiction, that's the only unpardonable sin--being boring.

I don't think there's anything more to be said on this topic. We will never agree, nor should we pollute this thread any further.

Well if you want your gloves-off last words on the topic, I'm gonna have mine too.

You keep heaping scorn on this concept you do not understand despite multiple explanations and you think this is a good thing. Everything explained about literature here has been clear as day, only you treat them like the sun - to never actually look at it and see it for what it is, but acknowledge it's out there (and somehow menacing).

How poisonous is it for me to tell you your Mark Twain quote also appears to claim that readers of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn should not try to find its plot? Does the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn really appear to have no plot to you? Does it really seem like Mark Twain intended for people to pick up his book and start reading from a random page because the order in which he sequences events doesn't matter? The fact that Huckleberry Finn has a plot shouldn't strike anyone as something an "ivory tower" expert has to tell you, and I am telling this to you now not to be condescending, but because you heavily implied that it does not. I am about to tell you this not to be condescending, but because you implied this to be false: You can read that the story starts at Huck Finn's hometown, that he takes a literal journey on a river, that it ends at Huck Finn's hometown, and it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense if you read about what Huck Finn does on the river, and then you read Miss Watson trying to teach him about the bible, and then all of a sudden Jim is freed. You should be able to find this out by reading like an ordinary person, like one who's not allergic to thinking about what he is reading. That's what literary criticism is - there is my evidence, you are allowed to dispute it with your own evidence, nobody's asking you to believe anything on the critic's words just because he's got a piece of paper saying he has a degree.

I tell you that those adults who told you fantasy books are bad simply because they are fantasy do not really understand what literary criticism is. I have given evidence of this by showing you that, yes, literary criticism is right now being applied to books considered as low class as Twilight. Yet you counter by asserting this strawman again and again

They ooze (as this post does) with condescension--explaining other peoples' beliefs and values to them with the attitude of "If you'd only pay attention, surely you'd agree with me." They speak from a sterile, ivory-tower viewpoint completely unconnected with how ordinary people think or behave; what's more they show disdain for those they study unless they follow the crippling precepts of the schools. Most of the time, no evidence other than ipse dixit is provided--"believe me," they cry, "for I am an expert."

Maybe if you stop characterizing the literary critics and telling us what makes a literary critic, you can realize that everything I have posted about literature has been based on logic that anyone can come up with. There is nothing arcane about it, nothing which you can't dispute, nothing to which I would say "this is just the way it is." Hell, since you seem to be familiar with Mark Twain, here is an example of Mark Twain applying literary criticism:

http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/projec...o/offense.html

Nothing which you have claimed is offensive about literary criticism exists in this piece that I can tell.

He writes "1. That a tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere." and I don't know who reads that, educated or no, and will disagree with it. I have no idea where you got your conception of the ordinary person who would counter, "well, Mark Twain is just saying that arbitrarily - it is actually okay for a story to be completely pointless and have nothing happen in it." It seems both condescending to me that you would believe this is how ordinary people read books, and you believe that Mark Twain just expects you to agree with him on this point because he is the expert.

Talking about condescension, how about, if you are so offended at people from your childhood telling you that fantasy books are not worth reading, you don't tell me then that all the critically acclaimed books are not worth reading? How about you don't display the same prejudice of those people by writing this?

They're universally boring. Turgid, self-conscious, so wrapped up in making sure it's sending the right message and using all the words in the socially-acceptable ways that it has lost any sense of fun, any sense of wonder.

If you're wondering why I'm so worked up about this point of view, consider that I also have personal baggage from my childhood. In my teenage years, I encountered very many teachers of the sciences who make the project of science seem arbitrary and much of it based on ispe dixit. I particularly remember a chemistry teacher who would never give an explanation of how atoms work the way they do - for example, how come the electron orbitals end up with the s, p, d, and f that we know? How come they are named s, p, d, and f? - and instead ridicule the students who asked as not having remembered the textbook, which also did not explain them satisfactorily. So then, growing up, I always felt out of my depth in science, always felt that science was made up by some exclusive club of people who ran experiments and made observations not to be known to others, but so they can revel in the knowledge themselves. But as I grew up and matured, I realized that I had these science teachers who were misrepresenting science to me, and that it was not science which was dumb or tyrannical or elitist. It took a bit of distancing myself and opening my mind to realize that all scientists are not bad, that science is actually all about investigating and finding out the reasons for phenomena - that the problem I had with knowledge originated from a lack of knowledge in the first place. So I find myself quite provoked whenever you and others repeatedly attack the species of knowledge that is literary criticism, that you're advocating for people to close their mind rather than open it.

So yes, last words applied. I don't see why I would attempt to have a discussion with someone who thinks and writes in such a sloppy manner.

[Bohandas]

What I don't get is why meticulously analyzing the minutiae of old novels is considered more worthwhile than meticulously analyzing the minutiae of (for example) Star Trek.

[Vitruviansquid]

What I don't get is why meticulously analyzing the minutiae of old novels is considered more worthwhile than meticulously analyzing the minutiae of (for example) Star Trek.

It isn't, and only strawmen have said it was.

[Max_Killjoy]

What you are saying has radically changed from what you were saying at the start, but this is the process of understanding, I suppose.

Nope.

Go back to PP's first post on the matter, and the post he was responding to, and look at what he's rejecting.

His position has been the same from that moment.

I think you hit the nail on the head here. Most of the intellectual and moral value of works in the fantasy, sci-fi, or alternate history genres is that they allow us to better understand our own society through contrast of it with another one that's materially different. For example, a sci-fi work might postulate that sapient robots exist, and allow us to explore that counterfactual -- for example, would they be entitled to constitutional rights? -- and that might allow us to better understand the legal philosophy at the core of our society. Or, as you mentioned, a sci-fi/fantasy work (like Warhammer) might ask, "What would it take for religious persecution to be a good thing?" We can then apply its lesson to our own society, in order to better understand why religious persecution isn't something we view as desirable -- for example, there aren't obvious adverse consequences to someone following the "wrong" religion, and certainly it won't cause fifteen-foot-tall power-armored barbarians to burst forth from Space Hell to eat everyone, and as such real religious persecution consists of inflicting a lot of very real harm on people for completely nebulous benefit.

I'm not fond of works with a "message." That is, if you're trying to push symbolism, teach a lesson, or make some moral point, let me know up front so I can put the book down or stop the movie. I watch, read, and consume entertainment for the entertainment. And to let me wonder "what if." To paint pictures, to tell stories. "Message" fiction always does that badly in that it fails to be entertaining. This is true even when I fully agree with the point being made. Even great allegorical works such as The Pilgrim's Progress or C.S. Lewis's Narnia series leave me a bit cold. The modern tendency to make everything political, everything must have a message, must have a greater meaning--that's obnoxious to me. Just tell the story. Let me engage with the characters. Let me, for a moment, get lost in the world you've created. Real life has enough worry and bother and grey areas, enough X-ism and political controversy. Don't shove it down my throat in those few moments I can enter another world. Please. I beg of you.

Have you ever thought about why were these fantasy worlds in books so compelling that you could escape to them? It is because these fantasy books have messages that resonated with you whether you were aware of them or not. You might realize that when you read fantasy books to explore other worlds, some worlds turn out to be more interesting to explore than others. You'll have noticed this because some of those worlds carry messages with resonated more with you than did the others.

Actually, that is what PP has repeatedly said is precisely not the case.

At this point you're claiming to know what PP is thinking better than PP himself. And you're claiming that there's A Message even if the author didn't intend it AND the reader didn't perceive it.

That sort of insulting, smug, rank condescension is exactly what we've come to expect from a certain subset of academia.

And to think you'd almost sucked me in with that talk of applying lit crit more parsimoniously and so on...

Thanks for asking if I've ever thought about something that's been one of the largest parts of my life for 20+ years. That's some professional grade condescension right there.

I'll be frank. Yes. I do completely reject literary criticism, root and branch, as the bitter fruit of a poisonous tree. That does not mean that I reject all attempts to analyze and understand what works and what doesn't in fiction. Only those techniques and ideas that have become prevalent in modern times. They ooze (as this post does) with condescension--explaining other peoples' beliefs and values to them with the attitude of "If you'd only pay attention, surely you'd agree with me." They speak from a sterile, ivory-tower viewpoint completely unconnected with how ordinary people think or behave; what's more they show disdain for those they study unless they follow the crippling precepts of the schools. Most of the time, no evidence other than ipse dixit is provided--"believe me," they cry, "for I am an expert." When they do cite evidence (my favorite is when they use popular accounts of neuroscience findings or best of all arguments from quantum mechanics as proof), they betray their utter ignorance of the evidence and what it really means to anyone with half a brain. Hint--if you're citing quantum mechanics as proof of anything biological, you're doing it wrong and don't understand what you're talking about. Believe me, I'm an expert in quantum mechanics. Also, if you're reading press accounts or even Nature or Science reports, you don't understand what's really going on. Those are never even close to the truth of the research.

Precisely, sir. Precisely. Especially the part I bolded there.

[icefractal]

Anti-intellectualism on my RPG forum? It's more likely than you think.

Disagree with an analysis, sure. Disagree with the prevailing wisdom, sure, why not? Disagree with the /concept/ of analysis, with the idea that we can examine things beyond "gut feelings"? Screw that, and screw the horse it rode in on.

You know what it reminds me of? The people who would say, if any discussion of balance came up:
"Mechanical analysis? Get that min max munchkin crap away from my pure unsullied RPG! The Fighter is /just fine/ and only dirty rollplayers would say otherwise."

[Max_Killjoy]

Now, as to tropes and cliches--this one isn't just for fantasy, but I'm not fond of Chekov's Gun as a universal principle. It works for the type of fiction Chekov was creating. Short plays, even short stories. In larger pieces, in works more atmospheric, there is a place for "unnecessary" plot elements. What would a mystery be without a few red herrings? More broadly, I'm not fond of the idea that there are many "universal principles" for fiction writing that apply to all types of fiction. Different genres, different media, different formats need different conventions and techniques. Some writers excel at one but fail at others. Some techniques work well in print but fail in film (the inner monologue, for example, is hard to pull off in film).

I've seen it applied in reverse of the common understanding -- that if someone is shot in act 3, you should have already shown the gun in act 1, and intended metaphorically. That is, don't drop stuff in out of the blue.

On the more general point, yes, I wish people working in one medium would remember that not everything that works in other mediums will work in that particular medium.

This is particularly true of trying to bring elements of authorial fiction into RPGs.

[BRC]

Anti-intellectualism on my RPG forum? It's more likely than you think.

Disagree with an analysis, sure. Disagree with the prevailing wisdom, sure, why not? Disagree with the /concept/ of analysis, with the idea that we can examine things beyond "gut feelings"? Screw that, and screw the horse it rode in on.

You know what it reminds me of? The people who would say, if any discussion of balance came up, would say:
"Mechanical analysis? Get that min max munchkin crap away from my pure unsullied RPG! The Fighter is /just fine/ and only dirty optimizers would say otherwise."

I'm going to disagree. There's a world of difference between that sort of analysis, and the form of Literary Critique PP seems to be talking about. What you're describing is analyzing what something is, rather than inferring something about it.

It's the difference between looking at an RPG system and saying "Wizards are the most powerful class" versus looking at that same system and saying "Wizards are the most powerful class, therefore the game designers must be trying to tell us that Intelligence is the most important trait a person can have!"

Personally, I don't mind a bit of allegory or message in my sci-fi/Fantasy, but stories should be able to stand on their own, and all it takes for a story to be great is for it to be a great story, it doesn't need to have any bigger message.

1984 is a great book that has a message about Fascism. Catch-22 is a great book that has a lot to say about war, the world, and absurdism.

Count of Monte Cristo is an absolutely amazing story that doesn't really have a message besides "Don't frame your friends and get them sent to jail, because they'll come back twenty years later with a vast fortune, mastery in a thousand skills, and a convoluted plan to get Revenge"

[Max_Killjoy]

Anti-intellectualism on my RPG forum? It's more likely than you think.

Disagree with an analysis, sure. Disagree with the prevailing wisdom, sure, why not? Disagree with the /concept/ of analysis, with the idea that we can examine things beyond "gut feelings"? Screw that, and screw the horse it rode in on.

Don't confuse the rejection of specifically a certain sort of presumptuous self-referential "analysis" that pretends people are lucky to be told by its adherents what they're thinking even if they don't realize they're thinking it, with rejection of all analysis or a rejection of the concept of analysis... or with a broader anti-intellectualism.

[Segev]

Anti-intellectualism on my RPG forum? It's more likely than you think.

Disagree with an analysis, sure. Disagree with the prevailing wisdom, sure, why not? Disagree with the /concept/ of analysis, with the idea that we can examine things beyond "gut feelings"? Screw that, and screw the horse it rode in on.

You know what it reminds me of? The people who would say, if any discussion of balance came up:
"Mechanical analysis? Get that min max munchkin crap away from my pure unsullied RPG! The Fighter is /just fine/ and only dirty rollplayers would say otherwise."

Indeed. Between Max_Killjoy and myself, there is a lot of intellectual analysis of topics. That isn't to exclude anybody else, just to note two people who're being accused of "anti-intellectualism" for not adhering to the approved positions. (Max and I have had our disagreements, but on this I agree with what he's been saying.)

Intellectual pursuit of knowledge is to be lauded. Understanding, deep study, and even analysis of allegory and meaning are great. The trouble comes when the "intellectualism" (so-called) starts to dictate that there is only the approved analysis.

Strangely, this singular-acceptable attitude regarding literature, history, and mythical interpretation tends to coincide with an attitude that there can be no foundational truth in science, reason, and study of objective reality. Even denial of the existence of objective reality itself.

When reality is deemed subjective, and interpretation of literature and the like deemed objective, something has gone very wrong.

[Vitruviansquid]

I'm going to disagree. There's a world of difference between that sort of analysis, and the form of Literary Critique PP seems to be talking about. What you're describing is analyzing what something is, rather than inferring something about it.

It's the difference between looking at an RPG system and saying "Wizards are the most powerful class" versus looking at that same system and saying "Wizards are the most powerful class, therefore the game designers must be trying to tell us that Intelligence is the most important trait a person can have!"

Personally, I don't mind a bit of allegory or message in my sci-fi/Fantasy, but stories should be able to stand on their own, and all it takes for a story to be great is for it to be a great story, it doesn't need to have any bigger message.

1984 is a great book that has a message about Fascism. Catch-22 is a great book that has a lot to say about war, the world, and absurdism.

Count of Monte Cristo is an absolutely amazing story that doesn't really have a message besides "Don't frame your friends and get them sent to jail, because they'll come back twenty years later with a vast fortune, mastery in a thousand skills, and a convoluted plan to get Revenge"

I don't know why people keep talking about "the form of Literary Critique PP seems to be talking about" like it is some extremely complicated thing that people cannot pin down.

It was made quite clear:

I'll be frank. Yes. I do completely reject literary criticism, root and branch, as the bitter fruit of a poisonous tree.

Now, to be fair, he cryptically suggests there is some species of criticizing literature that is not "literary criticism" in the sentence following,

That does not mean that I reject all attempts to analyze and understand what works and what doesn't in fiction.

but since he does not seem to want to say what it is, I won't put words in his mouth. If you read his post and find it, you tell me.

Now, you mention RPGs to illustrate your example of different meanings to "literary criticism" I think your analogy is not quite being honest (whether you meant it to be dishonest or not) because you are presenting an inference that seems wrong and odious to many people compared to a fairly reasonable analysis. Here is another inference you might make:

"D&D has all these classes that specialize in being wise or being strong or being dexterous, so it is a game that believes in the value of all sorts of different people with different talents and skillsets coming together to solve problems"

As a side note, it is somewhat of a taboo in academic literary criticism to attempt to divine the author's intentions, as in "therefore, the game designers must be trying to tell us" and folks are encouraged to make statements about the text itself instead. As a second side note to the people who seem to believe that literary criticism is dominated by a King of Criticism working from behind a curtain somewhere whose word is law, or a cabal of academics who are friends with some elephant poachers who get drunk and pass decrees arbitrarily, the reason for this taboo is logically followed from the fact that an author can put something on the page that not even he/she understands the significance of, that an author can write something in one state of mind and then change that state of mind later, that authors can lie or refuse to tell his/her intentions, and that authors can be dead at the moment of investigation.

But the point is, both of the inferences we have made can be disagreed upon, can be debated, we can come up with the reasons in support of or against these inferences, and that discussion is what literary criticism is. You cannot have this discussion at all if, as suggested, literary criticism looks like this:

Most of the time, no evidence other than ipse dixit is provided--"believe me," they cry, "for I am an expert." When they do cite evidence (my favorite is when they use popular accounts of neuroscience findings or best of all arguments from quantum mechanics as proof), they betray their utter ignorance of the evidence and what it really means to anyone with half a brain.

Because when literary criticism is presented as this, I tell you that D&D is about all sorts of people with different talents working as a team, and you'll tell me to stop trying to push my canned, party line views on you.

[Vitruviansquid]

Indeed. Between Max_Killjoy and myself, there is a lot of intellectual analysis of topics. That isn't to exclude anybody else, just to note two people who're being accused of "anti-intellectualism" for not adhering to the approved positions. (Max and I have had our disagreements, but on this I agree with what he's been saying.)

Intellectual pursuit of knowledge is to be lauded. Understanding, deep study, and even analysis of allegory and meaning are great. The trouble comes when the "intellectualism" (so-called) starts to dictate that there is only the approved analysis.

Strangely, this singular-acceptable attitude regarding literature, history, and mythical interpretation tends to coincide with an attitude that there can be no foundational truth in science, reason, and study of objective reality. Even denial of the existence of objective reality itself.

When reality is deemed subjective, and interpretation of literature and the like deemed objective, something has gone very wrong.

Where is this all coming from?

From where I'm sitting, I see these quotes:

That's what literary criticism is - there is my evidence, you are allowed to dispute it with your own evidence, nobody's asking you to believe anything on the critic's words just because he's got a piece of paper saying he has a degree.

Disagree with an analysis, sure. Disagree with the prevailing wisdom, sure, why not?

Then you say

Intellectual pursuit of knowledge is to be lauded. Understanding, deep study, and even analysis of allegory and meaning are great.

as if you didn't just make a me-too post for someone who said, literally

I'll be frank. Yes. I do completely reject literary criticism, root and branch, as the bitter fruit of a poisonous tree.

I am not trying to tell you what you think or condescend to you.

I am actually curious why your views on what this conversation is about seems to be the complete opposite of what I observed.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I am not trying to tell you what you think or condescend to you.

I am actually curious why your views on what this conversation is about seems to be the complete opposite of what I observed.

What part of "These are my final words on the topic" aren't you willing to accept? This forum (nor this thread) is not the place, nor do I have any faith that such a discussion would be possible in good faith from all parties.

I've seen it applied in reverse of the common understanding -- that if someone is shot in act 3, you should have already shown the gun in act 1, and intended metaphorically. That is, don't drop stuff in out of the blue.

On the more general point, yes, I wish people working in one medium would remember that not everything that works in other mediums will work in that particular medium.

This is particularly true of trying to bring elements of authorial fiction into RPGs.

I can understand the reverse meaning of the aphorism. I find that, like with most writing "rules," people take it too literally. This leads to cluttering up earlier scenes with things that won't be useful till much later, belaboring things that could easily go without explicit mention, or, in reverse, stripping scenes bare so only the elements that are directly functional are even mentioned. Any of those can work, given the right voice. But most people don't have the needed voice--and that's not a bad thing. Voices differ. What works for Shakespeare doesn't necessarily work for Tolstoy, nor vice versa. Both were great writers.

Spoiler: aside about prescriptive vs descriptive rules

Show

I believe it's you who have railed against those that take Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey as a prescriptive checklist? If so, I'm right there with you on that. If that wasn't you, well, then it's still a good point. Writing rules are more like the Pirate's Code--more like guidelines. What works for one author in his voice may or may not work for another author.

In general, I am of the very firm opinion that language (and linguistics) is descriptive, not prescriptive. Studying the writing of others can lead to "here are some techniques that good writers [based on some criteria] have used." It can't say "you must use these techniques to be a good writer." Take, for example, the standard 5x5 high-school-level essay (5 paragraphs, 5 sentences each, starting with an introductory/topic sentence and ending with a concluding sentence). That kind of writing is a good way to practice fundamentals, but shouldn't be taken as a "all writing should look like this" prescription. In fact, most writing (even formal writing such as peer-reviewed papers) doesn't look like that.

Another example: My colleagues in the university physics departments suffer under the weight of a traditional formalism in paper writing that produces dense, awkward, and stilted papers. This is how they've been taught a paper should be--all passive constructions, no first person, no hint of personality or humor. If you read some of the seminal papers in the field from the early part of the 20th century, they weren't like that. They were clear and easily readable, often included first person pronouns, and even had a hint of humor about them. And these weren't professional writers. This turgid style ossified over time, mostly not by intention. Instead, generations of poor writers taught new graduate students and editors pushed this particular style as the One True Way instead of letting people find their own voice. As a result, even papers without complicated mathematics need professional interpreters to be understood by non-specialists.

[Vitruviansquid]

What part of "These are my final words on the topic" aren't you willing to accept? This forum (nor this thread) is not the place, nor do I have any faith that such a discussion would be possible in good faith from all parties.

That was a post directed at Segev, in case the following words didn't mean anything to you

So yes, last words applied. I don't see why I would attempt to have a discussion with someone who thinks and writes in such a sloppy manner.

[Max_Killjoy]

I can understand the reverse meaning of the aphorism. I find that, like with most writing "rules," people take it too literally. This leads to cluttering up earlier scenes with things that won't be useful till much later, belaboring things that could easily go without explicit mention, or, in reverse, stripping scenes bare so only the elements that are directly functional are even mentioned. Any of those can work, given the right voice. But most people don't have the needed voice--and that's not a bad thing. Voices differ. What works for Shakespeare doesn't necessarily work for Tolstoy, nor vice versa. Both were great writers.

Spoiler: aside about prescriptive vs descriptive rules

Show

I believe it's you who have railed against those that take Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey as a prescriptive checklist? If so, I'm right there with you on that. If that wasn't you, well, then it's still a good point. Writing rules are more like the Pirate's Code--more like guidelines. What works for one author in his voice may or may not work for another author.

In general, I am of the very firm opinion that language (and linguistics) is descriptive, not prescriptive. Studying the writing of others can lead to "here are some techniques that good writers [based on some criteria] have used." It can't say "you must use these techniques to be a good writer." Take, for example, the standard 5x5 high-school-level essay (5 paragraphs, 5 sentences each, starting with an introductory/topic sentence and ending with a concluding sentence). That kind of writing is a good way to practice fundamentals, but shouldn't be taken as a "all writing should look like this" prescription. In fact, most writing (even formal writing such as peer-reviewed papers) doesn't look like that.

Another example: My colleagues in the university physics departments suffer under the weight of a traditional formalism in paper writing that produces dense, awkward, and stilted papers. This is how they've been taught a paper should be--all passive constructions, no first person, no hint of personality or humor. If you read some of the seminal papers in the field from the early part of the 20th century, they weren't like that. They were clear and easily readable, often included first person pronouns, and even had a hint of humor about them. And these weren't professional writers. This turgid style ossified over time, mostly not by intention. Instead, generations of poor writers taught new graduate students and editors pushed this particular style as the One True Way instead of letting people find their own voice. As a result, even papers without complicated mathematics need professional interpreters to be understood by non-specialists.

That was me, repeatedly. In general, there will always those who mistake analytical description for prescriptive requirement. See also multiple other threads on these forums where "what went wrong?" or "why don't I like this?" analyses are funhouse-mirrored into some sort of warped "This Is How To Make A Game!"

As for the writing style of college professors and researchers, one may in part look to (once again) postmodernism's influence, on its dedication to form over function, its love affair with obscurantism (terms of art, constant redefinition of words to mean peculiar things, etc), and insistence that the observer's inferences are the only "truth" of any statement. It forces those writing in an academic setting to walk on eggshells, their work verbose and yet bland, while they struggle for the wording least likely to provide any grist for the mill of self-righteous crusaders searching for "hidden meaning".

Spoiler: Postmodernism's war on science

Show

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articl...entific-Facts/
https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/03/23...ctualism-11040
https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...postmodernism/
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/david...b_1572737.html
https://www.amazon.com/House-Built-S.../dp/0195117263

[PhoenixPhyre]

That was me, repeatedly. In general, there will always those who mistake analytical description for prescriptive requirement. See also multiple other threads on these forums where "what went wrong?" or "why don't I like this?" analyses are funhouse-mirrored into some sort of warped "This Is How To Make A Game!"

As for the writing style of college professors and researchers, one may in part look to (once again) postmodernism's influence, on its dedication to form over function, its love affair with obscurantism (terms of art, constant redefinition of words to mean peculiar things, etc), and insistence that the observer's inferences are the only "truth" of any statement. It forces those writing in an academic setting to walk on eggshells, their work verbose and yet bland, while they struggle for the wording least likely to provide any grist for the mill of self-righteous crusaders searching for "hidden meaning".

In the particular case of the hard sciences, I can't really blame other (non-science) academics for that (as much as I would want to). As far as I can tell, it's just a case of bad writers teaching bad writing, badly. A matter of fossilized tradition. Interestingly enough, there has started to be pushback against this style even from major journals.

For example, Elsevier (one of the largest journal publishers) has this phrasing in their guide:

Use the active voice to shorten sentences. The passive voice can be used in the Methods section of a paper but otherwise, the active voice will usually shorten sentences and make them more dynamic and interesting for the reader.
Use the active phrase "we found that…" freely, which is a quick signal to the reader that you are describing one of your results. This expression is also much more concise and to the point than writing in the passive voice, as in, for example, "it has been found that there had been…

That's a relatively dramatic departure from the "received" style.

[Cosi]

Let's consider this from a different perspective.

Suppose there was an ability in some game that gave you +10 to a skill of your choice. Maybe it's an augment you can get in Shadowrun. Maybe it's a feat you can take in D&D. Maybe it's whatever the equivalent is in L5R.

Obviously, there are debates we could have about this ability.

Some of those are fairly easy to parse. For example, "what does the ability do" is very likely to have a single message we agree on. Note though that this is not "objective". In D&D's d20 system, a "skill bonus" would add to the result of a die roll. In Shadowrun's dicepool system, it would increase the number of dice you roll. In L5R's roll-and-keep system, it might be undefined because you'd need to specify the effect on both roll and keep. But within the context of the system, we can probably say what the ability does.

Now consider a more complicated question -- is this ability broken? There are a variety of arguments you could make here. You could say "yes, it is broken because it's better than Skill Focus". You could say "no, it is not broken, because characters that take it perform within normal parameters against expected encounters". You could say "yes, it is broken because every single Truenamer will take it as soon as they can". You could say "no, it is not broken because the effects of skills are not impressive enough for a +10 bonus to matter." Those are all arguments you could make, and they're all at least arguably "true" in the sense of providing accurate description of the system. Whether you consider the ability "broken" would depend on how you weighed those, and other, arguments.

But would anyone seriously consider whether the designer intended for it to be broken when deciding whether it was broken or not? If the designer of planar binding came down and said "no, that spell isn't broken", would you sit back and say "well, that settles it, planar binding is fine"? If the designer who created the rules for 4e blood spirits in Shadowrun (which I have been told are quite broken) said "no, they aren't broken", would that change your position? Conversely, if the designer of the Fighter said that it was broken, would you start believing that?

What about Hardcore Henry?

Hardcore Henry is a straight up artur action film. It's an experiment in representing action via a first person perspective. That's the message -- what's an action movie like, seen through the eyes of the action hero? How does that change our perceptions of his behavior?

Blade?

Vampires (at least, european ones) have been a metaphor for (extractive, aristocratic) elites for as long as vampires have existed. You could summarize Blade's message as "kill the rich because they are literal parasites corrupting society from within".

FDR: American Badass (OK, admittedly that one only hasd a couple of action scene)? Madness Combat?

Never seen or heard of either.

When I'm writing, rain usually goes into a scene just because as I picture the scene, it's raining -- that's it. No meaning, no message, no symbol, nothing to tell the reader. It's just raining. And for whatever reason, it irks the hell out of me that someone might someday be reading that and trying to figure out "why" it's raining... and "finding" something that's just not there.

But there is something there. There was some reason you put rain in the page. Your actions arise from circumstances, even if you don't consciously realize it. Why rain and not snow? Why spend time describing weather and not clothing? Why add description instead of dialog?

Of course, messages don't have to be there because the author put them there. The message is a function of perception. Information doesn't have inherent meaning, it has contextual meaning. What does 01000001 mean? It's the bit string 01000001. If you interpret it as an ASCII character, it's 'A'. If you interpret it as a decimal number, it's 65. If you had an 8-bit CPU, it might be some particular instruction. Is one of those "objectively right"? Of course not! If you write it with the intention of representing the number 65, that does nothing whatsoever to stop someone from later reading it out as an ASCII character. The text cannot be understood without context, because context is the only thing that makes it possible to understand text.

For example, why did it rain in my last tabletop game? Well I happened to roll for rain on the random encounter table. So why was rain on the table? Because James Raggi put it there in 2010. So why did Raggi put it there? Hell if I know, probably because rain is a thing that occasionally happens in our world, so he put it in the game world as well.

But why roll? Why not a list of possible weathers that the DM can choose? Why not a deterministic weather simulator? Why roll then? Why not earlier? Why not later? Why are the inputs to the roll what they are?

What about when it's raining in a Dickens novel? He included a lot of unnecessary detail because he was paid by the word.

That seems like a pretty clear message -- "I care more about making money than the specific content of my novels".

[Segev]

Where is this all coming from?

From where I'm sitting, I see these quotes:





Then you say



as if you didn't just make a me-too post for someone who said, literally



I am not trying to tell you what you think or condescend to you.

I am actually curious why your views on what this conversation is about seems to be the complete opposite of what I observed.

I confess to being too lazy to do a quote-trolling, but the post that called out condescention provided quotes that seemed to fit the bill. And "how dare you be anti-intellectual, you implied troglodyte" was the post that spurred me to respond.

There is a difference between the kind of "intellectualism" that Max_Killjoy was opposing and actually applying intellect. And while you quote somebody saying, "sure, go against the common wisdom," the rest of his post basically spelled out that the only "common wisdom" he supports going against is that of times before the era of modern intellectualist common wisdom.

I'll digress a bit here to explain:

Spoiler

Show

There is a trend to say, "Look how brave and bold this is, going against the common wisdom/popular pressure/horrible oppressive bias of society," about things which...aren't actually all that likely to be attacked by the mavens of popular culture and political correctness. To characterize the approved position on the cause du jour as "brave" and "daring," as if holding that position placed the speaker in a hazardous place, open to slings and arrows of verbal and social assault.

All the while the people doing so are feted and lauded and held up as champions, heroes, glorified and celebrated, protected with armies of defenders from any who might voice even the slightest disapproval. To the point that it actually takes real courage to brave the counter-assault should one dare be one who disagrees even slightly with the "brave position."

It similarly applies in academia: there is a claim that there is a widely-held "common wisdom," which nobody who actually gets any respect in the subculture really holds. Those who do are ridiculed for being "beholden" to "outdated" beliefs. But it is still treated as if going with the new mainstream idea is boldly standing against a "common wisdom" that has an inquisition of invisible people who will hound you for disagreeing with.

In reality, many who buck that "common wisdom" will never hear aught but praise for their "courage" and "insight." Possibly never realizing the irony that they are being lauded for agreeing with everybody they know while also feeling like rebels against some nebulous "them" who hold the view they find completely ridiculous.

It's not entirely a straw man argument - some people may actually hold the view and defend it adequately if given a chance - but it shares a similar purpose. The actual common wisdom, commonly-held belief, or pop-culturally approved opinion is held up as if it takes an iconoclast, a maverick, or a heroic rebel to dare to publicly hold it. And the faux "common wisdom" that is held up as the banner of a bogeyman of widespread oppression for those "brave rebels" to do combat with is actually the harder position to take, because that is the position that gets heaped with ridicule and for which you will be attacked if you hold it.

With the fetishization of "rebelliousness," it has become cool to be the rebel, and so obviously rebels are those of whom the zeitgeist approves, and they are inherently brave for standing against "everybody" (except for everybody who happens to be on their side, which is the vocal and active crowd around them).

It's like if every drow were a CG rebel seeking to throw off the wicked ways of his people. They're all brave for fighting the horrid oppression of their underdark empire! And they all bravely band together against the handful of Matriarchy-supporting traditionalists who supposedly still run society, never mind that they're marginalized and mocked and subject to abusive language and ridicule for still supporting Lolth. They're not even leading anything anymore, but they're the vast and powerful forces that it takes great bravery to oppose.

[Max_Killjoy]

But there is something there. There was some reason you put rain in the page. Your actions arise from circumstances, even if you don't consciously realize it. Why rain and not snow? Why spend time describing weather and not clothing? Why add description instead of dialog?

Because as I envisioned the scene it was raining, and if not mentioned, the reader may or may not see the scene as intended.

Nothing more.

Of course, messages don't have to be there because the author put them there. The message is a function of perception. Information doesn't have inherent meaning, it has contextual meaning. What does 01000001 mean? It's the bit string 01000001. If you interpret it as an ASCII character, it's 'A'. If you interpret it as a decimal number, it's 65. If you had an 8-bit CPU, it might be some particular instruction. Is one of those "objectively right"? Of course not! If you write it with the intention of representing the number 65, that does nothing whatsoever to stop someone from later reading it out as an ASCII character. The text cannot be understood without context, because context is the only thing that makes it possible to understand text.

Purely as a hypothetical (please forgive any lapses in the details), let us suppose a rare, one might say freak, bit of radio interference between the EM waves from two sources far away in space, that for a few moments creates what appears to be a digital signal as picked up by a radio telescope on earth. A group of radio astronomers all use different methods to attempt to decode this signal, and they each come up with something different, a few even appear to be some sort of intelligent message. As far as I'm concerned, no matter what the astronomers on earth might infer... there is no message there. It's just a trick of random noise. Objectively, there's simply no message.

Let us now suppose that some alien civilization has been sending out a signal, and it's picked up here on earth. It's "decoded and interpreted" by 10 different teams, and they each get a different "message". Either one or none of the teams is right. Objectively, there was only one message.

Short version -- inference does not for an actual message make.

That seems like a pretty clear message -- "I care more about making money than the specific content of my novels".

That may be factual, it may be objectively true, but it is not in any meaningful way a message.

Unless one wants to broaden "message" to mean "any information that happens to make it across a gap".

[Cosi]

I like that Segev's perception of the left is apparently informed entirely by PC Principal and he assumes leftists spend all their time talking about how "courageous" things are. Also that he is apparently unaware that there exist non-liberal social or political institutions. How he came to that particular belief seems fascinating, because it seems to me almost the exact opposite of reality.

Because as I envisioned the scene it was raining, and if not mentioned, the reader may or may not see the scene as intended.

And you imagined it that way because? There are no uncaused causes.

Let us now suppose that some alien civilization has been sending out a signal, and it's picked up here on earth. It's "decoded and interpreted" by 10 different teams, and they each get a different "message". Either one or none of the teams is right. Objectively, there was only one message.

Not quite. There is one text -- whatever information was sent. There are many messages. There is the message the aliens intended the text to represent. There are the messages individuals decoded. Perhaps we would like to retrieve the alien's message. That doesn't make the message we have interpreted not meanings of the text. It just means they are not useful to us in this context.

That may be factual, it may be objectively true, but it is not in any meaningful way a message.

Unless one wants to broaden "message" to mean "any information that happens to make it across a gap".

What do you think a "message" means?

[Max_Killjoy]

I like that Segev's perception of the left is apparently informed entirely by PC Principal and he assumes leftists spend all their time talking about how "courageous" things are. Also that he is apparently unaware that there exist non-liberal social or political institutions. How he came to that particular belief seems fascinating, because it seems to me almost the exact opposite of reality.

Segev didn't say anything about "the left" or "leftists" in that post. Is there another post I'm missing where he connects that commentary to "the left"? What he describes, I have seen in equal parts all over the ideological landscape -- it's equal-opportunity for all sorts, a disease affecting all aspects of discourse. I cannot give examples without pushing forum rules.

And you imagined it that way because? There are no uncaused causes.

Which is getting well outside the question at hand.

The rain is not a symbol, or an allegory, or a message. It's just part of the fictional reality in the same way that it would be part of our actual reality. Rain in the real world doesn't symbolize anything, or send a message, or convey meaning -- it's just a physical phenomenon.

Likewise, the only "message" the reader should take from that fictional rain is that in that fictional time and place, it is raining. Nothing more. Anything other than that is not in the writing, it's purely and only the reader's own inference.

Not quite. There is one text -- whatever information was sent. There are many messages. There is the message the aliens intended the text to represent. There are the messages individuals decoded. Perhaps we would like to retrieve the alien's message. That doesn't make the message we have interpreted not meanings of the text. It just means they are not useful to us in this context.

What do you think a "message" means?

It requires intent -- to have been deliberately sent. An inference alone is not enough.

If the signal is aliens sending out a message, then there is only one message.

If the signal is a freak bit of interference, then there is no message.

• an official communication, as from a chief executive to a legislative body: the president's message to Congress.
• a communication containing some information, news, advice, request, or the like, sent by messenger, telephone, email, or other means.
• Digital Technology. a post or reply on an online message board.
• the inspired utterance of a prophet or sage.
• the point, moral, or meaning of a gesture, utterance, novel, motion picture, etc.
• Computers. a warning, permission, etc., communicated by the system or software to the user: an error message; a message to allow blocked content.

A message may be sent, but not received. A message cannot be "received" if it was never sent.

[Bohandas]

Never seen or heard of either.

FDR: American Badass is a horror comedy where president Roosevelt fights werewolves using a wheelchair with built-in machineguns (Trailer (Coarse NSFW Language))

Madness Combat is an old series of action cartoons that originally appeared on Newgrounds. They have little or no plot to speak of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YEP6EAkLDk

[Bohandas]

If the signal is aliens sending out a message, then there is only one message.

Yes! this! No matter what you want to read into it only the message the aliens actually sent is of importance.

A message may be sent, but not received. A message cannot be "received" if it was never sent.

That's correct.

As an aside, the false impression of receiving messages or finding meaning where none has been sent or encoded is known as "apophenia" and when it happens often it may be a sign of psychosis.

[Satinavian]

Not quite. There is one text -- whatever information was sent. There are many messages. There is the message the aliens intended the text to represent. There are the messages individuals decoded. Perhaps we would like to retrieve the alien's message. That doesn't make the message we have interpreted not meanings of the text. It just means they are not useful to us in this context.

Let's try another analogy : Encryption.

We have the plain text, the encrypted text and the cypher, we also have a sender and a receiver (who may or may not posess the cypher, let's ignore asymmetric encryption for now)

For me and Max_Killjoy the plain text would be the message while the novel(or other work of art) would be the encrypted text and the cypher is the way to extract the message.

Now, the problem is that we only have the novel, the encrypted text. We don't have the cypher. We don't really know the intentions of the author, we don't know, what he wanted to say.


The encrypted text (the novel) contains a certain amount of information (which can be measured precisely). The message also contains a certain amount of information which can't be greater but can very well be smaller. In fact, it might be zero as randomized fillers are very common in encryption to hide the cipher better.


Literature analysis is a way of codebreaking. It works by guessing ciphers relying on very common ones. In the same way as codebreakers analyze a coded message always in the same way (counting letters, searching for repeating segments ...) and then try to brute force methods that could tend to produce those results.

Of course, messages don't have to be there because the author put them there. The message is a function of perception. Information doesn't have inherent meaning, it has contextual meaning. What does 01000001 mean? It's the bit string 01000001. If you interpret it as an ASCII character, it's 'A'. If you interpret it as a decimal number, it's 65. If you had an 8-bit CPU, it might be some particular instruction. Is one of those "objectively right"? Of course not! If you write it with the intention of representing the number 65, that does nothing whatsoever to stop someone from later reading it out as an ASCII character. The text cannot be understood without context, because context is the only thing that makes it possible to understand text.

That would result in the statement "every message of the same (information-)size is included in the text". That would be pretty stupid as that would mean every text of the same length shares the same messages. Which means, we don't even need to analyze a text to get the messages, we only need the length a nd get the whole set of messages that are implied.