Needs help distinguishing it from Character Filibuster: Author Filibuster

So, the page for Author Filibuster has a serious natter problem, something that should probably surprise no one given what the trope is. However, it also seems to be mixed up with Character Filibuster an awful lot - while they can overlap, they aren't the same. Even the Canonical List of Subtle Trope Distinctions gets this wrong:

To my understanding, Character Filibuster has always been what it's described as in the Laconic - a character delivers a very long speech or rant. But the name is probably leading to a lot of confusion. Ideas?

A quick once-over gives me the impression the natter's been dealt with, but that there might be a few examples of Character Filibusters in need of moving.

edited 24th Oct '11 4:17:25 PM by 20LogRoot10

And it had a blatant Complaining entry along an Justifying Edit that I just zapped. Can someone check for additional Conversation In The Main Page, please? (If it is on-topic at least)

edited 29th Nov '11 2:19:55 PM by SeptimusHeap

Actually, after reflecting on this, it's Character Filibuster that really needs help. This is a natter magnet by its very nature, but Character Filibuster ought to be a neutral trope - the name is partially to blame for people's confusion, I think.

So, to be clear, the distinction is that an Author Filibuster is the author stopping the plot to go on a long rant about his views, while a Character Filibuster is when a character stops the plot to go on a long rant about anything.

Sounds right to me...

It should be a lot easier to determine a Character Filibuster than an Author Filibuster. You can tell a Character Filibuster by the wall of dialogue. But Author Filibuster, at least in theory, requires that it be the voice of the author speaking. For that, you need Word of God or a manual to determine if an example fits.

If we played by Death of the Author rules, then there would be no Author Filibusters in works of fiction. We would only have Character Filibuster and (I don't think we have this trope yet) Narrator Filibuster.

Filibusters by third-person omniscient narrators can be safely assumed to be Author Filibusters. So can filibusters by a first person narrator, since In-Universe that person is the author. Other narrative POVs and true Character Filibusters are the grey area — and it so happens that the most popular tense is third-person limited...

Seems to me that the trope Author Fillibuster is the Narrator Fillibuster trope.

A Narrator Filibuster tends to be an Author Filibuster, but not necessarily.

When is it not an author filibuster?

A Lemony Narrator could easily go on a filibuster that isn't an Author Filibuster. But that would just fall under Character Filibuster anyways.

But that's when the narrator is an actual character who interacts with the story, as opposed to the traditional narrative style where the narrator is just telling the audience what happens.

The fact that the Lemony Narrator keeps pausing the plot to talk to the audience is a defining feature of it, and convention is that our Lemony Narrator is also the author, so if an example goes in both places, it isn't a misuse.

How exactly does this trope even work without knowing that the message the work is preaching are the author's own views?

That's why I wrote post #7

It seems to me that the two are sister tropes. If a character goes off on a rant about something the author doesn't agree with (the Big Bad lecturing about The Evils of Free Will or something), then that's a Character Filibuster but not an Author Filibuster (and may be part of The War on Straw — something the author sets up just so they can knock it down). If a character goes off on a rant in order to express the author's views, then that's both an author and a character filibuster. If the work rants about something without using a particular character as a mouthpiece (in the narration, for example, or multiple characters having a dialogue on the topic) then that's an author filibuster without being a character filibuster.

It's a venn diagram, basically.

What if the work clearly endorses and outlines one particular political or sociological point of view, yet the action is not stopped to do so? Several of Dan Simmons's and Robert Heinlein's books come to mind.

Then that's just an ordinary Author Tract.

Well put. There is the difficulty that Author Filibuster requires you to actually know, or have a good guess at, the author's views, but I don't think that makes it less tropable.

Do these pages need any actual work? I've added a bit of clarification of when the tropes overlap; otherwise it's just keeping an eye on the natter.

Well, yeah.

edited 14th Dec '11 1:28:39 PM by jewelleddragon

I really think tropers should know the author's view.

So what about works where the author is dead, and we cannot confirm what the author's view was? Is there a benefit to know what the author believed, or is it trivia compared to Narrator Fillibuster?

How would Narrator Fillibuster be different from Character Filibuster?

edited 14th Dec '11 5:14:15 PM by captainpat

Narrator Filibuster isn't actually a trope. There's no page for it (that I found).

If it were, the difference would be that a Character Filibuster is spoken and a Narrator Filibuster is in the narration.

bump

Here's a table to outline what's going on:

• A character stopping the plot to go on a long rant: Character Filibuster
• A character stopping the plot to go on a long rant the author agrees with: Character Filibuster and Author Filibuster
• The narration stopping the plot to go on a long rant the author agrees with: Author Filibuster
• The narration stopping the plot to go on a long rant: nothing.

What I'm saying is that the examples of Author Filibuster should go to Narrator Filibuster. Author Filibuster itself should be a trivia page, and only Word of God-confirmed examples added. In case anyone thinks the fourth type does not exist, I direct you to The Princess Bride novel. ^*

edited 3rd Jan '12 2:05:51 PM by crazysamaritan

Sounds good to me, but Narrator Filibuster just doesn't sound like a good title for some reason — I'd use Narrative Filibuster instead.

One question, though: are these sister tropes, or is one a parent trope to the other? I could see Narrative Filibuster being the supertrope ("the action stops so a rant can be delivered") and Character Filibuster as the subtrope ("a Narrative Filibuster where the rant is delivered by a specific character"), and Author Filibuster is Trivia about an author's real-life personal views prompting one of the above.

edited 3rd Jan '12 4:14:01 PM by NativeJovian

The distinction I see is Narrative Filibuster covering everything other than Character Filibuster. Author Filibuster implies knowledge of the author's opinions. That always seems like trivia, to me.

I don't care if they're sister or parent.

edited 3rd Jan '12 5:24:14 PM by crazysamaritan