In the context of forums like this, I find Thermian Arguing to be more fun than the alternative. Because there's only so many times you can say "Well, the writer messed up." So on a casual forum it's more fun to think about things in watsonian terms sometimes.

Obviously, this shouldn't be done in professional writing critique.

Edited by GNinja on Aug 14th 2018 at 7:51:53 PM

I'm pretty sure Watsonian readings are encouraged in literary criticism. You are supposed to explain things within the text itself, without resorting to "well, the author was just being sloppy about this". Of course, this has its limits, too.

Basically, there must be a separate cause-to-effect within the story itself, otherwise things just seem to happen for the hell of it.

I find that a lot of Saturday Morning Cartoon villains do evil things for the sake of it. For instance, half of the non-Well-Intentioned Extremist villains in the Super Friends just did evil because they were evil (think Luthor, Darkseid, etc), thus they lack a true Watsonian explanation, but the Doylist explanation was "We needed to create a conflict, and give Aquaman and Hawkman something to do."

JK Rowling could have had Voldemort kill Harry's parents and try to kill him just as a means of kickstarting the plot. And for four books, that's basically what it appeared to be, due to it being children's literature at the time. Then when it shifted to older and more mature storytelling, one of the first big plot points was "in-universe, why did Voldemort go after Harry?" and there was an answer readily given at the end of Order of the Phoenix.

Indeed. Everything that happens within the story should make sense from a Watsonian perspective.

That said, there are Doylist-level problems that no amount of Watsonian finagling can solve. Representation is often one of those issues.

You can write up the most elaborate defense within the work of your hero being a Mighty Whitey. You can go to great lengths to explain why Mighty Whitey has to save the day in the story. You can concoct a ton of backstory about how the chosen one had to be a white guy. You can have people complain about Mighty Whitey in the story itself, to prove to your audience that you get it.

But no matter how many rationales you write into the work or how many lampshades you hang, nothing erases the fact that it's a Mighty Whitey story. Nothing ever can, short of not writing a Mighty Whitey story. No matter how hard he might try, Watson cannot solve problems that are inherent to the choices Doyle has made for the story.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 14th 2018 at 3:19:20 AM

There's also a lot of genre conventions which are unavoidable, despite not being completely realistic. For example, you could start with the fact that stories require conflict, and therefore things must happen to cause conflict and things that resolve the conflict can't happen. Good writers make this seem plausible in-universe, but that's not always easy.

Likewise, audiences want a satisfying story, which means that the villain must be defeated through the actions of the hero and/or the flaws of the villain, when in real life, things tend to devolve into random Deus Ex Machinas and Ass Pulls, or sometimes even The Bad Guy Wins. Also, the audience has to keep track of what is happening, which means limiting the cast and giving them distinctive traits.

Another big category is everything under Reality Is Unrealistic.

Edited by storyyeller on Aug 14th 2018 at 9:45:43 AM

That's also true.

I'd also point out the myth of originality as another Watson v. Doyle convention. This is something I talk about in my reviews from time to time: namely, that legitimately new concepts are few and far between. Much of what we consume in media is a repackaging of ideas, in a sense.

What keeps the story interesting despite the ideas being something you've probably encountered before in other media is how it's told, which is much more important than necessarily what is being told. Indeed, Watson's entire job is to take Doyle's message and present it in a way that seems fresh and interesting due to the fine details in how this Romeo and Juliet necessarily differs from that Romeo and Juliet.

If Watson does his job correctly, the audience may never even notice that they've seen this story before. This is especially true of basic storytelling components such as the Hero's Journey.

It's why I always say that in many ways, execution matters more than concept. A good execution may salvage a terrible concept, but a poor execution can ruin even the greatest ideas.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 14th 2018 at 8:07:18 AM

Also, the more specific the similarity, the less excusable it is and/or the harder you have to work to differentiate it. Something like The Hero's Journey is so generic that it applies to basically any story.

By the way, I think someone recommended Song of the Sea here a couple years ago, but I was never able to watch it. Anyway, I noticed that it was on Netflix yesterday and watched it. I would definitely second the recommendation. It has a beautiful art style and it is really interesting seeing the Celtic mythology. My only complaint is that the pacing felt a bit slow.

I've been rewatching random episodes in preparation for MLP leaving Netflix, and tonight I rewatched One Bad Apple. A few things I noticed:

• Scootaloo covers up Babs's eyes to lead her to the surprise, but the mechanics of that make one wonder. In order to do that as a pony, she would have to lean over Babs' body in an awkward position, and that's not even mentioning how she's supposed to walk like that. What is it with season 3 and ponies walking without their legs touching the ground in defiance of any semblance of physics or common sense?

• Scootaloo leans down and hits the lamp to turn it on, but the scene immediately shifts and shows that it was actually forced perspective and the lamp is actually way out of her reach. Go figure.

• The beginning of the song about how Babs seemed nice at first rings a little hollow when you realize that she turned on them before they even finished showing her around.

Don't think too much about it. The official MLP image back in the day, where it had the Mane Six all around Twilight, the one here◊, gives Twilight no legs. They obscure it by hiding her behind Fluttershy's hair. It's hard to see on a small image, but once seen, it can never be unseen.

So this whole idea of them not knowing how a horse's body works goes all the way back to Day 1.

Twilight has clearly visible hind legs in that image.

Her forelegs are obscured behind Fluttershy, yes, but I'm not seeing a basis for saying she doesn't have them.

Post of the Day #2244

And here we are 8 years later (4 years after that post), and there are still people who honestly think the show is intended for them and not little girls. It's like the context of that time in the thread, only they're actually serious.

Post of the Day #2245

Based on the lack of a linked forum, this had to have been done during S1-3ish. I mean, we had plenty of good tie-ins since then, bust also a few ones where it was "What moral were they trying to teach us, again?"

So, seems like a half-right prediction, but they don't seem to be out of ideas.

Page 101 means that it was during season 1. I joined soon after the end of season 1, and that was around page 170.

So the post was probably made soon after the release of The Cutie Mark Chronicles.

How many pages did it get up to before it got axed?

Thread's been slow the last couple of days. People back in school?

I think it's a bit earlier for that still. School starts in September, right?

... I was thinking it's kind of surprising how fast I forgot that, but then I remembered I've been out of grade school for eight years now, so I guess it's not that fast.

Actually, over here elementary schools at least are already starting on monday.

I've been thinking about that "one year older" thing.

I've long believed that Fluttershy is the oldest of the group because of those flashbacks. They used the "Teenager Pony" character model for her while the others got the "Adolescent Pony" models.

Now, this was back in season one, when Lauren Faust was still a part of the show. There was a lot more focus on horses doing horse things in the earlier seasons, with characters rolling around in the grass or swatting Parasprites with their tails or the like. One year might actually have meant more back then.

Horses have very fast maturation cycles. They live about 20-30 years and are considered to reach maturity at 5. So a one-year difference between Pinkie and Fluttershy by horse standards would be relative to a 4-5 year difference in human years. That could easily explain why she looks more mature than the others in the Cutie Mark flashbacks.

It's now established as of "For Whom the Sweetie Belle Tolls" that the ponies are on a human timescale rather than a horse one. Sweetie Belle is holding a grudge against Rarity over something that happened on her fifth birthday which, by horse years, would have been the point where she comes of age as a fully-grown adult. Which she has demonstrably not done yet.

But back in season one, that may not have been the case.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 16th 2018 at 4:35:46 AM

School's started back up here, yeah. But as I graduated college a year ago I'm fine.

How many pages did it get up to before it got axed?

15915

I think it's a bit earlier for that still. School starts in September, right?

It depends on the region. School started in August where I grew up.

But back in season one, that may not have been the case.

Ponies were certainly more horse like back in the day, but I don't think they were ever intended to have horse like lifespans. The ponies never talked the way they would if they were only five years old.

Yeah school here starts in August and ends in May with a few breaks throughout.

So apparently the netflix removal date for MLP has been pushed back.

Yay! Looks like it's only been pushed back to August 31st though, so it's only a brief reprieve.

Edit: Pound Puppies, another Hub show which was slated to be removed today, has in fact disappeared. So it appears that whatever deal was reached is specific to MLP.

Edited by storyyeller on Aug 16th 2018 at 11:11:34 AM