Great Moments in Author Filibuster History

They talk about how the Civil War was an economics thing and all the slavery stuff was bullshit to rally the common people to the North's cause. Considering slavery was on its way out before the Cotton Gin, it was unlikely a war was actually required to kill slavery. Just give the South a tech boost with equipment that didn't need half the manpower of a cotton gin, and it would have gone out in favor of better educated workers anyway.

I'm going to go twitch in the corner at the history fail, if that's alright.

While I'm inclined to disagree, I don't think that correctness disbars an author filibuster from being an author filibuster in any case, so isn't it moot?

edited 23rd Sep '13 10:00:42 AM by kingtiger522

^^^ That's... entirely not the argument. Are you working off of someone dishonestly ripping on the work, a la Spacebattles Dot Com and some editors on the page for A Desert Called Peace?

From Chapter 7:

That's the entirety of the ACW chat, while Vernon and Haselbauer waiting for the Horvath to light them up with some Death Rays. Not a word either way about the slavery issue.

edited 23rd Sep '13 10:04:50 AM by Nohbody

Thanks for providing the passage. So, just based on that, the character speaking is certainly a "Lost Cause" type, and I'd probably suspect the author is too or at least sympathetic to the viewpoint (since from the context it seems like he's the one that "wins" the argument).

I don't know if it's a "win", as the call that interrupted was from a galactic CNN expy's reporter calling to talk to Vernon for a Famous Last Words quote, and asked if the two were really re-arguing the ACW at that moment.

The next line:

That's a rather amusing lampshade hanging of Character Filibuster (and in a way also Talking Is a Free Action).

edited 23rd Sep '13 11:33:51 AM by Hodor

I might have conflated it with another argument I heard on the subject.

I guess all the SPEW sections in Harry Potter sorta bugged me. It's like, "Oh, well, JK Rowling thinks elves are people too! Well, what if I like having house-elf slaves, HUH JK? WHAT? YOU GONNA TAKE AWAY MY ELF-SLAVES?" Geez, some people, acting like it's wrong to keep slaves with long noses and big floppy ears who can teleport and whatnot.

While we're on the topic(ish), what to say about a filibuster that gets subverted later? One of the big things I disliked on reading The Course Of Empire was how the characters would occasionally break into reveries about the super-special-awesomeness of human powers of creativity and how the Jao were dull and stilted by comparison. Then it gets the rug yanked out from under it when it's revealed that the Bond played everyone- Narvo, Pluthrak, the humans- like a ten-cent kazoo. The Jao may not be creative, but "creative" isn't the same thing as "manipulative." It really sheds a whole different light on subsequent readthroughs.

Talk about irrelevant. I was unaware people legally kept slaves anymore. Unless the elves stand for something else, like computers and other electronic devices that are supposed to do our bidding.

I have a special dislike for the ones in His Dark Materials, perhaps in part because while I have my own issues with Catholicism I hated seeing the filibusters so blatantly planted in the way of a promising story. Even more than that I hated the sudden 180s from characters and the bullshit attempts to redeem certain ones (I'm looking at Mrs. Coulter here) apparently on the simple basis that if they're willing to fight the unjust heavens/church, they can't be all bad. (Even if they, y'know, freaking routinely ripped apart the souls of children!)

I was already wondering why I was still reading Sword of Truth when I started hitting the point where the Author Tract got really heavy, and that made me drop it forever. Between that and some tiny bits I've read from Ayn Rand, I've developed a special loathing for Randian/Objectivist/Libertarian philosophy and views.

The Harry Potter house elf argument is really a subversion because it turns out that except for Dobby, who is consedered insane by his own race, house elves are happy in their servitude although of course they want to be well treated.

edited 30th Sep '13 2:42:43 PM by tricksterson

The house elves thing in Harry Potter isn't an example of a filibuster because it's not talking about a real-world issue. It's using a fictional-world issue to illustrate a couple things that have applicability to the world. One, that everyone deserves to be treated like a person, and failing to treat people as people can have severe consequences (e.g., Sirius). Two, that disregarding or underestimating people one considers inferior can come back to bite you (e.g., Voldemort). And three, that if you want to help people who you consider oppressed or disadvantaged, you need to listen to them and not just decide what's best for them yourself, even if you're 100% well-meaning (Hermione; and, from some of JKR's comments, probably also inspired by some of the author's own youthful experiences).

At any rate, because there's no filibuster about a real-world issue, it doesn't apply to this thread.

edited 30th Sep '13 3:51:30 PM by WarriorEowyn

Surely as the issue raised is an extrapolation of a real life issue it IS fit for discussing in this thread? Seeing as how most literature takes real life issues as a startpoint and either subverts them, inverts them, plays them straight or averts them?

An Author Filibuster is the author taking time out from the story to expound at length on their views about a real world issue. Like the endless John Galt speech in Atlas Shrugged, or Victor Hugo's opinions on sewage. There's nothing in the Harry Potter books that fits into that category, so it's off topic.

edited 2nd Oct '13 6:53:10 PM by WarriorEowyn

As much as I liked Jurassic Park, I felt like punching Ian Malcolm in the face by the end. It's not really that I disagreed with his long, rambling speeches, it's that he spoke in nothing but long, rambling speeches. Even when dying from a T.rex bite!

edited 9th Oct '13 8:58:28 AM by PurpleDalek

Yes, well Michael Chrichton was another one for Author Tracts. If you think Jurrasic Park was bad, try State Of Fear

Does the "Left Behind" series count? It's been years since I've read it... more than a decade - I just go to Slacktivist sometimes to see the dissections of it nowadays...

I remember reading about 6 or 7 books into the series (I'm surprised I lasted that long) back when I was actually interested in predispensationalist / millienial thinking (please don't skin me alive. I got better). I don't know if it was how horribly all females were written that did me in, or just the fact that the authors managed to MAKE THE APOCALYPSE BORING. From what I remember of those books, there'd be a few pages of action - the Wrath of God with city-leveling earthquakes, the Antichrist's government bombing Chicago, the "heroes" ignoring the wounded and the dying to take care of their own skins, and etc. and then... 20 pages of very nitpicky Bible prophecy interpretation, going on and on in detail about what is going to happen because this/that ancient symbol, blah, blah blah.

Interspersed with technobabble about now-outdated technology. Granted, I remember thinking the plastic/wooden gun that could get through metal detectors was pretty cool at the time, but... uh...

The books were about a very, very narrow interpretation of picked and mixed parts of the Bible road-map of "This is the future!" according to the authors.

And it MADE THE APOCALYPSE BORING.

Does Left Behind count? Helltothefuckyeah it counts.

"Tricksterson" - I recognize your name. Are you a Slacktivite? I've not posted much there lately. My alternate name on there is "Worthless Beast."

But, yes. LB is the most Author-Fillibustery (is that even a word?) thing I remember reading that were actual books.

edited 5th Mar '14 11:21:24 AM by Shadsie

I'm with the people complaining about the ending His Dark Materials, though I still liked the representations of God and the Angels (not the purpose behind them).

However, I've just finished reading The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima, and I dare say that Mr. Pullman's filibusters are excusable in comparison. Almost every book by Mishima can be read as a cautionary tale against fascism, the code of bushido, glory-hounding, the charisma-induced influence of psychotic leaders on naive people et cetera. It is all pretty horrifying and cathartic until you realize that the man not only espoused these tropes himself, he actually EMBODIED most of them.

Then it all becomes an incredible mixture of Harsher in Hindsight and Hilarious in Hindsight when you read that Mishima tried to enforce all of the above in a coup d'etàt and failed so spectacularly he had to commit seppuku out of dishonor,