Meh, it's fantastical fiction. They put up a plausible explanation that works for suspension of disbelief. I'm not too big of a fan of thinking about
anything too deeply in such cases. I'd just rather sit back, and enjoy one of my favorite characters.
0 Kudo
Cat-Tales 56: Armchair Detective
| Author | Comment | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Coralskipper.dubthistheforum |
#81 | |||
|
Posts: 138 11/04/08 12:46 |
Damon Runyon once said, "Ninety-five percent of sports tradition is fiction. Lies, if you like. But harmless. Who the hell cares if the facts get
twisted?"
|
|||
|
||||
|
The Thundering Monkey |
My impression | #82 | ||
|
Posts: 831 11/04/08 13:53 |
of the training method was that he essentially taught her sign language except it was one of his own devising using body action rather than hand words. By
making it the first and only language she learned at the age when the brain learns best, she attained a very high degree of aptitude. I can see this as
possible. All of us read body language to some degree or other. You know when in the context of an argument if someone starts to turn away, 4 times out of 5
the sucker punch is coming. You know if the girl you're talking to is interested or not from the half dozen things she's doing with her feet hands and
eyes. The vast majority of communication is nonverbal. Cass just isn't as distracted by the verbal. Yes they stretched the concept for a comic, but if
we're being realistic, who can win half a dozen fistfights every night for years.
Now Cass is learning English. Like anyone in an ESOL program it can be tough learning a new way of communication at an age when the brain is less spongey, but with time and effort she'll become more proficient. |
|||
|
|
||||
 BenRG |
#83 | |||
|
Posts: 300 11/06/08 06:09 |
That is why writing fiction is, in some ways, so liberating. Stuff in stories that you write works the way you say it does, not necessarily the way it
does in the 'Real World'. This is something that I always try to remember when I see a strange cause-to-effect chain or completely wrong use of various
technologies and sciences. "Remember, Ben! This is their story! It works because they say so!"
~*~*~*~
They call me BenRG But... I don't know why... ~*~*~*~ |
|||
|
|
||||
|
Coralskipper.dubthistheforum |
#84 | |||
|
Posts: 138 11/06/08 09:08 |
I could not possibly agree with you more Ben. So long as there is a plausible explanation within the world of fiction, that stays consistent you can get away
with that. The problem starts when you can no longer be consistent with the internal logic of the story.
Damon Runyon once said, "Ninety-five percent of sports tradition is fiction. Lies, if you like. But harmless. Who the hell cares if the facts get
twisted?"
|
|||
|
|
||||
|
Chris Dee |
#85 | |||
|
Posts: 786 11/06/08 11:05 |
I would say the two of you have nailed it. It's not that an author can fall back on "because I say so" as an absolute, it is more like the
String Theory explanation of magic. You decide what the rules and scales of measurement are in your world, and then you have to operate within them. In Star
Wars and Star Trek, people could just walk on the floor in space ships and space stations. In Babylon 5, humans had ships with rotating sections to create
artificial gravity. That's fine, but then if you have other ships shaped like sharks and eagles where people just walk like it's a shopping mall, you
have to explain they have a technology the humans don't.
A huge failure of the 1960s series The Prisoner is that the entire series had been set up with a high degree of realism, until the finale when they resolved the conflict (if that's the word to use) through a barely coherent allegory. That's a no-no. You have to resolve the conflict in the same universe that you set it up.
--Chris Dee
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Superpowers corrupts - superbly. --Identity Element |
|||
|
|
||||
|
SteelBlaidd |
#86 | |||
|
Posts: 63 11/07/08 09:24 |
Ben hits my problem right on the head. I'm a student of languages, both human and computer. I have both professional and personal interest in how the
brain deals with communication because of my sons learning
disabilities. As such I see more contradictions between the observed behavior, much of which is necessary to make Cassie a viable character, and the proposed
explanation.
"If ever you find yor self looking down the wong end of an arrow. Hope that it's an evil man. a good man will kill you with hardly a word."
- Sam Vimes |
|||
|
|
||||
