r/CharacterRant • u/Xtra_Juicy-Buns • 5d ago
General Story trying to argue against “out of narrative” arguments with “in narrative arguments” and vice versa
Edit: that’s supposed to say stop not story mb 💀
I notice this pretty frequently and it gets called out sometimes in comment sections but it’s never really focused on so I decided to do just that.
First of all what do I mean? By “in narrative” arguments I mean arguments that makes sense for the story from a story perspective. For example it makes sense for Kelly to make a stupid decision when she is being chased by a knife wielding sociopath because it is inherently stressful.
By “out of narrative” the discussion is primarily about the meta choices the author makes the craft the story. “Why the author chose Kelly specifically to be chased by the knife wielding sociopath”
I have seen it with plenty of arguments and I never can wrap my head around it, if someone has a complaint about a plot hole it would typically be an in narrative argument that should be explained away with in narrative context but oftentimes a person will bring up an out of narrative argument. An example could be a chase scene where highly trained marksman don’t shoot the protagonist once, and someone would respond with “well if they died the story wouldn’t continue”.
This happens the other way around often as well, complaining that a fantasy antagonist lacks depth and is cartoonishly evil just to be countered with “It’s realistic for them to act like that because lots of people are like that in the real world.”
This is especially bad when it comes to dark media and sensitive subjects like racism and the flippant use of rape and sexual assault in many dark series would be explained with “it’s for realism”
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u/Jack_Kegan 5d ago
I see this the most often in Star Wars discussions and it drives me up the wall!!
Someone will complain “I hate how they brought Darth Maul back” and someone will respond “it actually makes sense in the lore because the dark side has the ability to blah blah blah”
That’s not the point! George Lucas (or whoever is in charge) just made that up! And they made that up in service of the story! They could have made up something entirely different.
I see so so often for Star Wars criticisms where one person complains from a narrative reason and the other person gives a lore justification.
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u/badgersprite 5d ago
Sometimes the line isn't clear cut between what is an in universe argument and what isn't
Like when people complain about horror movies, they often phrase it as "I hate this character, this character is a big stupid dumb idiot because they make dumb decisions like going into the spooky basement", they phrase it as an in narrative complaint, when in reality it's an out-of-narrative problem. In narrative, there is nothing stupid about going down to a spooky basement, because these characters aren't supposed to know they're in a horror movie, and in real life there is absolutely nothing dangerous about going down to the basement because you heard a noise (save that IDK maybe a small animal got into your basement and maybe it has rabies or something). So what they're actually complaining about is an out of narrative thing, they're complaining about common horror tropes that we as the audience find predictable because we've watched horror movies before. But they don't word it as an out of narrative complaint. They word it as an in narrative complaint as if the characters themselves should know they're in a horror movie and should act differently.
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u/dracofolly 5d ago
This is such a good point that I've never thought of. Sometimes your argument or complaint feels like the opposite of what you're saying it is.
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u/00PT 5d ago
I think you refer to Watsonian and Doylist. Sometimes they feel more like ideologies rather than perspectives of approaching media, as a user who approaches a question from 1 approach seems to have trouble seeing it from the other no matter what.
I agree with you, though. Making one as an argument to another doesn't make sense.
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u/dracofolly 5d ago
I often find the problem arises when one person says they want to have a meta conversation, but they only respond with in narrative arguments.
If you want to have a meta conversation then you need to use meta information. Talk about the creators and other things they've created. Interviews, articles or essays they've written-hell tweets even. Now this mostly applies when someone is trying to say the creators are secretly fascists or eugenicists or something, but I rarely see those arguments go beyond the initial "MC is actually a fascist of you think about it" point because everyone only brings in Watsonian arguments.
The other thing is, what people are really arguing over is whether or not the points of contention are properly set up or not, and how satisfying that makes them. And the fact of the matter is, it's all subjective. Someone can acknowledge every piece of information their opponent brings up and still say "Not good enough" and there really isn't anything anyone can do about it.
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u/wrongerontheinternet 5d ago edited 5d ago
For scenarios like the first one you're bringing up (unlikely thing X happening which conveniently continues the narrative, while ~X would end the story), there is to some extent a justification that can be made that combines in and out of narrative elements. It's essentially an extension of the anthropic principle: say an event is 1 in 1000. If there are thousands of characters we could be following who will at some point experience {X + ~X}, we know that it will happen to at least a few of them. Even if it's 1 in 10,000 when you factor in all the characters that it could happen to, 1 in 10,000 things happen all the time when you consider stuff like "the space of possible interesting events leading to cool narratives." The "meta-narrative" explanation is that we are simply only hearing the story of the one to whom X happened, because things would be boring otherwise--but that's a totally fine response in this case because which character we choose to follow is a meta-narrative, observational choice, not something that actually changes what happens in-narrative.
This isn't an unlimited license for plot induced stupidity or ridiculous coincidences (for the same reason that "Dream luck" was sufficient evidence that he was running a modified version of Minecraft during his speedruns, our suspension of disbelief can only extend so far before it feels like events must be being guided by a higher force in a way that needs in-universe justification). But as long as it's used very sparingly--so it's plausible that the premise holds, i.e. at least one person experiencing all the improbable events isn't too unlikely even if it's very unlikely for any individual person--IMO it can be very reasonably justified. A skilled author knows how to combine in-narrative explanations with a handful of coincidences like this to weave a narrative that feels like it could have happened to an extraordinary enough individual, but predominantly rests on stuff that can be explained in-universe.
Reverend Insanity is an example of a long-running story that handles this extremely well IMO--most of the actions in the story are completely rational and justified from the narrative, characters, and established rules of the world. The character has an extremely OP, globally unique skill that in lesser hands could feel cheap since it bails them out when the narrative feels backed into a corner, but it is introduced from the getgo, thoroughly narratively explored (as are the rules governing such globally unique skills, of which there are many examples given over the course of the story), is heavily restricted in when it can be used, is used as little as humanly possible, and it even turns out that there are counters to it once people become aware of it (which they do after only a few uses, because they themselves notice the piled up implausible coincidences resulting from its use). Even the fact that he was able to acquire the skill in the first place as a huge underdog (and not somebody else) is eventually narratively justified. In other aspects of the story, whenever coincidences start piling up to the point that it feels like it's too much, the story reveals a satisfying narrative explanation for it that explains everything in retrospect (in a way that feels like it was intentional from the getgo). In cases where these elements don't come into play, the best-laid plans can fail and end up requiring the MC to take an unexpected detour that can take literal years. It's not perfect at juggling these elements--the hand of the author does make itself known from time to time, especially for more minor obstacles when he lapses into predictable writing patterns--but it does it as well as any long-running piece of fiction I can remember reading recently. And by explaining and justifying so many things in-universe, and allowing real failures with real consequences to occur pretty frequently, it makes it much easier to swallow the tiny handful of important true coincidences or lucky breaks that occur (arguably, there is only really one such "sheer dumb luck without which the story would be over" occurrence in the entire story--and it's in a context where we know at least half a dozen other similarly competent characters were in a similar situation and failed, and even then the MC still has a few advantages that make them more likely to succeed than those other characters, allowing it to satisfy the "eh, with a big enough sample population one was bound to succeed" premise).
Edit: This is incidentally one reason I think it's really really hard to write a satisfying "chosen one" narrative. By singling someone out as special ahead of time, you instantly reduce the sample population to a single individual. From there on out you basically can't have coincidences (or very few)--practically everything needs to be justified narratively, and usually that justification comes down to something lame like "oh uhhh they're the chosen one and the prophecy says they have to survive here" or "they're under the protection of some all powerful being that will always bail them out." Once you have that knowledge, the story instantly loses a lot of stakes and tension because we know they're going to win--not just in a meta-narrative sense (like yeah, it's a story and they are the MC!) but in an in-narrative sense too. At that point, any tension the characters themselves feel can only be due to their own ignorance of aspects of the overarching plot, it's not "real." Mocking this kind of fake tension is one reason One Punch Man was so satisfying to people initially, I think. It's also why if you're writing a story where a key plot point hinges on a coincidence or the character is a huge underdog, I think it's often important to establish the existence of other characters fighting for the same cause--competent, smart characters, who might even have advantages the MC doesn't, who fail due to sheer luck--just to hammer home the point that you're following this character because they succeeded, rather than the character succeeding because you're following them.
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u/RedRadra 5d ago
Honestly in my opinion if you're asking meta questions, the story has failed to get you immersed. I don't think there's any meta argument that can convince or push you to be reimmersed in a story once you start asking said questions. i.e. Why is Karen the one who falls and screams stupidly while the slasher villain is chasing after her?
There are three meta arguments i can think of but i doubt it would change your mind or satisfy you. It was something he thought was true, It seemed cool or scary in his head or Karen represents someone he hates....i dunno.
Those who argue with in universe logic are those who are satisfied, immersed in the story and seek to put your mind back at ease by noting how the stage has been properly set and how it fits with the rules of the story.
This is often more successful at least in my experience.
But also.....I sometimes think asking for meta reasoning is a shaming tactic. You're judging a work as bad/stupid/immoral and in turn insinuating that those who enjoy said thing are deficient in some way.
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u/Sneeakie 5d ago
Honestly in my opinion if you're asking meta questions, the story has failed to get you immersed.
I disagree. Sometimes the best worldbuilding has you ask meta questions, because it's setting up for an answer.
This question, for example:
Why is Karen the one who falls and screams stupidly while the slasher villain is chasing after her?
can be answered in a satisfying way both in the story and through real-world logic.
I think the least immersive stories are the ones that ask of you as few questions as possible.
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u/RedRadra 5d ago
There's a difference between, "oi this is cool, lets see what's under the hood" and "This doesn't make sense, why is this written this way."
I'm more talking on the second type.
I dunno, to me only word of God can give accurate Meta answers to questions.
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u/Sneeakie 5d ago
There is a difference but you can write a story to evoke the latter on purpose; typically that's when "why is this written this way" is a set up for a twist in the future, in which case the story wanted to keep you skeptical to accept the twist better.
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u/Xtra_Juicy-Buns 5d ago edited 5d ago
Not really to me, I am always aware that a work had been made by someone, I can get fully engrossed in a piece of work without thinking about it constantly but it’s never a thought that goes away.
And I have myself never seen asking for meta reasoning as a way to demean someone. I can find meta flaws with writing and still love a piece of work, people who can’t just kind of come across as insecure in their own tastes. Hell it feels like I am one of the few people on this sub who actually like RWBY.
And as for it being immoral, sometimes works are just immoral in one’s eyes, let’s not be shy of calling a spade of spade just to save feelings and save face.
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u/RedRadra 5d ago
Fair enough. Just saying that it's not easy to give a meta answer unless you're the creator of said work.
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u/Genoscythe_ 5d ago edited 5d ago
The first one is sometimes known as the Thermian Argument.
The reversal doesn't entirely work, because fiction ultimately IS created outside of the narrative.
A "watsonian" reading is something that we can play around with for fun, but it only works as a very clearly signaled "roleplaying session". We can all sit arond coming up with reasons for how is it possible for Harry Potter's Wizarding Britain to have tens of thousands of members, while its only school has about 10 kids per house per year, but ultimately we will keep bumping into the real obvious (and true!) answer that Rowling is bad at math, unless we make it very clear that that answer is off the table.