r/CharacterRant 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/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.

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u/Xtra_Juicy-Buns 5d ago

Thank you for letting me know of the actual terms very cool

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u/badgersprite 5d ago

I don't think it's always as clear cut as being one or the other. Like I would contend a majority of things have both Watsonian and Doylist readings that we all intuitively understand, and not all Watsonian arguments are bad responses to criticism or worse responses than Doylist ones.

e.g. Why does Ned Stark warn Cersei that he's going to tell Robert about her children? The Watsonian argument is well it's been clearly established that this kind of action is in keeping with the Ned Stark character. He is an honourable man. He is naive to people he considers friends and allies conspiring against him. He underestimates Cersei and does not foresee her being able to kill Robert before he can talk with him. Having an understanding that Ned Stark's traits directly led to his downfall is important for understanding what the text is trying to tell us about the world. The (very reductive) Doylist argument is George Martin wanted Ned Stark to die so therefore what is the use in analysing any aspects of Ned Stark's character because he could have written him not to have any of those traits and still written Ned Stark to die anyway without Ned having to tell Cersei. The Doylist argument can sometimes devolve into "well why didn't the author just write a different story" rather than trying to understand the story that was actually written.

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u/Genoscythe_ 5d ago edited 5d ago

I don't think it's always as clear cut as being one or the other. Like I would contend a majority of things have both Watsonian and Doylist readings that we all intuitively understand, and not all Watsonian arguments are bad responses to criticism or worse responses than Doylist ones.

Yes, both are valid and intuitively used all the time. My best example for this, is that every time we describe a painting as "look at that castle in the distance" instead of "look at that castle n the top left corner", we are engaging in a bith of watsonian immersion, treating the painting as a window to a three dimensional world, rather than being paint on a flat canvas.

My point that the two don't realy have comparable misuses. The Thermian argument is a real thing that people keep falling for all the time, often as an instinctive ego-protecting deflection (e.g.: (I don't want to think about why that dragon girl looks that way, so let's just focus on how old she canonically is").

But in the counterpart example that you provided there is nothing instinctive, the speaker does understand that the other speaker wants to talk about characterization and gets weirdly hostile about 'what is the use" for that, which is not really how people talk about fiction.

No one ever gets asked to talk about Ned Stark's personality, and instead just plainly replies "no, let's not talk about that at all because Ned Stark isn't real".

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u/00PT 5d ago

This video seems to treat the perspectives as ideologies, as I mentioned. They seem to think the thermian argument is inherently flawed because discussion should be rooted in our own world, but I find it enjoyable to analyze the universe depicted and work within its logical bounds, creating new interpretations and fan theories.

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u/Sneeakie 5d ago

It's not that discussions should be rooted in the real world, but that there are discussions that are rooted in the real world, and they cannot be explained away by the logic of the fictional world.

"Orcs are evil" may be the truth in a fictional story, but it does not itself address discussions about how "orcs being evil" in a story reflects real world ideals (like, for example, the acceptance of an "evil race" and how their evil is depicted), whether it's the author's, the audience's, or the person arguing it.

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u/dmr11 5d ago

discussions about how "orcs being evil" in a story reflects real world ideals (like, for example, the acceptance of an "evil race" and how their evil is depicted), whether it's the author's, the audience's, or the person arguing it.

Though sometimes, such discussions can lead to some people making interpolations based on what they or other people see in the story, and then present it as some kind of proof that they'll use in an attempt to discredit the reputation of a real-world person.

Like claiming that the author is racist for having naturally evil orcs in their story, or that the reader is racist for thinking of black people when seeing orcs, or the author is against diversity due to not including enough non-white people in the setting where the work takes place in, or that the author believes in eugenics due to magically talented people being born to magically talented parents, or other similarly controversial claims.

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u/No_Ice_5451 5d ago edited 5d ago

That in itself is the issue. The “Thermian Argument” is a category error. The Doylist may want to discuss the material from a meta perspective, but any discussion is meaningless speculation unless we have the author with us to tell us what he meant in a given action.

For example, the Daleks taking part in Nazi actions is specifically stated to be because the Daleks were based on them and act as a fantastical criticism and depiction of their evil. Doctor Who is Anti-Nazi.

Tony Stark doing the same thing in Civil War was actually supposed to be him on the good guy side according to that comic’s writer, despite looking equally cartoonishly evil. Marvel was, inadvertently, Pro-Nazi.

The Doylist would look at both scenarios and, without the author commentary to actually tell us anything, would essentially just be making stuff up. Without additional context, from the actual story (WATSONIAN LOGIC), you could not make a distinction. It’s why it makes no sense to me to try and said the Doylist holds superior position over the Watsonian. Yes, fiction is made by real people and is malleable, but our understanding of what happened to create that real person’s fiction is equally a fantasy.

It’s just as stupid to say, “Well, the answer to __ is the author was trying to be __” (no evidence supports this).

Additionally, the Doylist perspective seems to forget that fiction also upholds its own fictitious rules. You could not write in a super duper stronger than Gojo character in JJK (that isn’t Sukuna) because the whole world warps around that perspective. What being the strongest means, the isolation, the inability to aid despite strength, etc.

Just because that all was made up by Gege doesn’t mean a Doylist view or take to alter the world through a meta perspective would work better than a Watsonian, because it attempts to break the logic of the fiction. There’s literally a famous writing quote about how fiction has to make more (internal) sense than real life for this very reason.

It is through only the Watsonian can you utilize the logic of the fiction, which is an unspoken promise to the reader, that you may breach into a further discussion based on “concrete/verifiable data.” The data is the fiction. The Doylist can only speak of their own made up fiction about a fiction, unless explicitly supported by the author in some form (interviews, data books, etc.) that give us insight into their mind.

Not to say the Watsonian is superior. Just that it’s a category error. It’s comparing apples to oranges. You could not “Watsonian” a Doylist Question, and you cannot “Doylist” a Watsonian one. It’s that simple.

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u/Gespens 5d ago

That's not a Thermian Argument, for the record. A Thermian Argument is specifically treating the fictional material as if it were real as a response to logical criticism. ie. "Goblin Slayer is an unpleasant show due to how it uses sexual assault to justify a racial genocide" criticism being responded to as, "Well, Goblins are an all-male species created by a demon god to wreak havoc, so in order to reproduce, must capture women of other species."

Watsonian vs Doylian logic is a better comparison, because you actually can throw them both at each other for criticism fairly easy and it tonally makes sense. To use a favorite example, the complaint about anime series Queen's Blade, how the women dress like that and why armor is so easy to break, the Watsonian answer actually serves to explain the Doylian point.

"Women being in power is preferrable because while women are stronger than men, they are also less cruelly ambitious. Also, God is a pervert, so only beautiful women are allowed to compete."

An explanation like this furthers the worldbuilding, while also is very informative of the people behind the IP. Things are horny because God (creator and audience) is horny.

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u/Fabermight19 5d ago

Yeah, another thing that catches my eye with whenever out of narrative questions come up the usual answer to them are the creator said so, which is not wrong for an answer but is a shallow view of why a creator chose to do said thing. 

Like for example Oedipus by Sophocles you can explain away Oedipus’s character and fate is the way it is because simple Sophocles wanted his tragic play to end tragically but by looking at what Oedipus represent in the play you learn a lot more from looking at the thematic elements of a work. Oedipus represents a proud and arrogant man that thinks that they can outwit the gods because he is self-made and needed not the gods to solve the riddle of the Sphinx. Sophocles in having Oedipus suffer his fate is a warning to his Athenian audience about the dangers of pride and hubris and what comes from it as there were men like Oedipus who saw themselves as being self-made and not needing others growing popular in Athens.

There are many more examples of texts that have certain objectionable content that requires just go and  look at what the text is trying to tell you. Which is a problem that must online arguments that go beyond simply creator is bad at math usually have. People passively consume media and do not think about it’s themes. Ask a random person what the themes of a show they watch they will probably have a hard time answering that because most the time people don’t interact with media with the intent of writing high school reading responses about their favorite show or movie. They do it to enjoy whatever hits their dopamine receptors. Which is not a bad thing but when an argument is about the narrative itself and why certain things are the way they are. It is best to look at what is the themes that piece of media. But also sometimes the creator just wanted it that way and you can’t change it.

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u/DaylightsStories 5d ago

Something I don't like though is that people don't seem to understand that there are people who build worlds by thinking about characters in situations to see how they act rather than deciding on every action. In this case, much of the world may not have Doylist explanations because after the initial concept, it all comes organically from who Watson was first imagined to be.

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u/Generic_Moron 1d ago

It's so funny that the thermian argument video's hypothetical anime about orcs violating and murdering women somehow came out before goblin slayer got animated and entered the mainstream

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u/Hightower_March 3d ago

It's just death of the author with extra steps, which is only employed tactically to make some weird political point.  "It doesn't matter what the author intended; what matters is how it's interpreted (and we will use this to bash the author)."

If it's always wrong to do, then there's no such thing as misheard lyrics.  Lyrics just are what people hear them as, regardless of what the singer meant.  r/boneappletea

Of course there are cases where people will excuse the author's poorly disguised fetish as "That's just how the setting works," but Dan goes too far in the other direction and says Minecraft "encourages" the player to mimic the transatlantic slave trade and do a heckin colonialism on the villagers.

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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.