63 – Rational Fiction

Alexander Wales and DayStar Eld join us to discuss Rational Fiction Their Podcast – Rationally Writing Alexander Wales’s page DayStar Eld’s page Eneasz’s Fiction The Progenitor – Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality /r/rational on Reddit The Idiot Ball Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Abridged Guide to Intelligent Characters Worm Unsong The /r/ration definition of Rational Fiction: Nothing happens solely because ‘the plot requires it’. If characters do (or don’t do) something, there must be a plausible reason. Any factions are defined and driven into conflict by their beliefs and values, not just by being “good” or “evil”. The characters solve problems through the intelligent application of their knowledge and resources. The rules of the fictional world are sane and consistent. In Rationalist Fiction: As well as the above, The main character uses (or tries to use) rationalist and scientific methods to demystify seemingly mysterious phenomena. The story shows rationalist techniques, which can be applied by readers. The story is like a puzzle; readers can reach the same solution as the characters by using the information provided earlier in the story.   Various definitions and opinions on Rational Fiction that Eneasz has clipped over the years: nostlgabraist: [it’s] really more about elaborate mind games between self-interested characters with flairs for the dramatic If there’s an aesthetic common denominator I can describe from all of these, or at least most of them, it’s something like: blunt and cynical (often with humorous intent) in tone, dark or at least not reluctant to get very dark at times, often includes extremely powerful or intelligent characters, sense of scale or “many orders of magnitude.”   EY re: swordart online >What part of any of that was “rational” I need to write a long diatribe on Tru Rationalfic at some point, but a very brief answer would be that a standard subtrope is looking at a fictional world and seeing another way of interpreting the characters’ observations as corresponding to different simple generators. In this case the hinge of the fic is that the people inside SAO have no way of knowing people are really dying and Kayaba has every reason not to kill them. Kayaba setting up his general rule for the final battle, rather than Kirito “miraculously” coming back, is a lesser such instance. Obviously other authors do this as well and not under the label “rationalfic”, but it’s still something to present to people who are searching a rationalfic keyword, computationally or metaphorically. More pragmatically, if you’d read a lot of rationalfic, you’d recognize this as being written in a particular tradition and not just because it’s me writing it. E.g. instead of there being a single point of departure, there’s a lot of little reinterpretations that are all in standard rationalfic directions. Asuna sees the answer sooner, Kayaba has additional motives, etc.   Alexander Wales: With Rule of Cool you’re basically saying to your audience “I don’t want you to think about this. Just accept that it’s awesome and move on.