"Syndrome" Syndrome: or the Fallacy of "Special"

[Raven Crowking]

Oh, I don't think being resigned to something is the same as being happy about it at all. Dash has grown, which is a requirement of the narrative, but he can still in no way find fulfillment or happiness in the competition with the slower schoolchildren. He and his parents have come to an understanding and his being given some leeway helps him to adjust. His happiness derives from his new arrangement with his parents which marks of rite of passage for him.

It is also noteworthy that the mixed messages Dash gets during the race mirror those the supers face throughout the movie. Dash's race at the end is the entire film in a microcosm, including the idea that it takes an extraordinary event to actually challenge him, test him, and allow him to grow.



RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

There is no competition here. None. There is absolutely no way he can lose.

How is that even remotely in the spirit of competition?

Are you saying that with Dash in the race, there is no "game"?

 

[Hussar]

Are you saying that with Dash in the race, there is no "game"?

/me begins beating RC around the head and ears with a dead fish.

Then again, I could argue that if a given game is as one dimensional as a foot race, then perhaps the issues are deeper than knowing the outcome at the outset.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Then again, I could argue that if a given game is as one dimensional as a foot race, then perhaps the issues are deeper than knowing the outcome at the outset.

Or, you could recognize how your statements here relate to your statements in the other thread, and realize that your arguments in the two threads demonstrate that your position in one of those threads must be wrong.

 

[Hussar]

Or, you could recognize how your statements here relate to your statements in the other thread, and realize that your arguments in the two threads demonstrate that your position in one of those threads must be wrong.

No, they are not.

In an RPG, there are many, many elements that can be played with and explored. I can do the most simple, basic kind of role play which is avatar play going through dungeon crawls, or I can go totally narrativist and explore the personal feelings and whatnot of my chosen persona or an almost unlimited number of choices in between.

In a foot race, I can run.

In an RPG, knowing the result of an event before hand in no way prevents me from exploring other elements of the game. In a foot race, it pretty much obviates the need for the race in the first place.

Unless, of course, you're trying to argue that there is only one possible way to play an RPG and all other ways are just not really the true way.

 

[Raven Crowking]

In an RPG, knowing the result of an event before hand in no way prevents me from exploring other elements of the game.

Thank you for your shift in statements: I would agree that knowing the result of an event before hand in no way prevents you from exploring other elements of the game, provided that the event you have beforehand knowledge of does not impinge upon the victory conditions of what you are exploring in any meaningful way.

Unless, of course, you're trying to argue that there is only one possible way to play an RPG and all other ways are just not really the true way.

No.

I am arguing that, in order to be playing a game, there must exist elements that make the activity a game. I am not even arguing that one playstyle is more "basic" or "simple" than another!



RC

 

[Hussar]

How can it be a shift in statements when I keep saying the same thing in, now, three different threads?

 

[Raven Crowking]

How can it be a shift in statements when I keep saying the same thing in, now, three different threads?

AFAICT, it's the first time you've acknowledged that foreknowledge prevents an adequate exploration of the element(s) you have foreknowledge of. That is certainly a shift from the claim that foreknowledge will not affect you at all (i.e., that you could simply suppress it).

 

[SSquirrel]

The problem raised by 'supers' in atheletic competition is that such competitions become uninteresting and pointless. If Dash participates in the race, the race becomes meaningless because the outcome is basically obvious and we cannot be surprised by it. Watching a race with Dash running in it is even less interesting than watching an atheletic competition in rerun - all the thrill is gone.

My suspicion is that if we had 'supers' and if we could not screen the supers so that we could say, "Ahhh.. you carry the mutant X gene, therefore you as a mutant can't compete in the 'baseline human games'", then atheletic competition as we know it would be both destroyed an revolutionized.

But even if we could exclude the supers, I think for the most part people would just stop caring that much about who was the fastest normal human. but normal sports would hold little interest to the spectator. What people would care about and pay to see would be competition between supers.

This was actually done in the Aberrant RPG. Novas started appearing and some of them had ridiculous athletic potential and they quickly took over sports. Why have 9 normal guys running around the track when you can have 6 guys with super speed, 2 guys in flames and 1 human cyclone lined up waiting for the starting gun? Why watch a normal speedskater when you can watch someone actually made of ice do it?

Dash isn't involved in sports to win, he is involved to help fit in. He gets to enjoy the camaraderie of his fellow team members. His parents feel that if he just walks in and dominates that i would be a poor use of his abilities, plus it might make people question how he manages to be so good. If he's working to limit his natural abilities, he is paying more careful attention to things and not being forgetful and blowing thru the entire race in under a second.

The people ranting about all competition being destroyed are taking this all way too seriously. It's a cover. He is trying to be seen as a contender, but not to dominate. He is striving to find a niche for himself, like so many of us in life.

 

[Desdichado]

I do think it's kinda amusing. The message I see in the movie is so blatantly, over-the-top, ham-fistedly obvious, and it kinda boggles my mind to see people coming away with another message.

Clearly I'm not alone in that; as one of the first reactions to my interpretation were to say that I misremembered and made up stuff. Which is blatantly untrue; I referred to specific scenes and lines of dialogue only when describing my takeaway from the movie, and my memory of it is crystal clear, thankyouverymuch.

However, clearly the original poster underestimated how "obvious" the message in the movie was, and how "obviously" the movie then undercut its own message, since the entire thread was completely derailed with the very first reply into a lengthy debate about what the movie really is about.