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General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Bring Back Verisimilitude, add in More Excitement!
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<blockquote data-quote="nnms" data-source="post: 5778608" data-attributes="member: 83293"><p>What Herschel is missing (and many others do as well) is that when you have the fantastic as the defining element of your fictional work, it actually helps to be more realistic rather than less.</p><p></p><p>And by realistic I mean in keeping with people's expectations about the fiction as well as the normal world. Remaining <em>plausible</em>.</p><p></p><p>There are two main reasons for this.</p><p></p><p>The first is Ellen Datlow's point. That you can break people's willing suspension of disbelief and the fantastic ends up being fancy nonsense.</p><p></p><p>The second is for contrast. If you want to avoid surrealism, then the non-fantastic elements in the fiction operating in a plausible manner will further accentuate just how fantastic those elements are.</p><p></p><p>Herschel is very wrong about this. it's not all a crock. In fact, verisimilitude is actually the opposite of a crock. It makes the fantastic more fantastic and serves to both safeguard the suspension of disbelief and to serve as a contrast for the fantastic.</p><p></p><p>Versimiitude and plausibility actually help fantasy shine. It's not a matter of chucking it out because the genre is inherently unrealistic.</p><p></p><p>For a clear example of this, think back to the Harry Potter novels. Having Harry be raised by muggles was important for the themes in the novels, but it was also very useful as it presented a perspective to the reader where the fantastic elements of the wizarding world could be contrasted neatly with Harry's expectations of things acting "normal." Rowling does this again and again, setting up normal world expectations to make the fantastic seem even more so.</p><p></p><p>It's a controvesial and misunderstood statement, but plausibility is actually <strong>more </strong>important in fantasy than not.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="nnms, post: 5778608, member: 83293"] What Herschel is missing (and many others do as well) is that when you have the fantastic as the defining element of your fictional work, it actually helps to be more realistic rather than less. And by realistic I mean in keeping with people's expectations about the fiction as well as the normal world. Remaining [I]plausible[/I]. There are two main reasons for this. The first is Ellen Datlow's point. That you can break people's willing suspension of disbelief and the fantastic ends up being fancy nonsense. The second is for contrast. If you want to avoid surrealism, then the non-fantastic elements in the fiction operating in a plausible manner will further accentuate just how fantastic those elements are. Herschel is very wrong about this. it's not all a crock. In fact, verisimilitude is actually the opposite of a crock. It makes the fantastic more fantastic and serves to both safeguard the suspension of disbelief and to serve as a contrast for the fantastic. Versimiitude and plausibility actually help fantasy shine. It's not a matter of chucking it out because the genre is inherently unrealistic. For a clear example of this, think back to the Harry Potter novels. Having Harry be raised by muggles was important for the themes in the novels, but it was also very useful as it presented a perspective to the reader where the fantastic elements of the wizarding world could be contrasted neatly with Harry's expectations of things acting "normal." Rowling does this again and again, setting up normal world expectations to make the fantastic seem even more so. It's a controvesial and misunderstood statement, but plausibility is actually [B]more [/B]important in fantasy than not. [/QUOTE]
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Bring Back Verisimilitude, add in More Excitement!
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