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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6914418" data-attributes="member: 4937">Suppose I told you, &quot;This really happened to me...&quot; and proceeded to relate to you a story about a bar fight that was in its essential the same as the one in the original post.&nbsp; Then I told you, &quot;I killed the bouncer.&nbsp; Do you think that was wrong?&quot;You would I think have enough information to answer that question.&nbsp; But if I told you, &quot;This really happened to me...&quot; and proceeded to relate to you a story about being attacked by an orc, you'd first realize that I was probably making crap up, and that if I wasn't making stuff up, then you'd have know what orcs are before you made that judgment.The story involving a human, even if it is hypothetical, involves in and of itself nothing that isn't common experience.&nbsp; It is, if you will, plausible.&nbsp; The story might not be true, but nothing about it is necessarily unbelievable or outside of mundane experience.Where as a story about an orc, is hypothetical and fictional to a degree that the first story is not.&nbsp;&nbsp; It is, if you will, fantastical, in that it contains elements that are wholly the invention of the authors mind.&nbsp;&nbsp; If two authors discuss something wholly invented, then before we can address anything about the story we must first define the wholly invented element.&nbsp;&nbsp; It's not possible to address the question, &quot;Is it evil to kill vampires without mercy?&quot;, unless we have a working definition of vampire.&nbsp; Depending on how we define &quot;vampire&quot;, killing vampires might be evil or good.&nbsp;&nbsp; I'm afraid I find this obvious and self-evident, in the same way that though it is true that the world is not a sphere, it's obviously and self-evidently more of a sphere than it is flat.&nbsp;&nbsp; Indeed, it is even more obvious and self-evident, in that at least discovering the world is not flat requires making a few observations that anyone can do, but which might not come up in your day to day life.&nbsp; Where as knowing that a vampire has some extra degree of fiction beyond a bouncer requires pretty much nothing but understanding that vampires (or orcs) are not real.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6914418, member: 4937"] Suppose I told you, "This really happened to me..." and proceeded to relate to you a story about a bar fight that was in its essential the same as the one in the original post. Then I told you, "I killed the bouncer. Do you think that was wrong?" You would I think have enough information to answer that question. But if I told you, "This really happened to me..." and proceeded to relate to you a story about being attacked by an orc, you'd first realize that I was probably making crap up, and that if I wasn't making stuff up, then you'd have know what orcs are before you made that judgment. The story involving a human, even if it is hypothetical, involves in and of itself nothing that isn't common experience. It is, if you will, plausible. The story might not be true, but nothing about it is necessarily unbelievable or outside of mundane experience. Where as a story about an orc, is hypothetical and fictional to a degree that the first story is not. It is, if you will, fantastical, in that it contains elements that are wholly the invention of the authors mind. If two authors discuss something wholly invented, then before we can address anything about the story we must first define the wholly invented element. It's not possible to address the question, "Is it evil to kill vampires without mercy?", unless we have a working definition of vampire. Depending on how we define "vampire", killing vampires might be evil or good. I'm afraid I find this obvious and self-evident, in the same way that though it is true that the world is not a sphere, it's obviously and self-evidently more of a sphere than it is flat. Indeed, it is even more obvious and self-evident, in that at least discovering the world is not flat requires making a few observations that anyone can do, but which might not come up in your day to day life. Where as knowing that a vampire has some extra degree of fiction beyond a bouncer requires pretty much nothing but understanding that vampires (or orcs) are not real. [/QUOTE]

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