What Geek Media Do You Refuse To Partake In?

[Dannyalcatraz]

D&D novels as canon.

This opened a mental door!

I almost never buy & read fiction I know to be based on RPGs or most “geeky” TV shows or movies. (I do watch some tv & movies based on geeky stories, though.)

The only exceptions I can recall:

1) I have read short fiction published in gaming magazines.
2) I bought the novelization of Star Wars many months before I saw the movie,
3) I bought a StarTrek novel, Dreadnaught. I found it forgettable.
4) I’ve read the Wildcards short stories.

So when people- especially players- start talking about canon from anything other than actual game supplements, they’re not going to like my answer, “Never read it, so assume it didn’t happen that way.”

 

[MoonSong]

Holmes in the original stories is most assuredly not courteous, empathic and kind as a rule - at times he is all of those things, re selected people and situations, but he is frequently none of them and it's not always towards people who deserve it, indeed his treatment of Watson is downright shoddy.

Further I think at this point we must accept Conan Doyle was not hugely consistent in his portrayal of Holmes and at this point, the character has been used by so many other writers across so many mediums that "Sherlock Holmes" has become a composite concept, almost a palimpsest, and his level of brusqueness, contempt and decency is highly variable. As is the Watson figure's capability and intelligence. So I think he works fine unless you're a purist, in which case most Sherlock Holmes based media is out.

As for "far from ideal for any doctor", obviously but have you met doctors? I would say a full 20% of doctors (GPs, specialists, etc) I have met have personalities and behaviours very unideal for their profession, whether they're rude/contemptuous, sexist, racist, bullies, incapable of listening, totally tactless, dismissive of serious issues, or all of the above and more. I would say fewer doctors have the mein of a saint than a jerk (though the saints do exist!). Obviously House is towards the worse end, but he's not as badly behaved as you can be and still have a job as a doctor, at least on the earlier seasons. The later ones push credulity a tad. He is at least typically interested in solving problems which makes him better than some percentage of doctors.

According to one of my friends with a Dad doctor, House is a dead ringer for many a teacher in the Medicine school.

 

[MoonSong]

But with most other people, Holmes is perfectly polite and respectful. He knows how to behave and he knows how to elicit information from a client (by listening, House, you should try it some time), and he’s often more kind and respectful to servants, women, children etc. than other men around him who consider such people to be their social lessers. He almost never punches down, in other words. He saves his barbs for people who deserve it who are at least his social or professional equal. Lestrade etc often gets it in the neck because he opens with a clearly incorrect theory or “You’ll never solve this one, Mr Holmes” and even then Holmes usually is mild and restrained, at least initially.

If I remember well, by the later stories, Lestrade stops challenging him and starts watching Holmes work with fascination.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

According to one of my friends with a Dad doctor, House is a dead ringer for many a teacher in the Medicine school.

Sir Lancelot Spratt.

 

[jian]

Why do you consider House a "bad Doctor" when someone who is good with patients but a lousy diagnostician (something I have plenty of personal experience of) is considered a good doctor? I would suggest that the system that insists House does something he knows he is bad at, rather than letting him do what he is good at, is the thing that is bad. Is it any wonder that he gets angry? If I point out that like Holmes, House clearly shows signs of neurodivergence, would it make a difference?

Because he self-indulgently does things that would make a doctor’s job harder, such as refuse to listen to the patient, humiliate the patient and refuse to build rapport with them (making them less likely to tell him important information, comply with his treatment plan, or benefit from the treatment), refuse to explain useful information to the patient, and treat his colleagues poorly. These all make him an objectively bad doctor, in roughly the same way that a mechanic who refuses to examine a car is a bad mechanic. He’s only a brilliant diagnostician because the story declares he is.

The things that House is bad at are, in other words, his core skills. If he can’t or won’t practise them then he has no business practising. It might be different if he was in a speciality that involved minimal patient contact, such as radiology or pathology. If he was brilliant at diagnosing conditions on MRI films or under a microscope, but rubbish at dealing with people, that would make more sense.

(I’ve known a couple of neurodivergent doctors and generally they were fairly empathic people who tried hard at listening to patients and treating them with respect. I don’t think I ever discussed House with them but I suspect they’d find him an annoying stereotype.)

(Also, I’m not sure you can judge easily IRL if a doctor is a bad diagnostician. Did they get one important diagnosis wrong? That’s awful for the patient but it happens to everyone. But being good with patients, that’s a precious skill.)

 

[jian]

According to one of my friends with a Dad doctor, House is a dead ringer for many a teacher in the Medicine school.

I feel very sorry for your friend’s dad, then. Humiliating students was (and in some places probably still is, though it’s very much more frowned upon now) a common way to teach in medical school, often inflicted by those who had it done to them when they were students and somehow thought it beneficial (it’s not, according to the evidence, which is why it’s discouraged now).

Sir Lancelot Spratt (the irascible surgical consultant in the Doctor in the House films) was a tired old cliche 70 years ago and exhibits very much the sort of behaviour that would get him pulled up by NHS HR and then banned from teaching now.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Because he self-indulgently does things that would make a doctor’s job harder, such as refuse to listen to the patient, humiliate the patient and refuse to build rapport with them (making them less likely to tell him important information, comply with his treatment plan, or benefit from the treatment), refuse to explain useful information to the patient, and treat his colleagues poorly.

Because he is angry that he is being forced to do things he is bad at by a stupid system.

These all make him an objectively bad doctor

But a doctor who is polite to everyone and kills their patients with incorrect diagnosis is a good doctor?!

I’m not sure you can judge easily IRL if a doctor is a bad diagnostician. Did they get one important diagnosis wrong?

Yup. Frankly the vast majority of doctors are rubbish at diagnosing anything remotely rare or when there is more than one issue causing contradictory symptoms. And it’s my partner who has regularly been the victim of misdiagnosis, or the specialist simply giving up. I’m fortunate enough to enjoy relatively good health.

I’ve taught A level Physics to a bunch of students who went on to become doctors. I know most of them got by on rote learning (as the exam system encourages) rather than any problem solving ability.

 

[jian]

Because he is angry that he is being forced to do things he is bad at by a stupid system.

But a doctor who is polite to everyone and kills their patients with incorrect diagnosis is a good doctor?!

Yup. Frankly the vast majority of doctors are rubbish at diagnosing anything remotely rare or when there is more than one issue causing contradictory symptoms. And it’s my partner who has regularly been the victim of misdiagnosis, or the specialist simply giving up. I’m fortunate enough to enjoy relatively good health.

I’ve taught A level Physics to a bunch of students who went on to become doctors. I know most of them got by on rote learning (as the exam system encourages) rather than any problem solving ability.

Assessing A-level students on diagnostic skills they haven’t been taught and therefore don’t possess is not wise. I don’t think I had any useful diagnostic skills when I was 18, I gained all those afterwards, mainly between the ages of 25 and 51. Medical students have to do a lot of rote learning first to ground their cross-referencing skills - a just-graduated doctor has only just learned to do the latter.

And I’m very sorry about your partner, but the fact that they’ve been misdiagnosed several times doesn’t necessarily say anything about the doctors involved, unless it was the same doctor every time. In which case, yes, cause for concern.

 

[MoonSong]

Back to the topic.

Warhammer/minis/lore Not only the game is pricey, the lore seems to be unapproachable. And in the whole, it seems a bit not to my tastes.

Most collector figures. 2" and 3.75/4" are my limits. Anything bigger occupies just too much space for storage and display. 6 inch is too big.

TCGs/CCGs other than MTG or YuGiOh, I don't have the bandwith, money or space for a third game. In fact, I'm in mainteimance mode with these games were I see them more as activities than media to be consumed or collected.

Most prestige TV. Specially if it is Dystopian or Grim. Looking at you GoT and Severance.

Nintendo games(Switch). Like with TCGs, I don't have the energy, time and money to invest in yet another platform.

Most science fiction and sci-fi. I prefer pure fantasy. Even fantasy that is too close to magitek turns me off. Double so if we have "not really magic".

PF2/D&D24. Too much codification and lots of jargon. Plain PF1(or even 3.5/0) and OG5e are enough and the top of my tolerance for rules density.

Door stopper fantasy. I'd love to read these long series of large novels, but I don't have the time or opportunity for them. It is similar for media that's strictly subtitled. I have few opportunities to sit and dedicate all of my attention to media playback.

 

[jian]

I’ve dropped out of audiobooks generally, mostly because my commute is quite short now. 6+ years ago, I used to drive an hour to and from work and so I’d listen to podcasts on the way there and audiobooks on the way back, and quite a few were genre. The Curse of Chalion, The House of the Stag, Steelheart (loved the way the narrator sold “Calamity!” as an exclamation). But now that’s a whole medium I don’t use any more. I don’t refuse to use it, it’s just out of use.

I used to be really into console fighting games, especially in the PS era. Street Fighter, King of Fighters, Tekken, Bloody Roar, Psychic Force, Bushido Blade. The last three were pretty unique - BR is Werewolf the fighting game, PF was flying superhero 3D ranged and close combat in a constrained arena (a bit like many anime, like X), and BB tried to model real sword injuries (pretty easy to kill your opponent in the first second if you knew what you were doing). But now I don’t have the reflexes.

I’m definitely off fantasy/sci-fi series. I seem to often find the first book interesting but it usually ends on a cliffhanger and then the remaining books are various flavours of tedious and disappointing. I much prefer standalones (or maybe books in a shared world, like Vernon’s Paladin books) but I really have no time for the Sanderson model. There are a couple of exceptions, usually shorter series, such as Novik’s Scholomance series.

I really have little truck with horror. I’ve read quite a few Kings but not for ages, and mostly I can bear a small amount of necessary horror (The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Vampires was just about too much for me, but it’s very good otherwise), but it’s generally a turn-off.