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Shoved Down Your Throat


Cantabile

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Bakker doesn't give any indication that that's what he's doing, and, in fact, I'm certain that he is not doing that, because Bakker has a point to make about human psychology that he's carried with him from his time as a philosophy student. That's my hypothesis. Or, to put it really simply, Scott is convinced that most people are idiots and can therefore be manipulated according to some kind of decision tree of (my characterization) tired trops that people who routinely overestimate their intelligence think are effective means of manipulating people.

So... People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People's heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool?

Still, it's nice to see your reasons explained, as originally, it sounded like the usual "Kellhus couldn't fool me and thus PON sucks."

While this shouldn't be a complete criticism of PoN, I don't think it's entirely an unfair one. Kellhus is presented as the most charismatic and most persuasive person in his entire world, master of a philosophy that allows him to manipulate almost anyone, except possibly other members of his own family. And when we meet other people in Kellhus' world, even when the world as a whole is presented as superstitious and backward, those individuals do not come across as exceptionally irrational. The rulers that he interacts with seem to have the thought capacity of normal real world humans, which isn't to say that they can't be manipulated, but rather that when we witness their manipulation, we should be able to share in it. So if we, the readers, are unable to feel drawn in and persuaded by Kellhus, to me that's a major obstacle in being able to suspend disbelief for the story as a whole.

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Kellhus manipulates humans. Because of my understanding of cognitive science, I do not believe his type of manipulation would work on humans. At all.

Why?

I can't figure out what in cognitive science makes you think everything about what Kellhus does to manipulate people is impossible.

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I agree with your points about meaning in art, but on the above: if SFF can alter the laws of physics, why can it not alter the laws of psychology?

I suppose an author can do this if it is the premise of the story. It doesn't particularly interest me personally--people are incredibly interesting creatures, and I don't have much reason to be interested in some made-up creatures you've created. And of course, with a human author it's hard for every character not to be human. Even when all the characters are animals, for instance: Watership Down gives its characters some rabbitlike traits, but fills in all the gaps with regular human behavior.

Of course, the biggest problem with what you're suggesting is that authors often write poorly thought out characters without some specific change in psychology from the real world being the premise of the story, and then defend against accusations of unrealism with "but it's fantasy!!"

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While this shouldn't be a complete criticism of PoN, I don't think it's entirely an unfair one. Kellhus is presented as the most charismatic and most persuasive person in his entire world, master of a philosophy that allows him to manipulate almost anyone, except possibly other members of his own family. And when we meet other people in Kellhus' world, even when the world as a whole is presented as superstitious and backward, those individuals do not come across as exceptionally irrational. The rulers that he interacts with seem to have the thought capacity of normal real world humans, which isn't to say that they can't be manipulated, but rather that when we witness their manipulation, we should be able to share in it. So if we, the readers, are unable to feel drawn in and persuaded by Kellhus, to me that's a major obstacle in being able to suspend disbelief for the story as a whole.

It's hard to be "drawn in" and "persuaded" by that manipulation when Kellhus is presented as absolutely amoral from the very beginning of the book. But I don't find it ludicrous, given that Bakker depicts a world far removed from our current phase of existence, where most of the information available (apart from that allowed to the exceptional) is funneled through a religious lens, and even those exceptional (Proyas, for example) are more than willing to reject alternative explanations, given that it may threaten their souls and/or their egos (Conphas).

That said, the most tedious part to re-reading PON is all the "oh kellhus" knobslobbing by Akka, Esme and so on. I generally skip that stuff.

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So... People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People's heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool?

While this shouldn't be a complete criticism of PoN, I don't think it's entirely an unfair one. Kellhus is presented as the most charismatic and most persuasive person in his entire world, master of a philosophy that allows him to manipulate almost anyone, except possibly other members of his own family. And when we meet other people in Kellhus' world, even when the world as a whole is presented as superstitious and backward, those individuals do not come across as exceptionally irrational. The rulers that he interacts with seem to have the thought capacity of normal real world humans, which isn't to say that they can't be manipulated, but rather that when we witness their manipulation, we should be able to share in it. So if we, the readers, are unable to feel drawn in and persuaded by Kellhus, to me that's a major obstacle in being able to suspend disbelief for the story as a whole.

Eh, that's what suspension of disbelief is for.

Look, at some point the author is gonna need to write characters that are things that the author himself is not. And so you gotta cut them some slack.

It's like when an author writes about someone being a military genius. Unless the author is himself a military genius (or a huge history buff and just rips it straight from the real past), he's gonna be bullshitting. And frankly, the readers knowledge of that time-period is probably so poor they wouldn't know what a real medieval military genius looked like anyway.

So you either do your best, and some people bitch about "not convincing" or you avoid the bullshit by having it happen off-screen and you get all those "show don't tell" complaints instead.

At some point, you gotta take the authors word for it. As long as the author meets you half-way.

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Thank you, thank you, thank you Ep, for explaining it better than I have ever been able to.

Start a TDotL thread when you're done!

Will do. There will be so much to talk about! I don't know why I haven't read everything that George has written yet.

Why?

I can't figure out what in cognitive science makes you think everything about what Kellhus does to manipulate people is impossible.

We operate on inductive and not deductive processes, particularly when it comes to social interactions. So, you can play on people weaknesses, but Bakker makes it sound like a person with Dunyain training has a mental manual, the aforementioned decision tree, that can predict how someone can be manipulated with perfect accuracy.

Instead, while there are, indeed, some people who are really good at this, manipulation on an interpersonal level is not like that. It's an intuitive process. Many gifted manipulators do not even realize that they are consciously manipulating someone. I say this because I do not believe that social intelligence is like that - it is not deductive. Behind me I have Aristotle and the proponents of the neural network, who would, I think, have to hold that none of your thought processes are really deductive - it's an artifice we impose on the brain.

So far so good there though - Bakker rightly notes on his blog that we can correct all kinds of BS assumptions by applying deduction to our thought processes, but he goes one big step to far when he assumes a person can do the same to manipulate human behavior.

Satisfied? Because that is the best I can do. Maybe Eponine can explain it for me. Or you can PM Elrostar and he might be able to explain it for me a little better. This is not my area of expertise.

I suppose an author can do this if it is the premise of the story. It doesn't particularly interest me personally--people are incredibly interesting creatures, and I don't have much reason to be interested in some made-up creatures you've created.

Seriously, have you read Ursula le Guin? She does this is a really fascinating way. Try The Left Hand of Darkness. Try anything in the Hainish Cycle. I love the Hainish - they're like intergalactic hipsters. Yeah, been there, done that, whatever.

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Eh, that's what suspension of disbelief is for.

Look, at some point the author is gonna need to write characters that are things that the author himself is not. And so you gotta cut them some slack.

It's like when an author writes about someone being a military genius. Unless the author is himself a military genius (or a huge history buff and just rips it straight from the real past), he's gonna be bullshitting. And frankly, the readers knowledge of that time-period is probably so poor they wouldn't know what a real medieval military genius looked like anyway.

So you either do your best, and some people bitch about "not convincing" or you avoid the bullshit by having it happen off-screen and you get all those "show don't tell" complaints instead.

At some point, you gotta take the authors word for it. As long as the author meets you half-way.

No. In Game of Thrones, Littlefinger manipulates us along with Ned. And it's just great. As the books progress, we're let into his tricks and manipulations, as we are with Kellhus, and I still don't have to think about suspending disbelief to buy it. Not even close. I don't think I have ever once rolled my eyes, even when LF congratulates himself for being such an awesome manipulator.

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Ugh, for me Littlefinger is the poorest aspect of A Game of Thrones because of how predictable it was through the whole book. That character was for me even more predictable than the predictable parts of The Way of Kings.

It was a nice tangle of plot, overall, but Littlefinger stood out like one of the most trite figure ever.

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We operate on inductive and not deductive processes, particularly when it comes to social interactions. So, you can play on people weaknesses, but Bakker makes it sound like a person with Dunyain training has a mental manual, the aforementioned decision tree, that can predict how someone can be manipulated with perfect accuracy.

Instead, while there are, indeed, some people who are really good at this, manipulation on an interpersonal level is not like that. It's an intuitive process. Many gifted manipulators do not even realize that they are consciously manipulating someone. I say this because I do not believe that social intelligence is like that - it is not deductive. Behind me I have Aristotle and the proponents of the neural network, who would, I think, have to hold that none of your thought processes are really deductive - it's an artifice we impose on the brain.

So far so good there though - Bakker rightly notes on his blog that we can correct all kinds of BS assumptions by applying deduction to our thought processes, but he goes one big step to far when he assumes a person can do the same to manipulate human behavior.

Satisfied? Because that is the best I can do. Maybe Eponine can explain it for me. Or you can PM Elrostar and he might be able to explain it for me a little better. This is not my area of expertise.

But Kellhus' manipulations don't rely on deductive reasoning the way you talk about it. He doesn't have a perfect decision tree. The key to his power is his ability to perfectly read people and thus react on the fly to their inner thoughts and tailor his methods to that. Over time he's built up a repertoire of arguments he knows work well, but even then he tailors them to specific people.

In fact, we are shown that when he can't read their faces or when he has to rely on manipulation from a distance, his abilities are drastically reduced.

In situations with large groups or the people he doesn't directly come into contact with, he relies on the standard tools of manipulating large groups.

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No. In Game of Thrones, Littlefinger manipulates us along with Ned. And it's just great. As the books progress, we're let into his tricks and manipulations, as we are with Kellhus, and I still don't have to think about suspending disbelief to buy it. Not even close. I don't think I have ever once rolled my eyes, even when LF congratulates himself for being such an awesome manipulator.

Littlefinger is nothing like that sort of character though. All his power of manipulation comes from the plot, not the characterization. It's all done through limited knowledge given to the reader. And even then, the reader kinda doesn't trust him. We just don't know what he's up to or the extent of his schemes because the book gives us no information.

This is completely different from, say, someone who gives really good speeches. Either the author just has people say he gives really good speeches or the author writes a speech and hopes the reader also thinks it's really good. Which is what you are talking about.

The comparison to Kellhus just ... doesn't make any sense. The two characters are nothing alike in how they manipulate those around them.

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Will do. There will be so much to talk about! I don't know why I haven't read everything that George has written yet.

Seconded! Start a thread!. Speaking of, has anyone read the stories in RRetrospective? I think a lot of them were actually very deeply message-y, without anyone at any point being lectured about the evil of communism (or capitalism, or whatever) and such. (I'll keep saying this until someone reads it and argues about it with me, but I think Meathouse Man is just the most explicitely class concious piece of SF i've ever read.) Do we not have an RRetrospective thread?

I've heard people complain that Terry Pratchett gets too preachy sometimes, though I think in the best Diskworld books, if you take out the message you're pretty much left with nothing. In Nation though I did think there was too much of people explaining to eachother how they're behaving and why and not enough of them just behaving.

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[...]

In situations with large groups or the people he doesn't directly come into contact with, he relies on the standard tools of manipulating large groups.

Finally, those people where his tricks don't work (individuals like Conphas, groups like the Nansur Columnaries, or whole nations and faiths) he kills or subjugates. Or has to tolerate. Contrary to Raidne's claims there are lots of people who aren't convinced by Kellhus, and these people take up a very, very large of the books, both in story and characterisation.

ETA: By the way, Raidne, your 10:21 post was very good. Finally an explanation I understand. Thanks for writing that.

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Finally, those people where his tricks don't work (individuals like Conphas, groups like the Nansur Columnaries, or whole nations and faiths) he kills or subjugates. Or has to tolerate. Contrary to Raidne's claims there are lots of people who aren't convinced by Kellhus, and these people take up a very, very large of the books, both in story and characterisation.

ETA: By the way, Raidne, your 10:21 post was very good. Finally an explanation I understand. Thanks for writing that.

Ah well, sometimes my positions are Bakker get all screwed up from not having ever finished the books.... :leaving:

Seriously, even I am not going to finish a series that I can't stand reading just to have a better shot at winning arguments on the internet.

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It's hard to be "drawn in" and "persuaded" by that manipulation when Kellhus is presented as absolutely amoral from the very beginning of the book. But I don't find it ludicrous, given that Bakker depicts a world far removed from our current phase of existence, where most of the information available (apart from that allowed to the exceptional) is funneled through a religious lens, and even those exceptional (Proyas, for example) are more than willing to reject alternative explanations, given that it may threaten their souls and/or their egos (Conphas).

That said, the most tedious part to re-reading PON is all the "oh kellhus" knobslobbing by Akka, Esme and so on. I generally skip that stuff.

The thing is, I've actually read medieval documents And when they try to manipulate people (which they do, often) they are far better at it than Kellhus is.

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Thank you, thank you, thank you Ep, for explaining it better than I have ever been able to.

:leaving:

I totally lifted that first paragraph directly from Wizard's First Rule.

Not to rip on you, but because when it boils down to it, for all that he's the superior writer, I believe that Bakker's position is just as simplistic and therefore just as unconvincing.

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[...] when it boils down to it, for all that he's the superior writer, I believe that Bakker's position is just as simplistic and therefore just as unconvincing.

That’s preposterous. One guy is saying “It’s all simple! I know everything. Believe!” and the other is saying “It’s all complicated. I know nothing. Doubt!” and you find them equally wrong?

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That’s preposterous. One guy is saying “It’s all simple! I know everything. Believe!” and the other is saying “It’s all complicated. I know nothing. Doubt!” and you find them equally wrong?

They might not be equally wrong, but they are equally simplistic.

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Seriously, even I am not going to finish a series that I can't stand reading just to have a better shot at winning arguments on the internet.

I finished Rothfuss just for that.

Have you no perseverance, woman? If I were your parent…

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