So, a quick note on a complaint I have about some story telling. My favourite story telling always features a good degree of restraint. The story doesn't just go off on whims all the time, or try to include everything. It puts limits on itself and abides by rules. This is especially true for science fiction and super natural stories. A problem I had with story telling in elementary school was wanting to include everything that was cool. One of the problems I find, though, is that the more you include, the more diluted what you already have becomes. Also, since it's just a story and not being tested in the real world, it becomes easier to create contradictions or incompatibilities that can compromise the story's credibility. I want a story to be credible so that I know it will be meaningful. It matters if someone dies, unless everyone always comes back.
I use to watch WWF wrestling when I was very young. It quickly became meaningless, though, when every few months, someone who was "good" became "bad" and vice versa. There was no consistency. There was no true character.
Likewise in some dramas, especially if relationships keep changing, like in soap operas. It strongly dilutes the romanticised concept of "true love". It makes it hard to trust that a given relationship means anything if it can be replaced easily, or connections easily swapped around. In real life, I find it hard to care about a friend's relationship problems if they enter into new relationships very regularly. (I do end up caring more about the person's underlying problems that drive those, though.) I end up enjoying when a relationship brings to mind the concept of "true love", where I find a couple who treat their connection as a significant matter, and one where if there's trouble, they don't look elsewhere for a solution, only giving up when all reasonable recourse has been exhausted. I am skeptical whether that's reasonable to expect from humans, but it's something I like to believe in a little anyway.
So, when I look at a comic book continuation of a favourite television series, and they go "all out" and pre-established connections are replaced readily, I get sad and reject even the original creator's attempts to extend canon. Joss Whedon's comics must never be believed.
I use to watch WWF wrestling when I was very young. It quickly became meaningless, though, when every few months, someone who was "good" became "bad" and vice versa. There was no consistency. There was no true character.
Likewise in some dramas, especially if relationships keep changing, like in soap operas. It strongly dilutes the romanticised concept of "true love". It makes it hard to trust that a given relationship means anything if it can be replaced easily, or connections easily swapped around. In real life, I find it hard to care about a friend's relationship problems if they enter into new relationships very regularly. (I do end up caring more about the person's underlying problems that drive those, though.) I end up enjoying when a relationship brings to mind the concept of "true love", where I find a couple who treat their connection as a significant matter, and one where if there's trouble, they don't look elsewhere for a solution, only giving up when all reasonable recourse has been exhausted. I am skeptical whether that's reasonable to expect from humans, but it's something I like to believe in a little anyway.
So, when I look at a comic book continuation of a favourite television series, and they go "all out" and pre-established connections are replaced readily, I get sad and reject even the original creator's attempts to extend canon. Joss Whedon's comics must never be believed.
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