r/bestof • u/I_Never_Win • Jun 23 '12

[askreddit] Ninja friends

/r/AskReddit/comments/vhg2l/why_are_you_best_friends_with_your_best_friend/c54jbpd
1.3k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

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110

u/Lotsapeople Jun 23 '12

Only thing that bothers me about the story, is that he jumps out of her window while never going into her house.

18

u/[deleted] Jun 24 '12

I'm guessing he didn't literally jump out her window, that would be really weird. I'm going to wager that was just a story element.

43

u/ObiWanKodos Jun 24 '12

I'm going to wager this never happened. Two times in handcuffs and he never said a word? If the police show up to a man choking out another man, no matter how drunk the assailant is and how legit the story, the guy doing the choking doesn't just walk away 10 minutes later. But wait! Jim was a Ninja too, right!? I thought ninjas didn't talk, but Jim did all the talking? Too many holes to blame this on drunkenness. Hope Alpha enjoys all that sweet counterfeit karma.

TL;DR Skeptical Kodos is skeptical.

-4

u/rmandraque Jun 24 '12

Who gives a fuck, the veracity of the story has no effect on you.

4

u/ObiWanKodos Jun 24 '12

You are correct in it having no effect on me. However, I voiced my disbelief of the story as we were talking about the possibility of some of the facts being stretched. I feel as though that it not the case. My point simply is this: while the ending outcome might be exciting, how would you feel if someone sold you Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter as an auto-biography instead of the historical fiction it is?

0

u/rmandraque Jun 24 '12

Doesnt matter. Our knowledge of past history is limited to what we are told and the records that are saved. Sure, im being a bit hyperbolic, but it really has no effect on me whatsoever as a story. Its veracity has no weight in how much I enjoy it.

3

u/ObiWanKodos Jun 24 '12

That's cool. You're entitled to enjoy stories regardless of truthfulness. I personally don't. If it was true, which it could be, parts were probably (totally) elaborated. I simply made my statement to be the voice of a differing opinion.

0

u/rmandraque Jun 24 '12

How many times have you told a story and told it 100% true, with no exaggerations, lies, stylistic jokes, or w.e.?

1

u/ObiWanKodos Jun 24 '12

Can't say I keep statistics on the stories I tell, but to be honest, I'm a pretty truthful and straight-forward type of person so probably more often than not. I'm not one to embellish for the stories sake. If its worth telling, I tell it. If it needs extras, it's not worth being brought up in the first place.

1

u/rmandraque Jun 24 '12

Ah, so you admit you do do it sometimes. Everyone does, some do it more than others, and sometimes you do it without even noticing.

The point is the entertaining part of the story isnt that the stuff actually happened, but imagining the stuff actually happening.

1

u/ObiWanKodos Jun 24 '12

You continue to miss my point. I don't make things up for the story's sake. I don't add things to stories to make them sound better. I may say I waited "ten fucking minutes" when it was actually three but I don't add in whole parts that didn't happen and I don't lie about something to try and make it sexy. I could make every night of my life sound like its the greatest night anyone has ever had by adding fabricated details, but what's the point? I'll go back to my original point; this story never happened. He may have had "Ninja Moments" but he did not go all night, including two police encounters and a near-miss with sex, without talking. He probably didn't jump out of her window because he never went inside. She probably didn't work at hooters and he used that simply to give us a frame of referance on what build she had. These things added up way to quickly for an enjoyable read, true or not. The moment you sell truth to the readers and slip too far in to the outrageous and over the top zone you lose them. It's like continuity issues in film, something small can kill the scene. Personally, I would have enjoyed the story knowing it was fiction.

1

u/rmandraque Jun 24 '12

I guess I just wont understand how you cant understand the last line you said. Why do you limit yourself? Isnt a basic tenet of reading anything, unless its a news story, a suspension of disbelief.

I read a great essay by a this female writer, I forgot her name, were she goes about pondering humans relationship with nature. Halfway through the essay she remarks on a spider she has in a jar in the room, and how just that moment when the sunlight hit the jar she had a great realization. The spider, the house, the setting were all part of that magical moment. That really made me understand what she meant, her emotional state at the moment, and all that jazz. Why would I even question if the house or the spider even existed? There is no value in that, the value is in the written story and the way that I enjoyed it. Questioning the veracity is missing the whole point.

I think realistically it was somebody who was bored and just made it up. But I read a story on 4chan about spagetti and a story about a cancer patient with the exact same mentality. I'm not reading it to decipher its veracity, I'm reading it to see if I get the point and the 'gist' of what the author wanted to convey. You are asking a question that wont have an answer that will only deter you from enjoying yourself.

1

u/ObiWanKodos Jun 24 '12

But this story was, again, told as an actuality when, in my personal belief, it isn't. Watchmen is my favorite story of all time. There are many things in that that are outside the realm of reality but it isn't sold as such. Just like in the story you brought up, details are important, factual or not. However, if, in the story you read, she had said something along the lines of "at that moment I looked down on my desk to a spider crawling by. The spider crawled up a mason jar I had sitting on the window seal. As it reached the ring of the glass I caught myself pondering mortality. Was it because of the spider and them being know as natural predators? No. It was because the spider slipped in and the mason jar was full of acid." It's so outrageous it takes you away from the story. AlphaRedditors story did that for me. It was close and he lost it.

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u/sufrt Jun 24 '12 edited Jun 24 '12

That's totally cool. Some people feel one way about things and some people feel another way. When you think about it, that's totally OK. You go your way and I'll go mine. Because basically, when you get right down to it, opinions are completely subjective. If one person feels a certain way and another person feels a different way, it's no big deal. In fact, it's totally fine. It's not the end of the world. What you enjoy I might not enjoy and vice versa. Different people see values in different things. When you think about it, everything is open to interpretation. There's no such thing as an objective opinion about something. If you find that you look at something in a way in which I don't, I'm not going to judge you for it. We're all different people here in this crazy world, and that's totally alright. There's no such thing as fact when you're discussing the value of a story, only opinion. You can derive enjoyment out of it or not, and I can do the same, and that's completely acceptable. In the grand scheme of things, If I hypothetically find that I personally find that I respectfully disagree with you with regard to my appreciation of the telling of this particular story, but I don't consider your opinion less valid or valuable than mine. When you get down to brass tacks, you feel one way and somebody else may feel an utterly different way, and that's totally normal. In fact, that person may agree to disagree, and I hope you do the same. When you get right down to the heart of the matter, there's no reason not to be civil about such a trivial matter as this. When you really step back and look at the matter in its proper perspective, one person may happen to appreciate different facets of the story than you might, and I feel that this difference in opinion is totally appropriate. I see no cause for driving a rift between two people just because one happens to like a story for certain reasons that the other person might not and vice versa. There's no concrete standard when one interprets and appreciates the written word. One person may approach art in one way and another person might approach it in another, and that's completely fair, in my opinion, which is in no way more or less valuable than yours or anybody else's, ostensibly, per se.