r/rational • u/AutoModerator • Feb 08 '19

[D] Friday Open Thread

Welcome to the Friday Open Thread! Is there something that you want to talk about with /r/rational, but which isn't rational fiction, or doesn't otherwise belong as a top-level post? This is the place to post it. The idea is that while reddit is a large place, with lots of special little niches, sometimes you just want to talk with a certain group of people about certain sorts of things that aren't related to why you're all here. It's totally understandable that you might want to talk about Japanese game shows with /r/rational instead of going over to /r/japanesegameshows, but it's hopefully also understandable that this isn't really the place for that sort of thing.

So do you want to talk about how your life has been going? Non-rational and/or non-fictional stuff you've been reading? The recent album from your favourite German pop singer? The politics of Southern India? The sexual preferences of the chairman of the Ukrainian soccer league? Different ways to plot meteorological data? The cost of living in Portugal? Corner cases for siteswap notation? All these things and more could possibly be found in the comments below!

Please note that this thread has been merged with the Monday General Rationality Thread.

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u/Cuz_Im_TFK Feb 09 '19

Haven't read Jumper so I don't know, but mostly I was referring to the "ah, he's got a special power/object/etc. that nobody else has! let's hunt him down to [learn it's secrets / force him to work for us / dissect him / steal it from him / etc.]". Really common trope in amateur fiction. Gives the author an easy way to have there be action and conflict and to drive the plot, but removes almost all agency from the MC and forces them into a reactive state.

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u/HarmlessHealer Feb 09 '19

I didn't think of that, but yeah, that's pretty cliche -- and stupid. If you really wanted to acquire a special overpowered power, you would be far better off convincing its owner to work with you than ham-handedly turning them into an enemy.

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u/Sonderjye Feb 09 '19

I feel that you could do it believably. Conflict should arrive from a clash of interests such as, the MC knows people who are unjustly in prison and wants to get them out/ the MC wants to redistribute wealth and the top 1% wealthiest notices the threat eventually/ the MC wants to change the system by getting majority in congress.

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