and_dont_blink t1_j9c4tef wrote on February 20, 2023 at 9:04 PM

Reply to comment by Kopaka-Nuva in A Disappointed Review of The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson by Kopaka-Nuva

>I think you misunderstand me.

Respectfully, I don't think I do at all but I don't think you're getting what i'm laying down. I hate to quote you this much, but it's pretty apparent:

>On the surface, this may seem all well and good, but when read in light of Frankenstein, it all becomes rather disturbing.What gives anyone the right to create a new life-form? Shai is effectively playing God... She decides to make the titular emperor a better person, but who is she to say what’s better? She is accountable to no-one and nothing but herself. Even if she’s justified in trying to make him better than the original, the question remains whether she’s justified in creating a new mind at all. How would this new person, inhabiting the body of a similar but not mentally-identical person, react if he knew...What if there’s some unintended consequence, and he turns out to be a worse person... In light of all this, isn’t it incredibly prideful to view this project as a form of artistic expression, with little concern for the deeper metaphysical implications? Isn’t it, in fact, strikingly reminiscent of Dr. Frankenstein’s attitude at the beginning of his tale?These are all important questions that are not nitpicks or minor incidental details. They are implicit in the very premise of the story, and to gloss over them is to share in the blind hubris of Dr. Frankenstein-—the hubris that’s lead our species to seriously endanger itself countless times, especially in the past couple of centuries, by valuing technical achievement over morality. “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should,” as another similarly-themed story can tell you. If you’re going to play God, you’d damned well better think long and carefully about it first.Sanderson’s chosen theme of exploring the nature of artistry is a fine one, but he should have chosen a less-fraught premise to explore it with unless he was prepared to simultaneously explore at least some of the questions Mary Shelley raised two hundred years ago

You have a worldview about technology and it's advancement rooted in fear, and the premise spawned all these questions you wanted answers to. Frankenstein was a cautionary tale (amongst other things) and due to the premise, you were primed and had questions that weren't answered.

The question is do those questions need answers to tell the story Sanderson wanted to tell? I could write volumes about how the printing press changed the world for both good and ill (mostly good) and all the inherent challenges within it, or I can write a story about a person writing a novel. If the scope is large it enough it might include those things if they affect the story, but perhaps that they aren't in the story is telling you something about how she and others are approaching things.

You are bringing your own morality and worldview to the story being told (I don't think you realize how much of your post comes across as moralizing), and want to be told X is wrong or Y is dangerous. You seem fine reading about the weirdly ethical things but want someone sitting down saying X is bad, you want her wrestling with it, you want the structure of the black and white. And when you aren't getting it, you're slamming the book for it.

Again, I have no issue if you said you didn't find the protagonists story compelling compared to the world built and questions raised, it's simply in how your'e approaching these things. I don't get it.

>Imagine if Moby Dick ended with Ahab killing the whale and going home in triumph--it would be kind of like that.

I can imagine it, and I could see how that could be an awesome if disturbing story on obsession having an end result that makes you think and question, like the film Whiplash which I'd highly recommend.

ADHD-HDTV t1_j9fceag wrote on February 21, 2023 at 2:53 PM

You definitely misunderstood OP’s point.

Kopaka-Nuva OP t1_j9dcapq wrote on February 21, 2023 at 2:17 AM

I think I get what you're saying now (and I'm sorry you're getting downvoted for it). There's a limit to how much ground you can cover in a story, especially a short one. But I feel that some things cry out to be addressed if they're included--a bit like Chekhov's Gun, but applied to themes. I don't necessarily want the author to tell me "AI bad!," but if they're going to have their protagonist play God, I think that's a really serious matter and deserves to be examined at least a little bit. What bothered me wasn't that I dislike the outcome (I'm not entirely sure that I would morally condemn it), what bothered me was that the main character does something that's inherently a Big Deal and there's little serious thought given to it. To use a better analogy than Moby Dick, it'd be like having a story where the protagonist kills someone to achieve a goal, but barely discussing whether it was justified or not either before or after doing it. It might have been justified, it might not have been, and there might be an interesting debate to be had about that, but what you can't do is just ignore it.

(To deflate all this, it was pointed out to me in another thread that I didn't interpret the story quite right in the first place--the nature of the magic in the story forces the artificial soul to be extremely similar to the original. I think the story would still be improved by having the characters spend more time thinking about whether creating an artificial soul is justified, or whether they should make any changes to it at all, but they're not really creating a whole new person in the first place, which makes it a less serious matter than I had perceived it to be, and thus not as essential to address.)

and_dont_blink t1_j9dibpj wrote on February 21, 2023 at 3:04 AM

> (and I'm sorry you're getting downvoted for it).

That stuff doesn't matter, plenty of fake internet points to go around.

>But I feel that some things cry out to be addressed if they're included

Again do they need to be to tell a good story, and specifically the story the author wants to tell? Additionally, the absence of consideration can be a trait, point or setting in and of itself. If everyone is genetically modifying or casting spells on their offspring in a novel, past the YA audience do you need a character to stop and pontificate about the nature and dangers of what they're doing or do you follow one character's story and mindset living in that world?

Kopaka-Nuva OP t1_j9djoxv wrote on February 21, 2023 at 3:15 AM

I mean, sure, there are more ways to address an issue than have characters pontificate about it, especially if it's a "fact of life" in your setting that's meant to cause values dissonance with the audience. But what bothered me in this particular story involves something that isn't typical (in fact, some characters do view it as an abomination, but they're hypocritical background villains who aren't given any depth) and classic sci-fi novellas (which is essentially what Sanderson wrote, whether he calls it fantasy or not) are all about pontificating over moral issues.