Thinking aloud about Idiot Plots.

[randomness]

"James Blish has said that much of sci-fi relies on Idiot Plots, defined as stories 'kept in motion solely by virtue of the fact that everybody involved is an idiot.'"

(Gregg Easterbrook, two-thirds of the way down the very long page http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/060425)

It occurs to me that it might be more plausible to have characters do unfathomably dumb things because they're crazy.

But maybe it's hard to write fictional characters who are both sympathetic and insane? Wait, I guess that's Bridget Jones.

Okay, maybe the readers and viewers of SF don't identify very well with people who act irrationally? Or at least not as well as the readers of some other genres?

Comments

[signsoflife.livejournal.com]

Horror movies, even more so -- to the point that when a horror movie manages to have people NOT behave like idiots, it's impressive.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Oh, good point!

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

So first of all, I hate plots that require people to behave like idiots. Harry Potter in particular periodically has this problem, which can only be countered effectively by the Evil Dumbledore Theory.

However, Easterbrook is largely on crack about Galactica and largely reveals himself to be a careless viewer in his complaints, as they aren't actually well-grounded, in general.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I didn't quote any of his Galactica comments because they weren't relevant.

I don't agree or disagree with him about Galactica; I don't watch the show, so I have no opinion on it. But I didn't want the distraction of a debate on the merits of Galactica or lack thereof, so I completely left it out of my excerpt. It was his quote of James Blish that provided the jumping-off point for my ramble.

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

Sorry - it's just that that was the context, so i thought I'd mention it, as it can be very easy to generate an "Idiot Plot Theory" based on a lack of full understanding of motivations. Take Midsummer Night's Dream as an example. It seems like Puck is behaving like a total idiot, but in fact he's just been given bad orders, and can't tell young human men apart from each other in the dark.

[tribacibee.livejournal.com]

I agree that fiction (of any kind, SciFi included) is rife with Idiot Plots, a narrative structure only slightly less irritating than a plot of endless coincidences. However, I think that (unlike the coincidence plot) the Idiot Plot stems from an attempt at ambitious storytelling. Some of the best characters in literature (again, SciFi included) get into trouble because of their blind spots. Ender Wiggin has his siblings and his "games." Harry Potter has (as Hermione puts it) "a thing about saving people." Gilgamesh has a blinding thirst to be remembered. Anna Karenina has an absolute belief that she is meant to be a heroine. It is these very human flaws that trigger the very best kind of plots, and if writers aim to create characters with plot inducing flaws sometimes (often) they overshoot and wind up with idiots and idiot plots.

I could give an impassioned rant about Baltar, but don't want to bore you silly.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Oh, no question that character flaws can trigger really good plots; that's why I toss out the "insanity plot idea". The characteristic which distinguishes "idiot plots" is that a character depicted as competent and clueful acts in a manner which is undeniably dumb. That is annoying.

If someone is *supposed* to have a blind spot, and acts in a way which is fundamentally in character with that blind spot, I call that good characterization.

But I do wonder if it's harder for people who idealize rationality to understand or sympathise with someone whose behavior is irrational, or who behaves in a way people who idealize rationality can't understand.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

In those cases the protagonist is also unbelievable. That case bothers me less, because I tend to just pitch the thing.

[julianyap.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I read a ton of science fiction and I am not sure that I'd characterize myself of idealizing rationality. (Saneness, sure, but I'm not sure that's the same as rationality). I do agree that there are books which take this to the extreme, but in my experience they're rather few and far between.

I guess my only points are a) I have not found that I have a harder time sympathizing with books where the people act irationally to the degree that most people act irrationally all the time b) I'm not certain its as common as Blish says, at least in good writing. c) I'm not certain its more prevalent in Sci-Fi thanany other sort of fiction. I mean there are some great works of literature where the plot essenitally turns on people completely and constantly failing to understand other people's motivations.