Someone changed the title of the thread. I don’t mind but I don’t think it reflects the meaning of my intent.
This is a Dramatica forum. You are welcome to have any opinion you want, but there is a framework here we all strive to employ. My opinion conforms to the framework.
Sure, that’s fair in my opinion. But is it wrong to question the model? Isn’t it prone to descend into dogmatism if we don’t?
Ignore them and you invite meaninglessness.
Do you really believe that?
I don’t think you realize how little we get out of helping people who come here, once they demonstrate that they are not actually open to learning.
I am listening though, aren’t I? But I haven’t encountered a valid counter argument as of yet. Besides the “you-have-to-accept-the-model-argument.” But is that even an argument? It pleads conformism.
Again, I want to question Dramatica. I want to question our own minds. Don’t get me wrong, I think Dramatica is as much of an absolute marvel as everyone here, I do. But I also want to question it and see where that leads us. I don’t want to destroy the model. I just wish to seek out its limitations and explore those boundaries. Can we go beyond? How would we do this?
At this point, I wish to turn your words around: are you actually open to learning? I’m challenging you to think outside of the perimeter!
In order for one to be deluded, there has to be something to be deluded about, something that counters or negates your personal experience of it. Something has to have a nature that doesn’t match your experience. If subjectivity reigns supreme, then nothing can negate your subjective view of it, thus there is no such thing as delusion. It’s an argument that assumes your position to show that your position defeats itself.
Exactly. The OS isn’t really an objective view. It is an attempt at objectivity through the eyes of the author. This alone gives me more than enough reason to question the model, because I intend to use the model in a different way.
But your conclusion does not make sense. How can you claim the non-existence of illusion just because human consciousness is unable to experience absolute objectivity? In science there is a name for this… but by God, I can’t seem to remember it. It’s like saying the sun revolves around the earth because you can’t prove otherwise. Or denying the quantum fields theory because you can’t measure it (yet?).
A story that presents the message that it’s best to view something as ambiguous in not itself an ambiguous message or meaning.
Okay, so we finally understand each other, I think?
Dramatica does not make the claim that it presents one with absolute truth. In fact, it’s all about looking at various perspectives. It’s all relative. A mental relativity, if you will.
Yes, I have to agree with that. It’s something that became clear to me after my brief correspondence with James Hull.
But still, I’d like to put the model to the challenge. Right now I feel as though if one would approach inequity based on the model and afterwards question this model itself, would be the closest thing one could get to absolute truth in the eyes of the human mind.
Clear perception for a human being is a mind that is free from bias to the extend possible and the ability to analyse a problem very deeply on an intellectual level. Only to arrive at the conclusion, knowing that one can never be sure, leading one to question the thinking process itself. That’s as close as the mind can get to absolute truth according to what I think.
The problem however, is that most folks find it very discomforting to live in that uncertainty zone. But from my experience, living from this place is the most healthy and balanced way of thinking. Why would we adopt a belief for the sake of feeling better temporarily? Once the belief comes undone, your identity falls apart anyway. Why create an identity in the first place if later on you must suffer its consequences?
So you do think there’s a non-subjective view that one can take of a story.
The very act of questioning one’s own intellectual institution is about the closest one can get to non-subjectivity, like I said above as well. But this kind of non-subjectivity is not objectivity. It is relative objectivity. Or Dramatica objectivity. Zen objectivity?
You are free to do this. But it’s at the cost of losing some of the strength of the argument.
Nothing comes free of charge! 
Because that’s how you keep an argument consistent.
Okay, this looks like an interesting argument. Do you really think the story’s argument suffers from not completely adhering to the character model? I’m talking from a practical point of view. Can viewer actually feel a distinguished difference in the meaning of the grand argument?
This is true…from a certain point of view. As equally true and valid is the opposite.
I used to agree with you. These days, I’m no longer sure. The longer I live, it seems that all the stories in my life tend to simplify. To be more precise, I see how these different stories merge with each other. The stories when looked at in separation, they seem to reflect each other, like repetitions of the same principles or different forms with the same meaning.
This is only one quarter of the picture. It also multiplies. It also views structure and dynamics. See my avatar for the quad.
Well, I suppose it depends on how you define the mind. For example, in yogic culture alone, there are at the very least 8 different, distinguished components that make up the mind. When I talk about mind here, I’m talking about the intellectual part that divides objects.
Another aspect of the mind is memory. And yes, memory makes it possible to view structures, dynamics, patterns and all that good stuff. Like a CPU needs RAM. But mind you, we haven’t even scratched the surface!
Has anyone actually said this? As far as I can tell, no one has. They’ve merely said that Dramatica is about making a grand argument and ambiguity is not, that if you want to be ambiguous then you don’t need Dramatica. I don’t get the sense that anyone has been triggered, though I do get the sense that it was your intent to come here and try to trigger people.
What would be the merit in triggering people for the sake of triggering them? We could conclude that I am indeed triggering you. But you could also say that you allow yourselves to be triggered by me.
All I can tell you, is that it is not my intent to trigger. It is my intent to stress test the model, seek out its very boundaries and explore what lies right outside of its borders.
As for anyone having said this… well, James’ article said it. Someone linked it here and most of you seem really adamant about defending it.
And someone even changed the title of the thread to make it about ambiguity. Even though it was not what the question was about.
The first responder simply brought up the ambiguity article and then this happened
I’m just willing to go along for the ride you guys took me on! Or that’s how I see it. I’m willing to learn but I won’t forfeit my critical thinking in the proces.
Perhaps it could be fair to conclude that we trigger each other and allowed ourselves to get carried away? I personally don’t mind, I find these kind of discussions intellectually stimulating. It’s part of my compulsive behaviour. It’s a work in progress. I do thank you for indulging me so far.
Obviously, some of the language was figurative. He’s writing about something quite common, not some mystical phenomenon.
I just think it shouldn’t be called objectivity. It is relative objectivity. Or maybe, Dramatica objectivity.
Now, let’s assume this was accurate, and you end up stunned silent for a second because of how well it fits. Suddenly you can see your story in this different, objective way; and you see how everything fits that Goal. And maybe you realise how a couple scenes that were giving you trouble, will work better if you connect them to the goal.
Sure, I have some (albeit very a very small) understanding of what Dramatica is but I commend you for the illustration. It’s simple yet highly effective!
I’ll use your illustration to illustrate my intentions. I want to make to audience question if the story even was about “conceptualising”. What if it was not?
Scary thought, isn’t it? Because that could imply that all of your hard, intellectual bull dozing might have been for naught.
You could write the whole story from what you answer in the Plot options and ignore the character questions/options until something interests you.
Yeah that’s exactly how I’m doing it right now. During the writing process I find myself lingering on the archetypes anyway. But sometimes the way I see real people in my mind’s eye does not completely correspond to the character dynamics. The question then becomes… who is right? Dramatica or my mind? Is there even such a thing as ‘right’?
