Quote:
Originally Posted by patrickt
After I read this thread I was thinking of smoking in books I've read lately. Smoking has become perhaps the leading method of indicating that the character has no respect for intrusive rules and petty authority.
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That's pretty much the impression I get from characters who smoke, too: The smoking becomes a major symbol of part of their character, as opposed to a minor affectation or an aside; the character does it to piss someone off, or because they are rebellious in general, or because they are so powerful that no one can tell them not to light up, etc.
I mostly write SF, so it is mostly suggested that smoking has pretty much passed on, it's just not done in the future. Of course, there's no reason writers couldn't envision a future world where lung cancer has been eradicated with a pill, or we have a new plant to smoke that doesn't harm the body. But smoking is just an affectation, and its lack of use today suggests its decline in popularity. We'll see if it continues to decline, or resurges in the future.