Things that are common in fiction but not in your real life

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Love has been the sole driving force for just about anything that anyone has ever been driven to do. Ever.

I suspect that addictions and greed have been responsible for significant chunks of driving forces for significant chunks of the actions of a significant percentage of people.

[DiapDealer]

I didn't say love was the only driving force. Only that if it can be done, it's been done in the name of love alone. In real life. Over and over again. Forever.

[fabricalado]

To qualify: I was thinking of shows like Grey's Anatomy and How to Get Away With Murder when I wrote that.
It's hard for me to get into them cause the love-is-the-reason trope comes up so much in every episode it starts to feel like there's no other emotion that could make for an interesting narrative.

And yet there is.
See, for instance, Little Fires Everywhere, which deals with themes like race, surrogate motherhood, gentrification and class division. Or American Gods, which subtly deals with multiculturalism and change in America.
All themes I'm way more excited to read about. But hey, you do you and I'll do the same.

[fabricalado]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I didn't say love was the only driving force. Only that if it can be done, it's been done in the name of love alone. In real life. Over and over again. Forever.

In that case, how do you explain racism? What's love got to do with it? If anything, that's hate and fear; I don't see any positive affects at play in racism.

It is one thing to say we're all moved by desire, but to say all we do is because of love seems like a stretch to me.

[fabricalado]

I just remembered this ramification of my terrible opinion that "love as a trope sucks":

Do you know when all hell's breaking loose and one of the characters does something really dumb because s/he sees someone familiar in the midst of the hostile crowd?

Just picture the scene: everyone's running from the zombies and, just as they're entering the helicopter/boat/escape device, someone in the crew sees a former love interest in the midst of the walking dead crowd, gets paralyzed and then bitten?

Yeah. Go figure, that got old for me too.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by fabricalado

Just picture the scene: everyone's running from the zombies and, just as they're entering the helicopter/boat/escape device, someone in the crew sees a former love interest in the midst of the walking dead crowd, gets paralyzed and then bitten?

Yeah. Go figure, that got old for me too.

I think that after everything that's happened this year, I will never again believe any zombie/plague fiction that has people making sensible decisions to protect themselves and their community.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by fabricalado

In that case, how do you explain racism? What's love got to do with it? If anything, that's hate and fear; I don't see any positive affects at play in racism.

Sorry. I don't understand the relevance of your question to the topic, or my statements.

Originally Posted by fabricalado

but to say all we do is because of love seems like a stretch to me.

To me too. Who suggested it was?

[fabricalado]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I don't understand the relevance of your question to the topic, or my statements.

Here:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

if it can be done, it's been done in the name of love alone. In real life. Over and over again. Forever.

I don't know what you've been reading, but it looks like racism has been a thing for a while now, and - I claim - it's not out of the goodness of people's hearts.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Who suggested it was?

I'll repeat myself, but:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

if it can be done, it's been done in the name of love alone. In real life. Over and over again. Forever.

And I don't know if you're willing to engage in this discussion, but I'll expand on that too: I believe people can do things for reasons other than love, in real life and in fiction.

Fighting injustices committed by the legal system is an example (and it's often awful IRL, but it makes for great fiction). Getting house insurance is another example (though it wouldn't make for interesting fiction, one would think).

[fabricalado]

Originally Posted by meeera

I think that after everything that's happened this year, I will never again believe any zombie/plague fiction that has people making sensible decisions to protect themselves and their community.

It does make you wonder whose brains are malfunctioning...

[hildea]

fabricalado: I'm pretty sure you're misunderstanding DiapDealer. They aren't saying that all actions are motivated by love, but that all types of actions can be motivated by love. In other words, if we make a list of all possible actions -- committing murder, creating art, getting house insurance, making a cup of tea, and so on -- DiapDealer's claim is that each of those actions has been performed for love at least once.
DiapDealer's claim is somewhat tangential to this discussion, after all noone's claimed that love as a motivation (or tomato soup) doesn't exist, they're claiming that it's overdone as an element in fiction

Originally Posted by fabricalado

To qualify: I was thinking of shows like Grey's Anatomy and How to Get Away With Murder when I wrote that.
It's hard for me to get into them cause the love-is-the-reason trope comes up so much in every episode it starts to feel like there's no other emotion that could make for an interesting narrative.

And yet there is.
See, for instance, Little Fires Everywhere, which deals with themes like race, surrogate motherhood, gentrification and class division. Or American Gods, which subtly deals with multiculturalism and change in America.
All themes I'm way more excited to read about. But hey, you do you and I'll do the same.

In American Gods the love between Shadow and Laura is a powerful thread in the story, and a strong driver of the plot at least in the first part of the book. I haven't seen those shows you mention, though, and if they use love as the only significant motivation and theme, that seems likely to get boring. I really like stories where love is one of the motivations, especially if there's a conflict between love and other motivations.

Originally Posted by meeera

I think that after everything that's happened this year, I will never again believe any zombie/plague fiction that has people making sensible decisions to protect themselves and their community.

Yes. It strikes me that Pratchett's Guards! Guards! was spot on: There's a dragon threatening the city, and lots of people are saying that dragons aren't so bad, as long as someone else gets eaten, and someone's selling dragon repellents with a guarantee of your money back if the dragon kills you

I also saw someone recently commenting that the most unrealistic part of the film "Avengers" is that when government is found to be infiltrated by nazis, there's a huge uproar, and the nazis get expelled from government and prosecuted. (I'm probably tiptoeing close to the Politics and Religion subforum now.)

[DiapDealer]

Thanks hildea.
Are my sentences really that incoherent? I thought I was being pretty clear.

[Luffy]

Originally Posted by hobnail

Reminds me of Lord of the Rings where they hardly ever ate. Stuff going in and stuff coming out seems to be overlooked in a lot of books.

If you want to read about such stuff, I recommend to you 'Burnt Sugar', the booker prize nominee from last year.

[Luffy]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Yeah. Like finding your true love who looks like a model plus is extremely devoted and faithful unto death to you, this despite the fact that YOU don't look like a model at all.

That's often the case, but not with me. I'm a terribly shy person, and also not like a model. Despite these 2 facts, there are a surprising number of women, given the third fact that I live a reclusive life, who are attracted to me, though I never respond in kind.

[hildea]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Thanks hildea.
Are my sentences really that incoherent? I thought I was being pretty clear.

I thought you were clear, too, but in other threads I've found myself jumping to conclusions about what other people actually write versus what I want to argue against Now I'm thinking I should reread that discussion where we disagreed so strongly about the influence of social media, in case I misunderstood you there

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Thanks hildea.
Are my sentences really that incoherent? I thought I was being pretty clear.

"Love has been the sole driving force for just about anything that anyone has ever been driven to do" was not incoherent, but it does readily allow for both the meaning you intended and the one some took from it. Not for nothing did Emo Philips call ambiguity "the devil's volleyball". How it could have been worded to make it uncontestably clear to any reader regardless of their language background, I'm not sure.