Ditto for Death Note, though only the first season. The logic of a story is that the good guys will win in the end, which is not what you should necessarily expect in real life.
(spoilers)
The awesomeness of Death Note’s first season was not just in the decent instrumental rationality attributed to the characters (which gave me a very good impression), but also in that you couldn’t guess who would win. (Edited for spoilers)
Please edit this to remove everything after ”...couldn’t guess who would win”. We don’t have proper support for spoilers in comments, and saying “spoilers” isn’t enough.
(I don’t have facilities to edit your comment myself, just remove it.)
I’m a little confused—what does it mean to ban a comment? I know how one can delete a comment, or ban a user, but I’ve never heard the words used this way before.
Any fiction that can’t stand up to spoilers isn’t worth reading. I would never recommend fiction that I haven’t reread, often many times—I’d rather reread a good (or even fair) book for relaxation than get irritated trying to read something that drags. And if you’re not reading it for relaxation, textbooks are better than any fiction.
If the story poses a puzzle for the reader, and the solution to the puzzle is given further down the plot, then spoilers can in fact reduce the enjoyability of the story. In Death Note, you can actually discover the flaw in the character’s plan yourself if you pause the video and and think for a bit (although it helps that the protagonist’s intelligence is a bit...uneven. Most real people aren’t simultaneously stupid and smart like that). It’s also fun to arrive at the best possible strategy for each character...it’s pretty satisfying when you and the character independently arrive at the same conclusion.
This only applies to very tightly written stories of course.
Agree that fiction that relies solely on spoilers isn’t worth reading. Though I would not concur that textbooks are better than any fiction. Unless school has gotten waaaaaay better than I remember.
If you are not reading for relaxation, then you are probably reading for information; in that sense textbooks are better than fiction, since they have better presentation of the information in them.
Ditto for Death Note, though only the first season. The logic of a story is that the good guys will win in the end, which is not what you should necessarily expect in real life.
(spoilers)
The awesomeness of Death Note’s first season was not just in the decent instrumental rationality attributed to the characters (which gave me a very good impression), but also in that you couldn’t guess who would win. (Edited for spoilers)
Please edit this to remove everything after ”...couldn’t guess who would win”. We don’t have proper support for spoilers in comments, and saying “spoilers” isn’t enough.
(I don’t have facilities to edit your comment myself, just remove it.)
EDIT: Wasn’t edited after a bit, so banned, alas.
Seeing as there’s no obvious automated notification of replies, banning someone for not noticing a reply seems unfair.
He’s really just deleted the comment—for some reason the software uses the word “ban”. The commenter is still registered.
Yes, it’s unfair, yes, we should fix this at some point, but I deemed it more important to not spoil a unique anime.
I’m a little confused—what does it mean to ban a comment? I know how one can delete a comment, or ban a user, but I’ve never heard the words used this way before.
Delete, really. The button just says “ban” if you’re an administrator.
Ah, that’s good then. =)
So, what was the work of fiction that was mentioned in the post?
Death Note.
Any fiction that can’t stand up to spoilers isn’t worth reading. I would never recommend fiction that I haven’t reread, often many times—I’d rather reread a good (or even fair) book for relaxation than get irritated trying to read something that drags. And if you’re not reading it for relaxation, textbooks are better than any fiction.
If the story poses a puzzle for the reader, and the solution to the puzzle is given further down the plot, then spoilers can in fact reduce the enjoyability of the story. In Death Note, you can actually discover the flaw in the character’s plan yourself if you pause the video and and think for a bit (although it helps that the protagonist’s intelligence is a bit...uneven. Most real people aren’t simultaneously stupid and smart like that). It’s also fun to arrive at the best possible strategy for each character...it’s pretty satisfying when you and the character independently arrive at the same conclusion.
This only applies to very tightly written stories of course.
Agree that fiction that relies solely on spoilers isn’t worth reading. Though I would not concur that textbooks are better than any fiction. Unless school has gotten waaaaaay better than I remember.
If you are not reading for relaxation, then you are probably reading for information; in that sense textbooks are better than fiction, since they have better presentation of the information in them.