#And i get it as someone on the spectrum with plenty of hyperfixations its hard to watch people bash something you Love and are passionate

[beebberbb]

I think it's like. So Odd that people will place their own personal tastes of media over anyone else's opinions and thoughts and just. Degrade them for it??? You know what makes fandoms Fun? Differing view points on a thing everyone enjoys!!!! I love seeing others hcs even if I personally Don't agree with them! I think it's neat that someone can find value in something I don't! I like seeing people genuinely enjoy things even if it's not My preference!!!!

[archaardvarkarchive]

finally someone who speaks to the point!

I genuinely appreciate that a lot, even though I will still debate it.

Unless catharsis cannot be obtained any other way (it can) this still doesn’t exactly get to the core of whether an author ‘should’ or shouldn’t do it.

For as many of the audience might experience catharsis, another segment may (really, will) be heaped with more pain than their life currently holds.

So the utilitarian calculus here is muddled at best, and perhaps weighted towards the negative at worst.

That’s not to unilaterally condemn any death that ever happens in fiction ever (it’s way more complicated than that, and also not all harm is big enough to merit moral consideration, or much of it …)

Now, we have to examine whether the abstract concept of “Themes” is a moral good in itself. What’s the argument for that?

Inflicting more pain on the audience is in what way a moral good? This isn’t a sarcastic question at all! It’s what has to be justified for this line of argument to work.

The “characters are not real people” angle is a very tricky one- I can try to locate some science papers on comparing brain scans of directing people to think about fictional characters vs. those in their lives

(but I’m not sure I saved the links lol)

Would you disagree or agree that the grief that say, an autistic person may experience from a character they are hyperfixated on, may in fact be quite a bit stronger than real life people who die? Don’t take this question lightly- many people on the aromantic or autistic spectrum quite literally do not form as strong social bonds!!

(speaking from both forum discussions about having atypical reactions to funerals, and personal experience of IRL bonds, tho im not going to get into which of the two traits I am for the scope of this discussion)

That’s the extreme example ofc, I don’t know how NT or allo ppl, or further, people who do not have as vivid imaginations or don’t trauma-bond to characters internally experience this pain.

I can’t be inside another person’s brain.

That’s part of the reason why it’s hard to gauge exactly how much moral weight this should have.

It’s just poor form to make fun of the screenshotted person’s expressing its objectively unnecessary nature (because it is ultimately unnecessary even if it’s justified. That vocabulary switch needs to be noted here, because you use the word “need.” Need refers to things like eating, drinking, maybe even war- if it’s defensive- it does not apply to fiction choices. Period.)

Now, if I can weigh in on my fuzzy memory of Holes… Sam may have been maimed, jaded, chosen not to go through the trouble of pursuing her (people break off dating for any number of lesser reasons than mortal danger! Alloromanticism is not as unstoppable a force as people like to think) harmed in any number of ways that pried him away from her, and the narrative would still have worked. Maybe not even worked “as much.” But so what? What’s the argument that it should (that’s a moral ‘should’ there) work in the way that’s superlative? Also note here, WE THE READERS are not attached to Sam. We barely know him. He doesn’t apply to the argument that the screenshot was trying to point out!!

This example is not what’s being presented!

I engaged it out of courtesy, and bc I don’t mind tangents, as long as they are clearly and fully acknowledged as tangents.

@msexcelfractal

I did not intend to insinuate that authors are ‘careless’ in any way.

In a similar way that people in decades past might not know or weigh what ‘micro-aggressions’ were bc they were more concerned with overt racism, humanity has the ongoing potential to self-reflect more and more. To refine moral considerations to a higher degree than people did previously, even if said previous people were plenty moral within their context and their frame of reference.

im starting to think you guys dont like it when stories make you feel things

[terramythos]

TerraMythos' 2020 Reading Challenge - Books 15-18 of 26

Titles: The Murderbot Diaries -- All Systems Red (#1), Artificial Condition (#2), Rogue Protocol (#3), and Exit Strategy (#4) (2017-2018)

Author: Martha Wells 

Genre/Tags: Science Fiction, Cyberpunk (ish), Novella, Agender/Nonbinary Protagonist, Asexual Protagonist, First Person 

Rating: 9/10 (note: this is an average-- see under the cut for individual ratings) 

Date Began: 6/15/2020

Date Finished: 6/23/2020 

Murderbot is a SecUnit -- a humanoid security construct created to protect contracted clients in a corporate, spacefaring future. Following mysterious/murderous events in its past, Murderbot hacked the governor module controlling its actions. Now it prefers to watch media serials and half-ass the whole “protecting human clients” thing. 

This changes when it discovers someone is sabotaging its clients’ planetary mission, putting the team in grave danger. Even worse, these new clients start to treat it like a person, much to Murderbot’s discomfort. In the resulting fallout, Murderbot finds itself answering questions it’s avoided thus far -- who it is, and what it really wants. 

I’m doing something a little different and combining these four novellas into one review; they are too short and interconnected to review individually in my regular format. Under the cut, I’ll start with my overall impressions of the series, then a look at/rating of each individual story. 

Who knew being a heartless killing machine would present so many moral dilemmas. 

(Yes, that was sarcasm.) 

Overall Thoughts 

I really enjoyed this series! The strong point is without a doubt Wells’ excellent characterization of a distinctly non-human viewpoint character. Murderbot is a very interesting protagonist, and its constant snark and parenthetical asides are a joy to read. Much to its dismay, there’s also a lot of emotional punch entwined in Murderbot’s character arc and interactions. Murderbot may not be a human, but it’s definitely a person. 

It seems obvious to me that Murderbot is intended to be autism spectrum/ADHD coded. I’ve never encountered an unambiguously heroic protagonist that displays similar behaviors to my own, and it’s affirming to read. Difficulty with processing emotion? Hyperfixating on media to comfort itself? Issues with direct eye contact and touch? Truly a bot after my own heart. Honestly, I dreaded the point in the story where these are presented as weaknesses for Murderbot to overcome... and was overjoyed that it never happens. In fact, characters accommodate these aspects of Murderbot’s behavior/personality and respect its boundaries. This totally surprised and impressed me. 

Finally, I do really appreciate Wells’ approach to nonbinary characters. While it’s nice that we’re getting more representation, it can be very grating/telling if all nonbinary characters in popular media are nonhuman. Wells asks “why not both” and introduces a nonbinary human that uses neopronouns in Artificial Condition! I don’t use neopronouns myself, but I know plenty of people who do, and this is the first “mainstream” thing I’ve ever seen use them. 

I found this first arc in The Murderbot Diaries relatable, entertaining, approachable, and easy to read. I’m super excited to see where the series goes from here. 

All Systems Red (#1) -- 8/10 

It’s wrong to think of a construct as half bot, half human. It makes it sound like the halves are discrete, like the bot half should want to obey orders and do its job and the human half should want to protect itself and get the hell out of here. As opposed to the reality, which was that I was one whole confused entity, with no idea what I wanted to do. What I should do. What I needed to do. 

This is a good introduction to the premise. Murderbot's interactions with the human characters are a highlight throughout the series, but I think it’s especially true in this part. Wells does an excellent job, as many others have said, making a distinctly nonhuman perspective character sympathetic, interesting, and relatable. I like that the human characters treat Murderbot like a person/member of the team by default and generally respect its personal limits-- AND we didn't get some trite cliche about it-- AND that this throws Murderbot into an emotional crisis because it hasn't experienced this before.

If I have criticism here, it’s that the plot feels incidental; more a vehicle for certain character interactions than an involving story in and of itself. While the conflict and central antagonist do return in Exit Strategy, in this one they don’t feel especially relevant. The narrative thrust is more about Murderbot's personal development and denial/coming to terms with its attachment to the human characters, especially Dr. Mensah.

To be fair, it is weird to give this a numeric score because it feels like rating the first fourth of a full novel. So take this with a grain of salt. 

Artificial Condition (#2) -- 9/10

But there weren’t any depictions of SecUnits in books, either. I guess you can’t tell a story from the point of view of something that you don’t think has a point of view.  

Artificial Condition introduces another nonhuman character who is distinctly different from Murderbot, yet still fun and compelling: ART the research ship! Who’s moonlighting as a cargo transport. It's the ship on the cover, which I didn’t know going in, and this blew my mind for some reason. Anyway, the friendship between ART and Murderbot was really fun and genuine. I know ART shows up later, so I’m very excited for that; it adds a lot to the narrative. While I didn’t find the human cast as interesting as in All Systems Red, I do appreciate that there’s an actual nonbinary human character. 

The plot of Artificial Condition is still pretty secondary, but it does connect to Murderbot’s past, so I found it more engaging. In general, Murderbot gets a lot of interesting character development, and over time gains a lot of nuance. I think this is great, considering how complex and well-written it is from the start. There’s an excellent moment of delayed emotional payoff near the end when Murderbot helps a character after learning something earlier in the story. It’s hard to describe without spoilers, but I thought this was really cool. 

Rogue Protocol (#3) -- 9/10

Or Miki was a bot who had never been abused or lied to or treated with anything but indulgent kindness. It really thought its humans were its friends, because that’s how they treated it. 

I signaled Miki I would be withdrawing for one minute. I needed to have an emotion in private. 

Like Murderbot, I find myself missing ART, but we do get an alternate nonhuman character in Miki. Overall, Murderbot's character arc feels way more connected to the conflict and action in this story than the previous installments, which is nice. While this is presumably a throwaway cast based in the ending, I thought Miki and Don Abene's friendship was an interesting foil to what I assume is going to happen with Murderbot and Dr. Mensah.

While this trait has been present throughout, this installment makes it very clear that despite its protests, Murderbot genuinely does want to help and protect people of its own free will, even when doing so is not the quickest or most self-preserving choice. There are multiple points in this story (and the previous ones) where Murderbot could choose to save itself or abandon people in need. But it doesn’t; it just sighs and complains about having to protect stupid humans. I love Murderbot. 

Also, this is one of those works where the meaning of the title doesn't really hit until you finish it, and oof.

Exit Strategy (#4) -- 10/10

So the plan wasn’t a clusterfuck, it was just circling the clusterfuck target zone, getting ready to come in for a landing. 

This one just slaps from start to finish. We get the full post-development emotional payoff re: Murderbot’s complicated feelings about the humans from All Systems Red. The characterization, plot, humor, and action are all on-point and the best in the series.  

I don’t really have anything else to say except this is an awesome conclusion to the first arc, and definitely my favorite of the 4 stories. I’m excited to see where things go from here.