So elsejournal I saw

[catsittingstill]

I saw someone talking about a children's book about a snowman that comes to life and does all sorts of things with a little girl who is apparently the book's protagonist.  And they play in the snow, and drink hot soup and walk up a hill, and run down a hill--

And then they start flying together.  At which point this person's spouse (reading the book to this person's child) said unhappily--"Wait, that makes no sense."

And this person's response was (roughly) "You're okay with the snowman walking and talking and playing and even drinking hot soup, but you have a problem with the snowman flying?"

And my thought was twofold.  First, if she has a problem with the snowman flying, she has a problem with the snowman flying.  It's not going to get better because you tell her she shouldn't feel that way.

Second--there's this great book called "Religion Explained" by Pascal Boyer.  And one of the things he covers is what kind of ideas rivet the human attention, and are easily transmitted, reconstructed from minimal cues, and remembered.  These things are often concepts we have specialized brain structures for learning about and thinking about, plus one counter-intuitive characteristic.  For example, "person with no body" = ghost or spirit.  The concept crops up over and over again in various cultures.  We have specialized brain systems for learning about people and keeping track of them, and the counter-intuitive characteristic "has no body" serves to make this more than just an ordinary person, more interesting, better remembered.

And when one is thinking about such an idea, one models how it will behave based on the base concept, or the counterintuitive characteristic, if the latter applies.  So you can imagine a ghost can see people, because people (mostly) can see people.  Or you can imagine that a ghost can't see people, since it has no body--thus no eyes for light to interact with.  But a ghost with roots--that just doesn't make sense, because now you have "person" with two counter-intuitive characteristics.  1) has no body and 2) has roots like a tree.

So the snowman in the story is a person, with the counter-intuitive characteristic "is made of snow."  This is the kind of idea people tend to find interesting, to handle easily, and retain.  And thus with the hot soup you can go with "can drink hot soup" because people mostly can do that, or with "can't drink hot soup" because something made of snow better not try it.  It's all good. 

But when you try for "and also can fly" you have a problem.  Neither people, nor objects made of snow normally have the characteristic "can fly."  It's just not in either template, so to speak.  So, at best, now you have a person with *two* counter-intuitive characteristics.   And those just aren't as compelling.  And at worst you've violated the rules you set up for the character, and that's just bad storytelling.  As far as I'm concerned, adding one counter-intuitive characteristic is not the same as "now, anything goes."

Comments

[kay_brooke]

I think you have just pinpointed my exact problem with pretty much every superhero story ever. Thanks for the interesting read.

[catsittingstill]

I'm glad you enjoyed it :-)

[laughingrat]

Yes! This is true, exactly what you said. I too went "No WAY" when I got to the flying part. The hot soup, well, that's just quirky. But flying too? Come on now.

[catsittingstill]

I am glad someone else feels the same way.

[madfilkentist]

Not too long ago I saw a video in which Steven Pinker says that people's inclination to think of ghosts, spirits, gods, etc., is a byproduct of our ability to think of other people's minds in such detail that we can imagine being in their heads. From there it's not too long a step to thinking of minds existing by themselves. So I guess with a positive (empathy) there comes a negative (supernatural belief).

[catsittingstill]

"Religion Explained" is certainly influenced by some of Pinker's work. And it takes the view that religion is a byproduct of the construction of the human mind, including our "theory of mind"--our belief that other entities have minds like our own.

This belief generally serves us well with respect to other people, but less well when we depart the realm of people.