People who fail at reading anything beyond surface-level stuff.

Nova

>

Forzare

>:

DonZabu

?

Vorpy

As in not being able to understand underlying themes of certain things?

Nova

Inspired by a topic on Nanoha (Pretty ironic, considering that the show isn't very deep, but w/e).

I was trying to explain how the shift between StrikerS to Force was not a good thing, as it changed many of the themes inherent in the show- it's changed from the redemptive focus it used to have (Every season, there is at least several villains who are redeemed by the end of the season, at least partly by their own doing) by introducing unsympathetic villains with pretty much no hope for redemption, and changing the focus of the show away from people determined to help others and stop the villains to people trying to kill the vaillains.

Basically, I was trying to explain how the shift towards darker and edgier was not a good thing.

And this guy keeps stubbornly insisting that my argument is "It sucks because the main characters aren't invulnerable and the main character is a guy".

^ Also, that.

Forzare

I tend to just enjoy things at face value while I'm actually watching them.

Also I haven't seen Nanoha.

Nova

I explained my reasons here, too.

There's a difference between enjoying things at face value, and failing at reading it when it's pointed out to you over the course of a page-long post, you know?

DonZabu

For some reason, I thought this would be about subtext in conversations, like hint-dropping.

As a side note, fuck that.

Legionnaire

As somebody who considers one of his only decent skills to be his ability to analyse works, yes, this annoys me.

Nova

I wonder.

How do you explain to someone that being able to truthfully say "Force, despite being a part of the Magical girl Lyrical Nanoha franchise, is not a Magical Girl story, nor does it focus on the magic or the Devices of earlier stories, and in fact has introduced devices that can actually cancel out the earlier magic of the show thus leaving the earlier characters pointless and in fact are curbstomped by the new characters" is not a good thing?

Counterclock

It's also a very good reason to make them feel bad about themselves, when they can't "Understand" a work like you can.

Take for instance, the very title of this thread,

it isn't acknowledged as an accomplishment, being able to read into the subtext of things,

Nope, it's considered the norm, and anyone who is not quite at that level is a failure for this.

Nova

It's also a very good reason to make them feel bad about themselves, when they can't "Understand" a work like you can. 

When it's been laid out in front of them by several people, yeah. Not that anyone's made them feel bad about it.

Nope, it's considered the norm, and anyone who is not quite at that level is a failure for this.

That's actually kinda true. It's what they try to teach you in English class- how to look beyond the surface-level stuff and look deeper into it.

Counterclock

I'd rather try to build a mountain, no matter how hard the struggle, than to roll rocks downhill, just because people have said this is easier to do.

Counterclock

And I personally realize this isn't even adaptable as a world view, but it's one that works for me.

Nova

I'd rather try to build a mountain, no matter how hard the struggle, than to roll rocks downhill, just because people have said this is easier to do. 

I'm not actually sure what you said.

The thing is, though, you can't just accept shallow views as the norm and then exalt people who can look deeper into works. It's the other way around- you kind of need to accept people who can look deeper into works as the norm, and encourage (not make fun of) people who can't to learn how to.

RedEyedAbyss

"And this guy keeps stubbornly insisting that my argument is "It sucks because the main characters aren't invulnerable and the main character is a guy"."

I think you have more of a problem with the guy being a lousy listener.

As for looking deeper into stuff, I find it fun to do to anything, though there's a line between seeing deeper elements and injecting your own experience into it which I haven't always been able to determine. It's strange when people are deluded enough to declare their own fan wank canon, though.

ClockworkUniverse

And this guy keeps stubbornly insisting that my argument is "It sucks because the main characters aren't invulnerable and the main character is a guy".

Question: Why are you bothering attempting to communicate with this guy? It's pretty clearly a waste of time.

Nova

Question: Why are you bothering attempting to communicate with this guy? It's pretty clearly a waste of time.

Because I'm a stubborn fool.

I think you have more of a problem with the guy being a lousy listener.

Who also fails at reading into it >

MoeDantes

That guy is an example of a person who can only be reasoned with one way: by holding a gun to his head and saying "evolve some brain cells or I'll blow your fracking head off."

I knew someone just like that. He was the first and last person I ever used an ignore filter on.

MoeDantes

I just remembered an experience I had like this.

I remember on some forum or other posting a review of the Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy. One of my complaints was that the development of the romance was very forced and badly-handled--it basically amounted to surprise-revealing that certain characters had been doing it behind everyone's backs.

This somehow led to that entire forum giving me a lecture about how sex is a natural and glorious thing and I shouldn't be put off just because they wrote about it. Which, of course, was not what I was talking about.

I quit that forum the next day.

Nova

Why woukd they even miss that

MoeDantes

I've noticed that at least half the people on the internet have really bad reading comprehension.

captainbrass

That's putting it politely. A lot of people just don't bother reading anything longer than a few sentences, and not just on the internet. I sometimes write letters to people in my work who I've write letters to and when they phone up later they clearly haven't read the letter.   

MoeDantes

Which just goes to show you: Literacy is wasted on the literate, and maybe the kings of old had the right idea when they decided the skill was strictly the domain of nobility.

RedEyedAbyss

Chagen

I am not the greatest fan of over-the-top analyzation (sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar), but your argument wasn't even that hard to comprehend....

RocketDude

Yeah, you should have seen me use Top Gear in an analogy.