March Madness: Problem with Fiction

Idea Channel recently did two part episode about fiction and the realness of fiction. Mike Rugnetta talks about fictional objects having properties and therefore existence, even without reference, as in there’s no example of this object (as that’s the definition of fiction). But in the end, Mike talks about what I call the Duck Amuck corundum, as in can we change some aspect of the fictional object and still identify as that of the original fictional object, as Chuck Jones put it,

"Who is Daffy Duck anyway? Would you recognize him if I did this to him? What if he didn't live in the woods? Didn't live anywhere? What if he had no voice? No face? What if he wasn't even a duck anymore?"

And if you seen Duck Amuck, answer probably is yes. We have seen Daffy Duck throughout the cartoon, he didn’t just poof out of existence and pop back again in the end. He was really there, present at all the scenes. It’s like a super-amped Ship of Theseus, what if we replace one part of ship with metal or a engine till it turned to a robot or a car or a living being, is that The Ship? Or something else completely? And if so, when did the ship disappear?

Mike goes in a different point-of-view talking about all the possible Harry Potter from all the different writers and artists and actors and saying that all of these depiction of ‘The Boy Who Lived’ exist or is Harry Potter, then we should lose all concept of Potter.... That empty reference, or do we have to manually check it ourselves?

That’s where Kissing in the Rain come in. The series could be appreciated of two actors unwittingly kissing in the rain, over and over again and hijinks that ensues at that fate. But at the background, the creator Yulin Kang is devising an experiment that would the ideas above.

Basically he’s letting the fans fill in the gaps. All that Wild Mass Guessing and conspiracy theory about Lily and James could become true and ‘canon’ as the series progress. There’s a tumblr blog in which the production team collects all fanfics that became... canon, and you can build on this new canon to propel the story.

This harken back to the first part of Mike Rugnetta’s video where he wonders if the London in Wars of The Worlds that was not explained... real? Yulin Kang admits that the episodes in Kissing in the Rain does not tell the whole story. It’s only the part the production team imagined at the time... and that others can imagine the other parts and that would be... real! Well, in a some sense. Mike goes on to talk possibilism and ‘World as Myth’ ideas... which either silly or true (or both)... but let’s get back to the topic.

I talked (it’s deleted) about the corundums of fiction and reality with respect to Lizzie Bennet Diaries and Versus Valerie. Namely, how web brings the pretense of realness to fictional character to the new level and how interaction gives a corundum of what is real, like what we talked above. (I have to go into little more detail since I can find the original post, so the corundum is this. On one side, we have a character who thinks she’s real and that world she’s inhibiting is real and follows the same laws as our world, while on the other side we have people who ‘know’ she’s not ‘real’ and that they basically know how the ‘story’ will progress. Yet they are interacting with each other. On Versus Valerie corundum goes that we had the above pretense, without knowing the ‘future’ part, and then we have a ‘different’ ‘interpretation’ that is more traditional, as in there’s no interaction and yet the interactive series continue! So we have a character in which we can interact and one that peer into her thoughts. Creepy.)

There’s another example that I want to share and that Will Dixon’s Timespawning series which is really confusing, but that’s not the point here. The point is that Will Dixon gave up ‘control’ of the series and let the fans continue the story... But the question goes can you really give up that power... or is the object within the Timespawning multiverse inherently his? Or if all the possibility of the Timespawning by the fans real... then what is real? Isn’t that confusing for you?

Because it sure is for me. All these internet stories crumbling the unwritten rules of fiction and disseminating to unimaginable pieces. At least, the stories are nice.