Jurisfiction arrests and prosecutes anybody who alters the plot of their own or somebody else's book. And yet all of the people we saw being put on trial in Thursday's trial scenes were being tried for crimes that were within the plot of their books. Is there no way to win if you're scripted to do something nasty, or were all the people we saw being tried also found innocent, and their changes adopted into the book, as Thursday's were? I suppose the latter is quite possible, given the sheer incompetence demonstrated by the courts that tried Thursday, but wouldn't that bode badly for prosecution of all criminals?



__________________________________________________________

"We are born alone, and we die alone. In between, how about a drink?"
~ Mr. Nutty

Crimes committed within fiction are taken to trial - see references to other crimes in this and other books.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand your response. In <i>what</i> and other books? Also, you're not telling me anything I don't already know - I know that crimes committed within fiction are taken to trial, but I also know that the defendents would have also been taken to trial if they'd refused to committ the crimes. Unless, as I said, those particular people were all found innocent.



__________________________________________________________

&quot;We are born alone, and we die alone. In between, how about a drink?&quot;
~ Mr. Nutty

A character might be found guilty of a crime they committed within their own book, but the court would not (could not?) necessarily change the plot of the book as a result.

The idea of being found innocent on the grounds that you were "scripted to do something nasty" sounds like the start of a fate vs. free will debate to me...



-------------------------
Metaphors be with you!

"A character might be found guilty of a crime they committed within their own book, but the court would not (could not?) necessarily change the plot of the book as a result."

So you're going with "you just can't win", then?



__________________________________________________________

&quot;We are born alone, and we die alone. In between, how about a drink?&quot;
~ Mr. Nutty

No, I mean that just like in a normal court (in our world, that is) being found guilty doesn't "undo" the crime. Also, if a character committed a crime (and there is clear evidence against them) then they "just can't win" any more than an outland criminal who is caught red-handed. I think that what you're getting at is the philosophical debate over "if they did something because they were scripted to do it, is it still their fault?" My answer is yes, they are responsible. A good author never makes their characters just randomly behave out of character, so fictional entities have some measure of free will because the author must keep them consistent. Thus, a "scripted" action is indistingushable from an action that is freely committed because it is what the character "would" do. (This fictional free will is also the reason that an author like JFf can take characters like Mr. Rochester or the Cheshire Cat from other authors' books, and we still feel that they are the same characters: in a given situation, we can guess at what they "would" do). A character can no more blame a crime on their author than a person in our world can blame it on God (though I'm sure some have tried).



-------------------------
Metaphors be with you!

Sophocles' 'Oedipus' wrestles with a similar problem. Oedipus finds out that he is fated to kill dad and marry mom so, being a decent lad, he tries to avoid this fate (exercise free will) by running off.

Doing this leads him to his real dad and mom whom he kills and marries (in that order), thus fulfilling his fate!

Interestingly, the audience was supposed to get the point that trying to disobey his fate (putting himself above the gods) was his real crime; yet though his tangible crimes (regicide and incest) were unavoidable they were also deserving of punishment.

The only way Oedipus could have avoided his fate was if he had not tried to avoid it. Thus...

In bookworld, if the book-character Oedipus tried to rebel against the plot of the book, he would have to do so by staying put and accepting his fate, thereby abiding by the will of the gods. But this means rebeling against the will of the author. This proves that the author cannot be god!!!

As my rosy-cheeked old grandmother said when she heard about the story, "Oedipus Schmeedipus, as long as a boy loves his mother!"

*the 2nd last para has been post edited into a more Socratic form*



Post Edited (10-31-05 22:14)

Puck: "No, I mean that just like in a normal court (in our world, that is) being found guilty doesn't "undo" the crime."

But that's simply not true - in the Bookworld, when the plot of a book changes, they send in holesmiths etc. to correct it. For example, recasting that woman from that book who was going to shoot that other woman (I forget names).

Puck: "I think that what you're getting at is the philosophical debate over "if they did something because they were scripted to do it, is it still their fault?""

No, I'm not concerned with whether or not it is their fault - my point was that if they HADN'T committed the crime, they would have been punished for NOT committing it.

Puck: "A good author never makes their characters just randomly behave out of character, so fictional entities have some measure of free will because the author must keep them consistent. Thus, a "scripted" action is indistingushable from an action that is freely committed because it is what the character "would" do."

But this isn't entirely true in Bookworld, is it? The people who "play" the characters in books are never exactly the same as the characters they portray - look at Vernham Deane, as a prize example: a callous uncaring monster in his books, but a perfectly pleasant and good man outside them.

I believe that's two points to me. :)

Robert: "Interestingly, the audience was supposed to get the point that trying to disobey his fate (putting himself above the gods) was his real crime; yet though his tangible crimes (regicide and incest) were unavoidable they were also deserving of punishment."

I don't think they were deserving of punishment at all, as both were accidents - he killed his father by accident with a javelin, and he didn't know that the woman he married was his mother. Are you telling me you would have convicted him?



__________________________________________________________

&quot;We are born alone, and we die alone. In between, how about a drink?&quot;
~ Mr. Nutty

Hi Branfish

This thread sure got heavy! Then again, I guess that's a good balance that we need on a fforum where there's so much ffun and ffrivolity elsewhere.

I'm not sure how other references deal with Oedipus' slaying of Laius but Sophocles (upon whom I'm relying) has it that there was an altercation (name calling etc.) on the road to Thebes and Oedipus wiped out the whole royal shebang (except for one guy who brings back the news) when things escalated. There were no "accidental javelins" flying around, only very purposeful ones. Perhaps it was an early episode of road rage that escalated into a killfest.

The gods invested Thebes with a plague because the killer of Laius (Oedipus, as described above) had not been brought to justice. Whether "I" would convict him or not is beside the point; the gods obviously saw him as guilty.

Secondly, not knowing that Jocasta is his mother only relieves him of 'intent', but the offspring are more than enough proof of incest itself. Being the king, he decides to be his own judge and executioner and declares that death is too good for him - he blinds himself with Jocasta's broach (heavy symbolism about being blind to reality, etc) and then exiles himself so that he has to live the rest of his life in misery. Once again, my "conviction" isn't needed. Am I to disagree with the author's intent, the main character's own declarations about himself, AND the will of the gods? Not this little black duck!

I thought originally that you were actually arguing that "you just can't win" and as far as I'm concerned, that's spot on correct and I agree with it - Oedipus, or indeed Hamlet (or anyone brought to trial by a Lewis Carrol type "Court"), can only ever hope for a loophole, not justice. To what extent this subsequently applies to all of us here in Outland (allegory and all that) is not for me to say.

cheers from Wagga Wagga, via Thebes.

The javelin accident Branfish was thinking of is from a different myth, that of Perseus (albeit with a similar moral):
Perseus' grandfather is told by an oracle that he will be killed by his grandson, so when his daughter Danae becomes pregnant he shuts her in a chest and throws the chest into the sea. Fortunately for her, it floats and is hauled ashore by a fisherman in a distant kingdom. Perseus grows up to be a great hero: he slays the gorgon Medusa, saves his mom from having to marry a wicked king, rescues the princess Andromeda from a dreadful seamonster, uses Medusa's head to turn Andromeda's cowardly ex-boyfriend to stone...etc., etc... and one day while participating in an athletic competition he throws a javelin that is blown off course by the wind and happens to strike a certain elderly gentleman in the crowd...

In response to the rest of Branfish's letter (just so we don't get too tied up with the technicalities of Oedipus Rex) when I said, "being found guilty doesn't undo the crime," I was talking about characters who commit crimes within the plot of their books. If those crimes were simply erased, literature would be the emotionally vapid world Thursday encounters in Shadow the Sheepdog, devoid of murder mysteries, tragedies, and countless other literary staples. The girl in Mill on the Floss is replaced because she was trying to commit a crime that was not part of the plot, thus changing the plot.

Lastly, about your use of Vernham Dean as a counterargument to my point about "good authors" having to keep characters in character: good point, but who ever said Daphne Farquitt was a good author?

Game, set, and match, in case you're keeping score!

(Just kidding, Branfish, a philosophical debate is not a competition. We just can't risk the javelin accidents, now can we?)



-------------------------
Metaphors be with you!

"The javelin accident Branfish was thinking of is from a different myth, that of Perseus."

Ah yes, sorry about that.

"when I said, "being found guilty doesn't undo the crime," I was talking about characters who commit crimes within the plot of their books. If those crimes were simply erased, literature would be the emotionally vapid world Thursday encounters in Shadow the Sheepdog, devoid of murder mysteries, tragedies, and countless other literary staples. The girl in Mill on the Floss is replaced because she was trying to commit a crime that was not part of the plot, thus changing the plot."

I think we're at cross purposes here - when you said "being found guilty doesn't undo the crime", I thought you meant crimes that WEREN'T part of the original plot. I've never claimed that in-built crimes were erased, because that would be silly. As for your assertion, it's moot anyway, since we don't have any examples of characters who have been found guilty for crimes that were part of the plot of their novel.

"Lastly, about your use of Vernham Dean as a counterargument to my point about "good authors" having to keep characters in character: good point, but who ever said Daphne Farquitt was a good author?"

We don't have any evidence that his character is inconsistent WITHIN the books, what I meant was that his character OUTSIDE of his books is different to that within. Daphne Farquitt had nothing to do with it. In fact, I thought it was clear that authors are merely the conduit by which books reach the outside world, so the quality of the books isn't their resonsibility.



__________________________________________________________

&quot;We are born alone, and we die alone. In between, how about a drink?&quot;
~ Mr. Nutty

My best guess is that Jurisfiction trials have two functions:
1. Catching people (either native characters or interlopers) changing the plots of books, and doing their best to restore plots to their original form whenever possible.
2. Trying characters who commit crimes within their books so that limits or regulations can be imposed on their travel in the Bookworld. In these cases the plots of books are not altered, but a character found guilty of murder (for example) may be put under house arrest in their own story and banned from bookjumping. The Minotaur, for instance, was confined to Sword of the Zenobians, while Captain Nemo had his charges reduced to involuntary manslaughter and was therefore allowed to spend his retirement in Caversham Heights. Characters who violate these regulations are Pagerunners.

The discussion about whether fictional characters have free will might not exactly apply to the Nextian Bookworld. In TN they clearly have free will, and they inhabit a parallel universe unbeknownst to their authors. I do not think, however, that the characters are quite as separate from their personalities within the stories as an actor is from the role he plays. We just see a different side of them: Mr. Rochester has a sense of humor, Miss. Havisham loves fast cars, Emperor Zhark often behaves more like a spoiled child than a galactic dictator, but none of these run counter to their characters like, say, Havisham actually being happily married with a husband and grankids in the Well, or Zhark being a devout pacifist and a follower of the Dali Lama. No, they just let their hair down, so to speak, when they don't think they are being read. We can assume, then, that (Vernham Deane notwithstanding) whatever a character does in a book is what they would naturally choose to do.



-------------------------
Metaphors be with you!

I do beleive that its only if you alter something, not if your written to do something, you can't be charged for following your plot



SpecOps-27 Wordage is our business Grammar is our game.

Well, some of the characters we saw standing trial in WOLP appeared to be on trial for crimes committed in their own books. Captain Nemo for manslaughter, for example.



-------------------------
Metaphors be with you!