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In last week's episode, we talked about Jar Jar Binks
being possibly a Sith master and the relationship between fan
theories and fanfiction.
Let's see what you had to say. [INAUDIBLE]
on the subreddit writes a really great comment about how
the image of George Lucas has changed after the prequels,
especially in light of the Jar Jar Binks
is a Sith master theory and this idea
that he had a kind of cowardice that he
didn't want to fully commit to.
What the story could have been after the public opinion
for Jar Jar Binks became known.
And it was-- and it was so, so bad.
And I think I really-- I find interesting this-- the closing
idea that what the "Jar Jar Binks is a Sith master" fan
theory does is not really make the movie, or the trilogy
as a whole, more enjoyable.
It just makes it not enjoyable for a more palatable set
of reasons, is what they say.
And I think that this gets to another aspect of what we were
calling the apologia of Binks, that it doesn't-- it's not like
it's improving it.
It's that it is helping you to dislike it in a way that
feels more reasonable.
And I think that's interesting.
[INAUDIBLE], also on the subreddit,
talks about how the prequels are maybe worth saving in this way,
that, you know, we talked about many people trying
to give insight into how they might be viewed differently
or different orders so that we can actually enjoy them.
Because past all of the surface details that maybe are not
enjoyable or take us out of the story,
there is a lot of really good stuff going on in the prequels.
It's just you really-- you have to push
through some difficult material in order to get to it.
And so that's why these theories and these viewing orders
and, you know, recuts of the movie exist,
that it helps us get past the surface to the meat of what
might actually have been, you know, a pretty good tr--
a pretty good trilogy of movies.
And I actually read a couple of pieces, a couple articles
that people sent on Twitter and a couple other places
over the last week.
So we put links to those in the description,
as well, about sort of how close the trilogy was to being good.
Luke Hughes [INAUDIBLE] and a bunch of other people
saw a connection between the Jar Jar Sith theory and the "Mass
Effect" indoctrination theory, which
says that the ending sequence of the "Mass Effect" games
actually just takes place inside of Shepard's head
and that what you have throughout the whole game
is the internal struggle of Shepard trying
to resist indoctrination.
And I can definitely see how this is a, like,
this redemptive kind of fan theory.
Because the ending of "Mass Effect" was, by most accounts,
not satisfying.
The other thing that Luke gets in to
is the idea of how much time we invest in to the properties
and worlds that we love and how that
relates to the distinction between fan theory
and fanfiction.
What Luke talks about is how fanfiction
doesn't repay all of the investment
that you put in to a game or a television series or a movie
series.
It just says, like, oh, but what if that stuff wasn't the case
and there was this whole other arrangement of elements?
Whereas a fan theory will say, like, oh, all of these things
still stand, all of your investment
is still good, but here's another way
to look at it, which is a thing that I didn't even consider
and I think is a really great point.
As far as why people would invest time
into redeeming the things that they don't like,
Christopher English makes a really good point
about how dislikeable stuff kind of just sticks in your craw.
It's like this itch that you have.
And so these kinds of fan theories,
it's just you're, like, thinking about it, like how could they
do that?
Why would this be the case?
And so that's why you will invest time into explaining why
it's there, because it's just you can't-- you can't-- get
away from it, which I think also explains a lot of YouTube
comments.
Jack Kelly has a related comment that's
really great about how when this happens, but happens
in a situation where you want to like the thing--
as is the case with, you know, kind of anything in the "Star
Wars" universe-- you will find a way to like it.
And some of those ways, of course,
are going to be more complex and involved than others.
And it just so happens that you know,
the Jar Jar Sith theory is on the more complicated end.
Antisocial Canine provides a redemptive fan theory
for "Other M," which, actually, I have ever heard this before
and find this super interesting.
Never sort of thought about it this way.
There's a great comment link to this one
and all the others in the doobly doo.
[INAUDIBLE], so there's something that we've learned,
I think, doing Idea Channel.
And that is that ideas and topics of conversation
have a life span.
And there's a point in that life span that's
sort of like late adolescence, or maybe even just puberty,
where it's kind of awkward and that we get encouraged to talk
about certain things either when they
are very new and timely or we are forgiven for talking
about them if they're very old, like is
the case-- like the case was with the "Jurassic Park" video
that we did.
--But that there's this point, there's
this little sliver of time during which it's just awkward
to talk about something.
And I think we hit that perfectly with the Darth Jar
Jar video, hit it right in idea of puberty,
where it's gangly and weird.
That being said, not to be defensive,
but to also just be 100% defensive, I think we did
add to the conversation.
I have not seen anyone talk about how the Jar Jar Sith
theory relates fanfiction and fan theory.
So I hope you ended up giving the video a shot
and watched it to the end, because I
think we got to somewhere kind of cool.
Like I said, fully defensive.
Creatrix Tiara points out that the "Harry Potter" fandom--
which is a fandom very focused on acceptance, representation,
fairness-- has done a lot of work
to look at "Harry Potter" in this redemptive light,
whether it is in relationship to Hermione or Dumbledore.
And I actually had never really thought
about these ideas in relationship to fan theory
and fanfiction so this is a great-- this is just
a great comment.
Thank you, Creatrix Tiara for writing this.
So now we're going to do what we said we would do last week
and then didn't because I had a lot to ramble about.
We're going to talk about your responses in the Deadpool
comment response video to my prompt about the difference
or the relationship between philosophy and science.
So we're going to do that just for a couple comments
right now.
Noah [INAUDIBLE] writes how philosophy can only
exist in the shadow of science, because without science there
are no-- hold on, I want to get this right-- there are--
"no conclusions could be obtained,"
that what science does is it creates facts and knowledge
and truth.
And philosophy will depend upon those facts and knowledge
and truth, and to build out of them.
And I think to a certain degree, this is true,
that philosophy has a great relationship with science.
And science has a great relationship
with philosophy, which we're going
to talk about in a second.
But I think, also, this puts philosophy
on a little bit of a misrepresented platform
or pathway, which is to say that it is concerned
with truth or answers or with-- I
keep forgetting-- conclusions.
I think that, really, what philosophy
is about is about deepening experience
and about always going back to first principles
and talking about how our experiences and our thoughts
shape the world.
And those things are not always conclusions.
And I think that that is an asset, not a detriment.
Really, [INAUDIBLE] got to the heart of kind
of the trick, or the joke here, which
is that the moment anyone says, well, I think that science
is more important than philosophy
because-- what immediately comes after the
"because" is philosophy of science,
so that there really is no science without philosophy.
I think in comparison to Noah's comment
that we just talked about, that science without philosophy
is maybe just as much complete and absolute chaos, probably
an ethical nightmare, as the potential for philosophy
without science to also be total chaos.
Looking at the comments of AlanKey86, [INAUDIBLE] Prime,
and a bunch of other people, I think
we can see this attitude that what we value in science
is the uncovering of truth, disprovability,
the idea that we are getting to some kind
of objective knowledge.
And I think we can and have on Idea Channel argued
whether or not those things actually
are the case in science.
But I want to caution against this kind
of fundamental misstep in also trying
to apply those things to philosophy or to theory
or to the social sciences to say that they are not useful
or not something that we can use in understanding the world
because they are not objective, they are not disprovable,
because I think that, again, we are approaching
these things not on their own terms,
that they are about trying to understand what
is the case when the case is not something
that is imminently graspable or objectively knowable.
Does that then make those pursuits not worth uncovering?
Not worth pursuing?
I, of course, think the answer is no.
They are absolutely worth pursuing.
And that objectivity, or truth, insofar as it even exists,
is one kind of pursuit of knowledge.
But it is not the only kind.
And just a point on a comment that I think
is really interesting and really good-- and man, I have so many,
so many responses to-- Nathan Klassen
wrote a great comment about quantum mechanics and this idea
that, you know, when we understand
how the universe works at the lowest level
and if it does work in a way that's non-predictable,
does that mean that then nothing is predictable
and everything is random?
And I-- you know, I was reading a piece
by one of the guys who writes for "Overthinking
It" the other day.
And he said-- he started a paragraph by saying,
as someone who prefers a Rube Goldberg
machine over Occam's razor, and I thought-- [GASPS] it me.
So you know, I think everything--
I think everything is fundamentally random.
But that's more fun for me.
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