In last week's episode, we talked about dead
all along fan theories, why they might be so prevalent,
and what they mean.
Let's see what you had to say.
Entropy Chris writes a really great comment
that provides a little bit more insight
into the idea of Freud's death drive, which is not necessarily
about people doing things that will definitely
lead to their death.
It's kind of about this-- it's more
about this set of compulsions that we have in an attempt
to sort of grasp this unthinkable thing that death
is, this thing that's hard, given
our culture and our language, to fully understand.
And so we have these sets of actions,
these sets of compulsions to kind of help
us grasp at that thing, and a lot of times
those compulsions are bound up in things that are literally
self-destructive, but it is not necessary that they are.
And they also talk about how, while these dead all along fan
theories might be a little bit played out,
they can be seen as a healthy way
to approach these feelings and ideas about this thing that
is so foreign, and difficult, and ungraspable.
So yeah, this was a great comment.
Thank you for writing.
Jonah Falcon and a couple other people
mentioned the it was all a dream fan theory
and how it's kind of a cousin of the dead all along fan theory,
and I would absolutely agree with that.
I think cousin is maybe the perfect relationship
to put those two in.
I also think that, from my perspective
the it's all a dream fan theory, is kind of different in that it
seems to be even more disliked than the dead all along
fan theory.
It seems like it's almost anathema
as far as fan theories are concerned, and I don't know.
I wonder why that is.
I wonder if maybe that it has even
less of a sort of interesting backing
to it-- that there's even less to really think about--
that the consequences are even lower,
the stakes are even lower, but yeah.
I wonder.
What does everybody else think?
Do you feel like the dead all along fan theory
and the it was all a dream fan theory are essentially
the same, or do you see them as being
different in some way, because I'm pretty sure
I do, but I would love to hear what everybody thinks.
Another thing I'm really curious about
has to do with masterslack's comment
that they left on the subreddit, which
is about how the frustration with fan theories
might also have to do with the invalidation of the experience
of the audience, and this is something
that I never thought about-- the idea
that, when you say that a character has been dead
all along, you in some way say that your experience
as an audience member was even more fictional than it
was to begin with.
It's kind of like a double fiction.
You understood going in that you were engaging with fantasy
in some way, but the fantasy itself was even a fantasy,
and this can maybe be frustrating
or feel like you've invested energy where it wasn't worth
it.
And I'm really curious if other people feel this way too,
because I find this really interesting.
Something that I just never considered.
[INAUDIBLE], and a bunch of other people
simultaneously registered their discontent with
and also explained the popularity of dead
all along fan theories by saying that it's
kind of like a sledgehammer of fan theories,
that it gets a lot of work done with minimal effort
in that sort of lacks nuance or lacks-- I don't know-- skill.
I'm putting words in their mouths.
But yeah, I mean I could totally see this, because so much
of what's fun about fan theories and so much
of what's fun about not only reading them, but putting them
together is taking all of the details of the story,
finding all of these really small things,
and trying to find out how they might work in support
of some other idea, some other sort of complex interrelation
of all of those characteristics, and facets, and whatever else,
but the dead all along fan theory is just like, hey,
what if literally the entire premise is just
completely different?
What's up now?
Everything is changed.
And yeah, I can see how it changes things in a way that
feels lazy and incomplete.
I know that's really popular, but I sort of
had this problem with the Angelica
is the only rugrat that is alive,
and everyone else is a figment of her imagination theory
because, for me, it doesn't add a level of complexity
that I like from fan theories.
It kind of just flattens everybody
into having a similar relationship.
It doesn't really add anything.
It actually takes things away from a show that
has a surprising complexity for what it is,
but at the same time, I can appreciate
how it is a shortcut to considering things
in a new light in a way that is shocking, in a way that causes
you to just completely reorient your attitude
towards this piece of media.
And that does have its benefits.
So like I said in the Tommy Westfall video,
if fan theories are kind of like critical thinking popcorn,
then maybe it's fair to say that the dead all along fan
theory is like fan theory popcorn,
like whatever popcorn popcorn would be.
I don't know.
Relatedly, RaySquirrel and PatrickFrost talk about dead
all along, it was all a dream, in a coma
fan theories are kind of lazy in that
what they allow is the building of a context where anything is
excusable, that in those contexts and situations
there is such permission given for the absurd,
the unbelievable, that it excuses anything
about the story that may be seen as complicated or unbelievable,
and it lets anything be the case.
So it kind of opens the door-- or really, I guess,
opens the tool box?
It opens the something that lets you then
treat the situation however is most convenient for whatever
your dead all along fan theory exists in support.
Which again, I'm a big fan of speculation.
I love it.
I think that you get interesting things out of speculation,
but clearly there's a point at which you can go too far.
Dashery writes a really great comment about Heidegger's idea
of being towards death and how it's really important to be
clear-- which I probably wasn't-- that it's not
a condition of one's death, that being towards death is not
death.
It is something that one only has when living.
It's a condition of being alive, of having
this kind of open, authentic experience of life as an effect
your understanding that this thing that's
normally considered eventual or in the distance
is always a part of you.
And to say that someone can be both dead and have that
authentic experience is in some way took to diminish
the importance of both being alive and being dead,
and, yeah, that's-- absolutely.
And I think one of the things I'm trying to get at
is not what it means to have a character that on screen is
dead, but rather what it means to have the audience imagine
their death, or to imagine them as dead,
or to imagine that death is a part of them in the way
that you would if you were to consider being a towards death,
because when an audience member considers
a character as being dead, it obviously doesn't kill them.
They're not literally deceased, but it does change the way
that they view their actions, and it does change the way
that they may view the inspiration, or the skill,
or the quality of their actions in some way.
And I think that's the thing that I'm
trying to get at-- that it is not a simultaneous death
and being towards death.
It is something much stranger and apparently harder
to put into words.
Dashery, this was a really great comment.
Thank you for writing it.
OK, lots of requests for an "Undertale" video,
so I'm going to think about this.
I'm on board.
I played it.
Played it a lot.
I loved it.
So let's give this a soft yes.
Probably not going to happen for another at least six
to eight weeks.
We got the holidays.
It gets complicated, but yeah, also
what are you curious about?
What does "Undertale" make you think of?
What do want to-- I don't know.
Pacifism?
Is that a-- we're going to get there.
Let's talk about this on the subreddit.
Dante Omega wrote a great comment that breaks dead
all along fan theories down into a couple different categories,
and it's really interesting.
Highly recommend it.
Give it a read.
Links to this comment and all the others in the doobly-doo.
So as you probably know, the universe
is fully deterministic.
You don't have free will.
Sorry.
So basically what happened is I figured out
a way to just sort of harness that determinism and all
of these comment responses were made years ago, forever,
a long time ago.
And any time, actually, that you've see me in person,
it's actually just Jake Roper from Vsauce3 wearing a suit.
Think about it.
It adds up, doesn't it?