Rational Fiction

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A community for discussing works of fiction where the characters think and act rationally (i.e. for good reasons) according to their understanding of their situation, rather than their actions feeling forced by the author to forward the plot. Inspired by r/rational and r/hpmor.

Rules:

Be polite and respectful to everyone, including people who disagree with you. Attacking an idea is fair game though.
No spoilers in titles! Use the spoiler tags in posts and comments to discuss sensitive topics.
Have fun!

Places to start:

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky. Wrapped up in 2015 at 122 chapters, ~660k words.
- Note: The main character is insufferable for the first few chapters, but he learns. If you get to Ch. 10 and you're not yet into it, it's okay to skip.
Pokemon: The Origin of Species by DaystarEld. Ongoing, 121 chapters as of October 2023.

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OutOfMemory

Pokemon: The Origin of Species - Chapter 2: Fallacy of the Single Cause (www.fanfiction.net)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by OutOfMemory to c/rationalfic

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Red, Blue, and Leaf get acquainted with their starter pokemon.

Part of DaystarEld's ongoing series of rationalist adventures set in the Pokemon universe.

Next chapters on Tuesdays and Fridays. Enjoy!

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

This chapter is dominated by Red's Charmander flame experiment. It also explains briefly what happened to Red's dad. I don't remember anything particular about Rangers in Gen1 -- or, frankly, any of the games I played -- but it gets more elaboration later and makes sense that the role is both elevated in importance and extremely dangerous in this darker take on Pokemon.

The experiment answers the question of how Charmander's Ember fire attack works. The tone of the presentation bothers me though. I've spent an embarrassingly long time trying to articulate why. Two weeks or more -- off and on -- maybe? There's a single word I could use to summarize what bothers me. If you also cringed at "Are you aware of the scientific method?" then you may know what I mean... I think the reason why I can't let it go with just that is that it's also a criticism that I've accused myself of before. I may be able to learn something important about writing or improve myself by exploring it further.

I'm going to leave it at that for now so that I can move on though.