posted
I think perhaps some distinction needs to be made between fiction and fantasy.
FANTASY is like the world of Lord of the Rings. The whole place is created by the author, and uses as its basis themes and ideas that don't exist in the modern world (Hobbits, Magic etc) .
To enjoy fantasy you need to imagine this fantasy world. No-one would try to debunk the existance of orcs because no-one ever would think they were any thing other than pure creative imagination.
FICTION (as it applies to books such as the Da vinci Code ) relies on events occuring in the world WE KNOW. Locations might be real, or fictional. But for fiction on this level to be effective, we need to belive that such a place, or situtation, or group, MIGHT exist. That is- it doesn't need to be real, but does need to be realistic.
Take for example Harriet Beecher Stowe's classic " Uncle Tom's Cabin. " A book whoes charcters are totally fictional, but whoes charcters were so obviously BASED on real people, and a very real institution.
The fact is that Da Vinci code isn't true. BUT the ideas it uses for its plot may (or may not) be based on some truth, and that is where the need to debunk lies.
Posts: 320 | From: Ireland | Registered: May 2004
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posted
But fiction does not have to take place in the real world. And even a fictional world similar to our own can have differing places, organizations, events, and even rules of physics.
quote:Originally posted by Midgard_Dragon: But fiction does not have to take place in the real world.
Thats why I used the term "fantasy" to make a distinction. To be clear- all fantasy is fiction (Lord of the Rings is fictional, but Fantasy is a better category) but not all fiction is fantasy.
Fantasy, but its nature, creates an image of something that doesn't exist- a world that doesn't exists- that never could exist.
Dan Brown makes it clear in his introduction (linked to above) that the societies, places , rituals etc are based on reality. Unless you dismiss that as an outright lie (or simply a plot device) then by the authors own claim his book IS placed in a realistic setting. Furthermore, in Dan Brown's case his ideas are based on various theories- most specifically the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail- that DO claim to be real.
Posts: 320 | From: Ireland | Registered: May 2004
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posted
I dismiss it because it was a load of crap that he used to sky-rocket a mediocre book to popularity with, by creating a simple controversy. The book is easily read without ever thinking one bit of it is true to life.
quote:Originally posted by shifty rob: When William goldman wrote The Princess Bride, his "hook" was that it was an abridged version of an earlier book, which his dad had supposedly read to him while skipping over the boring parts.
I always understood that this was part of the fiction. There was no "unabridged" version, it was just a device to allow him to insert himself as narrator into parts of the story. My son, however, read the book and confided in me that someday he would like to read the unabridged version. He didn't see exactly where the line between the writer's fictional universe and the real universe was drawn. thus he was put in the embarrassing position of taking something out of a fictional work and assuming it was true.
Um...I did the same thing. It never even occurred to me that Simon Morgenstern was made up until one of my friends read the book and set me straight. *hangs head*
-------------------- A Viennese fellow is walking along the Karntner Strasse and notices a banana peel lying in his path. "Alas," he sighs, "now I must slip and fall down!" Posts: 506 | From: Missouri | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
Oh, and the one thing that really irked me in the book was when Brown explained how left is feminine and right is masculine; as an example of how the church had demonized the sacred feminine, he claimed that irrational or impractical thought is associated with the "left brain".
But it isn't. The left brain is supposedly logical, the right brain is supposedly irrational and creative.
For some reason, out of the entire book that was the one thing that bugged me most.
-------------------- A Viennese fellow is walking along the Karntner Strasse and notices a banana peel lying in his path. "Alas," he sighs, "now I must slip and fall down!" Posts: 506 | From: Missouri | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:Originally posted by shifty rob: When William goldman wrote The Princess Bride, his "hook" was that it was an abridged version of an earlier book, which his dad had supposedly read to him while skipping over the boring parts.
I always understood that this was part of the fiction. There was no "unabridged" version, it was just a device to allow him to insert himself as narrator into parts of the story. My son, however, read the book and confided in me that someday he would like to read the unabridged version. He didn't see exactly where the line between the writer's fictional universe and the real universe was drawn. thus he was put in the embarrassing position of taking something out of a fictional work and assuming it was true.
Um...I did the same thing. It never even occurred to me that Simon Morgenstern was made up until one of my friends read the book and set me straight. *hangs head*
But how can this be? I have a copy of Morgenstern's "The Silent Gondoliers" on my bookshelf.
(sigh... doesn't even come close to "The Princess Bride.")
Silas
Posts: 16801 | From: San Diego, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
I can't tell if you're being facetious or not, but if not, that book was also written by Goldman. He tells the story of how the idea for it came to him in his book about Hollywood, "Which Lie Did I Tell?"
Posts: 940 | From: California | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:Originally posted by faceless007: I can't tell if you're being facetious or not, but if not, that book was also written by Goldman. He tells the story of how the idea for it came to him in his book about Hollywood, "Which Lie Did I Tell?"
Sorry, just trying to be funny.
(One dislikes to "drop the pretense" of such things. P.D.Q. Bach, or Sherlock Holmes, or the like. It's a game that grown-ups like to play!)
(Ask me whether or not I *really* believe the earth is flat...and I'll evade answering with wondrous agility!)
Silas
Posts: 16801 | From: San Diego, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Izzy Quigley: Oh, and the one thing that really irked me in the book was when Brown explained how left is feminine and right is masculine; as an example of how the church had demonized the sacred feminine, he claimed that irrational or impractical thought is associated with the "left brain".
But it isn't. The left brain is supposedly logical, the right brain is supposedly irrational and creative.
I have to disagree with this. Your final statement is true. However, since the nerves are primarily crossed from left to right and vice versa, in the body the correct interpretation would be opposite that of the brain. (IMO the left-brain/right-brain hypotheses have been so greatly exaggerated and popularized that the concept is practically useless but that's a different subject.)
ETA -- Oh, I see you were objecting to the "left brain" staement only... nevermind!
Posts: 4922 | From: Kyoto, Japan | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
OK, please correct me if I'm wrong, and I will state up front that I did not read the book because I had heard advance word that it was terribly written, BUT:
The biggest problem I have with the "but it's just fiction, it doesn't debunking" theory is that Dan brown himself, while out promoting the book, stated on numerous occasions that some of the ideas were based on fact. He started to shut up about this more and more as he was called on to prove his "facts," but he himself has promoted the idea of the factual basis. THAT is what needs debunking (the supposed "facts" behind the book), not necessarily just what he has written.
ETA cites: Here and here and here, which is supposedly his last interview and where he's clearly backing away from the "facts" and pushing the "fiction" angle more than in early interviews.
-------------------- Like every good third-in-a-series it contains a whole load of ewoks, ‘Clubber’ Lang, whey-faced Sophia Coppola, Sean Connery as the Pirate Captain’s estranged dad, a crappy CGI alien, and Richard Pryor on a donkey. -- Gideon Defoe Posts: 2211 | From: Harford County, MD | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
Yeah, he did, and has been called on it numerous times, as you've said. It's now to the point where you'd have to be mentally handicapped or live under a rock to not know that the book was fiction. And all the debunking really required is "disregard the preface, Dan Brown is a moron. This book is completely fictional." Instead we get not only these little completely silly lists of "FACT vs. FICTION" but also numerous Christian "debunking" books which IMO are just an attempt to cash in on Dan Brown's success, and not at all intended to actually make you give two craps about what's in his book.
quote:Originally posted by Chloe: Silas, do you really think the earth is flat . . .
Define "flat." (Grin!)
quote: . . . and what would be a good reason for not voting for or doing business with an atheist?
Same reason for not doing business with any other individual: if he or she is a stinkard, then shop and/or vote against 'em.
Should an atheist be permitted to preach a sermon or perform a blessing for a dying person? Hefty moral question, in all seriousness. Do the "last rites" lose any real theological power if performed by a non-believer, solely for the comfort of the one who is slipping away? And...would an atheist bother? What possible point would there be to offer comfort to a mind that is about to cease existing entirely? As far as the atheist is concerned, it would be exactly the same to cuss the poor guy out, or mock him, or even to add to his physical pain by gouging at his eyes. In a moment, he has died, and the universe is exactly the same either way.
Silas (I have an answer to that last one, by the way...)
Posts: 16801 | From: San Diego, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
Fiction: Albino person drives car, fires gun with deadly accuracy.
Fact: People with albinism lack retinal pigment, and have very poor vision; most are legally blind.
For some reason this bugged me WAY more than all the religious inaccuracies combined. Anyway, it said to me that Dan Brown sucks as a researcher.
Posts: 75 | From: Bloomington, IN | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
It's just a cruddy movie. Pass it by all together.
-------------------- All the world's a face, And all the men and women merely acne. Posts: 673 | From: Glasgow, Scotland | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
I saw the Da Vinci Code, and have to disagree duck, I thought it was a good movie.
But, in my humble opinion (forgive me if someone else has already said something like this) The absolute #1 biggest flaw with The DaVinci Code, whether book or movie, is People; The people who read it, or see it, and believe it without question.
Some years ago, I watched the movie JFK by Oliver Stone - also a good movie in that it was well written, well acted, etc. I had heard some of the facts and theories previously, so I found myself swallowing the movie hook, line and sinker.
Then, as the years go by, I read books and saw TV specials that refute a lot of "evidence" in the movie. There is considerable evidence that something weird was going on with JFK's assassination, but there is also considerable evidence that one lone idiot did it, and the real conspiracy is the government trying to cover up their incompetence. I wound up feeling kind of like a sap for believing everything the movie had to say.
And there's the problem - it seems like we are ready to believe without thinking about it. How many Urban legends in this very website are really scenes from TV shows and movies? How many people believe in the DaVinci code, even though it's listed as FICTION? How many people do not believe in the holocaust, or landing on the moon, because someone said it's a lie? The flaw is in the human brain - at least in the brains of people so ready to believe without serious thought or investigation.
Posts: 479 | From: Owosso, MI | Registered: Jun 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Rivkah Chaya: Fiction: Albino person drives car, fires gun with deadly accuracy.
Fact: People with albinism lack retinal pigment, and have very poor vision; most are legally blind.
For some reason this bugged me WAY more than all the religious inaccuracies combined. Anyway, it said to me that Dan Brown sucks as a researcher.
Sorry, you are incorrect here. Just watch "Fowl Play", where another albino bad guy does all this, and more. therefore, fictional albinos have excellent vision and can shoot guns and drive cars.
Or were you talking about albinos in real life? Never mind...
-------------------- "They got a name for the winners in the world; I want a name when I lose" -Steely Dan Posts: 480 | From: Tampa Bay, FL | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
I agree with Midgard quite a bit on this... (hey from another world, I get to say hi here now ) that it irks me that debunkers feel the need to debunk a fictional story to me it would be like debunking James bond. the fact that the british secret service has all these cool gadgets, like cloaking Austin Martins with Rockets and submarine qualities... does something like that require debunking?
Another point is unlike a lot of "books about fictional stories" the debunking books do nothing but make the original book sell better, and make people think the book was based on fact when in actual fact it's fiction.
Personally I think it's a poorly written book with an interesting premise, and an interesting literary device in it. one I'd like to see used in a much better way. that of blurring the lines between reality and fiction so that the reader is forced to determine for themself what is actually fact and what is fiction. which i think is what caused all of this debate in the first place.
Posts: 153 | From: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada | Registered: Dec 2004
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DemonWolf
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
posted
quote:Originally posted by FullMetal: that it irks me that debunkers feel the need to debunk a fictional story to me it would be like debunking James bond. the fact that the british secret service has all these cool gadgets, like cloaking Austin Martins with Rockets and submarine qualities... does something like that require debunking?
It bother many debunkers as well that there is a need to debunk this fiction. The difference between debunking this story and debunking James bond is that few people, if any, actually beleive that James Bond is real, or that there are hidden accuracies in James Bond.
Take a walk to your local book store and see how many beleive what is written in The DaVinci Code. You'll see books on the "Gnostic Gospels," On the Holy Grail, that Mary Magdalene was Christ's wife.
If you can point out to be an equal number of books purporting that James Bond or Harry Potter are fictional stories based on hidden truths, I will agree that there is less need to debunk DaVinci Code.
-------------------- Friends are like skittles: they come in many colors, and some are fruity!
quote:Originally posted by Salamander: Fiction is fiction is fiction. If someone wants to claim that the fictionalised events of The Da Vinci Code are real, then yes by all means show them how they're wrong.
I must admit though, the only people I've seen treating Brown's book as non-fiction are the people who insist upon debunking it. If someone can point me towards the large mass of people who believe everything in the book is true then I might change my opinion.
quote:The British survey, released by a group of prominent Catholics, revealed that readers of Dan Brown's blockbuster novel are twice as likely to believe Jesus Christ fathered children and four times as likely to think the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei is a murderous sect.
As has already been mentioned, the movie JFK influenced people's beliefs on JFK's assassination. I'm sure most of us could think of other examples as well.
-------------------- "Hey! Let go of me before something horrible happens to me! OR ELSE!" --Invader Zim Posts: 92 | From: Southern NJ | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Rivkah Chaya: Fact: People with albinism lack retinal pigment, and have very poor vision; most are legally blind.
Er... intersting factoid. Can you back that up? There are several different kinds of albinism. While many albinos do lack normal color vision, and suffer from sensitivity to bright light, not all do. I do not think that "most albinos are legally blind". But I'm willing to delve into any references you may offer. (Sorry to veer off the DaVinci Commode.)
Posts: 4922 | From: Kyoto, Japan | Registered: Sep 2005
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-------------------- "Hey! Let go of me before something horrible happens to me! OR ELSE!" --Invader Zim Posts: 92 | From: Southern NJ | Registered: Nov 2005
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Yeah, as I wrote above, I am quite aware that albinos tend to have visual problems but there are two problems with the statement made: 1) While the medical definition of albinism includes certain problems of the visual system, it is unlikely that one would be able to make such a diagnosis by simply looking at an actor (or actor with makeup) in a movie. Therefore, you would have to include other forms of low pigment that resemble albinism but are not technically albinism. 2) No source I can find says that albinos (even if we somehow could examine the actor or character and diagnose as albino, not just hypopigmented) are usually "legally blind".
Your first link doesn't work for me right now. The others do not confirm that people who have hypopigmentation nor even albinos (again, if you could somehow diagnose it) are usually legally blind. (Even still, the example was kind of dumb. It implies that people with hypopigmentation who can drive and shoot are extremely rare -- not only in the minority.)
Sorry to take exception with what was intended as only an example but let's get the facts straight: if you see someone who looks like an albino driving a car, don't panic. It really is not unusual.
ETA Now I am able to read your first link, in which it lists as one of the fallacies of albinism:
quote:Your child will never dribble a basketball, never drive, never read, never…: The degree of visual impairment varies from person to person, as does the effects of each person’s low vision on what they personally find easy and difficult to do. It’s hard to predict the degree of visual impairment in infants since they can’t communicate what they see. The fact is, people with albinism participate in all kinds of sports, some are able to drive, and many can read normal print. Letting your child discover their own abilities and limits is the best way to discover how a child with albinism’s vision will affect what they can do.
So, I reiterate: Even if you were able to diagnose someone with albinism by looking at them, you would not be able to assess their ability to drive a car or shoot.
ETA2: This page lists all the types of albinism. Of these, only one type is said to be "usually legally blind". Most other types vary greatly. http://albinism.med.umn.edu/newfacts.htmPosts: 4922 | From: Kyoto, Japan | Registered: Sep 2005
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-------------------- "Hey! Let go of me before something horrible happens to me! OR ELSE!" --Invader Zim Posts: 92 | From: Southern NJ | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I only put those links as an information source, Ganzfeld. Not to argue one side or the other.
Sorry, I should have posted my intentions.
-------------------- "Hey! Let go of me before something horrible happens to me! OR ELSE!" --Invader Zim Posts: 92 | From: Southern NJ | Registered: Nov 2005
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-------------------- "Hey! Let go of me before something horrible happens to me! OR ELSE!" --Invader Zim Posts: 92 | From: Southern NJ | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Jocko's in the Driver's Seat: OK, please correct me if I'm wrong, and I will state up front that I did not read the book because I had heard advance word that it was terribly written,
I wish someone had given ME that advance word. I think it WAS terribly written. The "controversy" alone sold that book. It certainly wasn't the author's skill with the written word. To be fair, I read Brown's "Digital Fortress" and found it to be similiarly poorly written. I should've saved myself the effort and taken a nap.
-------------------- "We have normality. I repeat we have normality. Anything you still can't cope with is therefore your own problem." -Trillian Posts: 12 | From: El Paso, TX | Registered: Oct 2005
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) that it irks me that debunkers feel the need to debunk a fictional story to me it would be like debunking James bond. the fact that the british secret service has all these cool gadgets, like cloaking Austin Martins with Rockets and submarine qualities... does something like that require debunking? 
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