Mind control to further plot?

[Quantus]

Yes, certainly, on "a day in the life" type of level.   

Pretty much every historical-immersion type reality show works this way, no?   I mean none of the choices TV characters make while living in the Victorian house/Colonial village/Cod fishing shack are really meaningful Choice.   Yet we're fascinated by their human-level interactions and the meanings they impose on those.

I can make the case that in stories like Asimov's Nightfall (or in real world stories like Grapes of Wrath), there is no individual choice or moment that will significantly improve the characters' outlook.     What's important is that the character is fully engaged in their world, and has feelings about it that we can relate to, and hopes that we can relate to.    Individual hope sets tension far better than rigged externalisms, imo.

In my mind all of those are just a matter of shrinking the stage, not really removing the meaningfulness.  In the context of the character level interactions, which at that point is most of the story, those minor choices matter, in the story's , even if they wont matter tomorrow, or when they leave the island or whatever.  But take away the element of choice (or illusion of it, in my cynical view of US reality TV)and you loose that very hope your talking about.  The whole point of those shows is to put a bunch of people under the same pressure and see watch the differences in their reactions.  Im not saying they all have to teeter on the edge of Mount doom and decide the fate of anything, but without some level of conflict, even conflict avoidance, and in my head you are left with a story about a bunch of people who do what they are told adn go with the flow, without even somethign to compare it to. 
The basic story pattern of Conflict arising followed by a character's interpretation of said conflict and a choice of responses.  For me thats what makes a Story out of a recitation of events.  If every time a choice arises the character has only one option and so always does the obvious thing...  Its like a maze that never branches. 

Yes. Absolutely. (And even your capitalising "choices" is making me a little uncomfortable.)


I may be coming from a slightly unusual perspective on this; my experience living with OCD is such that it is unarguably obvious to me that no amount of wish or desire (or "will" if you want to use that concept) suffices on its own to even make my own mind and body do what I want them to do, some unpredictable amount of the time, let alone affect the rest of the world.  I don't, in other words, believe in free will, at least in the way it is formulated in the DV, and I find philosophical formalisations centring on and valorising free will and constructing responsibility accordingly to very easily fail in a direction equivalent to telling a paraplegic "Of course we'll get you a wheelchair but you just have to show you deserve it by running up these nine flights of stairs first."

I think we're using different values of "meaningful"; I've never been particularly sold on conflict being an essential ingredient to a story worth reading, and I am sufficiently solidly convinced that significance is entirely subjective that if you show me a character happy that their day-to-day, conflicted life is meaningful and worthwhile, sure I'll identify with that and find it emotionally congenial and reassuring.

The Capitalization is a tick that I havent managed to break, there was no particular meaning behind it.  Id capitalize every third word if my hands got their way :p  Im not talking about Choice in the lofty sense of Free Will vs a Deterministic Universe, just in the literary sense of choice as in possible reactions to a given plot development.  However, if you want to run with the philosophical discussion, I would be fascinated by that conversation I think.  You sound like you would have some great thoughts on the Choice and Self  topics   :-)

I think you are right about our different definitions.  What do you mean by Significance is Subjective?  I agree with you on the face of it, but Im not sure how that connects to the idea of a story without conflict.  And I dont mean to say that a character has to have a conflicted Life, or internal conflicts to work out, or come to some lasting change, but I dont see how to make a story devoid of any conflict work.  Even Tao master Whinny the Pooh occasionally got his head stuck in a tree.  I could see having a lot of conflict around him, but that would probably require other less well-adjusted characters to contrast with. 


And arianne, these are just some of the topics and viewpoints you can explore when you start messing with Mind Control.  I hope we are helping 

[arianne]

Thanks everyone for all the helpful views and comments.

Before I go further into this, I thought I'd better clarify what it is I'm trying to do.

The MC Comes of Age in the book and starts developing Weird Powers that he had no idea he had (don't know why I'm capitalizing all those words, but anyway...). From afar, the evil Bad Guy (aka Mr. Mind Conrol) notices the development of these powers and wants to use the MC in his great plan to Take Over the World (mwhahaha and all that sort of thing).

The MC is someone who can literally see someone getting kidnapped in broad daylight on a wide open street and he'll turn away just to avoid having to do something about it.

What the Bad Guy does is less "Pick up the gun, kill the man" and more "oh, look, there's a fight in the alley, go take a look" (I should add that there is something in said alley that the BG wants the MC to see, he's not just randomly willing him to go into dark alleys).

This sort of goes on until a point in the book when the two meet and the MC realizes the whole mind control thing and is thus able to fight against it (like someone seeing through a magic trick who learns to watch for that crucial moment). From then on it leads to the big end-of-the-world scene where the MC comes to terms with his avaoidance issues and ultimately ends up making his own choices and saving the world.

I should say that the book is in third person, and the reader is well aware of the BG long before the MC is. This is to avoid the sort of ending I personally call the ta-dah ending, as in "ta-dah! Guess what, reader? All that vague stuff you just read was the result of the BG's cool mind control powers that no one has mentioned up to now. Gotcha!"

The BG's mind control is something that is necessary for another piece of the plot, so I don't feel like I'm doing it solely to lure in the MC.

And yes, I do worry that it sounds too god-from-the-machine-ish. Not sure how to get past that.

By the way, I'm intrigued by the "using mind control as an avoidance tool", but I'm not sure it works for this particular story.

[arianne]

As for protagonist choices and whether they matter or not, I should say I personally feel like they do, or at the very least, that they should matter. I know there are books where the setting and the plot (for lack of a better word) is what drives the story rather than character action. But     kind of feel like the reader needs someone to "follow" as the course of the story unfolds, and thus if a story is developing as the result of character action and choice, it probably would be easier to get swept up in it, and the climax and big end of the world scenes would probably mean more and make more of an impact.

[Quantus]

Thanks everyone for all the helpful views and comments.

Before I go further into this, I thought I'd better clarify what it is I'm trying to do.

The MC Comes of Age in the book and starts developing Weird Powers that he had no idea he had (don't know why I'm capitalizing all those words, but anyway...). From afar, the evil Bad Guy (aka Mr. Mind Conrol) notices the development of these powers and wants to use the MC in his great plan to Take Over the World (mwhahaha and all that sort of thing).

The MC is someone who can literally see someone getting kidnapped in broad daylight on a wide open street and he'll turn away just to avoid having to do something about it.

What the Bad Guy does is less "Pick up the gun, kill the man" and more "oh, look, there's a fight in the alley, go take a look" (I should add that there is something in said alley that the BG wants the MC to see, he's not just randomly willing him to go into dark alleys).

This sort of goes on until a point in the book when the two meet and the MC realizes the whole mind control thing and is thus able to fight against it (like someone seeing through a magic trick who learns to watch for that crucial moment). From then on it leads to the big end-of-the-world scene where the MC comes to terms with his avaoidance issues and ultimately ends up making his own choices and saving the world.

I should say that the book is in third person, and the reader is well aware of the BG long before the MC is. This is to avoid the sort of ending I personally call the ta-dah ending, as in "ta-dah! Guess what, reader? All that vague stuff you just read was the result of the BG's cool mind control powers that no one has mentioned up to now. Gotcha!"

The BG's mind control is something that is necessary for another piece of the plot, so I don't feel like I'm doing it solely to lure in the MC.

And yes, I do worry that it sounds too god-from-the-machine-ish. Not sure how to get past that.

By the way, I'm intrigued by the "using mind control as an avoidance tool", but I'm not sure it works for this particular story.

That sounds like fun.  OK, so it sounds like the Mind control is more influence than direct control/possession.  That helps quite a bit for me, in that it provides a powerful force, but does not invalidate the decision-making of the MC completely.  What other roles does the mind-control have to serve?  That will affect the types of flavor of mind control.  For example, the Big Bad could be a whispering voice that the MC could eventually learn to recognize as external, or it could be a more wordless compulsion to do or not do certain things, which could be an interesting Magic Feather for an MC who starts doing heroic things because he thinks he is being forced to do them, even after its not affecting him. Or maybe its more of a matter of messing with his perceptions, making him notice or fail to notice important clues.  Or maybe it is tweaking his memory, so that he is convinced that his only way out is through that particular alley, eitehr in a dream-logic "it made sense at the time" sort of way, or because he could have sworn he parked hi car down there. 

One thing you will need to do is make sure to limit the Mind Control.  A Big Bad who can make Anyone who is Anywhere do Anything is godlike already, and could basically declare himself in charge at any time.  So you'll want to limit it by time or target or distance or duration or something.  Maybe it only works on those that are specially marked, or who he has a thaumaturgical type link to, or maybe it only works at night, or is just suggestions implanted during sleep, or only works within 100 yards, or by direct sound or eye contact.  Maybe its nanites in his brain that can be shorted out, or a potion that wears off after 24 hours, or even a skill that can be countered with training and practice.  The Mind Control is the first enemy the MC is going to have to face and defeat before he actually faces the BigBad, so make sure that battle has character all its own. 

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

One thing you will need to do is make sure to limit the Mind Control.  A Big Bad who can make Anyone who is Anywhere do Anything is godlike already, and could basically declare himself in charge at any time.  So you'll want to limit it by time or target or distance or duration or something.  Maybe it only works on those that are specially marked, or who he has a thaumaturgical type link to, or maybe it only works at night, or is just suggestions implanted during sleep, or only works within 100 yards, or by direct sound or eye contact.  Maybe its nanites in his brain that can be shorted out, or a potion that wears off after 24 hours, or even a skill that can be countered with training and practice.  The Mind Control is the first enemy the MC is going to have to face and defeat before he actually faces the BigBad, so make sure that battle has character all its own.

On the other hand, a main character having to be smart enough to go up against an enemy who could command anything at a time and figure a way around that would be way neat if you could make it work.  (Lots of distractions is how I would approach it. lots and lots of distractions.)

[OZ]

I seem to remember reading a short story about this many years ago. The main character manages to sneak up on the villain (mostly, if I remember correctly, because he was so insignificant that the villain was not paying attention to him ). He ends up taking the villain's powers ( I believe they were machine based ) and becoming every bit as evil as the villain. It was the old "absolute power corrupts absolutely" idea. I wish I could remember the story and read it again. There was a lot more complexity to the plot than what I have related here, other characters and what not.

[Quantus]

On the other hand, a main character having to be smart enough to go up against an enemy who could command anything at a time and figure a way around that would be way neat if you could make it work.  (Lots of distractions is how I would approach it. lots and lots of distractions.)

Aha, but does it require active attention, or are we talking implanted suggestions?  The more clever you want the MC to be in circumventing the mind control, the more specific and detailed you need to present the power.  It is the limits of the power, its boundaries and loopholes, that will determine what he must do to get around it. 

If you ever get the chance there is an anime called Code Geass that is a great look at mind control.  A high school kid gets the ability to instill one unbreakable command in a target via direct eye contact.  Its all about that very thing; being clever to work around a supposed absolute mind control.  At first he tests the limits, like telling a girl to scratch a tally on the school wall every day (to see ow long it would last).  Several years later and he has taken over the world (stories that follow the villain are so fun)  and she is still happily scratching a single line on this wall (no covered in them) every morning before getting on with her day. 

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

If you ever get the chance there is an anime called Code Geass that is a great look at mind control.  A high school kid gets the ability to instill one unbreakable command in a target via direct eye contact.  Its all about that very thing; being clever to work around a supposed absolute mind control.  At first he tests the limits, like telling a girl to scratch a tally on the school wall every day (to see ow long it would last).  Several years later and he has taken over the world (stories that follow the villain are so fun)  and she is still happily scratching a single line on this wall (no covered in them) every morning before getting on with her day.

On a similar theme, I recommend Greg Egan's novel Quarantine, the first-person protagonist of which has a loyalty mod implanted in his brain, and deals with it rather cleverly in ways I'd rather not spoil.

[Figging Mint]

In my mind all of those are just a matter of shrinking the stage, not really removing the meaningfulness.  In the context of the character level interactions, which at that point is most of the story, those minor choices matter, in the story's , even if they wont matter tomorrow, or when they leave the island or whatever.  But take away the element of choice (or illusion of it, in my cynical view of US reality TV)and you loose that very hope your talking about.

Correct, but  emotional involvement does _not_ scale to the same measure as the significance of actions.     

Since we are empathic and sympathetic beings, we care more about emotional arcs than about the strict resume of what a character will do within a given plot.      So we can shrink the actual scale of realistically significant actions down to vanishingly small, while at the same time keeping a full range, an efflorescent diversity if you will, of emotional engagement.

You could call this "The Emotional Narrator", I suppose.    Hope is perfectly preserved (unless I wish it not to be) by the Emotional Narrator's own optimism (aka delusion) about real world actions and their significance.

I find this level of narration both realistic and in keeping with today's politicized news propagation - in this day and era we none of us expect unemotional perception, let alone narration of real-world actions and their significance.   

[Quantus]

Correct, but  emotional involvement does _not_ scale to the same measure as the significance of actions.     

Since we are empathic and sympathetic beings, we care more about emotional arcs than about the strict resume of what a character will do within a given plot.      So we can shrink the actual scale of realistically significant actions down to vanishingly small, while at the same time keeping a full range, an efflorescent diversity if you will, of emotional engagement.

You could call this "The Emotional Narrator", I suppose.    Hope is perfectly preserved (unless I wish it not to be) by the Emotional Narrator's own optimism (aka delusion) about real world actions and their significance.

I find this level of narration both realistic and in keeping with today's politicized news propagation - in this day and era we none of us expect unemotional perception, let alone narration of real-world actions and their significance.   

I dont disagree with any of that (except the bit about the news; i expect quality journalism, i just dont ever get it anymore ) 
The thing is, in most of those sort of Swept Along stories I can think of there is still the conflict, the challenge to that delusion, the moment where the Optimist chooses to persevere or to abandon

Unless you mean actual documentary style writing, just with an emotional slant.  Thats a whole different kind of writing, and not what I generally reach for, I was meaning things in the more traditional story fiction type.

[Figging Mint]

Unless you mean actual documentary style writing, just with an emotional slant.  Thats a whole different kind of writing, and not what I generally reach for, I was meaning things in the more traditional story fiction type.

See, I think actual documentary style writing is on the same spectrum as what I'm talking of, one simply adds various amounts of emotional significance and stirs.     Blogs were on this spectrum.   Diaries as well.

Traditional story fiction with a Moment Of Action/Decision reads entirely too teleological to me, in a (and this is going to sound unkind) way that panders to my delusion of individual importance.  The only reliable way to make it sound _not_ pandering is if the narrator/protagonist is actually deluded, inaccurate, misled, or otherwise false. 

(apologies to arianne for being unhelpful and distracting from the main question of her thread)