h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just to weave a yarn or two without having any deep meanings embedded in the tale?

I shall poke my head out of the foxhole....

It appears to be fine with the blockbuster movie crowd. I've yet to detect a point to superhero movies. And since I couldn't possibly enjoy the thought of living in one of their worlds, why would I bother watching?

I didn't actually say that you shouldn't try to say something sensible with your story - not that I'm in favour of plastered-on 'morals', either. But whether you're on a rant or have a sly desire to make the world a better place, you've still got to start with a story, right?

Hasn't every story, no matter how daft, got a moral aspect to it?

I suppose it depends on how deep the reader looks....David and Goliath could be seen as a superhero tale, Samson losing his superpowers?

As humans, I think we're all just looking for answers, writing gives us a chance to peel back some layers and expose yet more questions, even if it's by accident!

Surely, the idea of God is the original superhero story. The narrative is that this supreme being has absolute power without us being able to predict whether it's going to use it beneficially or harmfully. Therefore, all we're left with is the possibility that worshipping it will placate it in some way. I think Stan Lee was very aware of this in, for example, the theme running through Spiderman where the newspaper editor opposes the idea of a superhero in favour of a less than perfect human democratic agency.

(Sorry, the hidden post is one I yikesed and hid because it was accidentally blank. I thought it looked bad. This looks worse. My apologies.)

Have fun with this debate. I feel that my words have been twisted out of recognition, and that I am being used as a straw man for what you want to argue against. You're welcome to do this - I don't mind in the least! - but I refuse to defend ideas I didn't put out there in the first place.

I shall read with interest.

Dear DG my apologies if I've twisted anything, not my intention at all

Oh, no, no problem. I just didn't have a position about superheroes.

I merely mentioned these recent movie series because to me they're an example of stories that go on and on and make you memorise useless trivia about their 'universes' without really delivering any payoff with their convoluted plots. It doesn't have to have a superhero in it.

The Superpower of Topic Drift...

I won't insist that you prove that God exists but storytelling is a very important part of being human. Robbie posted that thing about artificial intelligence and liminal spaces - storytelling gives us the comfort of thinking that the liminal spaces are temporary by structuring a beginning, middle and end but really our existential angst tells us that human being is all about being in that liminal space.
The point I was making about superheroes is the idea of transparency (Justice must be seen to be done). If we can't see the outcome of actions, either because they are hidden from us or because they are random acts of magic, we have no part in that story.

Since we're talking about writing here, as opposed to epistemology - and yeah, I know what Einstein said about the necessity of an epistemology - I'd disagree.

In storytelling, hidden causes and random acts of magic are often the starting point for a tale. If the hidden cause is ultimately revealed, you have one kind of ending. If it isn't, you have another.

Don't mind me: the other night, I rewatched 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead'. I enjoyed it hugely. The characters never do figure out what's going on, and the audience probably gets about halfway there. But that's not the point of the play - we don't care. We're too busy having our minds profoundly bent.

Yes, Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are almost as good as Vladimir and Estragon but I must admit I prefer Professional Foul.
Hidden causes revealed or remaining hidden do indeed give different endings but 'really' know that this story does not , necessarily, have an end so hidden causes become an existential problem.

There's a 'we' missing from that for some reason

A profound observation, that last post.