[B5JMS] Amazing Spider-Man #510 (SPOILER SPACE--BIG REVELATION)

[b5jms at cs.columbia.edu]

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From: arromdee at green.rahul.net (Ken Arromdee)
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 16:37:03 +0000 (UTC)
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In article <20040805025244.12159.00002942 at mb-m01.aol.com>,
Jms at B5 <jmsatb5 at aol.com> wrote:
>To jump in here...as much as I can, I always try to do my homework, and I'd
>have to be the sloppiest writer in the history of...well, really sloppy writers
>to not take into account the time factor in Spidey chronology, and deal with it
>straight-up in the writing.

I think you underestimate how sloppy the chronology has been in the past.
Look at Trouble, for instance.

>This isn't a time travel deal, it's not an alternate history story, it's not a
>hoax, it's not a clone story, it's not, in short, a *cheat*.

On the other hand, not everyone agrees on what a cheat is.  If the missing
words in the letter show that those aren't Gwen's kids, and that Peter's
reaction, which seemed to be about him and Gwen having kids, really was about
something else, would that be a cheat?  It's not the kind of cheat you
describe--it doesn't depend on the weirdness of the comic book genre.  Yet
many readers would still think of it as one.

>I have too much
>respect for the readers to do that.  Is it what people are assuming it is, with
>only part of the information?  Yes...and no.  All the information isn't out
>there yet.

People are assuming that those are Gwen's kids.  It's really hard for that
to be a "yes and no" thing, because Gwen couldn't be just a little bit
pregnant.  Maybe the father isn't Peter, which I suppose is a "yes and no",
but that doesn't help the time problem.

>The amusing thing has been watching some of the online critics who, being
>themselves unable to think how it could be done in a way that isn't stupid,
>come to the assumption that the story is going to be as stupid as those
>assumptions...and go after it as a result, not understanding that it's the
>parameters they're seeing inside their own head that they're reacting to, not
>what's in the story...because the story hasn't been told in full yet.

I've heard that before.  Usually it turned out the story really was as
stupid as the assumptions.
-- 
       Ken Arromdee / arromdee_AT_rahul.net / http://www.rahul.net/arromdee

"One day, I shall come back.  Yes, I shall come back! Until that day, there
must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties.  Just go forward in all your
beliefs, and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine..."
"

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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: 05 Aug 2004 22:11:48 GMT

>On the other hand, not everyone agrees on what a cheat is.  If the missing
>words in the letter show that those aren't Gwen's kids, and that Peter's
>reaction, which seemed to be about him and Gwen having kids, really was about
>something else, would that be a cheat?  

No, it's the same as it is with any good mystery, you layer the clues out
slowly.  What comes out will not be inconsistent with what's written.  If it
were, then it would be a cheat.

I thin it's important to play fair with the audience, so that at the end of a
given story, if they roll back the film, as it were, all the pieces were there
to figure something out, in plain sight...they may not have known the
implications at that time, but at the end, it all adds up, and you don't change
the rules mid-stream.  


 jms

(jmsatb5 at aol.com)
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