[B5JMS] Where is JMS? In the past he defended Sins Past

[b5jms at cs.columbia.edu]

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From: tphile <tphile at cableone.net>
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 00:44:39 -0500
Lines: 93

Jms at B5 wrote:

>>Regardless-- at some point you had the idea to make these
>>*Gwen's* kids. At this stage, you realize that if they're Gwen's kids, they
>>can't be more than six years old, tops. When you reach this stage, you should
>>have said to yourself, "okay, I obviously can't make this work." Instead, you
>>come up with the outrageous idea that the kids somehow aged 18 years in just
>>six. You had an idea that can't reasonably work but (for some reason) you
>>were
>>absolutely committed to write it, CREDIBILITY BE DAMNED. This is BAD
>>storytelling. 
> 
> 
> How does one apply that rule in a universe that incorporates Sorcerers Supreme,
> Thunder Gods, mutants, gamma-ray strong-guys, and somebody who got bit by an
> irradiated spider who suddenly gains its powers...?
> 
> Why are all THOSE things credible and rapid aging inconceivable when we even
> have a rough scientific basis for that in progeria, where we see children start
> to age and even die of old age by thirteen...where there has not been even a
> *hint* of scientific data to support anybody getting powers from irradiated
> spiders?
> 

JMS  they are all the same comic conventions with pretty much the same 
level of credibility.    or as you called them   "cheats"
Rapid growth is as much a comic cheat as time travel or cloning.
(the most notable case that I recall being the Carol Danvers Ms Marvel 
Immortus pregnancy)

but you promised no cheats. in this unedited quote of your post
and that puts a high standard for the story to meet
and rapid growth to solve a timeline is just another "cheat"
though technically you might say that you promised not to use the listed
cheats,   and nothing about using a differetn cheat.
is readers wrath so hard to understand?


tphile







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.  And we do, about two issues down the road, 
address
this issue in absolutely straightforward terms.

The math not only works, in fact it becomes a major aspect of the story, 
as you
will see in about two months.

To the broader questions raised here...I don't generally believe in 
cheats.  In
B5, we only did one time-travel story (across two episodes, showing both 
sides
of that story) and I went clear around the horn to make sure that there 
were no
cheats in that story.

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*.  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.

All I can say is...it isn't a throw-away, reset the button story, it's 
the real
deal.

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.

There are four more issues to go in this story, and every one of them is 
a real
toad-strangler.

  jms

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Lines: 76
From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: 12 Oct 2004 07:00:46 GMT

>JMS  they are all the same comic conventions with pretty much the same 
>level of credibility.    or as you called them   "cheats"

Except that I didn't.

>Rapid growth is as much a comic cheat as time travel or cloning.
>(the most notable case that I recall being the Carol Danvers Ms Marvel 
>Immortus pregnancy)

No, it's not.

>but you promised no cheats. in this unedited quote of your post
>and that puts a high standard for the story to meet
>and rapid growth to solve a timeline is just another "cheat"
>though technically you might say that you promised not to use the listed
>cheats,   and nothing about using a differetn cheat.
>is readers wrath so hard to understand?

Yes, it is, on this count at least, because I *didn't* cheat.  Here's where you
went off the rails.  

You are using such a broad definition of cheating as to make the term
meaningless.  You are saying that if one uses a fantasy or SF device, that's a
cheat.  But that's not a cheat, and that's not what I said.  

Let's go to the record of what I *did* say, shall we, and discover why this is
NOT a cheat?

I said --

>To the broader questions raised here...I don't generally believe in 
>cheats.  
>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*.  

A cheat is when you tell everybody it's one thing and at the very last second
change it to something else to escape the consequences of what you've written. 


So if I led the readers on to think they were Gwen's kids, and it turned out
that --

OHMYGOD THEY'RE TIME TRAVELERS! or OHMYGOD THEY'RE THE CLONE'S KIDS! or OHMYGOD
THEY'RE JUST HOAXING HIM! 

-- then it's a cheat.  I think that's pretty clear.

You are trying to say that *ANY* kind of use of SF, comics or fantasy devices
constitutes a cheat, in which case since the entire Marvel universe is based on
that stuff, then ipso facto the whole THING is a cheat...and the term becomes
meaningless.  If you're going to say that this MUST and can ONLY have a
solution that has NOT ONE SINGLE element of the comic book universe that it
inhabits, then you are putting on impossible restrictions.

I started off this road implying that these were Gwen's kids.  I provided a
solution that is consistent not only with the Marvel universe but even science
(with a variation on progeria), rather than having to go around the horn to
come up with time traveling Stacy clones that come in at the eleventh hour to
explain the whole thing away so that THE STORY YOU JUST READ DOESN'T MEAN
ANYTHING!

That, fella, is a cheat.

And that, this *ain't*.


 jms

(jmsatb5 at aol.com)
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