3 ms·
On a related note, I can spend hours and hours trawling through the star wars wiki [0]. It absolutely feels like a hyperlinked generalisation of reading a novel
by n4r9 8y ago
On a related note, I can spend hours and hours trawling through the star wars wiki [0]. It absolutely feels like a hyperlinked generalisation of reading a novel or series of novels. I haven't even read the books bar one or two lent from a friend when I was a teenager. There's a whole world to explore there in semi-dramatic text format. You can follow links that catch your interest and spin off on a tangent, never feeling compelled to follow and understand some central plotline. You can go from reading about how Darth Maul didn't actually die in Phantom Menace, to the ancient history of the Sith, to the invasion of the galaxy by the enigmatic Yuuzhan Vong and before you know it, half a day has passed.
[0] http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
- dTal 8y agoI don't want to be a downer, and I'm glad you enjoy it, but... I find that engaging with fictional universes this way really exposes the man behind the curtain - contrivances that we forgive because they further the plot within the context of a story suddenly stand out as hugely improbable, or inconsistent with the rest of the universe. Stories are only really designed to feel realistic from a particular perspective - when you glom them together, you don't really get a very coherent universe. It may be a ticklish premise that Darth Maul actually survives and goes on to do this or that, but when you've been reading about Jedi and Sith who've all cheated death in some improbable way dozens of times each, it stretches credibility. It may be fun to read a story about a tiny ship with more destructive power than the Death Star, but if you've just been reading all about the Death Star and how hard it was to build then it starts to raise uncomfortable (and unanswerable) questions about the underlying universe.
- laszlokorte 8y ago100% agree. That's exactly the feeling I have every time I stumble across any thread on scifi.stackexchange.com
- n4r9 8y agoI understand that. It's likely to be an inevitable artefact of translating from stories to hyperlinked fiction. Somehow I'm able to suspend incredulity for the most part, but I get that not everyone would be able to. Perhaps - hopefully - in the future there will be original hyperlinked fiction that doesn't have this problem.
- sexy_devil 8y agoI second this. I've spent a lot of my college days (UK) going through the Star Wars EU on the wiki. Just reading about things from Jizz, to some obscure planets or fights. I never would have spent that much time with Star Wars if not through this method. I do feel like is because a wiki article is not long enough to make me feel like I've taken too long of a break from work and yet engaging enough, to open up the next link. Rinse and repeat.