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> But why tell me that something is not a graphic novel because it is too short, never having previously established a specific length requirement Because this
by Nevermark 2y ago
> But why tell me that something is not a graphic novel because it is too short, never having previously established a specific length requirement
Because this (personally driven) discovery of the first American graphic novel, is itself, written as a narrative of thought.
I expect many, if not most, definitions of the first species of some group were defined in response to the search for some intuited threshold in the same way.
We get “clean” seemingly obvious definitions after the fact. That hide how much the definition got crafted to fit the emergent particulars, instead of the particulars being sifted through a preceding clear definition.
Unlike math & physics, delineations in history emerge from accumulations of happenstance, not fundamental principles.
- mamcx 2y agoI like it how is done in https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UrExample https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UrExample Often, an Ur-Example doubles as the Trope Maker — but not always, and far less often with ancient tropes, which often evolved over a long period of time rather than suddenly bursting forth from someone's head, fully formed. When they're distinct, a Trope Maker differs from an Ur-Example in that the latter is realized to have met the definition of the trope only after later storytellers started doing it on purpose. The started doing it on purpose means that something arise first but could take some time to get into the `shape` we recognize as such.