[ SECRET POST #4917 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4917 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 42 secrets from Secret Submission Post #704.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

>why does the child have to live in darkness and squalor, exactly?

Because that is how the magic of the town works.

>Do they swap out the child at regular intervals, or is it an immortal and un-ageing being?

Doesn't matter.

>What happens if someone removes the child and gives it a bath?

Town goes to shit.

>Why is it necessary that all citizens know the dark secret?

Magic always has crazy rules.

>Where does the child come from - presumably it had parents at some point?

Doesn't matter.

>if the ones who walk away from Omelas are so distressed by the treatment of this child, why the hell don't they do anything about it?

Like what? Is one person going to fight off a town of people who are cool with a kid being tortured?

It's an allegory.

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, so, it's all handwavy horseshit and I don't need to give a fuck. Cool.
Hey, if I wrote a book called "the city full of people who were real dicks for no reason, trust me this is super profound", do you think I could get English teachers to talk about it for the next fifty years?

[(Anonymous)]

It depends how good it was

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, you don't have to give a fuck about anything.

Did you read Aesop's Fables and scream about HOW FOXES ARE ABLE TO BUY DISHES AND TALK TO STORKS??? It's all handwavy bullshit.

[(Anonymous)]

Aesop's fables are set in a world without theoretically rational people making rational choices, so there is nothing to ask about.

Omelas wants us to believe that a city of people who are basically human exist that behave this way but also don't bother to ask or do things regular people would.

That's the part people struggle with usually. I hope you see the difference here.

[(Anonymous)]

Uh, no? Because "This is a world where animals are semi-sentient and don't automatically eat/flee other animals" is one thing! It's one thing to accept about how this world works, and it's one of the oldest storytelling conventions on the planet! Anthopomorphism is human nature!
However, saying "Imagine if there was a society where most people were happy and healthy but at the expense of someone they never had to look at or think about" isn't going to make me go "Oh wow that's so deep". I'm gonna look at the local Target, full of clothes made in sweatshops in another country, and go, "Uh, yes?"

[(Anonymous)]

Just out of curiosity - your argument seems to be that the story isn't deep because it's an obvious point

Do you think that's what OP's point was? Because that's not what I would take from "so many questions about how this setup is meant to work".

[(Anonymous)]

Hi there, I'm OP. I mean, I can't prove that, we're all anon, I could be any random jackass, you're just gonna have to take it on faith.
Anyway.
I think if a work leave me with more questions about the basic mechanics of the setting than answers, that's a problem. If the same work has something deep and insightful to say about the world or people or society, then I (despite my frustrations about all those questions) will accept that it is a significant work that deserves to be widely-read and widely-studied. If, however, all the work says is a very extended version of the 'tortoise on its back' bit from Blade Runner (you see someone suffering and you do nothing because I the author say so), I'm not going to think very highly of it. I'm going to think it's a bit pretentious.

[(Anonymous)]

I think my points are

one, whether the story is good or pretentious is separate from how realistic and plausible the basic mechanics of the setting are. they're separate considerations. saying that the story is pretentious does not indicate that the details of the setting are bad, or vice versa.

two, the plausibility of the rules and mechanical details of a setting are only, at the absolute most, a matter of aesthetic preference and taste, they're not intrinsically important