DSM, have you ever read a book of prose fiction? Cover to cover, the whole thing? Because if you had, you would find that the "logical content" you're waving like a flag is necessary, but insufficient for a good analogy. The logical connection you're convinced is the
end point of an analogy is not that. It is to analogy what putting the landing gear down on a plane is to landing said plane; you can't do it without it, but there's a lot more work to be done after that.
Your focus on the obvious surface connection and angry rejection of any other level of analysis is you angrily rejecting that there is any difference between "DSM
is an idiot," "DSM is
an idiot," "DSM is an
idiot?" and "
DSM is an idiot?" You're correct that tone is kind of involved, but it is not tone trolling to say that those all indicate different things.
You correctly summarize the problem with each of those analogies, though, so good work. You just insist that they work as is anyway, when they're not conveying the same idea on the level where the idea actually matters to the story.
Let's even talk about the counter-example just to show you how wrong you are. Imagine a noir detective story narrated by the protagonist. He could get away with describing someone falling like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup despite that being a bad analogy because it is humorous, maybe cynical characterization. It doesn't reflect on the scene being described so much as it reflects on the person making the comparison. But even in that story, at the climax, when the villain shoots the protagonist's trusted partner McBride - a character the author and the protagonist (and thus the reader, hopefully) have invested in emotionally - in the chest and he falls over a balcony railing 12 stories and explodes on the pavement, you wouldn't want to use the same description because it undercuts the emotional gravitas of the scene.
Not because of any moral dimension whatsoever, but because you are taking the reader right out of the actual scene, with the dramatic weight the author has built up over the entire story, and putting them in a funny one instead, where all of that is turned on its head. And if you did write it that way anyway, it would change the whole focus from McBride's death to the cynicism of the protagonist/narrator. It's a choice of imagery that matters and has actual impact. Assuming you are not trying to make a statement about your narrator, it's a bad analogy.
Brandon Sanderson has an entire character who does this. The character thinks he has these great analogies, but they're actually things like comparing his gun to a banana. They are deliberately funny and it's a device used to characterize the character making those comparisons, they are not effective comparisons of the actual things compared, and
they are not meant to be.
FrankTrollman wrote:I mean seriously, saying it is morally objectionable to use an analogy comparing aspects of blood and soup? Are you stupid? Is that supposed to be for real?
...Yes, yes you discovered me. I'm actually an armadillo SJW. Comparing a fist clenched in anger to an armadillo rolled up in fear is a morally objectionable stereotype that I am trying to rid these interwebs of, beginning, naturally, with the Den. And yeah, thoughts being compared to underwear in a dryer is totally a tone thing; my underwear doesn't tumble, it gracefully floats down and folds itself at the bottom of the dryer, and it upsets me to hear it slandered. And how could anyone with a heart compare hailstones to maggots?
Think of the hailstones. You guys are so cold. *
Whimper*
In all seriousness, fine, I'm done. At no point did I say any comparison was morally objectionable, not even Kaelik's, that was DSM's strawman, but whatever. I have better things to do than argue with honest-to-God illiterates who are falling over themselves to suck Kaelik's lawyer cock.
You made fake quotes of people and then tried to "remind" people that the fake quotes you made up were things that other people had really said!
No, actually, I stopped summarizing other people's arguments and started using direct quotes, but please continue to simply misstate the facts. It's one of your strong suits. I think I still summarized Lago once but that was actually to defend him and I don't think he disagreed with my summary. He can correct me if I'm wrong, though I won't be here to see it.
