When you say you can't squat, how low can you go? I know not going below parallel is a sin but it s better than nothing, despite funny the looks you'll get. I mean, proper deadlifts and some near-parallel squats aren't too bad, so long as they don't kill you.
Aside from that, squats on the smith, lunges, or leg press. They don't really avoid the knee though, maybe a barbell hip thrust would work? I feel like a pleb doing it.
>>5121 Why doesn't everyone sorted into Hufflepuff just get up and leave?
Why didn't everyone who came after Harry on the sorting hat just think of whatever house they wanted?
Why let those outside Gryffindor and maybe Ravenclaw have access to dangerous magic?
Why did such poorly written drivel end up a cultural phenomenon?
Anyway, the houses theme is just an excuse to play dress-up with the girl. The most recognisable character in each house aside from Gryffindor becomes the basis in hair, eyes and freckles.
Fiction is totally unrealistic, how could there be a person called indiana jones that looks identical to Harrison Ford that would be statistically improbable also it is impossible genetically that a man that looks identical Sean Connery could be his father. Are we supposed to just suspend all logic and reason and knowledge of biology? Wow I really hope someone got fired for that blunder.
>>5132 Simply pointing out the fact that all fictional stories on an anal enough scale don't make sense and it is a simply a question of where we suspend disbelief, so it is hardly a fair critique of a story that it has clear narative beats.
People for example like JJ.Abrams films and I find his work like a magic trick where I can see the things he has palmed the entire time but you are more than welcome to enjoy it and I won't judge you for it, but I can't.
No I mean fiction. It might be more obvious in fantasy because of the extra contrivance and there might be more anal nerds picking their universes apart, but it happens in all fiction all the time as part of telling a story it is just normalised. People spout dialogue to inform the audience of something the characters know in a way that they wouldn't feel the need to talk about, characters only talk to other main characters, and they only talk about what is relevant to the story.
Some characters have no inner life at all they just bark plot points, others do really stupid shit and don't properly communicate so that a misunderstanding can happen for contrived tension or we can move on to the set piece.
People are unrealistically groomed and dressed, nightlife is unusual glamorous. No one has a healthy work life balance they are consumed by a singular goal. It is all just as contrived. I'm not attacking it, but it seems weird to take a swing at Harry Potter when we have come to expect a simplified version of the world for every other piece of fiction. Unless you haven't spotted how many contrivances everything else is, or because that isn't your real issue with it.
Not him but I'm sure any author would agree with his point. He's chosen specific examples that would probably be indicative of a poor author, but it happens in almost any work of fiction. Tropes, clichés, and contrivances are often storytelling devices, and like he said, it's just a matter of where you draw the line- It's always there at some point down the line, a good author is just better at obscuring it.
I just think he has a very limited vision of what fiction encompasses. If I wrote an autobiography and I made a load of stuff up it would be a work of fiction but it wouldn't be any more or less believable than if I wrote the truth.
Likewise if I wrote about an imaginary fight that happened in my local pub last December it would also be a work of fiction, but it'd be entirely believable because there are often fights in my local.
Not all fiction fits within the format of the novel.
>>5141 > Not all fiction fits within the format of the novel.
While I'm here I might as well go full on robot moon oven and point out that not all novels are written in the first person, and that not all third person accounts are fictional.
Let's imagine that I follow you around for the day and write down everything you do, all the conversations you have, while chatting with you all the while about what you think about the things that are happening to you.
Upon reading, given the criteria of >>5137, this account is going to be quite utterly unrealistic. The focus will be on a single person, all the other characters will seem empty and not have their motivations explained, all the minor characters will only ever be seen talking to the main character or, perhaps, friends of his and the only real motivation explained will be that of the main character (as only his thoughts are revealed to the author.
Really all of this is a function of narrative, not of fiction.
>>5140 >he's chosen specific examples that would probably be indicative of a poor author, but it happens in almost any work of fiction.
Sure the point was to spell it out for people, and to do that you need examples people will understand and by definition those are simplistic and obvious.
>>5143 >Upon reading, given the criteria of >>5137, this account is going to be quite utterly unrealistic. The focus will be on a single person, all the other characters will seem empty and not have their motivations explained, all the minor characters will only ever be seen talking to the main character or, perhaps, friends of his and the only real motivation explained will be that of the main character (as only his thoughts are revealed to the author.
If you record all of it, isn't going to be unrealistic at all, but it will probably be a dull meandering mess though because real life regularly is.
As soon as you start editing it down and picking parts to weave a story though you are creating a fiction. You can call that a narrative instead if you like that is just semantics.
Even if you never add anything new, it is a fiction, because you have inserted an intent.
>>5141 >Likewise if I wrote about an imaginary fight that happened in my local pub last December it would also be a work of fiction, but it'd be entirely believable because there are often fights in my local.
For a given value of believable, believability is just about how deeply you are willing to dig. If you are willing to go to the really anal layers the details at some point will be wrong, it has to be, the best example I can give you is seeing a film or a tv show set somewhere you live or watching a news report on something you know a lot about, to a normal audience, it will seem fine but you might end up spotting details that are off and jarring, it isn't that it is bad it is just that you have a level of familiarity that makes it unrealistic to you even though a normal audience would never have a problem with it.
Again I will stress a third time. That I am not critical of this existing I think it is fine, just because you understand how something is done doesn't make it any lesser. My objection is pointing that out as if it means something bad because you spotted it for once. 'Harry Potter has a monomyth story line with simple unrealisticly black and white characters' - that doesn't make it bad, that is part of its charm, I don't think anyone for example thought the Adam West Batman was 'realistic' and if you said it was 'unrealistic' people would think you an idiot for even pointing it out and it wouldn't have been better if it was realistic, the point is not to be realistic the point is to be entertaining.
>>5144 > As soon as you start editing it down and picking parts to weave a story though you are creating a fiction.
So by your definition all (auto)biographies and memoirs are works of fiction? The idea indeed may have some merit, just interested if that's exactly what you mean.
> For a given value of believable, believability is just about how deeply you are willing to dig. If you are willing to go to the really anal layers the details at some point will be wrong
I think you're right about this. The thing about most fiction is that it's designed to be entertaining. The dull day to day that most of us experience isn't exactly exciting or entertaining so things have to be tweaked or changed to make it so.
To take an example that I know a lot about, it's always fairly obvious to me how utterly fake all computer hacking/security stuff on TV and in films is; exactly because I know what computer hacking really looks like (someone in their underwear staring at a laptop for weeks at a time, for up to 96 hours at a go, swearing a lot, drinking metric shit tons of coffee or booze, smoking a ton of fags, potentially ingesting other drugs, until eventually he somehow figures it out) and it isn't entertaining at all.
>So by your definition all (auto)biographies and memoirs are works of fiction? The idea indeed may have some merit, just interested if that's exactly what you mean.
That is exactly what I mean. It might be based on a true story, but it is always 'sexed up' in some way, boring bits are cut out, it is focused in to a story. It is at that point to me a work of fiction.
