Well, yeah. If you simplify plots to the point of absurdity, there are probably only six. Here, I'll simplify it to one: story starts, ends.
this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
2 points (62.5% liked)
Folklore, Myths, Legends, and Fairy Tales
781 readers
1 users here now
Welcome to c/Folklore @ Mander.xyz!
Notice Board
This is a work in progress, please don't mind the mess.
- 2023-06-13: We are looking for mods. Send a dm to @[email protected] if interested!
About
Rules
- Don't throw mud. Be kind and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
- No spam.
Resources
Tools:
Collections:
- Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts Collection edited and/or translated by D. L. Ashliman
- Multilingual Folk Tale Database: 10k folk stories from all over the world
Similar Communities
Sister Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
Plants & Gardening
Physical Sciences
Humanities and Social Sciences
Memes
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
You just threw away the baby with the bath water.
or for the technical types:
You approximated sin(x) around 0 as x=0.
or
Underfitting.
I do think, the analysis is interesting beyond the singular conclusion being highlighted in the headline, but yeah, to make it even more obvious how uninteresting that particular conclusion is, a little visualization:
| Archetype | Shape |
|---|---|
| Rags to riches | ⟋ |
| Riches to rags | ⟍ |
| Icarus | ⟋⟍ |
| Man in a hole | ⟍⟋ |
| Cinderella | ⟋⟍⟋ |
| Oedipus | ⟍⟋⟍ |
Basically, that conclusion can be reduced to say that humans don't like stories with 4 or more rises/falls, because all possible combinations for less than 4 are covered.
Oh geeze, no. This is reductive to the point of not being useful. The "plots" are just how much positive and negative things are happening in the story at certain times. This doesn't cover anything that we'd be ambivalent about or anything more subtle than a good/bad dichotomy.