I'm not sure how I feel about knowing which Nancy you meant before you clarified it.
I tend to think golden age concepts of good and evil are boring. You know, Superman is good for goods sake and Lex Luthor is evil for evils sake. But ultimately, they have to get there. And people are not essentially ever completely good or completely evil. There is always a reason or a belief behind it and people, no matter how few, are going to identify with that.
But yeah. It's kind of hard to know which argument to make if you don't define what is evil.
another panelist is mentioning the difference between villains and antagonists, which would be more meaningful if someone had defined the term "evil" but it is obviously too late now.
(...takes down notes for when next year's Arisia is looking for panel ideas...)
Actually, the "definition" problem is a thorny one. You are obviously aware of what happens when you don't define terms. But if you *do* try to define terms, you can spend the entire panel on that, and never get around to the actual (alleged) panel topic.
They started a new thing this year, of putting panelists in email communication with each other a few weeks before the con. If they do that again next year, I am going to suggest (for my panels at least) tackling the definition side of things over e-mail. if the panelists can present the audience with a united front of "This is the definition we are using for this panel; live with it," then that might be able to dispose of the issue with only a few minutes of panel time.
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I tend to think golden age concepts of good and evil are boring. You know, Superman is good for goods sake and Lex Luthor is evil for evils sake. But ultimately, they have to get there. And people are not essentially ever completely good or completely evil. There is always a reason or a belief behind it and people, no matter how few, are going to identify with that.
But yeah. It's kind of hard to know which argument to make if you don't define what is evil.
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(...takes down notes for when next year's Arisia is looking for panel ideas...)
Actually, the "definition" problem is a thorny one. You are obviously aware of what happens when you don't define terms. But if you *do* try to define terms, you can spend the entire panel on that, and never get around to the actual (alleged) panel topic.
They started a new thing this year, of putting panelists in email communication with each other a few weeks before the con. If they do that again next year, I am going to suggest (for my panels at least) tackling the definition side of things over e-mail. if the panelists can present the audience with a united front of "This is the definition we are using for this panel; live with it," then that might be able to dispose of the issue with only a few minutes of panel time.
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