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7/21/2025, 8:32:27 PM
>>532154730
>without seeing that the younger brother should, as a consequence of this imperative, remain in charge of the relationship on account of being a man
That's the crux of my argument. In literature if you deviate from a default assumption there should be a purpose behind it, otherwise it's a distinction without a difference. "Literary shorthand" means that you are utilizing reader assumptions to fill in gaps so you don't have to explain literally everything in painstaking, excruciating detail. Take elves for instance, even after a lot of liberties have been taken with that concept everyone still has a baseline assumption on what an elf is, which obviates the need to explain a lot of things to the reader which would otherwise detract from the core purpose of that piece of media. Similarly, younger sisters deferring to their older brothers is just kind of a given, where older sisters (the key part being a sister, not some random hussy) typically have some degree of authority over their brothers in most modern households.
>your argument about "defaults" doesn't even take father-daughter off the table
It does, because I was speaking of the default of romance, more specifically sibling romance. There's additional aspects of romance than simply age and deference to the man, but if I have to explain literally all of these aspects to you then you weren't worth talking to in the first place, either because you're arguing in bad faith or because you're entirely ignorant of the matter. As a thought exercise, imagine a knight storming a castle and slaying an evil dragon to save the princess, what kind of woman would be perfect for that scenario? That is the literary default.
>without seeing that the younger brother should, as a consequence of this imperative, remain in charge of the relationship on account of being a man
That's the crux of my argument. In literature if you deviate from a default assumption there should be a purpose behind it, otherwise it's a distinction without a difference. "Literary shorthand" means that you are utilizing reader assumptions to fill in gaps so you don't have to explain literally everything in painstaking, excruciating detail. Take elves for instance, even after a lot of liberties have been taken with that concept everyone still has a baseline assumption on what an elf is, which obviates the need to explain a lot of things to the reader which would otherwise detract from the core purpose of that piece of media. Similarly, younger sisters deferring to their older brothers is just kind of a given, where older sisters (the key part being a sister, not some random hussy) typically have some degree of authority over their brothers in most modern households.
>your argument about "defaults" doesn't even take father-daughter off the table
It does, because I was speaking of the default of romance, more specifically sibling romance. There's additional aspects of romance than simply age and deference to the man, but if I have to explain literally all of these aspects to you then you weren't worth talking to in the first place, either because you're arguing in bad faith or because you're entirely ignorant of the matter. As a thought exercise, imagine a knight storming a castle and slaying an evil dragon to save the princess, what kind of woman would be perfect for that scenario? That is the literary default.
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