Mumsy was here? by
Huinesoron
on 2014-09-16 14:12:00 UTC
Reply
That puts the whole thing waaaaaaay back in 2004-2005... which is three quarters of the lifespan of the PPC. For that matter, the moratorium on Emergencies was half our existence ago...
I'd hope the 'without malice or insult or disrespect' statement would go for all fic, not just religious fic - and that it would go without saying. If people are bashing the subject matter itself, rather than the treatment of it, they're doing the PPC wrong. A girl who falls into Middle-earth can be good - but presentation of it as a Mary-Sue is bad. Slash can be good - but bad slash is bad. A, I dunno, devout Scientologist* attempting to convert Darth Vader could be good, provided it bends neither the rules of the universe nor the characterisation of Vader (so, uh, it probably wouldn't work, and would probably end with Simon Tologist being force-choked, but that's Vader for you).
Agents can disagree with the beliefs someone states in a mission - but they should limit their abuse to places where it's done badly. And, like anything else, they should do their research. You wouldn't insult an author for giving their Elf a bow, or even insult the story for using 'such a hopelessly obsolete weapon'; you'd insult the fact that said bow is made of obsidian, after checking that obsidian bows weren't a thing. Equally, you wouldn't insult Christian!Hagrid for saying that 'Evolution is a fairytale', though you might vehemently disagree with him - you'd insult him for overriding Petunia's ability to say anything in response to that statement, for describing atheism as a religion, and for slapping random adjectives on the end of every dialogue tag he uses.
Frankly, there's so much to poke fun at in this story without ever touching on the beliefs of the author that I don't know why you would.
Actually, that's not true: I do know, and something like the evolution part might easily provoke me into a character rant. But... hmm. I'm beginning to see your point.
To take a safe example: imagine you read a story by a devout Greek Pantheon worshipper who had a character claim that in the Real World, there's a bunch of gods living on top of Mount Olympus, looking just like people (only prettier). Well, that's provably false - you can look up satellite photos of the mountain, and they're not there. So... would an agent be allowed to call that stupid? It is stupid, because you can absolutely prove they're not there - but the character insists they are, and seems to be echoing the beliefs of the author.
Darn. This just got annoyingly complex. Is this why we banned it to start with?
hS
