I think you're onto to something but the signal to noise problem is pretty extreme. A whole lot of storytelling is tied up in the problems of a apparently powerless protagonist in conflict with vastly superior powers. David and Goliath, Frodo and Sauron, Jack and the Giant-atop-the-Beanstalk...
Whenever the storyteller awards the victory to the underdog there is often likelihood that trickery, deception, fraud, deviousness and -- as you say -- subversion is involved. Not always. David wins merely by the favor of God. But often. Jack subverts the giant's household. The giant's wife's loyalty, persuading her to hide him (in her --cold -- oven, in some versions, even while the giant is crashing around threatening to grind his bones to bake his bread); the giant's harp's magic -- Jack using the harp to lull the giant to sleep while Jack himself makes off with a sack of gold; culminating in the ending where Jack literally cuts the support structure -- beanstalk -- out from under the giant.
I'm wondering how to tease out distinctions between "subversion" from "deception" in plot lines, generally.
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Structure
Date: 2005-08-08 05:08 pm (UTC)Whenever the storyteller awards the victory to the underdog there is often likelihood that trickery, deception, fraud, deviousness and -- as you say -- subversion is involved. Not always. David wins merely by the favor of God. But often. Jack subverts the giant's household. The giant's wife's loyalty, persuading her to hide him (in her --cold -- oven, in some versions, even while the giant is crashing around threatening to grind his bones to bake his bread); the giant's harp's magic -- Jack using the harp to lull the giant to sleep while Jack himself makes off with a sack of gold; culminating in the ending where Jack literally cuts the support structure -- beanstalk -- out from under the giant.
I'm wondering how to tease out distinctions between "subversion" from "deception" in plot lines, generally.