Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Path: news.duke.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!nntp.abs.net!uunet!dca.uu.net!ash.uu.net!world!not-for-mail
From: buzzard@TheWorld.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: A Mind Forever Voyaging irony
Sender: news@world.std.com (Mr Usenet Himself)
Message-ID: <Gzs3r1.5ss@world.std.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2002 00:23:24 GMT
References: <3d1fd0ee.301340218@news.easynews.com> <ahl8sr$q4b$1@joe.rice.edu> <Pine.LNX.4.44.0207240453430.32727-100000@zork.plover.net> <ahmico$5s0$1@joe.rice.edu>
Nntp-Posting-Host: shell01.theworld.com
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test72 (19 April 1999)
Lines: 39
Xref: news.duke.edu rec.games.int-fiction:71320

Lucian P. Smith <lpsmith@rice.edu> wrote:
>: But Perry had everything he wanted in the
>: simulation (unlike Truman)
>
>No, Truman was also given everything he wanted.

This is false, and was a significant flaw in the movie:
this is what Christo *claims* in his final monologue,
but in point of fact Truman has spent most of the movie
obsessing over a woman who was taken away from him, and
whom Christo shows no inclination to return to him.

However, I agree with your general point, although I think
there is a stronger argument to be made from The Matrix,
which features a human character who wants to go return to
the sim and an AI character who desperately wants out of it.

When I posted about it before[*], the only claim I advanced
was that it was pointless to call the sim "Perry Simm's
reality", and I didn't get any disagreement. But I think
there are a lot more fairly obvious analogies to be drawn
in the behaviors of those two characters.

Specifically, I think it is intended to seem cowardly
of the one human who wants to be put back in the sim
to live out the rest of his life as a rich and powerful
virtual guy munching on steaks. No surprise that this
character is a villain in the movie. And I think people
DO perceive it as cowardly. And yet the analogy between
this person and PRISM is fairly strong, except for their
respective protagonist vs. antagonist roles.

(I also think it's intended to seem sympathetic for the
one AI to want to get out of the Matrix, but since it
would be at the cost of the human resistance, it's not
something moviegoers sympathize with.)

SeanB
* http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=GypAIn.JsK%40world.std.com
