What's the point of consuming Fiction?

What's the point of consuming Fiction?

It's enjoyable

So is a lot of things that aren't good for you

Makes you wiser...

And so are a lot of things that are good for you. You'll have to do more than that to establish that fiction is bad

Would a philosophy or religious text not be better suited for this?

But the benefits of fiction can be found better elsewhere

Where?

An enlightening form of escapism.

Better than playing videogames and if consumed regularly and properly can make you half decent author.

I feel like everytime this thread is made, the OP thinks we are reading some Twilight tier shit

Mhm maybe it is fun???

See why is better then a story driven game?

Not Twilight, but other Fantasy and Sci-Fi, and even "literature"

And?

The benefits of eating an apple can also be found on eating pears.

OP, what is your fucking problem? I mean, really, look into your heart and whatever, what is the fucking problem? If you see no point in reading fiction, then don't. Most people don't read anything at all anyway.

Top tier qt thanks pal

>fun
STOP WITH THAT FUCKING BUZZWORD

It's tasty!

There is not point just like there is no point for anything
>tfw 2smart

>why is better then a story driven game?
Most games have very lazy writing.
Most games aren't text adventures.
Most games cannot demonstrate how to write a good atmosphere
Most story games are self insert garbage.

I know because I've played a lot of games and hated tyranny.

I'm just saying I wanna feel like I'm not wasting my time reading basic bitch Star Wars novels but the only arguements I can come up with are based on "fun" and "I like the setting" which seem to be purely hedonistic, so I'm baiting people into making my own justification for me cause I feel like whatever justification I make will be flawed but other people's won't[/spoiler{

Psychic death.

I read fiction because I want to write fiction.

It is literally the only way to get good at it.
Read it and write it.

See how other people do it and make it better.

Also whenever you depend on a visual medium to tell a story the writing will suffer because it won't depend as much in writing to have impact. Other factors will be involved in creating the mood.

Reading fiction is better than playing video games and watching movies.

But books don't let your explore settings or make your own choices

Yesterday I saw a man in the subway with a book that was 800+ pages long. I couldn't see what it was, but I could tell it was fiction and he was in the last 30 pages or so. When the train stopped, he hesitated and rushed a sentence before leaving the train with his finger marking the page, perhaps to sit somewhere and finish it. I wonder how long did it take for him to read all that and what sort of feeling and thought must be going through his heads after getting involved in that story. This is an unique feeling. It might be somewhat similar to watching a very good and long movie or marathoning a series, or playing a long game, but it is also something of its own kind. Those who read know it to be so.

Choose your own adventure books do.
As far as exploring settings, well that's where you start getting more books on the extended universe. You dig up info on the world's and specie's you've encountered on your literary adventures and really get a sense for that world and it's people.

Videogames, if you've played them a lot will always fall flat in the end, feel 2d and you'll be reminded that it's a bunch of audio files mixed with graphics.
The world is static and no real mystery exist beyond it's platform.


But you know, what the fuck do I know. I'm just a guy putting off work.

I see.

user, you don't need any sort of validation for reading anything. Not everything you do must have a "point", a justified part in the narrative of your life, not everything must be about your career or about "improving yourself" in any way. I won't even say "read it for the fun of it", because the point is that you don't really need to do a certain thing "for" another thing, you don't need to justify it or even put into words. This is a common contemporary form of anxiety, user.

You are right to feel your justifications are "flawed", except they are not flawed, they just don't cover everything, they don't fully correspond to what you do. I know this because this is true to all justifications, including that of others. But when others come up with it, you are more easily fooled then when you try to fool yourself into making something up.

Chill, bro.

I've played Mass Effect 2, Witcher 3, Fallout New Vegas, and I've experienced making "choices" in these video games. Back in high school and early college when I thought this was the best, I guess I enjoyed myself, but why do you think these choices are making you a better person? Or are more entertaining? Because you weigh the moral options and decide to save a race of Fuckwitfagboys? or decide to fuck Tali? How is that superior to learning the ins and outs of what a man like Swann goes through when courting Odette? How is deciding what to do with the fate of the desert in New Vegas superior to learning how to reason by reading Plato? How is learning how to enjoy life outside video games by reading Montaigne even comparable to choosing whether or not to do something moral or who to fuck in a video game when the choice is so obvious, anyway?

Perhaps this is why games that are written beforehand tend to be so much more successful. Similar to how people do better with a goal, or a purpose or point, rather than flying or sailing without any destination in mind; sometimes the "go with the flow" and "it'll work out" attitudes do work out, mostly they don't.

I mean, look at how well fantasy rpg's have been doing in the western world this past decade or so. Skyrim is a piece of toddler-level shit, but it was made passable by public opinion and modding, reaching out to those who had already had a stake in the series and pushing into the mainstream.

One that did the same but didn't write out much of its content beforehand and failed horribly was Kingdoms of Amalur. It had all the necessary components to be a popular and successful game, millions of dollars in budget, and included pop culture and obscure mythology references. Their media campaign was surprisingly well-done, though lackluster compared to Bethesda's play. The difference is that Skyrim was a written concept with a game built around it -- catering to what was missing from its previous installments; KoA pushed a bunch of different puzzle pieces together and tried to force them to fit. It didn't go so well.

To find yourself and to be strengthened in the process, duh.

Reading helps make you a more critical thinker, gives you better insights if you practice introspection and relating what you read to your life and the world around you. Fiction is more oft than not the author's answer to a "what if" or "how would this play out?" and by virtue of reading alone expands your perception to include the possibilities contained in the work(s) of fiction. Literature by definition is fiction, as well.

Video games can do the same, but tend to be built with certain end results at the end of an obvious chain -- so it's more straightforward and accessible to, say, fuck Character X by increasing their disposition through side quests or mini-events. A player's choices in-game tend to reflect how they perceive the game itself, either as a medium for escapism or release or role play.

One player might think an exploit (C4, infinite caps, New Vegas) is acceptable because it's a video game, and the exploit helps them arrive at the end results faster (certain weapons, perks, etc). Another player might think it reflects poorly on their moral character IRL and that exploits/hacks/glitches are cheating or ruin the role they're playing. Hell, the enterprising player will find a way to make money IRL from their finds by creating something (blog post, yt video, ebook) explaining how to do it, or taking their audience with them for the more amusing events.

Though, like says, you really don't need a "reason" per se. If it doesn't harm yourself or another person, just go for it. You by no means require a justification or defensible position for everything you think, say, or do.

Not that guy but thank you for your post and answering him

A’s gay as it sounds: You only get to live one life and it is ruled by your own feelings, upbringing, context and ideals. This is not to mention your current setting, occupation etc. when you ready fiction you give yourself the chance to enter someone else’s shoes. To expand your perception of the world and to travel to new places and worlds where you can escape the box you are trapped in. You get the chance to meet new people and walk through cities, landscapes and time periods that would be almost impossible to reach otherwise.

As said by , an excellent, informative form of escapism

Furthermore, as said by this experience is very personal and in a way your own context and feelings get to experience it in a unique way by being challenged, informed or affirmed. This also impacts how you get to interact with characters/settings uniquely etc

TLDR: Take a break from life and read a book

Don't you ever get overwhelmed by the "sound and fury" of it all?

Reading is all about figuring out more about what the hell these outrageous lives of ours are.

i thought reading scenarios and contemplating them helped with your empathy

like how in true detective rust said he contemplated jesus in the garden

There is none. Don’t waste your time on the fiction plebs OP they probably haven’t read a non-fiction book in years.

Euclid anyone?

Escapeism

i have a hard time believing there's someone with the fortitude to read Euclid in any substantial amount that hasn't also realized the value of fiction, the major obstacle to the recognition of such value being fortitude.

This, I figure. It can also feed inherent interests, for instance my love of history makes historical fiction that much more enjoyable provided it's done in a realistic manner. There's also erotic fiction which can be rather thrilling, humans are pretty sexual animals after all. Another reason to consume fiction? It makes me money and food tastes good. Non-fiction can also achieve this, pic related.

But I would prefer to read fiction than those other things

I probably read 1000+ peer-reviewed journal articles every year and I read lots of fiction in my leisure time. Only a pseud would dismiss fiction under the pretense of intellectual superiority.

It makes you a better, more aware, more thoughtful human being. I am living proof of this. Before getting into literature, I think i could barely classify myself as a person. As I read more and more, I became exposed to new cultures, new perspectives, new modes of interpreting the world, new types of people, and deeper ways of understanding these people. I came to understand people in my life that I didn’t understand before, learned how to empathize with people I would originally have hated with a stupid narrowmindedness. I have become someone with an actual awareness of myself, of my place in the world; I have an actual understanding of the forces that underpin my sense of identity, as well as my limits as a person, and the limits of others, where I would originally have left these things relatively unexamined. Literature did not offer a replacement for experience, but it allowed me to appreciate so much more, to find so much more meaning and significance in my experiences.
The aesthetic sensibility that the close reading of literature sharpens is not only important as a tool for appreciating art, for appreciating beauty and thus for finding what some people call the “sublime,” which acts as a reminder for why this life is worth living, and why we should have belief in the individual, but it also allows you appreciate your everyday experience in such a way. It’s almost as if you can find poetry in your everyday life. Because to a certain extent we all take an aesthetic attitude towards our experience: the aesthetic sense refined by literature allows you to find infinitely more beauty and profundity, to be aware of the artistry of everyday experience, to find meaning and beauty even in what would have originally been mundane suffering.

It makes me feel emotions that I don't feel in real life, because I live stoic, lonely life.

No one not even the pseudiest pseud on this pseud board needs to justify having fun. Read what the fuck you want and stop spreading the cancerous 14yo drivel that ruins this whole board.