A Shortage of Princes

A discussion in a writing forum came up about what makes 50 Shades and Twilight popular. I thought it might be worth it to catalog my thoughts here.

"It's about power. The only reason Fiddy Shades is successful is because the dude was rich, which is hot (money on a man is like makeup on a woman). Imagine if instead of a billionaire it had been a homeless guy.

The attraction comes in feeling special. It's the Disney narrative ("someday my prince will come"). It's the idea that there's a guy who could have any amount of women, but he chose me. A homeless guy couldn't have any amount of women, and therefore wouldn't make the protag feel special; rather she'd feel like an object of desperation.

In Twilight, here's a guy with superhuman strength, youth, etc. and he wants me. He wants to drink my blood really bad, but since I'm so special to him he won't.

As you pointed out, the series are popular because they're designed to let you vicariously live the experience of being special to men far beyond what you'll ever achieve. But deep down, you know that some day your prince will not come. It will be a fairly normal guy with a fairly normal job who fancies you. Reading these types of books is just suppressing that reality."

I'm not trying to say that there's anything wrong in wanting a good man. It only becomes unhealthy when a woman lets the fantasy (of the unachievable) delude her of reality. The inverse can be overlaid on men. Men, however, typically just want a/many hot girl/s (indicator of a healthy potential mate) and partially fulfill this desire through porn.

In short, there is a shortage of princes (and billionaires) in this world. Deceiving yourself into believing that you deserve one of them by the simple fact that you were born is untenable. It can be traced (somewhat) back to an increasingly entitled society. A society that has warped letting someone live with the negative consequences of their actions into a form of abuse. A society that would rather wallow in self-absorbed gluttony than affect positive change. Our society.

Us.

Give me my desires, for such is my right.

Absolve me of past mistakes, for the past is poor grounds for identifying patterns.

Accept me as I am, for I have already rejected who I could be.

Worldview Building

I'm not a psychologist, just an average people watcher. But I'd like to talk about the things that create a person's worldview. This is mostly for authors to craft more realistic characters. I'll give some real world examples and allow you to think how your characters would be affected in their particular worlds.

The First Impression
Perhaps the most important, and certainly the most fundamental, determinant in defining worldview is the first impression. I've found that the first impression is the hardest to erase, even when presented with contradicting evidence. That's not to say it can't be done. In fact, we have some very good instruments in our toolbox.

Betrayal
Perhaps one of the most effective tools in erasing the first impression is betrayal. It may take ten times, it may only take once. Even when the betrayal turns out to be an unfounded rumor, the new impression remains stamped over the first impression. Sometimes the distortion of worldview occurs in interpersonal relationships, and sometimes it happens on a larger plane, for example with religion. E.g. "I didn't know that [historical religious figure] did [action]. Why didn't anybody tell me?"

Superciliousness
Also known as haughty disdain or arrogance. Betrayal is often, but not always, the overture to disdain. It's the feeling that "I have secret knowledge and am therefore better," or "anyone who doesn't realize what I do is mentally inferior." It can also be derived from advantage of physical/monetary circumstance, but I've found for the average person it's knowledge-based. These feelings are often gleaned from reading/hearing language laced with the following fallacies: argument by emotive language, appeal to spite, alleged certainty, cherry picking, definist fallacy, historian's fallacy, is-should fallacy (naturalistic), political correctness fallacy, overwhelming exception, proving non-existence (burden of proof), and many others.

Repetition
I think we all know it's a logical fallacy, but that doesn't stop us from falling for it. Argument by repetition, or argumentum ad nauseum, is the act of repeating a premise over and over to bolster its veracity. A fantastic example is, "Fat is attractive." We're hearing this argument more and more (and more and more ad nauseum) until we reach the point that we start to think, "Wow, I don't think fat people are attractive. Maybe there's something wrong with me." Taking a step back and assessing the situation, it's easy to see that ignoring millions of years of evolution to validate aversion to self improvement is unsound and not those who aren't romantically attracted to obesity.

Shaming/Humiliation
Often accompanying argument by repetition is argumentum ad verecundiam, appeal to shame, closely overlapping strawman fallacy, appeal to emotion, and argumentum ad hominem. Let's take our fat attraction example. Society wants to thresh us with shame if we don't experience romantic attraction to obesity, thereby trying to short-circuit our brains and remove us from a logical, biological context and thrust us into an emotional, irrational context. This is often accomplished by setting up the defending party's views as a strawman (a grotesque misrepresentation) and then trouncing it. They shame you by telling you that you're shaming them.

Conclusion
In conclusion, there are many other things that influence worldview, but I think these are some of the strongest points. For example, aphorisms and proverbs can change worldviews, but how often do you think the people reposting maxims on Facebook actually apply them to their lives? To craft more realistic, flawed characters, I encourage you to study logical fallacies and program some of them into your characters' worldviews. Challenging a character's worldview is easy and compelling conflict. I'll close with one that I really like, the sunk-cost fallacy. It's the erroneous assumption that since you've already invested so much in a project/idea you have to see it through to the end.

Edit: I might add more as I think of them, but another important one I thought of is Indignation, or more specifically indignation affirmation. This isn't so much a change in worldview as it is a deepening of one's current view. It occurs when someone takes offense at an opposing worldview and then invests more emotion into their own. This reeks of the sunk-cost fallacy and self-imposed appeal to emotion, but we all do it.

Bonus fallacy: Argumentum ad Homonym - when you try and use there instead of their.

Ruination of Transliteration: How Two Loanwords Changed History

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Transliteration happens all the time. We often call them loanwords. Some examples from Arabic (remember, it reads from right to left):

• القرآن‎ (Al-)Quran: The holy book of Islam. It's a verbal noun of the word قرأ (qar'a), meaning "he read" or "he recited".
• مسلم Muslim: A follower of Islam. Its meaning is "one who submits", derived from the verb أَسْلَمَ (aslama), meaning "he resigned". إِسْلَٰم (Islam) is the verbal noun meaning "voluntary submission to God". You can see the relation in the S-L-M root.

Here are just some other random words that we've appropriated from other languages (note: some of the transliterations have changed over time):

• Czech: dollar, pistol, robot
• Etruscan: antenna, arena, autumn, serve
• Old French and Latin: letter, person, budget
• Icelandic: saga, geyser
• Algonquin: Mississippi, Wyoming, Chicago, Illinois, Wisconsin, caribou, hickory, moose, muskrat, pecan, raccoon, skunk, squash
• Nahuatl (Aztec): avocado, cocoa, chocolate, coyote, guacamole, tomato
• Arawakan: barbecue, canoe, hammock, hurricane, potato, tobacco
• Various American Languages: cougar, cashew, bayou, manatee, igloo, kayak, jerky

There are many other loanwords that I didn't include (safari, zen, chi, zebra, luau, ukulele, guru, buddha, fjord, tundra, et cetera, et cetera), but I think you get the picture. We like to borrow words instead of translating them. A noteworthy exception to this rule is Icelandic, though more loanwords are creeping in. Instead of using a variant of telephone (a Greek word), they resurrected the word sími, an old word for "long thread". Another one is læknastokkrós, meaning marshmallow. As far as I can deconstruct this one, að lækna means to heal and stokkrós means hibiscus, a member of the mallow family. The healing hibiscus. They do this so that the new words will comply with Icelandic grammar.

The Biblical Conundrum
Now that we've overviewed transliteration in English, let's look at two Greek to Latin transliterations that changed the world.

First, βαπτίζω, baptizo. This comes from the word bapto meaning to dip; therefore, baptizo means to immerse or submerge. This was all fine until around the fourth century when Latin became the primary language of Christianity. At that time, baptizo was transliterated into Latin. It was adapted to Latin grammar and changed to baptizare, making baptizo the first person singular present tense, i.e. "I baptize".

What this did is sever the tie between the root understanding and the definition. What was once understood intrinsically as an act of immersion became an act of mere ablution (ceremonial washing), and was altered to include aspersion (sprinkling) and eventually exclude immersion. The alteration of one holy ceremony is a beautiful precedent for further alteration.

Second, βιβλία, biblia. This is the plural of biblion, book. Once again, before the fourth century, the extant holy writings of Christianity weren't compiled into one body. Rather, they were a collection of texts called ta biblia, the books. As Latin became Christianity's primary language, they once again transliterated this word from Greek. Biblia is what they called them—it. To explain, Latin has a conjugation system that allows you to distinguish between singular and plural. What started as "the books" eventually migrated to take on the meaning of "the book". 

What this did is set in the minds of Christians that canon was immutable post fourth century. You had the Book, what more could you need? Gone were the days when God could speak as He pleased through servants that He chose. Because who needs the Books when you have the Book?

How to Forge True Love: An Overiew of Relationship Investment

True love is found in the union of two people who never truly feel worthy of one another. Service and validation are imparted of freely and bounteously. True love is lost when an air of superiority seeps into that union; when at least one of the parties concludes they are entitled to the service and validation of the other.

True service can only be accomplished from a position of unpretentious humility and love. If a person feels angry and does something to benefit the other party, it's not actually to benefit the other party but themselves. If a person renders a beneficial act to another from a position of condescension, it's not service nor love but pity.

True love therefore is bred by true service. True service is not a thing to be tallied. It's not a contest of high scores and rivalries. It's a river that flows from your heart, buoying your partner up and carrying them to a sea of bliss.

You may assume that the reason service is the secret is because your efforts will endear you in your partner's eyes, but that's only a sliver of the reason. Most people, referring to the first paragraph, forget to return gratitude for nice acts, especially when acts of kindness are commonplace. No, what service does is it endears you to your partner.

It's all about investment. The time that you spend with a partner is an investment, but even more important is the quality of the time. When the time you spend with them is consumed by transient cares or even brooding over areas in which you think they're lacking, that's like investing your money in fireworks. It's no surprise when it ends in flames. When your time with your partner is spent serving and building them up, that's like investing in a house. You expect many long, comfortable years with it.

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Of course, you see the relationships where one person is making payments on a house while the other is building up their fireworks stockpile. Eventually the second person lights off their investment and burns the house to the ground. Make sure you don't miss the signs if your partner doesn't care about investing in you as much as you do in them.

In the end, that's the goal. You need to find someone who's willing to invest as much in you as you are in them. And that amount should be 100%.