Weather, or The Pathetic Fallacy (Caturday Questions)

Middle Cat is writing a story, and Little Cat is looking over his shoulder making unhelpful suggestions. “You’re tempted, aren’t you?” yowls Little Cat. “You’re tempted to make the weather reflect the mood of the story. To make the sad moments take place in the rain and the joyous moments take place in full sunlight. Well, don’t. It’s amateurish.” Little Cat can sometimes be a bit blunt of speech, but he’s not wrong. The phenomenon he is describing is called The Pathetic Fallacy. The idea that non-human objects can demonstrate human emotions.

Big Cat, Little Cat

What Does the Weather Have to do with the Pathetic Fallacy? For that Matter, What is the Pathetic Fallacy?

You see this idea crop up a lot in literature. When one person cuts another, it’s often with cruel steel. But is the steel really cruel? Think about it. There was a bit of iron just sitting in the ground. Someone dug it up. Heated it to hundreds and hundreds of degrees. Combined it with carbon. Worked it into the shape of a blade. Then it was sold, carried around, and finally drawn across someone’s neck. In what way is the steel itself cruel? If anything, that steel is bewildered and homesick. And annoyed at being forced into a roommate-situation with the carbon.

But you’d never read that line in a translation of Homer, would you?

Then Patroclus pierced Sarpedon‘s side with bewildered, homesick, irritated steel.
And Sarpedon’s eyes went dark as his hands clawed the earth.

It doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Whether the Weather…

Part of the problem with making the objects in your narrative respond to the events in your narrative is that it makes it seem like your narrative is the only game in town. This can have the effect of elevating your narrative while diminishing your world. Lots of (financially) successful storytellers have a tendency to go in that direction. To tell bigger and bigger stories. One of the reasons why Big Cat started yowling and clawing at Human-Mom’s sweaters and putting his butthole in Human-Mom’s face whenever she would try to watch an episode of Doctor Who was precisely because, especially during the Stephen Moffat years, the emphasis was always on telling the biggest story possible, not necessarily the best.

What’s the difference? Or rather, what’s the alternative?

One storyteller who goes the other way is Scott Lynch, author of the Gentleman Bastards series. He has a variety of ways to show that the story he is telling takes up a very small corner of a very large world.

Little Cat’s suggestion to Middle Cat is: trying the opposite of the Pathetic Fallacy. Have a decisively tragic event take place at the height of summer, in the heat of the noonday sun. Surrounded by beautiful green foliage and by flowers in bloom. Even here, it’s tempting to describe the sun as pitiless and uncaring. Instead of the rain agreeing with your pain, the sun is mocking it. There’s a Magnetic Fields song that does this and the result is both touching and funny.

What if the Weather is Just the Weather?

The relevant lyric of the song is this:

I don’t believe in the sun
How can it shine down on everyone
And never shine on me?
How can there be
Such cruelty?

Part of the reason why this song is so successful is that it plays on this idea that when you’re lovesick, you can’t help but look at the world through shit-colored glasses. The weather, if it’s rainy or cold, fits your mood. If it’s bright and clear, it’s mocking you. We know this is not how weather works. And yet it’s tempting to fall into it.

Another thing you can try, though, is adding an element of chance to your story. Just like there is in real life. Get a pair of dice. Look up weather patterns and other travel information in the area where your story takes place. If it’s a month that typically has a lot of rain, then let it be raining in your story on a roll of 4-12. But if it’s a month that typically doesn’t have a lot of rain, the let it be raining in your story only on a roll of 11-12. That sort of thing. Roll more than once if a given weather event is either extremely likely or extremely unlikely.

How is Middle Cat’s Story Progressing?

Yes I get that it’s ridiculously ironic to be offering a critique of authors’ overuse of the Pathetic Fallacy in a column that regularly applies human emotion to cats. Can we move past that?

Because right now, Middle Cat is nearing the end of his story. And he has decided to take Little Cat’s advice and make the tragic climax take place in… nice weather. Not too hot, not too cold. The sun is behind the clouds. There’s a bit of a breeze. It’s just… nice. Meanwhile, Human-Mom is rudely offering her opinion of his story. Don’t you just hate that? When someone offers their opinion unsolicited? but she can’t help herself from offering the following critique: “Oh my god you little monster, get your paws off my keyboard! I’m trying to do something. What is going on? Are you hungry? I fed you like an hour ago!” Everyone’s a critic all of a sudden. And some people are just so selfish.

What to do? Middle Cat is determined not to let Human-Mom rain on his parade.

Description

Three identical panels, each depicting a large orange cat with orange stripes and a small grey cat with grey stripes. The two cats are sitting on a cushion. The large orange smiles down at the little grey, while the grey looks off into the distance discontentedly.

Panel 1

Big Cat: Isn’t summer beautiful, Little Cat?

Little Cat: Um. No.

Panel 2

Big Cat: Aww. Would it kill you to show a little positivity?

Little Cat: I guess I wouldn’t know.

Panel 3

Big Cat: Try it! You’ll see!
Little Cat: Okay. How’s this: Wow, this unbearable heat is really taking my mind off my poison ivy rash!