Re: Magic Beans (LOST spoilers, I guess)
I agree with Eddie. I don't agree with Mike.
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Magic Beans (LOST spoilers, I guess) (Page 2 of 2)
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Re: Magic Beans (LOST spoilers, I guess)
Coming in late, with so much good discussion already here 
My take on magic beans is that in part they set the limits of your story. Events can flow naturally once you accept that bean as a given, but nothing can contradict it. In Ghostbusters ghosts are real and can be dealt with using science. Ok, fine, run with it. If however you then have someone casting spells in a way that's not just "science" applied differently you've exceeded the self imposed limits and hurt the story. You should have set that up right up front, even if in a subtle way.
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Re: Magic Beans (LOST spoilers, I guess)
zackly. The deLorean is a perfect example of a magic bean. HOW it works is essential to the plot, WHY it works is never explained in the slightest.
But they establish the HOW right at the beginning of the first movie and in the entire trilogy they never deviate from those rules. You set the destination on the control panel, get the thing traveling at 88 mph, and then pipe 1.21 gigawatts into the flux capacitor, and presto, time travel.
In the first movie their problem is generating the 1.21 gigawatts, in the second there's a malfunction in the control panel that sends Doc to the wrong year, and in the third they can't get the thing up to 88. But the rules are never broken, just worked around, and finding the workarounds is a large part of the plot.
But why 88 mph? Why 1.21 gigawatts? What does the flux capacitor actually DO, fer pete's sake? Who cares? It's an aluminum-coated magic bean, that's all the answer you ever get, or need.
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Re: Magic Beans (LOST spoilers, I guess)
Really good post.
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