Novelty's DOR Review - Chapter 22

[Novelty]

I know this has been delayed. Life has just been crazy. Unlike Dan, I can't do a review in advance of actually reading the chapter, so I have no "backlog" of reviews to post... but enough of me, let's get to the review of 22.

 

I wish I have good things to say about this chapter, but

1. I'm lazy and

2. The juicy parts are the bits that I'm going to highlight anyways

 

OK, one good thing I liked about the chapter was the use of the word twerp in the narration... but three things in the chapter just didn't do it for me.

 

The first is that in this chapter Dan reverts to writing as Dan and not Davey. What's the difference? It's a bit hard to explain, but after the last few weeks of reading Davey's narration, it was a bit unreal to drop back into reading Dan's writing. At one point in the story I felt like I was reading Dan's blog instead of Do Over Redux and that just broke the illusion I had in believing in the story.

 

The other thing about this chapter that makes me slightly uncomfortable is the fact that underage teenagers were given alcohol, even with the knowledge that they were going to get wasted on the alcohol. Now, I know that the minds of Davey and Sean were adult minds and thus, it can be argued that it's OK for them to drink to excess, but conversely, I'm a bit uncomfortable with the idea that it presents to teenagers that alcohol abuse is acceptable as a remedy for life's heartaches. But that's just me.

 

A group of us has been playing one of those tell a story games where everyone supplies a sentence in the attempt to tell a story. The hardest part of that it seems is that it's hard to tell who's saying what. Likewise, in this chapter, near the end, the conversation between Kevin, Sean and Davey moved in that direction where it was difficult to tell who was saying what. I find it a bit hard to believe that three people were speaking there - the dialogue there seems more like a monologue - i.e. coming from one person's mind (which in this case, it's true, since everything is from Dan's mind). Again that destroyed my suspension of belief and depreciated my enjoyment in the chapter. I do realise it's not easy to write dialogue with distinct personalities, but after all the improvements that Dan has been making over the previous chapters, this little backslide seems to be a telltale sign that something is amiss?

 

Overall the chapter moves the story forward, it develops Kevin quite a bit and gives us great insight about Davey from Sean's perspective. However, the writing leaves a lot to be desired, particularly when compared to some of the gems that Dan has produced in the previous chapters.

[EMoe57]

Thanks for posting the review, Novelty. Life does have a funny way of intruding on our "fun time" - usually at the worst possible moment.

 

The other thing about this chapter that makes me slightly uncomfortable is the fact that underage teenagers were given alcohol, even with the knowledge that they were going to get wasted on the alcohol.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

While I don't condone excessive alcohol consumption by anyone, I would have even more problems with someone underaged who would seek to imitate a fictional character's actions! Next, we'd have to take Road Runner cartoons off the air so they wouldn't imitate Wyle E. Coyote! My sincere prayer would be the person wouldn't produce offspring as that section of the gene pool was polluted enough already and we certainly didn't need any more contributions.

[Novelty]

Well, they might not conciously buy into that and all, but the subliminal message is nevertheless still there.

 

Whether they beget offspring or not I'll have no idea (and if they are homosexual, the chances of having kids will be rather slim as well, I'd think, but I digress)

[lurker]

To add my two cents to the underage drinking issue, because it raises some intereseting ideas as they relate to the Do Over story.

 

1) It is illegal to sell alcohol to minors because they are less physically able to handle the effects, and they lack full adult judgment-making - as a physiological matter - when it comes to making choices about risks. I do not mean to offend any of the younger posters on this board. But there is medical evidence that the human brain continues to develop throughout the teen years (and to a lesser extent beyond). The last part of the brain to develop is the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for balancing risk, long-term planning, and the like.

 

The question is whether these two reasons dictate that Davey (and Sean) should be treated as minors for the purpose of alcohol consumption.

 

As Dan points out in the story, they are physically less able to handle the alcohol. But are they lacking in full adult decision-making brain processing capabilities?

 

This is an interesting question that I think Dan has glossed over in the entire series. We have been repeatedly told that Davey is stuck with the body of someone younger - for good and bad. His hormones are allowed to play some part in his behavior. However, Dan has never addessed how Davey's decision-making process, when it comes to issues like risk calculation or planning, might be affected by the fact that he does not have the developed prefrontal cortex of an adult.

 

So far, we are presented a fictitious world in which this is not addressed or demonstrated to be a problem. If you have suspended your disbelief thus far to think that Davey has the mental processing abilities to advise the United States government on serious issues of military strategy and politics, as he has done in different time lines, then you have to accept that Davey has the ability to assess, like any other adult, whether and how much he should be drinking.

 

2) The second interesting issue is what message you take from Do Over about different subjects, like time travel, religion (hi Snow Dog) or something like drinking alcohol.

 

I don't see how Do Over condones underage drinking or gives a suggestion to any minors that this is acceptable behavior. The story - with Davey's past, with Brian in DO and with Davey/Sean in DOR - clearly presents the effects and consequences of underage drinking and/or alcohol abuse. It doesn't glorify drinking in the least. I think it is better to have a series like Do Over address the situation of underage drinking and portray it in a negative light, which it does, than to pretend that this doesn't exist at all.

 

Oh, and EMoe, Wyle E. Coyote is my role model for how gravity works. It does not engage until you realize you are no longer on the cliff. And large objects falling on you only hurt temporarily. I don't know where I'd be without Looney Tunes...

[Masked Monkey]

I do not mean to offend any of the younger posters on this board. But there is medical evidence that the human brain continues to develop throughout the teen years (and to a lesser extent beyond). The last part of the brain to develop is the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for balancing risk, long-term planning, and the like.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have no problems offending, the study was done performing functional MRI's (thats where they have you perform a task while taking an MRI). Just as there are variations in the rate of human growth, there are also some individuals who will develop faster and slower than average, and there is no way to go back historically and find out if 14 year olds from 1500 years ago had 'more developed' brains. The bottom line is that all kids will go through a period of time where their hormones are mixing with an underdeveloped in a world of increased opportunity for trouble.

 

I don't think Novelty's point was that it was wrong for Davey and Sean to get drunk, but it was wrong (from a socially moral standpoint) for Dan to have an adult character purchase alcohol for the sole purpose of allowing two minors to get drunk. Almost to say that by having his characters do it, Dan is excusing/condoning the behavior on some level. I don't agree. To write it in a story and have nothing bad happen is no more irresponsible than to have an unsafe sex scene and have no one catch anything (infection wise).

 

:king: Snow Dog the Domaholic Danderthal

[lurker]

I have no problems offending, the study was done performing functional MRI's (thats where they have you perform a task while taking an MRI).  Just as there are variations in the rate of human growth, there are also some individuals who will develop faster and slower than average, and there is no way to go back historically and find out if 14 year olds from 1500 years ago had 'more developed' brains.  The bottom line is that all kids will go through a period of time where their hormones are mixing with an underdeveloped in a world of increased opportunity for trouble.

 

I don't think Novelty's point was that it was wrong for Davey and Sean to get drunk, but it was wrong (from a socially moral standpoint) for Dan to have an adult character purchase alcohol for the sole purpose of allowing two minors to get drunk.  Almost to say that by having his characters do it, Dan is excusing/condoning the behavior on some level. I don't agree.  To write it in a story and have nothing bad happen is no more irresponsible than to have an unsafe sex scene and have no one catch anything (infection wise).

 

:king: Snow Dog the Domaholic Danderthal

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Agreed that we can't extrapolate from the average to the particular circumstance of Davey himself. I didn't mean to imply otherwise, but rather that this was a significant possibility for Davey that Dan simply does not address in any capacity within the story.

 

As for the nuance that Novelty is objecting to Kevin's behavior - being the 'adult' - it forces the same exact issue. If Davey is viewed as an adult for the purpose of drinking alcohol, then there is no problem with Kevin procurring it.

 

Otherwise, we agree about this particular example, and I know better than to question what type of storyline might be viewed as 'morally irresponsible' because I think we've played that conversation out before.

 

To go a different direction, your post reminds me of the Degrassi series - (thanks Canada!) that I used to watch in the 80s. Whenever a kid did something 'wrong,' the worst possible consequence ALWAYS happened. Someone had unprotected sex, they got pregnant. Someone drank alcohol? They'd drive and hurt someone. A kid tried acid, BAM, he wound up brain damaged. Somehow, the message didn't quite stick, because we knew people who acted irresponsibly and yet didn't suffer the worst thing ever.