Drabblecast 243 – The Other Lila

[StalinSays]

Feature: The Other Lila by Gwendolyn Clare
Drabble: The Swap Last Fall by James Rogers
Genres: Drama Romance Sci-Fi



Thursday, May 17th, 2012
I step out of a porter booth in the overheated Los Angeles station and reach up to peel off my winter coat. That’s when I realize something’s wrong with my hand — it feels numb and prickly, and the fingers aren’t quite responding the way they’re supposed to. Weird. I don’t recall circulatory problems being listed among the possible side effects…

Episode Art: Richard K. Green
Read by: Naomi Mercer

Twabble: “ "1000 bucks to hunt zombies in your park? Where'd you get them?"
"We started with 22. The rest were like you. Customers." ” by MattMooreWrites

[Scattercat]

I've always had a hard time empathizing with these sorts of stories. The only way to make doppelganger stories have an interesting plot is to make the duplicated person a dickhead, and I end up sad afterward. I think I'd get along really well with myself, honestly.

I used to do a thought exercise about what the world would be like if everyone was a copy of a given person, whether myself or a friend or someone I'd just met. The World of Nathans would be a quiet, easygoing place without much in the way of war or strife, but with technology likely barely past crude subsistence farming. (No one in Nathanworld is particularly ambitious or good at engineering, for all that we have lots of ideas.) Purchased goods usually arrive late, if at all, and paperwork is never filled out. No one knows what day it actually is. Being in charge of things is a punishment inflicted on Nathans who were late too often or on something particularly critical.

[ElectricPaladin]

Almost a year ago shortly after watching

Spoiler:

"The Prestige"

, I said to my wife (I run one-on-one RPGs for my wife): "make me a character who was duplicated, and solved the problem by departing to live a new life, and is called back to her old home to investigate the original's murder." The story we told was one of our best and darkest, full of death and lies, manipulation and infidelity, and it was altogether awesome. As a result, I couldn't help but really enjoy this story. It didn't help any that it was exquisitely well written and perfectly timed. Definitely a win with me.

[strawman]

This modifies the concept of murder-suicide in a way that suggests some moral dilemmas.
Especially the respective weights we assign for murder relative to suicide.
Murder is the much worse, unless the person you are killing is yourself. In that case you have some imaginary right of "privacy", although it would seem that the victim, that is, the self, has no one to represent his interests. His interests are defended by a murderer; what would you expect? Wrongful death cases in the afterlife?

[ROU Killing Time]

Wrongful death cases in the afterlife?

Somewhere legions of undead lawyers ears just perked up.

[zZzacha]

We all have a doppelganger inside us somewhere...

[strawman]

zZzacha! HEY!
Where have you been, girl?


er,,, is this you...or a zZzachaganger?

[zZzacha]

Hi strawman!
Yeah, I think it's me. Or maybe I am my doppelganger, and I forgot to mention that to me. That might explain my absence on the Drabblecast forums.

So, what did I miss and how can I ever catch up? I missed all of you! Well, some more than others because I don't think I _know_ all of you. Or maybe my doppelganger does. Dang, I'm starting to make myself very confused now.

[strawman]

Dang, I'm starting to make myself very confused now.

Well, at least you haven't forgotten our favorite game!

[tbaker2500]

Great episode! Good drabblecast fare. I like the fact that she didn't THINK she was a bitch. Probably says a lot about people.

Nathan, I haven't read lots of doppleganger stories, so it didn't carry out a trope for me. However, your vision of Nathanville made me smile.

zzzzZZCHA!! Welcome back gurl! Good to see your ADHD attention come back around this way!

[Scattercat]

One thing that slushing/editing will do for you is rapidly kill any enjoyment you derive from common tropes in and of themselves. Well-executed renditions are pleasant, but rare.

This was a good doppelganger story, primarily because, as you pointed out, it conveyed the character and her personality problems with devastating accuracy but a delicate touch.

[Surf Vampire]

Good stories always make me wonder what I would do if I were put in the same situation. Interesting how a self loathing person would think this was a disaster and a narcissist might think it was a godsend.

I appreciated that this story was short and sweet. While there weren't really any surprises, it did a nice job of exploring Lila's character.

I would be interested in a longer tale about duplicates where the original could observe and learn about his or herself(s?) objectively. I know self aware characters aren't particularly interesting but perhaps if the process were externalized with clones (and there was a funny dog?) it could work.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I loved Michael Keaton in MULTIPLICITY.

[Lilith92]

I just finished listening to this story, but with out a word of a lie I swear this is true and absolutely crazy. My name is Lila, my girlfriends/fiancé is named Abbey, and when I was growing up I had a cat named Isis (who, granted, was black; but still!) When I first listened to this story I kind of freaked out - it was too similar, and too weird I wonder if Gwendolyn Clare has been secretly stalking me from age 8 onward . I loved the story though, and it had the right amount of personal freaky factor to make it very fitting for the Drabblecast.
On the other hand, I once joked with Abbey about how if there was another me I would probably leave her and have an affair with myself.

[tbaker2500]

Awesome. That'll make you question reality for a while.

[Surf Vampire]

Lilith, step away from the teleporter...

[Polecat]

One thing that slushing/editing will do for you is rapidly kill any enjoyment you derive from common tropes in and of themselves.

Be grateful you're not a gynaecologist (I hope that's not too sexist). Having never been a great reader of speculative fiction, I wasn't even aware that doppelganger variations are a common theme - I stumbled upon the Drabblecast having discovered that the podosphere is a wonderful source of stimulation to ease the boredom of my mundane job - my reading is pretty omniverous with a bent towards historical fiction and mystery/crime. I digress...

Strawman, you are a very, very bad man - every time I think I have adjusted to the humdrum, and I make the mistake of entering this forum I read some post or other of yours that leads me to have thoughts which I judge to be philosophical, and therefore dangerous.

Although the technical (medical) term for suicide in German is "Suizid", the most common word used to describe it is "Selbstmord", literally self-murder, with the accompanying moral undertone - killing yourself is essentially cowardly and something which you have no right to do. However, when a famous or heroic figure (examples here in Germany might be the WWII General Manfred Rommel or the football star Robert Enke) takes their own life, the term used is "Freitod" (roughly translated freely chosen death), which obviously carries with it a completely different moral judgement. Given that there have suddenly become two of me, is it desirable that both of me should continue living? Seen from a societal point of view, definitely not - what if everybody did it? suddenly there would not be enough wealth, food, shelter and so on to go round. Nevertheless, it was not my choice to subdivide, so who has the right to make the decision to kill me? obviously nobody but me, and it would be morally right for me to get rid of one of me. Which one? as I am identical to myself it doesn't really matter, although the problem is that neither of me wants to die (unless I am severely depressed, in which case both of me want to end it all, but, being mentally ill, I probably should be restrained from taking this drastic action). One of me killing the other would certainly come under the "Selbstmord" banner, it would be murder, sure enough, and of myself, to boot. But the death of me would also free me from a personally intractable and socially unacceptable problem, and is thus a desirable "freely chosen death", except that I haven't chosen freely to die, just to kill me.
This is probably old hat to slush readers (I understand that is also your fate, man of straw), but to laymen such as myself, it can result in many hours of innocent diversion, assuming that harbouring thoughts of killing and death can be judged innocent.

respectfully,

the polecat

[strawman]

And thank you, sir Polecat, for honoring us with your "innocent diversion", although I must point out that by using that term you tempt one to think that you may have prejudged the issue. (This level of premeditation, followed by a declaration of innocence, usually is found on the lips of guilty men).

But what do we know, really?

Isn't that a question for an innocent philosoper?

I like the two different words for murder.

Your example of Rommel's "Freitod" (or Socrates') is more meaningful to me if I consider voluntary self-sacrifice, the concept of martyrdom, the consideration of Passover and Easter. This would be a Freitod with a twist: chosing not to set oneself free, but others. Is there a word for that kind of self-murder/self-sacrifice?

This weekend is called Memorial Day weekend in the US. A time to consider the self-sacrifice of others who became tod so that we could be frei.

The world should pause a moment in its complaining to remember.

[tbaker2500]

This weekend is called Memorial Day weekend in the US. A time to consider the self-sacrifice of others who became tod so that we could be frei.

The world should pause a moment in its complaining to remember.

The world should, yes. However the country will pause grilling hamburgers to burp after drinking a beer.

[Unblinking]

I read this when it was printed in Bull Spec a year or two back.

This story was pretty good, but a mite too predictable. Since they're so recently departed from each other, when one started plotting the murder of the other it was obvious that she would be murdered first. It's well-executed, granted, but I wish it had gone somewhere I hadn't seen coming.

[El Barto]

Another great episode - I loved the Drabble and the story as well.

It's easy for all of us who read and listen to Science Fiction to say "oh that's a tired trope" about this story and that story but I think the reality is that if any of us was unexpectedly Doppelgangered we'll likely be stunned and confused and then we'd immediately start panicking about what our Doppelganger would be thinking and planning.

It would be fascinating to read a story about a slush pile reviewer / editor who gets Doppelgangered and realizes he was a fool for not agreeing with himself in advance to how he would react.

Personally, I expect that when the technology does come to exist, the lawyers will not only require that but will screen people with homicidal tendencies right out.

Also, something people didn't comment on yet here is what I think may be the most interesting question in this situation and that is, "when you go through the transporter do YOU really continue to exist, or is a clone created who thinks it is you, and the objective sense of YOU dies with the original that was vaporized?"

This story obviously answers the story one way, while many others go a different direction.