Oh, but people figure it out. Like, for example, how motion pictures that make the heaviest use of artistic license usually start off with a dramatic dark screen, lit by the following statement: "The events depicted here are based on a true story". To be read as: "We took some facts and let our imagination run wild with them" :P.

That's not quite what I meant.

Another explanation, is observers and those being observed knowing they are being observed ... thus their behavior changes and is not their natural behavior.

You could also call it the art of gentle persuasion.

If I know someone is deliberately trying to convince me of something, and perhaps I don't want to be, then I will likely be more resistant.

If you feel you have come to an understanding on your own about something, even though you have in truth been secretly manipulated, it carries more weight with you.

Reverse psychology also comes to mind.

Thanks for your reply.

P.S. With a good author it may only be a suspicion ... always depending on the recipient too of course. A lot of stuff can go over a lot of folks heads.

The whole point of poetic or artistic license, is you can take liberties with a story for the sake of the story etc. So I don't know how you can see that as misleading.

Works of fiction often claim all sorts of things. The key thing though, is that they are a work of fiction and should always be seen as such. If you want to put too much store in their seeming reality, then that is on you.

It is good to be a healthy skeptic.


Yep, I shudder at the alternative ... just boring reruns of real life ... depressing really.

Escapism through imagination is a wonderful thing ... better than drugs or medication.

Thanks for your reply.