A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

* Something bothers me about the way this trope is used in fiction - it first came to mind in the ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' episode, but the same pattern's present in virtually all uses of the trope. Nobody ever blames the ''telepath'' for invading other people's privacy! Whenever they detect an inappropriate thought and get all "you perv, how dare you think that", nobody ever responds with "oh yeah, well how dare ''you'' invade my mind and judge me based on my private thoughts and feelings!" I know [[Power Incontinence]] is usually involved, but that shouldn't change anything. Any telepath with a decent upbringing, should understand that other people's private thoughts are sacrosanct and that, even if they can't avoid hearing them, they should at least respect other people's privacy by not shouting them from the rooftops. To do so shows they have [[No Social Skills]] at all. And in these stories, why is it that the telepath is always the [[Only Sane Man]] who thinks pure and innocent thoughts? It never gets turned around into "how would you like it if all of us could hear ''your'' thoughts all the time?" It's always focused entirely on the telepath's perspective: you'd think at least a few stories dealing with this trope would also touch on the issues of the telepath violating other people's privacy (even if the telepathy itself can't be helped, the mind-reader's public reaction to it certainly can!).

** Hmm, thinking further on it, there was one story where this came up, albeit very briefly. I remember a ''[[Star Trek: theThe Next Generation]]'' episode called "The Loss" where Troi, [[The Empath]], had temporarily lost her abilities. Riker ended up losing his temper with her somehow, and basically told her that she'd always had an advantage over everyone because she could sense their feelings but not vice versa, and now that she can't do it anymore, she know how it feels to be just like everyone else. So I guess that lessens the issue, but I'd still like to see more characters who get the "you pig" reaction call out the psychic on it.

** ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' does deal with the issue of invading people's minds. In fact, invasion of other's thoughts like this by a human is a crime punished by summary execution. I've seen plenty of other instances where characters do express discomfort or paranioa at others being able to read their minds (off the top of my head, ''[[StarcraftStarCraft]]'', ''[[Ciaphas Cain]]'', ''[[Firefly]]''....) so it is definitely present.

** Okay, I'm kind of relieved to find there ''are'' examples where the telepath's called out on it. There were three stories that made me wonder about this, and oddly enough they're all vampire tales. A ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)|Buffy]]'' episode where Buffy gained the ability to read minds had her being smugly judgmental of almost every single one of her friend without getting called on it, and in ''[[Twilight (Literaturenovel)|Twilight]]'' and ''[[True Blood]]'', Edward and Sookie reject romantic partners because of their telepathically detected perviness, but then they hook up with someone whose mind they can't read even though that person isn't necessarily any better (and frankly, neither are ''they'', really). So that led to my being bugged that nobody in those stories was turning the situation around, though apparently judgmental mind-readers do get chewed out in plenty of other stories.

**** But she was only being driven insane in the second half of the episode, when she started reading too many minds at once. She was having fun with it up until that point. What bugs me is that people can't help their ''thoughts''. You can't blamed them for simply having a bad ''thought'', if they're not acting on it in any way. Trying to repress your thoughts only makes them stronger and more uncontrollable (that's pretty much the basis for The Game). And Buffy was being a self-righteous hypocrite. She taunts Xander for thinking about sex all the time, and Wesley for having feelings for Cordelia - but what exactly does she think about when she's around Angel or Spike? It's worth noting her response a few seasons later, when Xander found out she was sleeping with Spike: "it's none of your business". Edward and Sookie get along great with people/vampires who aren't really any better than most (and in Sookie's case, way worse in some ways), it's just that psychic ignorance is bliss. Which would be understandable, except that they still judge ''other people'' for it. It's one thing to avoid people because having to read their thoughts is too much to bear. But walking around going "you suck, you suck and you suck" over other people's private thoughts? Unless the telepath doesn't have a single personal thought of their own that they wouldn't want anybody else reading, it's incredibly hypocritical. I'm just surprised more stories don't have muggles saying [[Screw You, Elves]] and calling the psychic characters out on that attitude.

** This discussion inspired [[Tropers/Brendan Rizzo|this troper]] to write a story where all of this is addressed. See [httphttps://web.archive.org/web/20190818174546/https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2881798/1/Reading here.]

** This is addressed in a very disturbing way in [[Tales of MU]] by taking the opposite perspective. One of the minor characters is a natural telepath of the "can't help hearing people's thoughts" variety. We get a backstory chapter on her at one point, where when her teachers discovered her abilties, they talked to her parents, recommending that she get training to learn to control her abilities so as to not be constantly violating the privacy of everyone around her. But these are not ordinary, reasonable parents; they're basically hippie parents, and their response can be summed up fairly well as "How dare you suggest that there's anything wrong with our daughter that she needs to learn to control, you horrible evil authority figures! Our daughter's abilities make her ''special'', and if other people have a problem with it, that's their own fault!" Between the way it's written and [[Word of God|the author's statements in comments]], it's clear that the parents are supposed to be 100% in the right in this case. This being [[Tales of MU]], of course, [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]] is [[Anvilicious|intentionally in full force.]] It was [[Values Dissonance|quite off-putting to a lot of readers]] [[Fridge Horror|who actually understood the implications of it.]]

** The ''[[StarcraftStarCraft]]'' example alluded to above actually plays with this a bit -- sure, Kerrigan has her moment of outrage that Jimmy's fantasizing about her, but she did ''get to see it'', and Ghost powers can be difficult or impossible to control. But given that they get over it pretty quickly (''both'' their next lines are [[Deadpan Snarker|quips about the situation]]), it seems that either they're both just [[Consummate Professional|Consummate Professionals]] or it wasn't actually a big deal for either of them, just a knee-jerk reaction.