MISC: Do what extent do NON writer characters have free will?

[EDMLite]

On Jun 3, 10:21 pm, Martin Phipps <martinphip... at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 6月4日, 上午10時32分, Scott Eiler <sei... at eilertech.com> wrote:
> > It's not just a problem for characters who know they're fictional.
>
> Indeed.  I hear people talk about "God's plan" for example.  People
> say "God has a plan for all of us".  They also say that "God gave us
> free will".  I find it impossible to reconcile those two statements.
> If I, as a writer, have a definite plan then the characters in my
> stories do not have free will.

I suppose that everyone who believes in some sort of higher power
has to confront this issue eventually.

As for myself, I tend to agree with ol' Marcus Aurelius -- who said,
in effect, that it shouldn't matter to most of us whether someone
upstairs is pulling the strings or not, since at the very least
we can choose to act in a virtuous manner:

"Either all things proceed from one intelligent source and come
together as in one body, and the part ought not to find fault
with what is done for the benefit of the whole; or there are only
atoms, and nothing else than mixture and dispersion.  Why,
then, art thou disturbed?"

Being a Stoic isn't easy, of course, especially when one
actually _knows_ that one's life is being sculpted by a
passel of whimsical cosmic Authors.

This may be why the Church of the Fourth Wall is the
fastest-growing religion in the LNH universe...

--Rob Rogers
--Roman if he wants to...