OOTS #1259 - The Discussion Thread

[Liquor Box]

Except where it does, which I ahve already quoted directly in previous replies. If you wish to ignore all the caveats given in the article that all but openly state that its simple correlation without know causation, feel free, but that's a path I will not follow you down.

No, I agree that there are caveats to IQ (and some are mentioned in the article). I have mentioned several myself. But none of the caveats detract from the underlying point we were discussing that IQ is a predictor of income.

Of course I still doubt it, because nothing you have shown or said has given me any reason to believe it and, in fact, your own sources speak to how they are not useful for doing so.

That being said, I am perfectly content to be finished with the question of whether IQ is a predictor of income, since if you post articles that go against your own view and see them as supporting it, I doubt anything I can say would be of any use.

To be abundantly clear (to be fair I may have edited one or two of these into a post after you'd started to quote it), I'll repeat the quotes which as far I can tell are pretty clearly contrary to your view that IQ is not a predictor of income.

If you take a “real” IQ test (see comments below), then the result is a strong statistical predictor of multiple future life outcomes—income, education level, health, even longevity.

https://slate.com/human-interest/201...s-in-life.html

It would not be inaccurate to say that a higher IQ can predict a higher salary.

https://www.expensivity.com/iq-and-salary-connection/

The American Psychological Association's 1995 report Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns stated that IQ scores accounted for about a quarter of the social status variance and one-sixth of the income variance. Statistical controls for parental SES eliminate about a quarter of this predictive power.

But if you still doubt that IQ is a predictor of income it after that, I am going to have to agree with you, that we will probably not change one another's minds.

[dancrilis]

Interesting as IQ might be - it doesn't seem to have a lot to do with the Intelligence characteristic in Dungeons and Dragons, and as such no real relevance to Elan and thereby not relevant to the relationship between Elan and Haley and thereby not revelant to 1259 unless I am missing something (which I very well might be).

As for Elan and Haley - as they get older both of them will become wiser, more intelligent and more charismatic, I suspect the relationship is on sound ground and if Elan felt he needed a boost to his intelligence stat to keep up with Haley he could always buy an intelligence boosting item to assist.

[Andtalath]

There's a lot of confusion about IQ.
First of all, IQ and intelligence is NOT the same thing, and intelligence is ill-defined.

The fascinating thing about IQ is that as a statistical correlation AND predictor, it's highly effective.
It's also very worth pointing out that a statistical predictor is NOT a good individual one.

Free from memory I think IQ correlates about 15% with life success, while diligence accounts for about 10%.

IQ is the singularly most important single statistic which correlates with success (generally defined as upwards mobility in society), it's still not a determining factor in 85% of cases, to simplify a bit.

Then what is IQ?
It's more along the lines of general knowledge than anything else, and the point of the tests is to just make a bunch of random questions and compare a group that can honestly be compared (they really need to be from a very similar cultural background to make the comparison, the closer the better).
If I make an american IQ test I will probably perform noticeably different (not saying better or worse since I don't know =P, but probably worse).

So, yes, IQ is important, but not that much on an individual level.

Also, personally, IQ works poorly on me since I've got an uneven distribution of intelligence (somewhere between 10%-20% has).

Also, IQ is not a universal but compared to other people making the test.

[arimareiji]

Wasn't there also some racism there?

People absolutely twisted the results to retro-justify their maladaptive points of view, famously so. Humans do that. (^_^)°

On a related topic, tests are almost unavoidably (in some degree) going to favor those whose background and worldview are similar to those of the test writer(s) - with no need for intent to do so. The illustration that broke through my inability to see this came from an 80s sitcom with disadvantaged kids of one race being brought up by a wealthy parent of another race:

Spoiler: collapsed for space

Show

One episode tried to address how tests can have racial bias without having racist intent, and somehow or another the disadvantaged kids got to confront a test-writer who proclaimed otherwise. So they gave him a test, with one question being something like "A house has one bedroom with two beds, and two bedrooms with one bed each. How many people can sleep in the house?" The test writer confidently proclaimed that the obvious answer was four. The kids told him he failed, and the right answer was fifteen - two per bed, two on the floor of each bedroom, and one in the bathtub.

It's a silly example, but it illustrates a bigger point: On any timed test, people who have a similar mindset to the test writer(s) will at the least have the big advantage of not having to carefully parse wording to understand what's being asked. And in more egregious examples, such as the one they gave, people with a different mindset may get questions "wrong" despite correctly answering to the best of their ability - simply because they don't have the same underlying assumptions.

For my own part, I scored pretty well on my SAT for college when I took it with no preparation. But after I was able to buy a test book and practice until I understood and could mirror the mindset of the test writers, my percentile scores improved by over an order of magnitude. I was the same person, and I hadn't gotten any smarter - I was just better able to quickly understand what they were trying to express, and what answers they were looking for.

There's a lot of confusion about IQ.
First of all, IQ and intelligence is NOT the same thing, and intelligence is ill-defined.

The fascinating thing about IQ is that as a statistical correlation AND predictor, it's highly effective.
It's also very worth pointing out that a statistical predictor is NOT a good individual one.

Free from memory I think IQ correlates about 15% with life success, while diligence accounts for about 10%.

Spoiler: collapsed for space

Show

IQ is the singularly most important single statistic which correlates with success (generally defined as upwards mobility in society), it's still not a determining factor in 85% of cases, to simplify a bit.

Then what is IQ?
It's more along the lines of general knowledge than anything else, and the point of the tests is to just make a bunch of random questions and compare a group that can honestly be compared (they really need to be from a very similar cultural background to make the comparison, the closer the better).
If I make an american IQ test I will probably perform noticeably different (not saying better or worse since I don't know =P, but probably worse).

So, yes, IQ is important, but not that much on an individual level.

Also, personally, IQ works poorly on me since I've got an uneven distribution of intelligence (somewhere between 10%-20% has).

Also, IQ is not a universal but compared to other people making the test.

I can't speak specifically to this, but I would note that elements other than IQ are far more closely correlated with "success" in a particular society that many posters have in mind. Sorry I can't be more specific, but I neither want to break forum rules nor encourage others to do so.

[Liquor Box]

There's a lot of confusion about IQ.
First of all, IQ and intelligence is NOT the same thing, and intelligence is ill-defined.

The fascinating thing about IQ is that as a statistical correlation AND predictor, it's highly effective.
It's also very worth pointing out that a statistical predictor is NOT a good individual one.

Free from memory I think IQ correlates about 15% with life success, while diligence accounts for about 10%.

IQ is the singularly most important single statistic which correlates with success (generally defined as upwards mobility in society), it's still not a determining factor in 85% of cases, to simplify a bit.

Then what is IQ?
It's more along the lines of general knowledge than anything else, and the point of the tests is to just make a bunch of random questions and compare a group that can honestly be compared (they really need to be from a very similar cultural background to make the comparison, the closer the better).
If I make an american IQ test I will probably perform noticeably different (not saying better or worse since I don't know =P, but probably worse).

So, yes, IQ is important, but not that much on an individual level.

Also, personally, IQ works poorly on me since I've got an uneven distribution of intelligence (somewhere between 10%-20% has).

Also, IQ is not a universal but compared to other people making the test.

Full credit to wading directly into this one in your opening post.

In terms of the article we have been discussing, it suggests that socioeconomic status and IQ combined contribute 14%to success, with IQ contributing 3/4ths of that (so just over 11%).

For example, in one large study correlating IQ and socio-economic status of parents with future income, IQ had a three-times higher “beta” than socio-economic status. That means how “smart” you are is much more important than who your parents are (the U.S. economy, in other words, is a relatively level playing field). However, the total R-squared of using both variables was only 0.14. That means that knowing the parents’ socio-economic status as well as the child’s IQ together only explained about 14 percent of the child’s future outcome.

The illustration that broke through my inability to see this came from an 80s sitcom with disadvantaged kids of one race being brought up by a wealthy parent of another race:

Spoiler: collapsed for space

Show

One episode tried to address how tests can have racial bias without having racist intent, and somehow or another the disadvantaged kids got to confront a test-writer who proclaimed otherwise. So they gave him a test, with one question being something like "A house has one bedroom with two beds, and two bedrooms with one bed each. How many people can sleep in the house?" The test writer confidently proclaimed that the obvious answer was four. The kids told him he failed, and the right answer was fifteen - two per bed, two on the floor of each bedroom, and one in the bathtub.

It's a silly example, but it illustrates a bigger point: On any timed test, people who have a similar mindset to the test writer(s) will at the least have the big advantage of not having to carefully parse wording to understand what's being asked. And in more egregious examples, such as the one they gave, people with a different mindset may get questions "wrong" despite correctly answering to the best of their ability - simply because they don't have the same underlying assumptions.

I've seen that sort of idea on TV too (eg. in the Wire, the kids who were terrible at maths until they looked at it through the lens of drug deals). Intuitively it seems something that might help, although TV probably exaggerates the extent. Do you know if there's any empirical evidence supporting it?

[Andtalath]

Full credit to wading directly into this one in your opening post.

In terms of the article we have been discussing, it suggests that socioeconomic status and IQ combined contribute 14%to success, with IQ contributing 3/4ths of that (so just over 11%).

Heh, I just thought it seemed like you guys where talking about slightly different things and therefore growing annoyed with each other.

Yeah, seems reasonable as well.
It's really tricky to define and determine such complex matters.

[littlebum2002]

But if IQ tests are biased towards people with a particular kind of education that folks from existing high-income families are more likely to get, isn't the whole thing just kinda circular?

This.

People whose families can afford to send them to good schools and have private tutors are going to, on average, do better on IQ tests than those whose families cannot afford these things.

People whose families can afford to send them to good schools and have private tutors are also going to, on average, have higher income levels in life due to the advantages living in a family like that provides.

I would be incredibly surprised if you couldn't make a pretty good prediction about someone's income based on their IQ test, since the same factors are pretty much directly responsible for both.

[danielxcutter]

Well that explains why mine were high as a kid… though I didn’t quite have a tutor.

[Peelee]

This.

People whose families can afford to send them to good schools and have private tutors are going to, on average, do better on IQ tests than those whose families cannot afford these things.

People whose families can afford to send them to good schools and have private tutors are also going to, on average, have higher income levels in life due to the advantages living in a family like that provides.

Indeed. It's almost as if the best predictor for scoring a run is being born on third base.

[Vikenlugaid]

I don't know if it is because I am not enough inteligent but I have lost the thread long ago.

Let's just say that inteligence is a very complex thing and even if someone is a real.dumb in one thing they can be pretty smart in another, in fact that is how most of the brains work.

[Doug Lampert]

I'm not a statistician, but doesn't almost everything based on random variation follow a standard distribution?

Nope, almost nothing does. Almost everything APPROXIMATES a standard distribution, if you are loose enough about your definition of "approximates".

A standard distribution has possible values out to + and - infinity, regardless of the mean. When you see a person with negative weight or height, call me and tell me.

A hypothetical normalized sum of an infinite number of identically distributed, non-zero variance, finite-variance trials will have a standard normal distribution. Yawn. Seriously, yawn. That's a lot of verbiage to explain what you need for a random number to be a standard normal distribution, and you don't get that in the real world.

Not too long ago, a bunch of companies lost an enormous amount of money by using computerized stock trading programs that assumed daily stock movement was normal. It turns out it's not, the tail is thicker than a normal would have it.

As has been said, IQ appears to be normal, largely because they renormalize the test results to try to force a roughly normal result with mean of 100 and standard deviation of 15.

[Peelee]

Apropos of absolutely nothing, but ever since like thee months ago I found it super interesting that my Wordle graph has a pretty close Bell curve, with several days being a perfect one.

[Thermophille]

Nope, almost nothing does.

Okay, that makes a lot of sense. My statistics textbook said something along the lines that all random variance followed standard distribution, but I always found that odd, because real life is too messy for things to actually boil down to pure chance. It's good to know that my initial suspicion was justified.

[Ionathus]

This seems to be ranging close to the territory of: Is Haley taking advantage of the mentally handicapped for her own sexual pleasure.

Yikes, I come back after three days and the forum discussion's gotten dark. Add my voice to the chorus of "nobody seemed to be actually saying this, and it's a serious exaggeration."

Regarding all the talk about whether the relationship is inappropriate or believable: I still believe it works and isn't toxic. I just wish the language used was different. As Fyraltari put quite eloquently a few pages back, the "female partner as mother-figure" is a real problem in both fiction and a lot of real-life attitudes: I have witnessed multiple new mothers in my circle subjected (without irony) to variations of the 'joke', "...well, now you have two babies in the house to look after!" That doesn't mean anyone who made those comments is a misogynist: it's just a big ugly assumption about how women are expected to relate to men, and I like to imagine a world where we don't treat it like it's so obvious and expected that you can make jokes about it.

Except that it also depends on what the series. If it's a parody like this and the story does have a large reputation of not taking itself that seriously, then maybe that is something to keep in mind. We can find patterns sure, but those patterns have to be analyzed in the greater whole and context.

It's like trying to apply realism to a Looney Tunes cartoon. Sure we can do so all we like and get something, but it is still a Looney Tunes cartoon, which was created under a fundemental set of rules and with expectations all from it.

You can argue that the Order of the Stick doesn't take itself seriously, sure, but at this point I'm only going to agree with you if we're talking about D&D mechanics or narrative tropes. If we're talking about characterization or themes, OotS is one of my all-time favorites, and Rich has also talked a lot about how seriously he takes the storytelling and the message of the comic. Just because something is humorous or a parody doesn't mean it can't be committed to having strong, affirming character dynamics.

Especially because Rich has talked about this specific topic before: regarding his early portrayals of Haley's behavior and her use of gendered insults, saying that he cares deeply about offensive portrayals and actively avoids them, even in the context of a parody webcomic. I'm not saying these examples of pseudo-mothering are anywhere close to the seriousness of those discussions -- I'm just saying that the author clearly cares about this stuff, and has talked about it multiple times.

[Fyraltari]

Okay, that makes a lot of sense. My statistics textbook said something along the lines that all random variance followed standard distribution, but I always found that odd, because real life is too messy for things to actually boil down to pure chance. It's good to know that my initial suspicion was justified.

Yeah, but it's a bit like saying there aren't any triangles in the real world. It's technically true, but you can find some pretty good approximations.

As Fyraltari put quite eloquently

Why, thank you!

[Seward]

Getting back away from IQ tests (went to Caltech, we all thought IQ tests - and Mensa - were stupid).

Haley-Elan relationship.

1. 10s date 10s. Two highest charisma characters in the party, of an attracting gender, would likely notice and be attracted by each other and ALSO not assume the other is "out of their league".

2. Elan makes Haley a better person (getting her to recognize her tendency to distrust, and to try not to take actions that would bother him). Eg talking over her decision to straight up kill Crystal Golem after.

3. Haley makes Elan a better person (getting him to think about consequences of his actions even if narrative logic would have them take that action). For example, he no longer tries to seduce female antagonists without asking her if it is ok, and when one starts a one-sided relationship with him then dies, he tells her about it even though the expectation is he would not, she'd find out anyway and make all the wrong assumptions, there would be dramatic conflict and a resolution.

4. Elan trusts that if Haley tells him to do something, even if he doesn't understand it, she's smart and it is probably a good idea. He trusts that she won't abuse it.

5. Haley trusts that if Elan is disturbed by something she is doing or might do, that could be important. She's also likely to take his narrative logic seriously, if it isn't too silly.

6. Both like each other's authentic selves.

7. They proved compatible when they actually had the sex. Some relationships with a lot of attraction at first that doesn't happen.

8. This relationship has really only existed "in person" for a few weeks (after Roy got Rezzed) and "at all beyond unrequited love" for a few months (just before the big battle in Azure city). They aren't going to act like a married couple of 30 years with that "married telepathy", finishing each other's sentences or knowing what they like and dislike so well that they can anticipate a need for "alone time" or a desire for company or what the "we have to talk" kind of situation is serious and you need to stop whatever you are doing and pay total attention.

Basically that strip to me was #4. Since Elan wanted to do it anyway he responded with enthusiasm. When he did, Haley realized potential consequences and also she left her bow behind, and added more instructions. She did them in the firm "pay attention to this" voice so Elan won't forget while having fun and will actually take what she's saying seriously. She might have learned Elan doesn't pay attention to much, so she has to use a "Mom Voice" on him, perhaps his actual mother used similar tone and posture when he was about to stick his hand in the fire because it was pretty or seduce somebody's wife by accident because he was so hot and charming.

From the outside, might look odd. From the inside, it's how their relationship work. As a veteran of a 32 year relationship with the woman who is now my wife, we have a lot of ways of communicating, hard earned from earlier misunderstandings. Took us a year to actually act on our attraction to each other, disentangling from other relationships and I guarantee you that we made more mistakes communicating in that first year of being an "official couple" than Haley or Elan are doing. Indeed, they're doing very well for a relationship that is so young in-universe, as opposed to a decade or so old in our time.

[arimareiji]

Yikes, I come back after three days and the forum discussion's gotten dark. Add my voice to the chorus of "nobody seemed to be actually saying this, and it's a serious exaggeration."

As one of the people who supposedly contributed to some overall picture making it a fair characterization, thank you.

(snip) I just wish the language used was different. As Fyraltari put quite eloquently a few pages back, the "female partner as mother-figure"

Spoiler: collapsed for space

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I just wish the language used was different. As Fyraltari put quite eloquently a few pages back, the "female partner as mother-figure" is a real problem in both fiction and a lot of real-life attitudes: I have witnessed multiple new mothers in my circle subjected (without irony) to variations of the 'joke', "...well, now you have two babies in the house to look after!" That doesn't mean anyone who made those comments is a misogynist: it's just a big ugly assumption about how women are expected to relate to men, and I like to imagine a world where we don't treat it like it's so obvious and expected that you can make jokes about it.

Thank you for pointing this out, I missed noticing how apt this is. To my mind, it's a weird (and disturbing) dichotomy: One presentation of it seems to be "Men deserve to act like spoiled children", and the other "Women have the mental capacity of children and need a caretaker". Both are "pseudo-parent lover" on the surface, but there's quite a nasty devil in the details.

(snip) Rich has also talked a lot about how seriously he takes the storytelling and the message of the comic. Just because something is humorous or a parody doesn't mean it can't be committed to having strong, affirming character dynamics.

Spoiler: collapsed for space

Show

Especially because Rich has talked about this specific topic before: regarding his early portrayals of Haley's behavior and her use of gendered insults, saying that he cares deeply about offensive portrayals and actively avoids them, even in the context of a parody webcomic. I'm not saying these examples of pseudo-mothering are anywhere close to the seriousness of those discussions -- I'm just saying that the author clearly cares about this stuff, and has talked about it multiple times.

I can only make wild guesses, but sometimes I wonder if Haley-Elan is a deliberate inversion of "Women have the..." above. If so, I'm certain it comes from a good-hearted place. For me personally the trope is too squicky to redeem, but no one is a worse person for feeling otherwise - just in a different place than I am.

[Liquor Box]

This.

People whose families can afford to send them to good schools and have private tutors are going to, on average, do better on IQ tests than those whose families cannot afford these things.

People whose families can afford to send them to good schools and have private tutors are also going to, on average, have higher income levels in life due to the advantages living in a family like that provides.

I would be incredibly surprised if you couldn't make a pretty good prediction about someone's income based on their IQ test, since the same factors are pretty much directly responsible for both.

It does partly. Socioeconomic status predicts success about a third of as well as IQ tests do.



Where IQ tests and success does become quite circular is where IQ tests are required by employers to hire people or promote them. That may not be controlled for in the research. At my workplace we require applicants to undergo quite intensive testing (which are not IQ tests, but are similar) and take the outcomes into account when making hiring (and sometimes promotion) decisions.

Haley-Elan relationship.

1. 10s date 10s. Two highest charisma characters in the party, of an attracting gender, would likely notice and be attracted by each other and ALSO not assume the other is "out of their league".

This tends to be true. And if Hayley is not a 10 herself (a few references suggest that she probably isn't), people who are not 10 themselves often want to date 10s.

It may just be that some people have different preferences for what they look for in a partner than Hayley does.

[Ionathus]

Thank you for pointing this out, I missed noticing how apt this is. To my mind, it's a weird (and disturbing) dichotomy: One presentation of it seems to be "Men deserve to act like spoiled children", and the other "Women have the mental capacity of children and need a caretaker". Both are "pseudo-parent lover" on the surface, but there's quite a nasty devil in the details.

There's also the similar concept of "weaponized incompetence" -- i.e. people who deliberately fail at tasks to avoid having to do them again. It was cute and clever when I did it as a 10-year-old who hated washing dishes, but it's anywhere between "immature" and "sociopathic" when you're supposedly in a committed partnership with someone. And I definitely think society gives men a pass for doing it subconsciously: I think of all the wedding reception speeches I've heard, and all the jokes that follow the format of "just remember, [Bride] is always right and you're a big dumb stupid! Do everything she says!" While on the surface it might seem like this is portraying the woman in a positive light, it's also putting all of the responsibility on her shoulders as well - and strangely, the jokes only ever seem to apply to decisions about chores and housekeeping...

Sorry for rambling. I have strong feelings about this one! Once you notice it, you notice it everywhere.

I can only make wild guesses, but sometimes I wonder if Haley-Elan is a deliberate inversion of "Women have the..." above. If so, I'm certain it comes from a good-hearted place. For me personally the trope is too squicky to redeem, but no one is a worse person for feeling otherwise - just in a different place than I am.

My guess is that Elan simply started out as a parody of bards: goofy, useless, regularly getting the party into more trouble than out of trouble. I think the relationship thing wasn't planned out in any particular way, except that Elan is optimistic and trusting, and Haley is cynical and slow to trust. Neither of those are based on intelligence, so Haley could have been pessimistic and less savvy while Elan was optimistic and more savvy, but that would've been both yikes-y and also boring.

I also don't think this part was intentional, but I do find it amusing how Elan is basically Haley's Manic Pixie Dream Bard. It does transcend the trope because they both have goals and agency and neither one's arc is subsumed for the other's benefit, but the dynamic is most definitely at play

[Liquor Box]

While on the surface it might seem like this is portraying the woman in a positive light, it's also putting all of the responsibility on her shoulders as well -.

The trope page suggests it goes both ways

"There is offense given to both sides— men are told that they're useless and incompetent in the realm of family life and should really just let their wives take charge; women are told that they can't expect their husbands to act like grownups and should just resign themselves to having to carry their husband's weight responsibility-wise and being regarded as the boring killjoy of the family for it."
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p...tingTheHusband

and strangely, the jokes only ever seem to apply to decisions about chores and housekeeping..

That hasn't been the case in this comic strip has it?

[Fyraltari]

The trope page suggests it goes both ways

"There is offense given to both sides— men are told that they're useless and incompetent in the realm of family life and should really just let their wives take charge; women are told that they can't expect their husbands to act like grownups and should just resign themselves to having to carry their husband's weight responsibility-wise and being regarded as the boring killjoy of the family for it."
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p...tingTheHusband

How are "men are told they should let the women handle all the chores" and "women are told they should expect to handle all the chores" it going both ways, exactly?

[bunsen_h]

There's also the similar concept of "weaponized incompetence" -- i.e. people who deliberately fail at tasks to avoid having to do them again. It was cute and clever when I did it as a 10-year-old who hated washing dishes,

Some years back, when I was visiting with an old friend, her 5-year-old daughter kept insisting that she didn't know how to activate an annoying musical toy of hers -- a matter of plugging one of several cards into a matching slot in the toy, or something along those lines. She wanted me to do it for her. But I "couldn't figure it out": kept trying to plug the card into the wrong part of the toy, kept trying to put it in the wrong way round, etc. Finally, disgusted with my "stupidity", she showed me how to do it.

After she no longer had the excuse of needing someone else to run the toy for her, she played it frequently. Her parents would have been entirely within their rights to be annoyed with me.

EDIT:

How are "men are told they should let the women handle all the chores" and "women are told they should expect to handle all the chores" it going both ways, exactly?

Well, being told that they're not competent to do the tasks isn't exactly complimentary. I'm not going to say that that's the same kind of offensiveness as the resulting expectation that women should therefore do the work.

[Ruck]

Regarding all the talk about whether the relationship is inappropriate or believable: I still believe it works and isn't toxic. I just wish the language used was different. As Fyraltari put quite eloquently a few pages back, the "female partner as mother-figure" is a real problem in both fiction and a lot of real-life attitudes: I have witnessed multiple new mothers in my circle subjected (without irony) to variations of the 'joke', "...well, now you have two babies in the house to look after!" That doesn't mean anyone who made those comments is a misogynist: it's just a big ugly assumption about how women are expected to relate to men, and I like to imagine a world where we don't treat it like it's so obvious and expected that you can make jokes about it.

I'm pretty vocal about my distaste for the "marriage is when a woman babysits a stupid oaf of a man and they hate each other" trope, but I don't think it really applies here. Elan doesn't fit the stereotype of the boorish oaf who wants to be left alone and feels trapped in his relationship. He's sincere, empathetic, cares a great deal, and greatly respects Haley. He's just also childlike and easily distracted.

Spoiler

Show

Getting back away from IQ tests (went to Caltech, we all thought IQ tests - and Mensa - were stupid).

Haley-Elan relationship.

1. 10s date 10s. Two highest charisma characters in the party, of an attracting gender, would likely notice and be attracted by each other and ALSO not assume the other is "out of their league".

2. Elan makes Haley a better person (getting her to recognize her tendency to distrust, and to try not to take actions that would bother him). Eg talking over her decision to straight up kill Crystal Golem after.

3. Haley makes Elan a better person (getting him to think about consequences of his actions even if narrative logic would have them take that action). For example, he no longer tries to seduce female antagonists without asking her if it is ok, and when one starts a one-sided relationship with him then dies, he tells her about it even though the expectation is he would not, she'd find out anyway and make all the wrong assumptions, there would be dramatic conflict and a resolution.

4. Elan trusts that if Haley tells him to do something, even if he doesn't understand it, she's smart and it is probably a good idea. He trusts that she won't abuse it.

5. Haley trusts that if Elan is disturbed by something she is doing or might do, that could be important. She's also likely to take his narrative logic seriously, if it isn't too silly.

6. Both like each other's authentic selves.

7. They proved compatible when they actually had the sex. Some relationships with a lot of attraction at first that doesn't happen.

8. This relationship has really only existed "in person" for a few weeks (after Roy got Rezzed) and "at all beyond unrequited love" for a few months (just before the big battle in Azure city). They aren't going to act like a married couple of 30 years with that "married telepathy", finishing each other's sentences or knowing what they like and dislike so well that they can anticipate a need for "alone time" or a desire for company or what the "we have to talk" kind of situation is serious and you need to stop whatever you are doing and pay total attention.

Basically that strip to me was #4. Since Elan wanted to do it anyway he responded with enthusiasm. When he did, Haley realized potential consequences and also she left her bow behind, and added more instructions. She did them in the firm "pay attention to this" voice so Elan won't forget while having fun and will actually take what she's saying seriously. She might have learned Elan doesn't pay attention to much, so she has to use a "Mom Voice" on him, perhaps his actual mother used similar tone and posture when he was about to stick his hand in the fire because it was pretty or seduce somebody's wife by accident because he was so hot and charming.

From the outside, might look odd. From the inside, it's how their relationship work. As a veteran of a 32 year relationship with the woman who is now my wife, we have a lot of ways of communicating, hard earned from earlier misunderstandings. Took us a year to actually act on our attraction to each other, disentangling from other relationships and I guarantee you that we made more mistakes communicating in that first year of being an "official couple" than Haley or Elan are doing. Indeed, they're doing very well for a relationship that is so young in-universe, as opposed to a decade or so old in our time.

Good post. You highlighted some of the ways their relationship works that I'd been thinking about but haven't had time to write out.

[arimareiji]

My guess is that Elan simply started out as a parody of bards: goofy, useless, regularly getting the party into more trouble than out of trouble. I think the relationship thing wasn't planned out in any particular way, except that Elan is optimistic and trusting, and Haley is cynical and slow to trust. Neither of those are based on intelligence, so Haley could have been pessimistic and less savvy while Elan was optimistic and more savvy, but that would've been both yikes-y and also boring.

On re-examination, that fits a lot better than my hypothesis wrt the early strips. And as far as I can tell the word "spoon" was first used in the comic by the bard (as part of a dumb joke, no less). (^_~)

I also don't think this part was intentional, but I do find it amusing how Elan is basically Haley's Manic Pixie Dream Bard. It does transcend the trope because they both have goals and agency and neither one's arc is subsumed for the other's benefit, but the dynamic is most definitely at play

Thank you for saying out loud what I was thinking but afraid to, so now I might as well go all the way with what really cheeses me off about how I perceive the pseudo-parent lover trope gets applied: At least from what I've seen, when it comes to males it leans heavily toward "The responsible one who makes more money therefore he should be coddled like a spoiled child at home". And when it comes to females, it leans heavily toward MPDG and "Dumb as a brick; she needs a caretaker because her worth comes from cheering up a man with parts other than her brain."

To be absolutely clear for the sake of anyone who might be passing by and mishear me, I do not believe the Giant simply mirror-imaged the female version onto Elan. Like you said, it transcends the trope quite well - Elan doesn't exist only to bring joy back into Haley's life with little Banjo and then she moves on, they both have their own stories rather than him being naught but the muse for hers, et al. But he does fit enough elements of the trope that I can find some perverse amusement in it (although he's sand in my shorts, and if I think about it too much I start getting squicked again). (^_~)b

[Liquor Box]

How are "men are told they should let the women handle all the chores" and "women are told they should expect to handle all the chores" it going both ways, exactly?

It goes both ways in that the trope can be read as having negative implications for both genders, not that negative implication for each is exactly the same. Men are portrayed as incapable and stupid (in a way that goes well beyond chores, which Elan stands as an example of), which to me seems to be a negative critique. Women are portrayed as competent, but this normalises the idea that women for carrying an uneven share of the responsibility in the relationship (including chores).

[a_flemish_guy]

also while it sounds snarky "unstructured alliance-strengthening exercise" is what elan's best used for right now
while serini and the order have put aside their differences for now it's still on shaky ground, getting sunny to like them (or at least elan) is the best hook they have on her at the moment to ensure their alliance keeps going should things go sideways

[Seward]

This tends to be true. And if Hayley is not a 10 herself (a few references suggest that she probably isn't), people who are not 10 themselves often want to date 10s.

Elan and Samantha (the sorcerer-bandit) are characters that started with 18 charisma and are investing statbumps and magic items into having higher charisma. At the time Haley probably had no charisma item or maybe a +2 cloak, where Samantha (being level 12 with maximized fireball) had 3 statbumps in charisma and probably a +4 cloak, so she had 24-25 charisma.

Elan at that time had similar starting cha, 2 statbumps in charisma and likely a +2 cloak, so 22ish Cha. Compared to Samantha, Haley's 16ish charisma wasn't doing well, and she probably had not invested in many social skills beyond bluff given her mistrustful nature and somewhat abrasive personality.

Assume Elan got Samantha's cloak after they defeated her and passed down his lesser cloak of Charisma to Haley. Today, Elan is probably as hot as Samantha was but unlike her, he has a bunch of social skills to be more charming as he's a face-style bard. When Haley started dating him, she's got a base charisma of 18 but all those rogue skill points (and didn't keep up with trapfinding). By level 16 she's probably stepped up her social game and is pretty close to Elan in social skills that matter to her (bluff still, but diplomacy as well, that's the bargaining skill she used in tinkertown. Sense motive a bit because it boost diplomacy, and Elan doesn't have that, probably some gather information too).

To any of normal person Haley is "TV attractive" and seems considerably more attractive when she interacts with you. She's out of just about anybody's league. Elan's even hotter, he's "considered hot even for movie star" attractive and also becomes more attractive when he actually uses his seduction skills. But to most mortals, both are easily "10s". Haley to her credit wasn't intimidated by his looks, even in the beginning. Her worries were about how much better a person he was than her, and giving trust to anybody. She only got defensive about her appearance when somebody objectively much hotter slagged her, both Samantha and Sabine (who is a primal being of sex appeal, a generic succubi has 26 charisma and all the right skills, and Sabine is likely advanced from there) and seemed to be hitting on her crush (or her crush seducing them).

[brian 333]

On Intelligence and IQ:

Gygax certainly intended Int to equate to IQ, and said as much in the 1st ed AD&D DMG. Adventurers, being above average, had an above 10 average IQ, with 10 being equal to IQ 100.

Okay, the rest is personal anecdote and there is no reason to read further.

Tests for IQ tend to do much better at testing for language skills than intelligence. Logic is also well represented in IQ tests, but many geniuses defy logic, and therefore aren't represented in such tests.

Example: a friend from Jr. High School was not very good in school, had a hard time with math, and dropped out in the 8th grade. He can play any stringed musical instrument, can watch performers play and within minutes duplicate their music, and play directly from sheet music. He is now a joiner, (carpenter for ships,) who calculates curves with a tape measure and pencil, and he speaks English, Vietnamese, Spanish, and the last time we spoke on the subject, was learning Portuguese. (He learned these languages by working with people who spoke them.)

Intelligent? I tried, in Jr. High to teach him why if A+B=C, then C-A=B and C-B=A. I still cannot speak a second language. Being able to do word problems in logic isn't a good measure of intelligence.

Then there is a severely overlooked aspect of the truly intelligent: motivation. School was dull for me. The teachers wondered how a kid could ace tests, could test out at the level of high school graduates from 6th grade on the standardized tests, and who read every textbook before week nine, but otherwise never studied.

I was tested, of course. It didn't matter that I was placed in the first GT program in my region, I was bored. And of course, everyone focused on my potential: what I could do if I just tried...

Almost 60 years later I can see things that were overlooked by everyone:

From first grade on I did my older brother's homework so he could go play sports. He was a gifted athlete. I had already done sixth grade by the time I got there. I wasn't smarter than anyone else, I was two grades ahead of them.

Taking tests was easy for me because I had an uncanny memory. A lot of what I remembered didn't make sense, but I remembered and could regurgitate the lesson on command. GT bored me because it didn't provide anything new. It was more of the same. Memorize this, memorize that. Yay.

But the thing everyone missed, and fortunately I didn't, was that all of my 'potential' was what they dreamed of doing. What they wanted, expected, or wished for had virtually zero interest for me. What I wanted was to be a tourist. I found jobs that paid me to travel, and have never, since the age of sixteen, lived in one place for more than four years. I've seen and done amazing things. My friends don't believe half my stories, and that's okay. They have different world views.

"Why aren't you rich?" is an often asked question. Well, I never tried to be. All I ever wanted was enough money to pay for my next adventure. And that is the big issue with income as a metric for determining IQ: it only works if the person is motivated by money. For many intelligent people who see money as a tool rather than as a goal, accumulating large sums of it takes time away from what they really want to do, like paint, or write, or perfect your swan dive from 216 different bridges and cliffs around the country. (That last one was me, by the way.)

IQ is a horrible measure of intelligence. It measures memory to some degree, language skills, and to some degree language-based logic, all useful in corporate hirarchies, but can an IQ test find the next Newton?

Maybe I'm biased, but many of my favorite historical figures were poor students: Einstein, Edison, and Rodin come to mind. No IQ test would have pegged them as anything but mediocre.

[DaOldeWolf]

On Intelligence and IQ:

Gygax certainly intended Int to equate to IQ, and said as much in the 1st ed AD&D DMG. Adventurers, being above average, had an above 10 average IQ, with 10 being equal to IQ 100.

Okay, the rest is personal anecdote and there is no reason to read further.

Tests for IQ tend to do much better at testing for language skills than intelligence. Logic is also well represented in IQ tests, but many geniuses defy logic, and therefore aren't represented in such tests.

Example: a friend from Jr. High School was not very good in school, had a hard time with math, and dropped out in the 8th grade. He can play any stringed musical instrument, can watch performers play and within minutes duplicate their music, and play directly from sheet music. He is now a joiner, (carpenter for ships,) who calculates curves with a tape measure and pencil, and he speaks English, Vietnamese, Spanish, and the last time we spoke on the subject, was learning Portuguese. (He learned these languages by working with people who spoke them.)

Intelligent? I tried, in Jr. High to teach him why if A+B=C, then C-A=B and C-B=A. I still cannot speak a second language. Being able to do word problems in logic isn't a good measure of intelligence.

Then there is a severely overlooked aspect of the truly intelligent: motivation. School was dull for me. The teachers wondered how a kid could ace tests, could test out at the level of high school graduates from 6th grade on the standardized tests, and who read every textbook before week nine, but otherwise never studied.

I was tested, of course. It didn't matter that I was placed in the first GT program in my region, I was bored. And of course, everyone focused on my potential: what I could do if I just tried...

Almost 60 years later I can see things that were overlooked by everyone:

From first grade on I did my older brother's homework so he could go play sports. He was a gifted athlete. I had already done sixth grade by the time I got there. I wasn't smarter than anyone else, I was two grades ahead of them.

Taking tests was easy for me because I had an uncanny memory. A lot of what I remembered didn't make sense, but I remembered and could regurgitate the lesson on command. GT bored me because it didn't provide anything new. It was more of the same. Memorize this, memorize that. Yay.

But the thing everyone missed, and fortunately I didn't, was that all of my 'potential' was what they dreamed of doing. What they wanted, expected, or wished for had virtually zero interest for me. What I wanted was to be a tourist. I found jobs that paid me to travel, and have never, since the age of sixteen, lived in one place for more than four years. I've seen and done amazing things. My friends don't believe half my stories, and that's okay. They have different world views.

"Why aren't you rich?" is an often asked question. Well, I never tried to be. All I ever wanted was enough money to pay for my next adventure. And that is the big issue with income as a metric for determining IQ: it only works if the person is motivated by money. For many intelligent people who see money as a tool rather than as a goal, accumulating large sums of it takes time away from what they really want to do, like paint, or write, or perfect your swan dive from 216 different bridges and cliffs around the country. (That last one was me, by the way.)

IQ is a horrible measure of intelligence. It measures memory to some degree, language skills, and to some degree language-based logic, all useful in corporate hirarchies, but can an IQ test find the next Newton?

Maybe I'm biased, but many of my favorite historical figures were poor students: Einstein, Edison, and Rodin come to mind. No IQ test would have pegged them as anything but mediocre.

Wow, that actually makes me feel better about myself. I know I had nothing to do with the matter but its nice to hear of someone else who has a similar situation in life to mine.

Thanks for the sharing!

[Ionathus]

That hasn't been the case in this comic strip has it?

I'm pretty vocal about my distaste for the "marriage is when a woman babysits a stupid oaf of a man and they hate each other" trope, but I don't think it really applies here. Elan doesn't fit the stereotype of the boorish oaf who wants to be left alone and feels trapped in his relationship. He's sincere, empathetic, cares a great deal, and greatly respects Haley. He's just also childlike and easily distracted.

Nope! Like I said, I tend to ramble -- my most recent posts are only barely related to the Haley-Elan dynamic, and I definitely don't think the comic has done anything wrong or fallen into these sexist tropes. Just consider my last 5ish posts to be a long-winded explanation of a larger gender issue I have with modern fiction, and that every so often one of the jokes in Haley & Elan's relationship gives me a whiff of that bigger issue despite otherwise being a well-written and affirming fictional relationship.

I'm only mentioning it because others have mentioned it, and it had been nagging at me since the way they talked in panel 2 of #1238. It's a tiny thing, but I noticed it and so did others, so I wanted to mention it to hear what other people thought. Sometimes voicing a minor opinion like this can come across like a condemnation, or a call to action. But I really did just mean it as a minor observation.

And then somebody said this was "obsessing over minor details" and "reading too much into it", so I wanted to explain my point of view that, yeah, I do think it's important in the grand scheme to notice this stuff. Bringing up the Bechdel Test again: understanding that Lord of the Rings does not "pass" the test does not mean you have to condemn Lord of the Rings.