Torrefaction

Oooh, yeah, good one. Remember this?

Do you know what it's like when telepaths make love, commander? You drop every defense, and it's all mirrors, reflecting each others' feelings, deeper and deeper, until somewhere along the line your souls mix, and it's a feeling so profound it makes you hurt.

HEE. I like the bit in the old Cameron Crowe movie "Singles" where Kyra Sedgewick asks the guy she's having sex with "what are you thinking about RIGHT NOW?" and it cuts to a whole basketball-tactics thing.

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How does Twilight telepathy work? I bailed out of the first book as soon as they introduced a native american boy (with a crush on Bella of course), because I was reasonably certain he was going to be a werewolf and I was already at the breaking point with the various other things.

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Oh, yeah, the bald telepath with the throbbing forehead vein! Always a winner. I liked how Heroes handled it too except for the whole "stupid" thing, where the teep is too stupid to figure out that he's hearing other people's thoughts until WAY past the point where anyone intelligent would have realized that.

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Also the thought as coherent narrative cliché. My thoughts tend to be associative, rather than coherent. I think most people's are. That's why coherent narrative is the result of 'tricks' (writing, rhyme, fixed rhythms) rather than simple thought.

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Good point! And the telepath always picks up the particularly interesting narrative not "this coffee is hotter than I expected, now I'm stirring it to cool it down, it's still too hot, I'll blow on it..."

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Oh good grief, that "do you know what it's like when telepaths make lurve?" was a bad line. It was so utterly inappropriate for her to be saying something so intimate to him. Actually, I can't think of a time when that line would ever be appropriate. The only thing that was worse was the Byron plot. Incidentally, I can see how telepathy during sex might be fabulous, but I think overall it would make things seriously fraught. "What the hell do you mean, your ex did that better?" Or even the moments when your attention wanders for a moment and you find yourself pondering whether you left the window open.

It seems to be incredibly common to use sexual metaphors with telepathy. And I can see how it works, but you do get fed up with it. I found the approach in The Left Hand of Darkness to be one of the best I've read, in that while it was obviously about deep intimacy, it was a lot more subtle and recognised that it's not all about straightforward sex. *spoilers*

I liked the way that it came up when the two characters had reached the point when they simply shared whatever they could with each other, it's one of my favourite depictions of love in a novel. Also that Genly teaches Estraven, and Estraven is better than Genly at clearing his mind because of his training, then gets frustrated because he appears to be a prime candidate but can't receive when he's trying to, then manages it when he's off-guard and is absolutely freaked out because Genly's telepathic voice is identical to that of Estraven's dead brother.

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The Chrysalids, by Wyndham, used non-verbal telepathy, "thought shapes" as they called them. "Vaster Than Empires and More Slow", by Le Guin again, went for empathy rather than telepathy, and showed it almost inevitably snowballing into mutual hatred because of the paranoia which is the natural reaction to knowing someone can get inside your head. It also depicted it as a variant on autism, with the empath being unable to form any human bonds most of the time, and it's quite an interesting approach overall. There's another story by Le Guin, "The Compass Rose", about an instrument which shows people's thoughts, and it's pictorial and I think quite chaotic, often quite mundane (there's a situation with someone thinking about baked goods), and fairly dream-like, needing very skilled interpretation. Much more realistic than the similar device used in Stargate, where it not only shows a perfect video of events, but shows the person who's meant to be remembering them! Or, in one case, the stars visible around an entire planet, something the creature (who's got very limited mental abilities and has been alive no more than three weeks) wouldn't have known. These ideas often seem to behave as if thought is not only something linear and straightforward, but something purely visual and/or verbal, and a complete version of that.

I think I've seen telepaths picking up uninteresting narrative, generally when it's someone who's suddenly become telepathic and is startled by the whole thing and is discovering just how mundane most people's thoughts are. Well, either mundane or obsessed with sex. I think it was mostly the latter for the Torchwood episode where Tosh uses a telepathy device. Telepathy is usually used as a metaphor, either for intimacy (usually sexual) or paranoia (finding out what other people really think of you).

Edited Date: 2009-04-09 05:04 pm (UTC)

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And of course not only is that what you're thinking, but you're not actually verbalising it. You may not even register that you're doing things to cool your coffee, you could be doing them on autopilot. I wonder what a telepath would register for somebody doing something like playing a musical instrument or reading?

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Also the cliché of the telepath squinting at the subject, or rubbing their temples.

ghost_of_a_flea is mentioning the babble cliché, where there are so many bits of fragmented thought coming in that it doesn't make sense, and also how it would depend on the incidence of telepathy in the population, as 1 in 1000 would be quite different from being a one-off. Also he's pointed out that it would be really depressing being a telepath.

I'd be interested in the near-telepathy that occurs in some actual relationships, for instance between musical partners or in certain jobs. That might be a slightly fresher angle.

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kathryn-ironic.livejournal.com

I'd recommend finishing the book by reading the Cleoland guide to it- best MST3K of a book ever done.

The making of emotelepathy-- I don't really think it's a problem for you and other writers, other than the possibility of comparison.

I'm trying to think how her telepathic character compares to others telepathic characters- Dan Simmon's, etc--but my brain is overcapacity for that type of analysis.

The Below has Spoilers to Twilighty things

I'll just list some things about his telepathy. And, wait, I did read the Midnight Sun excerpt= Twilight from his side. Let's see:

1. a vampire's superpower is their best trait as a human, made better. (i.e. Bella is a Mary-Sue, so VampBella becomes a Super-Sue). I don't remember why Edward vamp-with-telepathy got telepathy.

2. for him it's like radio: he can receive signals for up to a few miles away (?) and when he wants he can switch from person to person, like scanning the dial. When reading someone, he sees what they see. If someone says his name it's hard not to listen. No touch needed.

3. he is bored with the dreadful gossipy half-tracked minds which are found in high school. He is bored with the vivid imaginations of all women who look at him and immediately start to fantasize. I don't think he's ever run into a guy with said fantasy imagination.

4. He can read everyone but Bella, part of why she's so intriguing. He can only read Bella's dad partially.

5. He can stalk her in school by hanging out in the minds of people next to her, although, again, their minds bore him. Unless they're boys and also enrage him with any fantasies of Bella.

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Ok, that is awesomely bad! So the #4 thing is just a reversal of the Sookie Stackhouse thing, where she can't read Bill's mind because he's a vampire and therefore she likes him (this is from Dead until Dark, IMHO better than the TV show by a long ways, b/c less of her brother). And that's hilarious that he picks up on boys thinking about Bella but no boys fantasize about him.

I'll read the Cleoland thing soon, it sounds like the right way to finish up.

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True! And never "This coffee is so hot. Reminds of the time I spilled it on Pete. Always hated Pete. Now his wife is so cute..."

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You're right wrt Wyndham and LeGuin. I've never seen Torchwood.

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True.

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ashnistrike.livejournal.com

Only evil telepaths use their power without a really good reason (X-Men Fallacy). Good telepaths walk around with their eyes closed so they don't invade anyone's privacy. (This rule is followed more in the stern lecture than in day-to-day life. But it's Important.)

Subset of the touch cliche: Why would you get better reception by touching someone with your hands specifically? You don't have ganglia in your hands!

The only neurological explanations you ever get are A) that it's what you're doing with the 90% of your brain that you "don't use" (except that you do; the 10% thing is a myth), or B) that it's your pineal gland (which is quite busy regulating your hormonal system).

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pixelfish.livejournal.com

Cliche: How about telepaths who become oversensitive and either become soft-touches for everybody or eeeebil overlords?

Like ebony14 points out, there's already a lot of OTHER sensory input that brains are sifting through. I mean, if I'm in a good book or engrossed in a boss battle in WoW, and I hear my boyfriend talking to me, it doesn't mean I process it right away, or even right now. So the chances that my telepathy would render me over-sensitive to everybody aren't super high.

(I admit I liked the Buffy episode where she is gifted with brief telepathy and at first it is cool, but then it ramps up and she has to get rid of it. That both played off the sensitive telepath stereotype and subverted it.)

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The telepath getting too hung up on the telepathy or lack thereof in significant others. One cliche has the telepath falling for the non-telepathic partner because they offer some kind of sanctuary or mystery. And the OTHER cliche has the happy couple discovering each other through their mutual telepathy. I understand that the telepathy will impact the relationship, but I tend to think of these things more organically occuring, as opposed to seeking somebody out who deliberately does or doesn't have these traits.

....

The piercing gaze has also been mentioned, but I'd like to add it's opposite number: the far-away gaze, the gaze of abstraction. This is fine if your telepath has to REALLY work at it, but if it IS something they do normally, then why can't they multitask--like walk through the kitchen, make brekkie, and check out the local brains all at the same time. I can listen to my MP3 player without getting distracted.

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It's a slight twist on the usual paranoia motif. They're a bunch of deeply dysfunctinal people who secretly work in Cardiff to sort out aliens. They find a strange alien device, and one of them, Tosh, gets approached by an alien (posing as a human woman) who shows her that it's a telepathic device and how to use it. Tosh naturally ends up becoming very suspicious of her colleagues, who turn out not to be thinking terribly nice thoughts about her. The alien uses this, along with plain old seduction, to lure Tosh away from her colleagues in order to manipulate her into doing something the alien needs. After the alien has been caught and dispatched, one of the colleagues apologises for what she'd been thinking that day (she'd been in the middle of an affair with another of the bunch. preoccupied with sex, and a smidgen bitchy too), admitting that she was behaving badly herself, and urges Tosh not to take that day as completely representational of them all. I can't remember another time when someone reacts to telepathy with first the "oh noes, you're finding out that I'm not perfect, I'm going to be all scared of you and defensive!" and then admits she was in the wrong and uses her own reaction as a wake-up call.

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Incidentally, considering all the heavy-handed sexual imagery that tends to get used with telepaths in SF, the clutching-at-the-head cliché would be better replaced with clutching at their crotch. Well, it would be funny at least.

There's a short story in the Penguin Book of Vampire Stories called "The Mindworm" about a boy with telepathic abilities who sifts through a crowd until he find a mind that appeals to him, then goes and sucks out the mind or something. I think the vampire metaphor is another common one, although it's not usually literal.

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pats-quinade.livejournal.com

One non-cliche that I've only seen in a few places is the idea that a telepath doesn't process other people's thoughts by their voices, but by having those thoughts herself. This makes it difficult at times to know which thoughts are hers and which are someone else's. I read it in a very old Asimov short story, and haven't really seen it used much since except as a way to suggest mental control (altering someone's thoughts), which isn't quite the same thing.

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