On 12/5/07, David Goodman <dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com> wrote:
In particular the articles on "Characters in
[whatever]" or "List of
murders in [some series]" have always seemed to be enormously helpful
in keeping things straight. The more obscure the minor characters,
the more we need an encyclopedia.
There's definitely a line somewhere. There's "having an encyclopaedia
article about" and then there's "exhaustively documenting". There was
an article recently with several huge paragraphs documenting, in
minute details, everything that had gone in a single episode of a Big
Brother episode. Who had said what to whom, how they responded, why
the first person was upset, then how they played with whatever by
themselves singing whatever...
And of course there is the problem of "in universe" styles - the
difference between "Joe appeared only sporadically throughout the
second series, chiefly as a comic device to..." and "Joe is seldom
seen, as he is working in his laboratory, but whenever he turns up he
is sure to crack a great gag..." Vomit, vomit.
Steve