Talk:Conflict (narrative)

Inconsistencies and uncited claims, mainly in "History"

Personally I think the history section is rather confusing because of some uncited claims and inconsistencies in History. For example, in the second paragraph: "Even in modern non-dramatic literature, critics have observed that the agon is the central unit of the plot. The easier it is for the protagonist to triumph, the less value there is in the drama." If the claim in sentence 1 is also true for "non-dramatic" narratives why does it immediately cite drama in the next sentence to back up the claim? This is ignoring that sentence 2, like many other assertions that conflict is central to plot, seems to depend on a reasoning that really boils down to "it works" or "it sells" and not much else. Also, in the first paragraph, the claim attributed to Plutarch contains a link to ennoblement although I could not find such a link on Plutarch's own Wikipedia page.

This also connects to a problem with uncited claims in the section. The Plutarch-attributed claim not being on his own page would not be that big a deal if there is a reference cited, but not only is there no references for that part of paragraph 1 or that part of paragraph 2, there's also only one reference in the whole section and it's for the use of the term "agon". Why isn't there backup for these claims if they pertain to narrative conflict's necessity or history

I think these issues should be addressed if conflict really is a "major literary element of narrative or dramatic structure" (another major inconsistency, this one along pages - the dramatic structure page currently chronicles many diasporas and structures, including the conflict-optional kishotenketsu, other than ones where conflict is 'built in', but I'll leave that page to itself here). 173.48.54.18 (talk) 13:30, 21 September 2021 (UTC)