: Re: Is a stroke of luck acceptable after a series of unfavorable events? The protagonist sets out on a journey to reach a goal. But the further he gets into the story, the clearer he understands

@Berumen699

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So, when I was in college learning to code and was stuck on a bug that I could not fix, and was spending hours looking at it without any solution, the best course of action was for me to take a break (though in my frustration, it was more like give up). As I was leaving the computer lab on my way back to my dorm, then solution would hit me... more often than not before I hit the exit for the building the lab was in.

Sometimes when you get so focused on the end, you get tunnel vision to the goal and can't see the bridge over the gap to that path. Perhaps after the last and most recent screw up, she hits a low and believes she's failed and will never win... and she's running over her failure over and over and over, and all the things that she could have done and that's when the solution hits her and it's never been more obvious. Its decidedly lucky, but the trick is that the answer was something she missed.

For me, it's a language issue... the specific wording used entails the solution. My go to example is, suppose that your friend got a really bad haircut. It's so bad, you think it's a nightmare... but then your friend asks you what you think of the haircut. "It's a dream," I respond.

Am I a liar? I resent that I even have to pretend you would think that of me. I told the friend the truth. Nightmares are dreams, are they not? If the friend draws the conclusion that I liked the haircut, that's their own fault, not mine.

Maybe the villain said something that seems subtle at first, but the difference between the assumed meaning and the actual meaning is actually a lot... you've been fighting a battle chained by the rules of the assumed meaning... maybe the villain has been fighting the fight with the assumed rules as well... and with the knowledge that the actual meaning does not contain rules that benefit him, but hurts you... and if you know it and he doesn't that could turn the tide.

Consider the ending of Frozen. Anna is told that only an act of true love could break the curse on her, and seeks Kristoff to kiss, which she believes is the way to break the spell... But when she sees that her choice is between saving her sister's life or saving her own (by breaking the curse) she chooses to protect her sister and succumbs to the curse... and then curse is broken.

Anna was operating on the idea of the protypical Disney use of the trope of true love breaking the curse: A kiss from the true romantic partner will break this spell... However, the rule is "TRUE LOVE" not "true ROMANTIC love" and it's possible to love someone aromantically... such as love of sacrificing your life for your sister... which as far as the curse is concerned is an act of true love. Anna was operating under a set of rules that did not apply because she didn't pay attention to the exact wording of the rules.

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