Thoughts from last night

[alias_sqbr]

(I had very broken sleep, which involved a lot of vague pondering)

In the world of Buffy etc, could you say "I invite you in as long as you're not a vampire"? Or "All welcome except vampires"?

And then I started thinking about the exact meaning of "invitation" and remembered that logic and fantasy don't necessarily mix.

Also, I had a dream where I was one of a group of tiny people from a parallel universe who got trapped on Earth. We eventually settled in a small model village in a DisneyLand-esque theme park and pretended to be little robots as part of the attraction. In the dream I thought "This is like in that movie/tv show" but on waking couldn't remember if I'd actually stolen the plot from anywhere or if I'd made it up (the "pretending to be robots" thing, the setup is rather Diggers-y)

Comments

[fizzyblogic]

A conditional invitation wouldn't work in the Buffyverse. Saying "I invite you in" means the vampire in question can come in, regardless of what clause you say after it. And "all welcome except vampires" wouldn't ... do anything, since a vampire needs to be individually asked in. (Though writing on a building like "enter all ye who seek knowledge" is enough, according to one episode, although since it was on a school and public buildings are fair game, I'm not quite sure what the point of that line was. But anyway.)

I know wayyy too much about vampire lore.

[alias_sqbr]

Ok, what about "As long as you're not a vampire, you're invited"?

[fizzyblogic]

The words "you're invited" are enough; I don't think the ... whatever it is that makes that rule (magic?) is set up for conditional extras on it, all you need is those words and the vampire's in.

[lea_hazel]

Most examples I know use implied invitations as a test. Formulate something that can be inferred as an invitation, and a human will consider it polite to walk in, but a vampire won't be able to enter without explicit invitation. Better yet, the human won't have any idea that you thought he might be a vampire.

[alias_sqbr]

Ah! Yes that would work too.

[prk]

You'd need the conditional component first, otherwise the vamp is in before you get to the "as long as you" bit, and it's game over.

Prk

[alias_sqbr]

But if you did, do you think it would work? (You never know when this sort of thing could be important!)