Talk:Tralfamadore

"or fatal dream"

Is there a source for the claim that "or fatal dream" is a recurring concept in Vonnegut's works? It seems like a random anagram of a random word that someone might have put here as a joke.

Good point - it was put in by an anonymous IP without sourcing, so I've removed it until it can be backed up. Interesting idea, though. - DavidWBrooks 20:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Writing a paper on this now. I think Martin Coleman in "The Meaninglessness of Coming Unstuck in Time" explains the relation of the anagram to at least Slaughterhouse-Five, and possibly other works.

picture needed

This article should have a picture to illustrate the subject in question. One can be found at [1], but I am unsure how to license it. I request that somone be able to add it as soon as possible. --Zenoseiya (talk) 02:05, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem, as I see it, is that there is no "official" picture of how they look. In fact, as the article itself points out, the way that they look changes from book to book. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.74.57.100 (talk) 17:45, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Reference

Am I mistaken or is Tralfamadore mentioned in the movie Martian Child?

Tralfamadorians in non-Vonnegut works

I am absolutely sure that I read/watched/saw something not by Vonnegut that had Tralfamadorians in it. I seem to remember that their heads were like a hand holding an eye. I've tried to track this down, obviously unsuccessfully. Anyone know anything about this? I'm not talking about a video game, but a cartoon on TV or animated movie or a comic book (hence the head appearance memory). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.196.116.183 (talk) 02:50, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

It may have been the brief sci-fi sequence in Monty Python's Life of Brian, when our hero is being chased to the top of a tower, falls and lands in a passing UFO?

WP:PAGEDECIDE

Carrying on the WP:PAGEDECIDE discussion from the AfD as suggested by the close. The article is, I think it fair to say, rather scattershot (for lack of a better word) at present. I don't know how much room there is for improvement in turning it into a cohesive whole, but it may very well be the case that this is kind of unavoidable given the nature of the subject matter. Considering the current balance between overarching analysis and description of individual examples that heavily favours the latter, it would seem to me to make more sense to cover the overarching stuff very briefly at Kurt Vonnegut#Writing and the individual examples at their respective works (The Sirens of Titan, Slaughterhouse-Five, and so on). TompaDompa (talk) 15:54, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

The thing is, secondary sources do a lot of comparisons or equations of two variations, in different pairings. So far I think this is best presented here, where an interested reader can get all of that. Getting these comparisons makes some amount of plot-summary and context necessary. Description, based on secondary sources, is also what someone typing in the name is looking for, I expect. And moving everything to Kurt Vonnegut#Writing we seem to agree would be too much. Covering these comparisons at the individual works, in contrast, would mean duplicating things (which I could life with), and neccesitate presenting the context from all works it is compared to. Daranios (talk) 16:25, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Generally speaking, I would say that comparisons between work X and work Y should in many cases be covered at the articles for both work X and work Y (depending on the coverage in the sources and so on), so I don't think that's a problem in itself. We shouldn't omit analysis from e.g. the Slaughterhouse-Five article solely because that analysis can be found here at this article, after all. The problem here, as I see it, is that the "connective tissue" is fairly weak—pairwise comparisons don't do much to establish this as a cohesive overarching topic as opposed to a set of somewhat-related ones. TompaDompa (talk) 16:38, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Whitehead is the one analysis I've seen which explicitely looks at all five versions together. So I guess we could keep the lede, that, and otherwise just link to the individual works with a sentence of explanation, and shift everything else there. Which size-wise could fit in Kurt Vonnegut article, if we can find a fitting place there. That does not exactly make things easier for a reader wanting to get a complete view, though. Also, see the new section below. So I don't have a strong opinion one way or another, as long as the content is preserved. Daranios (talk) 19:45, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think we should want readers to get a complete view, though (at least not with the scant overarching sourcing we currently have); it seems more misleading than enlightening to present it as a single cohesive topic. TompaDompa (talk) 19:56, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Maybe this was bad phrasing on my part, maybe we just disagree on the best use of sources: I see nothing wrong with using what reliable secondary sources can be found to the best of our ability, as long as we avoid WP:SYNTH. Anyway, as this is about potentially overturning/further developing the keep result of the AfD, pinging the discussions' participants in case they want to chip in: @Jclemens, Zxcvbnm, XOR'easter, Shooterwalker, and PARAKANYAA:

About this seeming "rather scattershot", I guess that's due to my principle of organizing the article:

• Lede
• Presenting the appearances in individual novels in chronological order (which might remain bullet points or be changed to sub-headings) with description of Tralfamadore and what is necessary of the plot to understand future commentary.
• Having the commentary which compares two versions at the paragraph of the latter novel (which automatically leads to Sirens having no commentary, if we do stay with having commentary on an individual version at the novel's article).
• At the bottom commentary comparing more/all versions.

I just could not think of a better way of presentation so far. Daranios (talk) 11:28, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

I am very wary of WP:SYNTH for a topic like this. That's why I insisted the previously existing, unsourced content be removed and the article be built from scratch using proper sources so as to ensure that none would unintentionally slip through. That's also why I think we should err on the side of covering each Tralfamadore separately in the relevant articles if we don't have very strong reasons to do otherwise. Content-level WP:SYNTH is relatively easy to spot, but concept-level WP:SYNTH is much more nefarious. TompaDompa (talk) 14:56, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

I am entirely unconcerned about SYNTH. We simply report what secondary sources do. Doesn't mean we have to tear anything down, and the contention that multiple uses of the same word be covered in different articles is unhelpful. That's me being charitable--I can think of several less AGF words to describe my thoughts about it. Jclemens (talk) 19:24, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

By all means speak your mind. TompaDompa (talk) 00:45, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

By your invitation, then, I think this is a pedantic debate that's a waste of everyone's time. Jclemens (talk) 21:29, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

I see. Well, engaging in the discussion is of course voluntary. It can certainly be debated whether Wikipedia should cover fictional topics at all or if it's (generally speaking) a waste of time, but as long as we are committed to doing that I think we should take it seriously and try to do as good a job of it as we can. To that end, I don't want this to turn into another example of "Hey look, Wikipedia doesn't understand work of fiction X!", hence wanting to err on the side of caution. TompaDompa (talk) 22:07, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

It would be nice if discussions were optional, but non-participation has a funny way of being misconstrued as consensus for whatever happens. Jclemens (talk) 05:15, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I think erring on the side of caution should not be taken so far as to prevent us from creating articles based on secondary, as opposed to tertiary, sources. While readers will rightfully be dissatisfied with errors articles, they will not be happy with getting no treatment of their topic either. Daranios (talk) 11:28, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I think misinformation is worse than no information (and this is also enshrined in our WP:Editing policy: a lack of content is better than misleading or false content), but the alternative suggestion is not to refrain from covering Tralfamadore at all—it is to cover it elsewhere. I might compare this to a recent discussion at Talk:List of horror fiction writers#Film and TV writers?, where the question was whether to cover horror screenwriters (i.e. writers of horror films and horror television) alongside writers of horror literature—my position being that although there are commonalities, the differences are such that it would be more misleading than enlightening to cover them collectively in one place. All this being said, if consensus turns out to be that it's better to cover Tralfamadore at a single article, I'll acquiesce. TompaDompa (talk) 16:12, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

It was probably already clear, but to spell it out, noone here wants to add misinformation. I think having everything referenced to secondary sources and making clear what refers to what and is from whom suffices for that. If someone still spots an implied misinformation, please speak up, then I think this can be solved by better phrasing, while distributing the information to other pages is not neccessary for that. For PAGEDECIDE, my reasoning from the AfD still stands.

To a more practical question: As discussed at the AfD I have stuck to commentary revolving around at least two variants and not tackled commentaries based on one appearance, and for reasons of time I don't intend to. So if we see this as a case of a WP:Set index article, it is special insofar as no articles on individual variants, nor specific sections, exist yet (there are enough secondary source to create them). But the articles on the novels still contain additional info on the planet. So should/could that be made clearer than it is now in some way that it would be worthwhile for the interested reader to look there? Daranios (talk) 10:58, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

We may be talking past each other somewhat here. It should go without saying that nobody wants to mislead our readers. Whether we are unintentionally doing so anyway is my point of concern.

Any content-level unintentional misleading material can and should be dealt with by rephrasing (and so on, i.e. normal article editing) as you suggest. However, if there is any concept-level unintentional misleading material—and my contention is that there very well may be and that we at least cannot rule it out with a satisfactory degree of confidence—then that inherently cannot be fixed by the normal article editing process.

Shooterwalker suggested below that a WP:NOPAGE approach may be appropriate if this isn't a consistent or major setting, and more of an easter egg that appears across an auteur's works—my understanding is that this is a more-or-less accurate description of the situation at hand (though I find "major" to be way less relevant than "consistent").

I think covering tenuously-linked items as though they were a single cohesive overarching topic falls on the wrong side of being misleading on a concept level, and I think not being able to rule out that that's what we're doing here is bad enough to warrant erring on the side of caution by instead covering the items separately (it is—hopefully—uncontroversial that we should not make comparisons ourselves as that would be incompatible with our policy against WP:Original research; I'm saying that we also should not invite them); both of these are judgment calls. I also think the tenuousness of the connections makes the case for keeping the information all in one place weak.

Unfortunately we cannot get the answer straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak, as Kurt Vonnegut is dead (unless there's some older interview where he clarifies the matter?). I had hoped that somebody familiar with the topic would weigh in and give us a definitive answer.

About your question: Assuming this should be a stand-alone article (and as noted above I don't think it should based on what I've seen), I would say it depends on the structure of this article and the nature of the further information. In many cases, a plain link should suffice; if the different works get separate (sub-)sections, a template such as {{further}} might be appropriate. The more descriptive the additional information is the less should be necessary and the more analytical it is the more would be appropriate to do (which might be to incorporate the information here rather than direct the reader elsewhere). If the article is restructured entirely, and there may be good reason to do so, considerations will change. For instance: tables are sometimes very helpful for comparative analysis, though it seems to me that there would in this case be a significant risk of producing "comparisons of comparisons" that do not strictly come from the sources.

By the way, might you elaborate on what you meant by erring on the side of caution should not be taken so far as to prevent us from creating articles based on secondary, as opposed to tertiary, sources? TompaDompa (talk) 17:06, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

It kind of feels like we start retreading the same ground, so my short answer would be, that everything is referenced to secondary sources and it's clear what refers to what and is from whom should suffice to avoid a misconstructed image. It is not me creating the connections, the sources do.

The long answer to your question is, we do not have a classical tertiary article which tells us that this is one topic. (Although we do have the Dictionary of Science Fiction Places article, dealing with two instances and there might be relevant commentary in The Vonnegut Encyclopedia, but the preview is incomplete.) So we are left with secondary sources. The fact that we do not have one definitive authority which tells us what to do should not hinder us from faithfully representing what secondary sources have to say on a topic. Is that clearer? I guess also your It can certainly be debated whether Wikipedia should cover fictional topics at all had me spooked a bit. I guess I'll ask if someone can provide the missing pages from The Vonnegut Encyclopedia.

With regard to if this isn't a consistent or major setting, and more of an easter egg that appears across an auteur's works, my understanding is that it is neither. It is not merely an easter egg, as it is a central plot element of two novels. And it is deliberately not consistent as a setting. But my understanding is that secondary sources like Whitehead do treat it as one concept. Secondary sources talk of variants, but they do not talk of Tralfamadores or planets, plural, but say things like "Tralfamadore reappears", singular.

All in all that leaves me with "weak keep", opposed to split up and merge. If someone wants to improve coverage of the topic, it would be much more fruitful to expand the commentary on the planet within the individual novels based on such sources as those found by Jclemens in the AfD first. Once that is done, one could revisit this dicussion with an eye on how can a reader best learn everything we have if they are looking for "What's that Tralfamadore?". Otherwise I am happy to defer to a different outcome if there is a clear consensus. Daranios (talk) 11:01, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Ah, that clarifies it. I don't think of it in terms of secondary versus tertiary sources but in terms of overarching versus non-overarching sources, but I suppose we are really talking about the same thing. To me, we do not have a classical tertiary article which tells us that this is one topic is the same thing as saying that we are indeed engaging in concept-level WP:SYNTH, as long as what you mean by "a classical tertiary article" is the same thing as what I mean by a source on the overarching topic. On the easter egg question, I would say a non-consistent setting in works that do not share an internal continuity is more meaningfully viewed as an easter egg (i.e. the fact that the name is the same amounts to an easter egg) than as a single cohesive topic absent strong evidence that the latter interpretation is the correct one—but that's my personal opinion. For the sake of clarity: I don't consider the "different variants" versus "different planets" terminology question to be strong evidence in this context.

To be clear, I think we should cover fictional topics (e.g. Frodo Baggins) subject to the same restrictions as apply to non-fictional topics (e.g. Charlemagne), but some might argue that we should leave it to others (fan wikis such as Wookieepedia, for instance). In particular, I think we should be as strict with sourcing requirements, adherence to WP:PROPORTION, and so on when it comes to fictional topics as we are when it comes to non-fictional topics. TompaDompa (talk) 12:21, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

The Dictionary of Science Fiction Places and The Vonnegut Encyclopedia both cover different versions of Tralfamadore as a chapter under one heading. If we do the same, to borrow the phrasing from another essay, we do not lead, we follow. Have you considered the overarching treatment by Whitehead? Daranios (talk) 16:58, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Assuming this (cited in the article) is what you are referring to, I am not particularly impressed with Whitehead's analysis in terms of establishing this as a cohesive topic. The content is rather brief and not exactly in-depth; taken on its own, I would say it's borderline if it counts as WP:Significant coverage of Tralfamadore as such. TompaDompa (talk) 18:12, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough, though I don't share that view on significant coverage. But the thing is, I have still not seen a secondary source calling Tralfamadore different fictional planets sharing the same name, but I have seen it called the planet Tralfamadore, which is depicted inconsistently. If we want to be extra careful to avoid misconceptions, we should avoid treating it like the former and follow the latter idea. Daranios (talk) 11:44, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

I would counter that if we want to avoid misconceptions, we should avoid treating it as one topic—as you say, we do not have a classical tertiary article which tells us that this is one topic.

The more I read about Tralfamadore, the less I think it makes sense to treat it as a single topic. It seems to me to basically amount to an equivocation, similar to making an article for a placeholder name as if it were not one. As Klinkowitz states, we have Tralfamadore as a "distant world several galaxies away" (The Sirens of Titan), "a parallel universe" (Slaughterhouse-Five), and fictional within the fiction itself (God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater). Treating it all as one and the same becomes rather forced, which is reflected in our article.

Generally speaking, I favour not having more pages than necessary. Sometimes fictional elements warrant a stand-alone article; I rewrote and expanded the Mesklin during that AfD rather than opting to covering the subject at the Mission of Gravity article—but on the other hand, Mesklinites could hypothetically also be covered at a separate article but I thought it better to cover them at the Mesklin article. In that case, I thought it made the most sense to have a stand-alone article for the fictional planet Mesklin; here, I don't think it makes much sense to have a stand-alone article for Tralfamadore. Inasmuch as a planet called Tralfamadore is a recurring motif in Vonnegut's work, I think it better to cover it at Kurt Vonnegut#Writing. Inasmuch as it is a plot element in various stories, I think it better to cover it at the articles for those stories. Inasmuch as sources compare Tralfamadore in work 1 and Tralfamadore in work 2, I think it better to cover it at the articles for work 1 and work 2. TompaDompa (talk) 09:53, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

But now I guess we do have a source on the overarching topic: As already said, The Vonnegut Encyclopedia has one entry covering all versions of the planet, and starts with "The planet in the Small Magellanic Cloud that is a central feature of both The Sirens of Titan and Slaughterhouse-Five. The nature of life on Tralfamadore, however, is not consistent across the texts." The planet, a feature. Not the different planets from the two novels which happen to share the same name. Likewise the already discussed commentary by Whitehead. That's good enough for me, staying with weak keep. So as long as not more voices are heard, I'd be happy to revisit this question only when coverage within the articles of the individual novels goes beyond what we've collected here now. Daranios (talk) 12:10, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

"This is key"

I believe there is a difference between the summaries "Tralfamadore is the name of several different fictional planets in Vonnegut's works" and "Tralfamadore is a fictional planet that appears in several different versions in Vonnegut's works". Does that make sense?
@TomaDompa:, you've stated that it is key that Tralfamadore are "Different fictional planets" (i.e. the former). Did you actually see a source which makes that explicit? That appearance in different novels is widly different is apparent. But it seemed to me that most secondary sources saw this as different variants of one concept with communalities (i.e. the latter). Like in Sirens, p. 63, which I have quoted before: "The Sirens of Titan and Slaughterhouse 5 play with time through their main character's engagement with a fictitious planet named Tralfamadore, which plays a central role in both novels". Not plural, "fictitious planets which play a central role" in their respective novels. Daranios (talk) 19:05, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Of the three possible ways of characterizing Tralfamadore as (1) "different fictional planets", (2) "different (and irreconcilable) versions of a fictional planet", and (3) "a fictional planet" without qualifying it further, I don't think the watershed is between (1) and (2) but between (2) and (3). Brian Stableford's The Dictionary of Science Fiction Places says A later report of Tralfamadore—which might have been illusory and almost certainly referred to a different alternativerse [...], i.e. that the two (from The Sirens of Titan and Slaughterhouse-Five) do not share a fictional universe. I would describe that as being different planets (especially considering other inconsistencies). I would on the other hand describe Krypton in different iterations of the Superman franchise as different versions of the same planet. Your mileage may vary. As long as the WP:Short description makes it clear that Tralfamadore isn't (in a meaningful sense) one single fictional planet, I don't have particularly strong opinions on its precise phrasing. That's why I added the plural "s". I then added "different" to the short description because it struck me that "fictional planets" might be interpreted as e.g. a fictional planetary system or a fictional double planet. TompaDompa (talk) 20:13, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

So until I see otherwise I think version (1) "different fictional planets" is not supported by secondary sources. And in fact Stableford, who you have quoted, sees the versions from Sirens and Slaughterhouse as two alternate history versions of one planet, as he states that the Tralfamadorians from Slaughterhouse are the same as those who have lived in Sirens a long time in the past. And while the variants are irreconcilable as descriptions of science-fiction planets, secondary sources do point to communalities as a philosophical concept. Daranios (talk) 11:42, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

No, not alternate history versions. Different fictional universes. That's a very significant difference. TompaDompa (talk) 14:48, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Hm, how about "Fictional planet variants"? TompaDompa (talk) 15:00, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

I am happy with that phrasing. Daranios (talk) 09:02, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

I was tagged to come here. I admit that I tuned out a lot of the conversation because the tone seemed unconstructive. Working on articles is more constructive. I am honestly not sure about the WP:N question and I thought a merge or redirect was a middle ground. I still think WP:NOPAGE is worth considering, especially if this isn't a consistent or major setting, and more of an easter egg that appears across an auteur's works. But I will defer to the consensus and I am glad editors are adding sources. Shooterwalker (talk) 20:53, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

I took a look at God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. Tralfamadore appears twice: in the line "You don't have to go to Planet Tralfamadore in Anti-Matter Galaxy 508 G to find weird creatures with unbelievable powers." by Eliot Rosewater, and in an excerpt from the fictional Kilgore Trout book Pan-Galactic Three-Day Pass ("He was from the planet Tralfamadore, and was about as tall as an Earthling beer can."). Rather a cameo, one might say. TompaDompa (talk) 20:57, 15 November 2024 (UTC)