Defining "Rational Fic"
Rational Fic is a term that gets thrown around occasionally in online literary circles, particularly in the orbit of one Eliezer Yudkowsky. This makes sense; Yudkowsky's HPMoR is arguably the reason this (genre?) has any traction or distinct identity.
But what is that identity, and what works fall under the label?
I will attempt to define "rational fic" as a genre the way that the International Roguelike Development Conference 2008 attempted to define roguelikes: By creating a list of factors which make a narrative more "rational-fic-like". Possessing some of these attributes does not automatically make a story Rational Fic, lacking some does not automatically disqualify it, trying to nail down ironclad genre definitions is pointless.
To clarify my points, I will be explaining how these points apply to four narratives that I feel fit the Rational Fic label: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, Worm by J.C. McCrae, Mother of Learning by Domagoj Kurmaic, and of course Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky. Please note that, since this is a pretentious blog post and not a formal paper, I didn't bother rereading any of these stories before writing this post. I might mess up details here or there, and apologize for doing so. Hopefully none of my errors are severe enough to undermine the points that actually matter.
There are, I feel, three critical components to a Rational Fic: A rational protagonist (herein called "the hero"), a rational narrative (herein called "the plot"), and a rational setting (herein called "the world").
The world is the easiest aspect to explain. The world has a set of well-defined rules, revealed significantly before they become relevant. The intent is generally, at least in part, to let the reader speculate about what the hero (or other characters) can do to resolve obstacles the plot places in front of them.
In the cases where a work of rational fic is fanfiction, the author is almost certainly trying to force the source work's looser rules to fit this standard of consistency. Results vary.
This consistency of setting is probably the most foundational, least negotiable element of the Rational Fic genre. Many other aspects of a rational fic rely on this consistency to function.
EG is relatively hard science fiction, with its few science fantasy elements being explained well before they become plot-critical. The Battle Room game which takes up the middle majority of the book has clearly-defined rules, because it's basically a school sport. The "simulated" battles towards the tail end are vaguer, but the most critical component—the Dr. Device serving as their primary armament—has its capabilities explained before the training actually starts.
Worm is a bit shonen-battle-manga-ey, in that its various characters all have powers that function on their own internal logic. However: Characters' powers stick to that logic rigidly, there are a fair number of similarities and consistencies in how powers function, and time is generally taken to explain characters' powers before they become plot-relevant (rather than having them explain their own powers mid-fight).
MoL takes great care to show the reader how its various branches of magic work, assisted in no small part by the fact that Zorian spends much of his looped time either searching for teachers or learning from them.
HPMoR is known for, among other things, trying to bring logic to the somewhat inconsistent wizarding world written by JKR. Like MoL, it's set at a magical school; unlike MoL, the wizards don't have that much interest in discovering how magic works (the better to contrast HJPEV, I suppose), meaning that experimentation plays a much larger role.
(Ironically, HPMoR—the quintessential Rational Fic—is probably the least consistent out of these examples. HJPEV pulls off multiple tricks that the wider world thinks impossible, from partial transfiguration to creating a human Patronus that destroys Dementors. Yudkowsky probably intended these to be possible for a while before writing them, but from the reader's perspective, we're told these things are impossible and Harry does then anyways. Which fits the theme of human ingenuity overcoming any obstacle, but still makes the story as a whole fit this part of the definition less comfortably than EG, Worm, or MoL.)
The plot of rational fic is derived from the world. The plot is, in part, a series of obstacles which the hero must overcome to achieve their goals; the hero, being too weak to overcome those obstacles through conventional means, must find unconventional means to overcome them.
Specifically, the hero seeks to discover and exploit unconventional uses of various setting elements, whether that be magic, technology, or something else. Often, they also incorporate an understanding of their enemies' psychology into their strategies. And of course, the climax involves the biggest, most elaborate out-of-the-box strategy of all.
All four of the sample Rational Fics are full of examples of this, to the point that the only way I could explain how this applies to them is listing a bunch of examples that stand out in my mind, which would be spoilery for three and require me to admit that I don't remember anything interesting that HJPEV did.
Speaking of HJPEV: The hero of a rational fic is, to some extent, rational. But what does this mean? First off, it means that they are both the kind of person who can solve big problems with out-of-the-box thinking, and the kind of person who needs to. An underdog, but a clever one.
Ender is a relatively small boy, putting him at a disadvantage in physical confrontations. Battle School does their hardest. And then he fights the aliens that almost colonized Earth twice. Yet, he always wins (to a degree that would get him called a Mary Sue if he were a girl).
Taylor controls bugs, has next to no support structure, and regularly fights enemies which are unaffected by spider bites, really good at killing bugs, or both. And yet, she survives roughly three LotRs of escalating "I can take her"s.
Zorian is unremarkable except for a knack for mana shaping and latent psychic potential. Well, and getting stuck in a time loop. But he overcomes another looper who knows his strengths well enough to prepare countermeasures, including mind blank.
HJPEV is ten, and was raised by Muggles. He defeats a wide variety of magical foes, up to and including a Voldemort who is written to be more rational than his canon counterpart, in his first year at Hogwarts.
The hero is obviously framed as being intelligent, though the details vary greatly from story to story. As important as the places where they're smart are the places where they are dumb; after all, a hero who's just super smart and always makes the right decision is boring!
Ender isn't just smart; he's the smartest, plucked from a smart family and given military training to lead humanity to victory against the buggers. His intelligence takes the form of ruthlessly "seeing that bright, clear line and not caring about anything but the beautiful fact that you can see the solution," even if that means mortally wounding his bullies to get them to stop. His biggest flaw is his trusting nature; he believes the authorities when they say his bullies survive, he believes them when they say he's being trained to defend the Solar System, he believes them when they say the battles (including his alien genocide) are just training simulations.
Taylor is probably the stupidest out of the four heroes discussed here. She's pretty good at a lot of things, but most notably excels in MacGuyvering a solution out of spider silk, random bugs, and her knife. She has two big blind spots: She's bad at social situations (her primary negotiating tactic is to not negotiate with anyone unless there's a big, obvious threat that people need to work together to fight), and she's not great at considering the long-term impact of her actions. Also, she's the only one of these four who's struggling academically.
By contrast, Zorian is good at school, he's okay at thinking on his feet, and most importantly, he's great at planning ahead. His primary flaw is his antisocial nature; he sucks at dealing with people, doesn't want to, and for much of the story tries to avoid and ignore people.
HPJEV is super-logical, good at figuring out unclear facts and making good plans once he has all the facts. His big weaknesses are his average intuition (contrast Ender, Taylor, and Zorian) and the fact that, despite his pure intentions, he's kind of an unempathetic jerk. Though he's also way better at being a solo hero than Zorian or Ender, so I question whether this is a real weakness...
You'll note that all four of these heroes have blind spots with other people. Ender's people problems are less severe than Taylor's, HPJEV's, or especially Zorian's, but his blind spot still involves other people. Whether this should be considered a component of rational fic per se or simply an incarnation of the socially-awkward-genius trope is a question I will raise without definitively answering.
I could go into deeper detail, pointing out other commonalities between these stories that seem rational-fic-ey, but this has lingered in my drafts for months, so I'm just gonna post it and encourage y'all to add your own thoughts in the notes.
