This has to be wrong; Pierre Bezukhov's arc in War and Peace is a very clear counterexample, and War and Peace is often cited as an exemplary or central case of novel. My instance of Claude Opus writes:
>Pierre Bezukhov's arc involves substantial stance changes driven by several of the "rare" causes Hanson lists—particularly gaining new associates and copying them (f): first the Freemasons (especially Bazdeev), then Platon Karataev during captivity, then his post-war political circle that points toward Decembrist-adjacent views. The Karataev transformation also has elements of "it just felt right" (g), though that's intertwined with the (f) mechanism. His post-war radicalization combines (a) seeing the events of 1812 with (f) new associates.
This is just the example that immediately came to mind before even looking at your list; I would bet at even odds I can name ten comparably clear counterexamples without much trouble.
Dorothea Brooke in Middlemarch also changes her political alignment due to some of your rare causes. My Claude Opus writes:
Dorothea's arc involves stance changes on political reform—she starts with vague philanthropic enthusiasm, marries Casaubon partly hoping to contribute to some grand intellectual/moral project, and ends up with Will Ladislaw who is actively involved in Reform politics (he becomes a Reform MP).
But the mechanisms are mixed:
(f) Gaining new associates: Will Ladislaw is clearly a new associate whose views she comes to share, and her exposure to his political circle matters.
(a) Seeing events: Her disillusionment with Casaubon comes from observing his actual work and character—that's reality-testing.
(g) It just felt right: There's something ineffable about her attraction to Will and what he represents versus the desiccated scholasticism of Casaubon.
I'd love to see the whole list of novels and characters.
I'm curious how many instances, if any, they would detect of people turning /against/ a social movement, and especially a youth movement. There are famous biographies about that, but famous novels? Perhaps Heart of Darkness, which is semi-autobiographical. It was turning against colonialism when it was popular.
Is easy to see counterexamples off the top of my head. Huck Finn, for instance, changes his stance on slavery/goodness to resolve inconsistency in his prior norms and actions.
And Boromir saw opportunity to gain power status or attention.
Those two examples come to mind before any examples of political opinions changed by facts.
Raskolnikov’s change just feels right.
I’m still not immediately seeing a fist example of a fact driven shift.
You could post a Google survey asking your readers to make the same judgements on those novels which they read. (Do ask people who only saw the movie not to answer.)
Gemini says these tools exist to create a google forms survey from your text description:
### **1. Google Forms Native "Help Me Create a Form" (Gemini)**
Google has integrated its AI, **Gemini**, directly into Google Forms for eligible Google Workspace users. This is the most direct way to build a survey from a text specification. It requires Google One AI Premium or some other premium Google AI subscription.
* **How it works:** Open a new form, and a "Help me create a form" prompt box will appear. You simply type your description (e.g., *"Create a registration form for a weekend yoga retreat with dietary options and room preferences"*), and it generates the questions and options for you.
If you don't have the Gemini business tier, you can install third-party add-ons from the Google Workspace Marketplace that specialize in "Prompt-to-Form" conversion.
* **MagicForm.app:** This is a popular add-on that lives in your Google Forms sidebar. You can paste your text specification or even upload a PDF, and it converts the content into a structured survey or quiz in seconds.
* **GPT for Google Forms:** Developed by Lincoln Apps, this tool allows you to enter a topic or text prompt and select the number of questions. It then generates the form and adds the questions directly to your current document.
Some external AI platforms build the form in their own interface but allow you to sync the data to Google Sheets or export the structure.
* **Weavely.ai:** An AI-native form maker that lets you describe a form via text or voice. It specializes in advanced logic and design. While it is its own platform, it offers seamless integration with Google Sheets for response tracking.
* **Form Builder Plus (ChatGPT Custom GPT):** If you use ChatGPT Plus, there are custom GPTs that can generate a direct Google Form link. After you describe the survey in the chat, the GPT uses an API connection to create the file in your Google Drive.
The Gospels contain a large number of fact-driven shifts to follow Jesus, where the facts are things like "was healed by Jesus". Good luck to your LLMs on what percentage political his movement was.
Gulliver doesn't join a movement, but is converted to the POV of the Houhynyms (sp?) by seeing how nice their society is.
The Watchmen are persuaded to cooperate with the "villain" at the end of /Watchmen/ by facts. But it is not a happy ending, it's a tragedy.
The recent Young Adult fantasy series /Keeper of the Lost Cities/ has a protagonist who is abducted into a utopia, and gradual revelations of clues and facts turn her against it a few books into the series, then back into alliance with it as several different movements and races in a conflict, each react and adapt to events and disclosures of fact.
Does "fact-driven" include people converted by losing their belief in facts? eg, 1984.
Can you have the LLM's rank order their lists and then you give us example from both ends of the lists?
I linked to the LLM convos, so you can continue them as you like.
This has to be wrong; Pierre Bezukhov's arc in War and Peace is a very clear counterexample, and War and Peace is often cited as an exemplary or central case of novel. My instance of Claude Opus writes:
>Pierre Bezukhov's arc involves substantial stance changes driven by several of the "rare" causes Hanson lists—particularly gaining new associates and copying them (f): first the Freemasons (especially Bazdeev), then Platon Karataev during captivity, then his post-war political circle that points toward Decembrist-adjacent views. The Karataev transformation also has elements of "it just felt right" (g), though that's intertwined with the (f) mechanism. His post-war radicalization combines (a) seeing the events of 1812 with (f) new associates.
This is just the example that immediately came to mind before even looking at your list; I would bet at even odds I can name ten comparably clear counterexamples without much trouble.
Here's my instance of Claude's subsequent evaluation of the top 240:
Summary: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ond0vdvdx9gamvr95q3s1/novel_analysis_summary.md?rlkey=k8a617y93irtmdbvb8aqnwgg2&dl=0
CSV listing each entry: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/54rkflkioujzff2y3326c/novels_coded.csv?rlkey=cjdej3lhumzkfwiaqkwu0u3qv&dl=0
My chat transcript: https://claude.ai/share/8a7d725b-5c70-42c1-925d-8086f6886f91
Dorothea Brooke in Middlemarch also changes her political alignment due to some of your rare causes. My Claude Opus writes:
Dorothea's arc involves stance changes on political reform—she starts with vague philanthropic enthusiasm, marries Casaubon partly hoping to contribute to some grand intellectual/moral project, and ends up with Will Ladislaw who is actively involved in Reform politics (he becomes a Reform MP).
But the mechanisms are mixed:
(f) Gaining new associates: Will Ladislaw is clearly a new associate whose views she comes to share, and her exposure to his political circle matters.
(a) Seeing events: Her disillusionment with Casaubon comes from observing his actual work and character—that's reality-testing.
(g) It just felt right: There's something ineffable about her attraction to Will and what he represents versus the desiccated scholasticism of Casaubon.
I'd love to see the whole list of novels and characters.
I'm curious how many instances, if any, they would detect of people turning /against/ a social movement, and especially a youth movement. There are famous biographies about that, but famous novels? Perhaps Heart of Darkness, which is semi-autobiographical. It was turning against colonialism when it was popular.
I linked to the whole list.
Is easy to see counterexamples off the top of my head. Huck Finn, for instance, changes his stance on slavery/goodness to resolve inconsistency in his prior norms and actions.
And Boromir saw opportunity to gain power status or attention.
Those two examples come to mind before any examples of political opinions changed by facts.
Raskolnikov’s change just feels right.
I’m still not immediately seeing a fist example of a fact driven shift.
If I could get you to code all 240 novels, I'd compare that as a dataset.
what do you mean by "code"?
You could post a Google survey asking your readers to make the same judgements on those novels which they read. (Do ask people who only saw the movie not to answer.)
Gemini says these tools exist to create a google forms survey from your text description:
### **1. Google Forms Native "Help Me Create a Form" (Gemini)**
Google has integrated its AI, **Gemini**, directly into Google Forms for eligible Google Workspace users. This is the most direct way to build a survey from a text specification. It requires Google One AI Premium or some other premium Google AI subscription.
* **How it works:** Open a new form, and a "Help me create a form" prompt box will appear. You simply type your description (e.g., *"Create a registration form for a weekend yoga retreat with dietary options and room preferences"*), and it generates the questions and options for you.
* **Source:** Google Docs Editors Help, "Create a form with Gemini in Google Forms," [support.google.com](https://support.google.com/docs/answer/16346789?hl=en), January 2026.
### **2. Google Workspace Add-ons**
If you don't have the Gemini business tier, you can install third-party add-ons from the Google Workspace Marketplace that specialize in "Prompt-to-Form" conversion.
* **MagicForm.app:** This is a popular add-on that lives in your Google Forms sidebar. You can paste your text specification or even upload a PDF, and it converts the content into a structured survey or quiz in seconds.
* *Citation:* "MagicForm.app: Automated Quiz Creation from Text," [unrealspeech.com/ai-apps/magicform-app](https://unrealspeech.com/ai-apps/magicform-app), 2025.
* **GPT for Google Forms:** Developed by Lincoln Apps, this tool allows you to enter a topic or text prompt and select the number of questions. It then generates the form and adds the questions directly to your current document.
* *Citation:* "GPT for Google Forms | Quiz Builder | ChatGPT," [workspace.google.com/marketplace](https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/gpt_for_google_forms_quiz_builder_chatgp/37349114302), 2025.
### **3. AI Platforms with Export Capabilities**
Some external AI platforms build the form in their own interface but allow you to sync the data to Google Sheets or export the structure.
* **Weavely.ai:** An AI-native form maker that lets you describe a form via text or voice. It specializes in advanced logic and design. While it is its own platform, it offers seamless integration with Google Sheets for response tracking.
* *Citation:* "Weavely Review 2025: The Google Form Maker AI That Builds Itself?", [skywork.ai](https://skywork.ai/skypage/en/Weavely-Review-2025-The-Google-Form-Maker-AI-That-Builds-Itself/1975260490308317184), October 2025.
* **Form Builder Plus (ChatGPT Custom GPT):** If you use ChatGPT Plus, there are custom GPTs that can generate a direct Google Form link. After you describe the survey in the chat, the GPT uses an API connection to create the file in your Google Drive.
* *Citation:* "How to build Google Forms inside ChatGPT," [weavely.ai/blog/google-forms-gpt](https://www.weavely.ai/blog/google-forms-gpt), 2025.
### **Which one should you use?**
| If you want... | Use this... |
| **Simplicity** (inside Google) | **MagicForm.app** or **Gemini** |
| **Advanced Design** & Logic | **Weavely.ai** |
| **Conversational Building** | **Form Builder Plus** (Custom GPT) |
The Gospels contain a large number of fact-driven shifts to follow Jesus, where the facts are things like "was healed by Jesus". Good luck to your LLMs on what percentage political his movement was.
Gulliver doesn't join a movement, but is converted to the POV of the Houhynyms (sp?) by seeing how nice their society is.
The Watchmen are persuaded to cooperate with the "villain" at the end of /Watchmen/ by facts. But it is not a happy ending, it's a tragedy.
The recent Young Adult fantasy series /Keeper of the Lost Cities/ has a protagonist who is abducted into a utopia, and gradual revelations of clues and facts turn her against it a few books into the series, then back into alliance with it as several different movements and races in a conflict, each react and adapt to events and disclosures of fact.
Does "fact-driven" include people converted by losing their belief in facts? eg, 1984.