One of the six villains in Distortion Detective
The Magnifier
Magnification
“This is enormous!”
- What it means:
- Zooms in on one negative detail until it fills the whole picture, and shrinks the good parts.
- Sounds like:
- “I stumbled over one word. That's all anyone will remember.”
- Try asking:
- “Are we zooming in on one part and missing the rest?”
- The skill:
- Putting a mistake in context, and noticing the whole experience.
In the game
Morgan falls into this trap. The kid's job is to catch it:
“Everyone noticed. That pause felt like a million years. They're all going to remember how badly I messed up.”
Easy to confuse with
- The Catastrophizer: The Catastrophizer imagines terrible consequences that haven't happened. The Magnifier blows up one detail that did.
- The Splitter: The Splitter only sees the extremes. The Magnifier over-weighs one flaw.
The villains are the thoughts, not the kid. A three-step routine for catching any trap →
