I believe the thinking is that it's the need for that as an ontological divide, rather than "it's telling a story about a thing that didn't happen". The divide being "heuristics about things it has" rather than "critical analysis of what it is".
Footnotes. I hadn't thought about footnotes. The winner here has to be Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell, some of whose footnotes are micro stories thrown in as a bonus for attentive readers.
Although Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell doesn't have an index.
Man I was just thinking about this last night. I recall an assignent in middle school where I had to write a poem with a simile in it (among ither literary devices) I lost points because there was no simile. When I went to the teacher and told her "there is a simile : 'the cat fell in much the same way as a boulder' " (or something to that effect)
I was told similes have to have the word 'like' or 'as' in them. Which is just not true but has become such a common hueristic that even English teachers think its the definition of a simile.
sigh
I totally did that on purposes though cause I wanted to see if she would dock me a point for that. I was such a little prick.
Being a prick to clueless teachers was a perverse joy of mine in my K–12 years. I enjoyed coming up with the most galaxy-brained solutions to assignments.
Same. However I went too far. A philosophy teacher left the class room, and refused to continue teaching my class, after I politely started arguing against her reasoning and showing counter examples. They had to find another teacher to take over the class.
I've read an awful lot of novels and not a single one has had an index.