[ SECRET POST #2791 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2791 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 058 secrets from Secret Submission Post #399.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[anonymous4]

I've been in the Dr Who fandom since 1963, when I was 6 years old; I was in a Dr Who society at uni, where we met to discuss every episode...

One difference I've noticed between then and now is that then, we would simply accept an episode as a valid story, and discuss its features and whether we thought they worked or not; now, the prevailing approach seems to be to begin with the notion of an 'ideal story', which has certain necessary features, and then compare the episode to that ideal (and generally find the episode a failure). I presume this reflects recent developments in literary criticism as taught in schools? It does tend to make for reviews that emphasise the negatives.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know if I entirely agree because "death of the author" and analysis of text divorced from the intentions of the author has been around for so long, disagreeing with the way a piece of media goes out objecting to it being in or out of character is not really a new way of engaging with texts. So I think that for at least that long, people haven't just taken word of creator as word of God.

[anonymous4]

Death of the author's a different thing, though. Saying that a story has meanings an author never consciously intended is not the same as saying that a story should do X, Y and Z, and basing your criticism on showing whether it does or doesn't.

[(Anonymous)]

But they're not talking about "death of the author." They're talking about there being a single valid template for telling stories.

[anonymous4]

Yes! Glad it was intelligible!

And a lot of criticism seems to assume that this template is universally known and accepted, and that if a writer -- like, ahem, Steven Moffat -- doesn't conform to it, it's either because he doesn't know it, and so isn't qualified to write, or because he's deliberately ignoring it, to arrogantly piss off the fans.