[ SECRET POST #2448 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2448 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 051 secrets from Secret Submission Post #350.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

02. http://imageshack.com/scaled/800x600/812/9pnd.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

Do people consider A Poop That Took a Pee to be part of the Scrotie canon? I felt like published fanfiction to me...

[insanenoodlyguy]

It was better then the first what the fuck are you talking about? 2 deep 4 u?

[forgottenjester]

It must have been because it made me fall asleep.

[(Anonymous)]

Fuck off, troll. Poop That Took a Pee was schlock and anyone who says otherwise is an uneducated sheep.

[(Anonymous)]

This is my favourite episode of South Park for pretty much exactly that reason, not gonna lie.

[(Anonymous)]

that episode just pissed me off because of them slagging off on John Lennon.

Especially when they start going "Death of the Author"

[insanenoodlyguy]

Putting aside the fact that a philosopy regarding how to approach literal critique more than anything else and that it's not necessarily the perfect perception of literature aside (especially since a lot of it was about historical stuff with dead authors and written in the 1960's, didn't even think about authors being able to talk online about their intentions a lot, lot more when before we'd have to rely on letters or interviews that may or may not have even survived)...

You still have to base it on something IN the work. A shitty misinformed opinion is still a shitty misinformed opinion.

Re: Especially when they start going "Death of the Author"

[feotakahari]

I remember exactly when I began to hate Death of the Author. I was in a writing class, and a student brought in a story she'd written about a girl who got attacked by a monster. The teacher called it a rape narrative, and insisted on the validity of his interpretation over the student's protests. (Then he started talking about how much he sympathized with the monster, presumably because he wasn't being creepy enough already.)

Re: Especially when they start going "Death of the Author"

[cbrachyrhynchos]

I think internet "word of god" needs to be taken with a couple of fistfuls of salt. Especially when you have Orson Card saying that he didn't really mean it, that his work was actually pro-gay for its time (it wasn't), and he gave up on anti-gay activism years ago (he quit just after the last election). Then you had Anne Rice going apeshit (apologies to apes and shit) over bad reviews of weakly edited work. Not to mention a fair number of authors who get off on pranking and trolling their own critics.

I'm just not inclined to let authors use the internet or mass media to take a mulligan on their work instead of putting in the seat-of-the-pants time to go through the production process with revised edition.

EDIT: Or to be blunt, if your published work doesn't say what it's supposed to say without support from your twitter account, The Guardian, or a talking head interview on the news, YOU FAILED. Somewhere between conception and reception YOU FAILED. It happens now and then, either suck it up and put out a new edition, or do a better job editing next time around.

Re: Especially when they start going "Death of the Author"

[ariakas]

I was just about to bring up Card. Someone needs to every single time there's a secret like this, I think. He's probably the most obvious example of a work meaning one thing back when he actually wrote it, then going back and saying that no! Now it means something else because my views have changed! ....To the point of re-editing the novels themselves.

Ender's Game was never anti-war! It was always pro-war! What do you mean every literary critic under the sun interpreted it the wrong way?! They're just stupid! *furious retcons*

You also have readers who picked up on something that absolutely was in the text and supported by plenty of evidence, but the author doesn't like that interpretation, so they handwave it into non-canon in interviews, articles, etc. (See: Rinoa as Ultimecia.) Yet, the evidence in the text remains.

Sometimes the Death of the Author really needs to apply.

Re: Especially when they start going "Death of the Author"

[blunderbuss]

I just want to take your last paragraph and staple it to the foreheads of an entire fandom and its creators. It does not matter what you declare as Word Of God, if the story shows something completely different then it's your failure to not get your ideas across and now you have to lie in the bed you've made.

Re: Especially when they start going "Death of the Author"

[quantumreality]

The fact that some people in the Harry Potter fandom abuse this literary analysis device is what leads me to half facetiously say the only time they get to use "Death of the Author" is when the author is actually dead.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know what this is so possibly I'm missing half the argument.

You can put all the weight and authority you want on the author's commentary on his/her own work. But coming up with a reasonable definition of 'canon' that allows for that requires some intensely weird philosophical gymnastics. It also necessitates that literary critics be mind-readers.

[(Anonymous)]

it's referencing a South Park episode where the kids wrote a book that was deliberately meant to be nothing but stupid meaningless gross-out crap, and then all the adults invented lots of deep inner meanings that they thought the book had, ignoring the boys' protests that it meant nothing at all. The point of the secret is that when people invent their own interpretations of books/movies/etc. that don't make any sense and insist that their inventions are exactly as valid and canonical as what the creator has said was the actual meaning, it's as stupid as the South Park characters making up meanings for scrotie that were completely inaccurate.

Secret 2 - Fanon, canon, South Park

[transcriptanon]

[Picture is the cover of a book titled "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs" by Leopold Butters Stotch from the cartoon "South Park". It shows a person standing on a field under a cloudy sky.]

Whenever I hear people insist that their stupid-ass fanon is exactly as canonical as the creator's official stated canonical meaning or elements of their work, it reminds me of this story.

[forgottenjester]

Yeah, their voice has less weight than the authors. On the other hand, if an author doesn't support what they've said outside of their writing in their actual writing I reserve the right to ignore that they've said.

Generally though I don't care what is canon and what isn't canon. I care about people's interpretations and the many differences to be found between mine and theirs.

[(Anonymous)]

+1 to all of this

On the other hand, if an author doesn't support what they've said outside of their writing in their actual writing I reserve the right to ignore that they've said.

*nods* Victoria Foyt's Save the Pearls series was very much on my mind when I read this secret. There are times when authors haven't got a clue about what they've actually written.

[forgottenjester]

That sounds frustrating.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's possible authors subconsciously weave other meanings into their works. After all, we know our own experiences in life and see through that viewpoint and it gets imprinted into our creative work. It's how everyone ends up with their own signature style.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree.

[(Anonymous)]

OP
I was more thinking of the kind of people who decide that a character is gay even though there is no basis in-canon whatsoever for that assumption, and then throw a screaming tantrum if someone points out that they're making it up out of their own head. Or people who insist that a movie is REALLY about ABC even though the writer and director explicitly stated that the movie is about XYZ and has nothing to do with ABC.

[feotakahari]

To be fair, I know of at least one case (Fahrenheit 451) where the author stated it was about ABC, and textual evidence seems to support ABC and contradict XYZ, and then the author got older and crankier and started saying it was about XYZ after all.

[(Anonymous)]

Ah yes. This kind of shit in fandom drives me up the wall to no end.

[quantumreality]

I just can't look at that without dying laughing. "Scrotie McBoogerballs", indeed.