Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2013-09-15 03:31 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2013-09-15 03:31 pm
[ SECRET POST #2448 ]
⌈ 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.
Re: Especially when they start going "Death of the Author"
Actually, while I'm at it, why is Ender's Game supposed to be anti-war? War is the framework it uses, but to me, it seems to be a story about the inability to determine the "greater good" when one lacks the information to determine the outcomes of one's actions. That's not necessarily an anti-war message, and "anti-war" doesn't seem to be a framework through which the sequels make any sense. (For instance, Quara's attempts to protect the Descolada are portrayed as fundamentally naive.)
Edit: I should add that "anti-war" also doesn't make sense in the context of Card's earlier work. In a lot of ways, Ender's Game seems to be an attempt to revise the ideas of A Planet Called Treason--not to outright reject them, but to show where they were incomplete. APCT outright supported the slaughter of the illuders, instead focusing its conflict on Lanik's mental turmoil as he does something horrific while believing that it's necessary. Ender's Game twists the knife a bit further--it wasn't even necessary to kill the Buggers--but I think Card would have been a lot more blunt if he'd changed his mind enough to actively argue against war.
Re: Especially when they start going "Death of the Author"
I don't have time for a massive debate about FVIII today; suffice it to say that you can Google sprawled, heavily-sourced essays with the collected evidence to this effect. Even you admit that, by itself, it's certainly as good as any other interpretation (based on the text alone). Had the WoG not dismissed, it could be as canon as any other.
Er... forcing children to unknowingly commit genocide for the "greater good" can easily be seen as a criticism of the young age of infantry recruits/conscripts in most wars who do not fully understand the implications of their actions/their leaders intentions on a larger scale. The bulk of literary critics at the time understood Card as positing that as a bad thing and Card himself commented to the effect that they had a point... ...until his political views hardened, he edited the novel "to match the times" (i.e. his views), and proclaimed that no! Forcing children to unknowingly commit genocide was always morally correct and awesome, stupid, stupid (goddamned liberal) readers!
...How many times are you going to edit this comment? Card comes out in pretty much every Death of the Author discussion I've ever seen on the internet because he's a sterling example of why you not only can, but sometimes must remove the author from the work to explore its original intentions.
Re: Especially when they start going "Death of the Author"
As for Card, I'm not saying it's good to conscript children, just that there are a lot of things Card could have done if his specific message was "conscripting children is bad" or "war is bad" that he didn't do. (The most obvious is that he could have written about actual children--Ender often reads as more of an adult than the adults, albeit an incredibly ruthless one, so it's a bit of a stretch to read him as an innocent corrupted by those around him.) It seems like the main reasons that "war is bad" is a message people take from Ender's Game are
1): the original never said "war is good," and
2): "war is bad" is a very common message in stories that are about war and don't say "war is good."
It seems a bit unfair to Card to say that he wrote a "war is bad" story just because he didn't originally write it as a "war is good" story, especially when there's another message to take from it that's very, very rarely done. (The reason I loved Ender's Game was that I found it pleasantly unusual for an author to portray a philosophy he seemed to agree with while at the same time showing the worst possible way it could fail--it felt so much more honest than all those authors who have the philosophy they agree with always succeed and competing philosophies always fail. If we read Card's message as "war is bad," then the final twist falls in line to say "war is bad," and the uniqueness disappears.)
Re: Especially when they start going "Death of the Author"
RE: Ender's Game. None of that changes the fact that Card went back on his own statements and even revised the original work to correct what he perceived (belatedly) as an incorrect interpretation, when he'd accepted that interpretation - and even supported it - before as his own views changed.
Card's far from the only author to do this, either. Nor is Ender's Game the only book he's done the "no no it really meant this" interpretative retcon with, as the poster above me pointed out. Thus, Death of the Author is not only a valid perspective from which to critique literature, in some cases - such as Card's - one must do so.
Re: Especially when they start going "Death of the Author"