[ SECRET POST #2624 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2624 ⌋

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

01.


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02.
[Outlander]


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03.
[The Walking Dead]


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04.
[How I Met Your Mother]


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05.
[Twitch Plays Pokemon]


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06.
[Batman, Kill La Kill, Borderlands]


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07.
[Overlord]


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08.
[Red Dwarf]


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09.
[Paranatural]


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10.
[Pitch Perfect]


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11.
[Insidious: Chapter 2]


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 053 secrets from Secret Submission Post #375.
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]

01. http://i.imgur.com/xL6JdFO.png

[(Anonymous)]

You sound like GRRMartin.

[thezmage]

Yes, so much more mature to say "I don't care what meaning you took from this, this is what I intended and it's the only meaning you can take from it."

[sarillia]

Personally I like considering intent, but unless the author comes out and states what it is, you can only go on guesses and sometimes it's better to just ignore it and focus on what's explicitly written in the text.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with you to some extent. When it comes to addressing problematic issues, I think it's important to look at what the author's intent was. Because if you want to find something problematic about anything you're focusing on, you eventually will. So that being said, it's always best to check with the creating source and what their intention was, because it might have turned out that they just executed an idea poorly.

Anything meta related though is free game imho.

[chardmonster]

I hate the whole "history" thing. It just seems disrespectful to the people who spend months or years being alive only to be told "no, what you meant for this to be about doesn't matter. It's not about this, and I don't care what you wrote in the newspaper." It doesn't seem right that this is a thing, that what dead people believed doesn't matter. I wish less* people believed that "history" bullshit.


*FEWER

[(Anonymous)]

I hate that idea as well. I am thinking more of TV shows than books, but in certain fandoms they just become assholes.

Even when the writer/creator says point blank (or through the characters) that this is what whatever means, fans will go "NOOOOooooOOOooOOooOOOOOOO, you are wrong!"

It also creates an attitude of entitlement from fans.

[feotakahari]

I once saw a writing student bring in a story about a girl being attacked by a monster. The teacher interpreted it as a rape narrative, and when the student said she hadn't written it as one, the teacher said it read like one. It seemed incredibly disrespectful to me.

[skippydelicious]

Intent. It's fucking magic.

Sorry but even authors, no matter how much thought they've put into their constructions (and most authors haven't, they put in what they need and maybe a bit of color but leave the rest as a mystery for the ages) still come to their works with all their own prejudices and beliefs. Just because an author intends a pure hero and an evil villain doesn't mean they are actually writing those. The history of fiction is replete with pure heros who turned out to be douchebags when looked at dispassionately. Same as world building, well there are numerous utopias that would turn into Somalia at its worst within days.

There are dystopias that aren't that bad really, and everything in between and the author probably hasn't thought about it. And even if they have, well if they didn't put it in the work, then they haven't put it in the work and as glad as I am they've got a way that would work for them...that is only the way they are selling it to themselves. Once they shared it with even a single other person, that person gets to hold it up and see how that works for them. Storytelling is a collaborative artform, storytellers that don't admit that tend to have severely diminishing returns.

[fauxkaren]

I think that something an author says can be taken into account as piece of information when analyzing something, but I think the text should be the primary source.

[(Anonymous)]

This is how basic communication works though. If you mean something you gotta say it, but no matter how you word it, the way people react to it will always depend on their own interpretation.

Any action you take, as soon as you take it, it's out there and you have no control over how it is going to be perceived. The same is true for a book, but it is also slightly different: Now when you're talking to someone face to face you have a better chance of influencing what people think, but as an author? No, even a person who's never read one of your interviews can have a valid interpretation, as it's their experience of reading it. You can't take that away. Whatever they take away from your book it's not less correct, not less worthy than what you intended.

The writing process is your experience with the text. The reading is theirs. There's nothing that connects the two of you. The text is its own.

As long as they can argue their interpretation (of a book, of an insult, whatever) it's valid.

[cloud_riven]

If the intent doesn't get across and flies over most heads, and the author gets a butt stain over it, that's more a fail on their end. I don't mind reading authors' notes or explanations on work that might gain from that extra meta/perspective, but I don't think I should have to. There's a difference when someone (a reader) is saying their interpretation is exactly the valid one, and saying it's what it means to them. Don't see what's so big about it.

[(Anonymous)]

As a writer, I don't really give a fuck. I want people to enjoy my stories.

[(Anonymous)]

You can still judge those people's interpretations, you know. If they're just coming up with some crazy BS that has nothing to do with the work, they're really bad interpretations that are not valid - not because the author disagrees, but because they don't have evidence. Otoh, if there's compelling evidence in the text but the author disagrees... they should have written the book better, I guess.

[(Anonymous)]

The thing is, any creative work is subject to interpretation.

If an artist presents "Polar Bear in a Snowstorm" and says it's a picture in of a polar bear in a snowstorm, but all I see is a canvas covered with white paint...

We're both right.

*shocker*

As others have said, THAT'S what "death of the author" is. You know the author's intent. You just might not agree with it, so you decide to create a reactionary piece based on your own perceptions and experiences.

And I don't believe that's a bad thing at all.

[(Anonymous)]

I mostly agree. I do think people should take actual author intent and purpose into their interpretation and I do think it's really rude to just ignore or flat out tell them they're wrong. However I do believe that a work can mean anything to anyone and if something sparked a creative interpretation in your brain then that's not always "wrong".

But the attitude I've seen a lot of people have when they talk about "death of the author" yeah, I agree with you that it's insulting bullshit.

[forgottenjester]

As someone who writes I do believe and like Death of the Author. But then, I learned about it in an academic setting so maybe that's why I like it. It was being used correctly.

[(Anonymous)]

Take some lessons in literature theory and you'll get a fun perspective on this viewpoint. :D

[(Anonymous)]

If an author wants something to be included in their work, then they need to include it.

For best results, they then need to publish it in a totalitarian society with state officials on hand to enforce that everyone reads it and no one thinks about it lest they come to their own conclusions about what they've read.

[(Anonymous)]

I despise how people use it. There's this one person who uses it to say that information revealed through interviews, that had no way of coming up in the game yet, can't be canon because it happens to... Clash with their headcanon of stupid things.

Specifically, him saying that the reason this character has two of this special weapon is because of X reason, no Y reason. :/

[(Anonymous)]

It dismays me that so many people want to make this secret about "problematic elements". Yes, that's one of the issues around the concept of authorial intent, but there's a lot more. As I'm fond of saying "J.R.R. Tolkien insisted his whole life that Lord of the Rings wasn't about WWII, but he was wrong."

For those confused by it, here's the simplest explanation of the death of the author, or at least the one that was simple enough for me to finally get it: When a story is just in your head, it's all yours. But once you put it out into the world, it's not yours any more. It belongs as much to whoever reads it as it does to you.

[illiadandoddity]

Yes and no. If I write something and a reader thinks, "You know this could work as a metaphor for racism" that's fine. They're allowed to read that into it, and good for them if it makes the story more meaningful to them. If they say "This story IS a metaphor about racism" and ignore me when I say "No, it's really just a story about a werewolf solving a murder mystery" then they're being ridiculous.

Just because a story can be read with a certain meaning behind it if you're thinking along those terms doesn't mean that that IS what the story's about. The author still gets to define that.

[galerian-ash.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever heard that specific term before, to be honest. But! For anyone interested in this sort of thing, I highly recommend reading Michael Ende's "The Mirror In The Mirror".

[ludwigvonkoopa]

Honestly, this one of the reasons I'm pretty apprehensive of putting my written work out there.

I just want to write about fucked up people in fucked up relationships doing fucked up things.
Because people are flawed, and I'm not really trying to build role models or "heroes."

But I just know that a handful of people are going to go "YOU'RE PROMOTING THIS. YOU THINK PEOPLE SHOULD ASPIRE TO THIS. YOU THINK THIS BEHAVIOR IS ACCEPTABLE."
No, I don't.
I realize the shit is messed. But the world can be that way, in general. I like exploring these concepts. And I don't really want to have to add the disclaimer "Don't try this at home!" after every instance.

[(Anonymous)]

You can think the author fucked up in their intended message, though. Stephenie Meyer meant for Bella and Edward to be the most romantic couple, that doesn't mean people have to accept it.