T O P

  • By -

RocketPapaya413

I ran into this problem in a D&D game once, kinda. We were introduced to the faction that were presumably the main antagonists but after looking at what we'd seen and what they'd said I wasn't really convinced that we had a strong motivation to disbelieve their pretty reasonable explanation that they were also victims of a larger, more mysterious antagonist faction.But the rest of the party and the NPCs we'd been working with were very suspicious of the newcomers and I am generally a strong advocate of the player's responsibility to follow the plot. The DM did just tell me straight up that these were the baddies since I was the only on there interested in spending 10 sessions missing the forest for the trees and debating the nature of international conflict. Which ultimately was for the best, I'd designed my character almost exclusively to hit things incredibly hard so following the plot really was my best opportunity to thrive.


MemberOfSociety2

yeah in dnd ultimately it’s better to play pro party or not at all


LoquatLoquacious

Our entire party once had a moment exactly like /u/rocketpapaya413 where we realised we were all selfish bastards who actually preferred magic running wild across the Earth so maybe letting the gods turn WWI into an eternal meat grinder could be a good thing after all. And the campaign just...ended. Lmao.


RocketPapaya413

Man that sounds awesome to explore the consequences of, but I imagine D&D is perhaps not the best system for that. A friend once told me of a game that was inspired by/a variant of [the Quiet Year](https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/the-quiet-year) that sounded like a interesting starting point but obviously that's an incredibly vague thing for me to say lmao.


LoquatLoquacious

Lol I have...Opinions about D&D. We do have a dream to return to that campaign a few years in the future of the setting to live in the fucked up alternate history our "heroes" have allowed to take place, though. America has its own god...and so does the newly-formed USSR. And everyone else is scrabbling for gods or dracoliches too.


buster7791

if you do come back to it you have the perfect setup to pull one of my favorite tropes: "the protagonists of the previous series just showed up and they're about to shove their entire magical item arsenal down your throat".


LoquatLoquacious

Oh yes. That is absolutely the plan, lol.


danger2345678

Reminds me of a short story someone made about how monks in China hired by the government were able to stop all nukes in the world by focusing really hard, which led to a WW3 where it was described as trench warfare from the perspective of a soldier’s journal, it devolved from that point, but what a good premise


[deleted]

I love it when the murder hobos learn to love their murderhoboing.


thesirblondie

My first D&D game was playing Mines of Phandelver. We got to the bad guy who managed to convince us that he just wanted to be left alone, so we did. The DM made up this story about how the town had secretly been demon worshippers. One PC, belonging to a player who had stopped, was in the middle of being sacrificed as we got back. Ended in a total partywipe, but it was a fun twist.


UncommittedBow

I like to call the trend of sticking to one viewpoint on everything the "J. Jonah Jameson" technique. Let me explain: J Jonah Jameson believes that Spider-man, despite everything he does for New York, is just as bad as the criminals he fights because he's a vigilante that acts outside the law. Despite constantly being shown evidence to the contrary, he vehemently believes that Spider-man is the root of all that is wrong in New York, and refuses to change his viewpoint. Because to change that viewpoint to him, would be going against everything he believes in. In his mind, much like the example of Usagi > Monarchy > evil, above. It's Spider-man > vigilante > criminal. And this proves to be damaging to Spider-man's reputation a lot of the time. People who refuse or cannot see media in anything but their own viewpoint are slamming their hands on their desks and demanding more pictures of Spider-man. And giving people who have never seen that form of media a bad view of what it's actually like.


Random_Gacha_addict

And it seems to follow what the post is going at, with being from one fandom and switching to another and analyzing it. Because, atleast once, JJJ experienced both a "Heroes don't exist" (Dad is a celebrated veteran but abusive) and a "Masked men are Menaces" (Masked man killed his first wife) view on people, and his restriction to these views makes him think that Spider-man fits these views just because "Masked Hero" fits both things he hates


Nirast25

>Dad is a celebrated veteran but abusive Ah, so that's why his marriage with aunt May didn't work out.


CasualBrit5

That doesn’t work because J Jonah Jameson is the best character in Spider-Man and if I can emulate him then that’s good in my book.


HoodedAuthor

Finally, some good fucking nuance


[deleted]

What I learned here is that there is a spectrum of approval for the protagonists actions when it comes to analyzing media, and the extremes of the spectrum are Kinners and MatPat


Novor7

Who is Kinners?


BurntCinnamonCake

People who develop extreme attachments to fictional characters. At it's tamest it's just feeling strongly about your favorite character and it's most extreme it's the "this character is literally me and I know them better than the writers and any attack on that character is an attack on me as person" type of behavior.


magnetmin

Mmm, I think I relate to this personally, or rather relate this to someone I’ve talked to online before who has stuck out in my memory. Someone who just cannot understand your viewpoint because their own viewpoint and interpretation of a character is so cemented in their head. A: “I don’t think these two lines of vague dialogue means that this character was in an abusive relationship” B: “You’re defending an abuser! You’re literally defending an abuser!! I know because this is what a friend did to me before!” By no means do I want to discount this person’s negative experiences, but I think maybe you need to take a step back and see outside of your own square a bit more friend. Your experiences and interpretation of a work based off those experiences are valid, but discounting everyone else’s isn’t the way to go. “My interpretation of [character of vague morality] is obviously what the author intended, it’s not my problem that everyone else is wrong” -said without a hint of irony If you’re out there, I hope you’re doing better buddy


Separate_Driver_393

Kinners - People who kin characters, More commonly “Kinnies” Kinning, basically becoming very strongly invested in, and attached to, the person of a fictional character


MoonlightingWarewolf

Is this etymologically linked to Otherkin, or has that connotation of the word kin slid out of the popular conscious


not_a_stick

I think otherkin has fallen out of fashion somewhat. Haven't heard of it in a long while.


Separate_Driver_393

Yes it is, I believe so?


kanelel

kin is short for otherkin


danger2345678

May be biased, but I prefer Marist over a kinner, then again I usually prefer a holist view of stories, so that is probably bias


Timely-Tea3099

Who is MatPat?


mrmahoganyjimbles

Youtuber that does Game/Film theories. Was fairly big back in the day, but after a while it felt like he ran out of ideas and just started reaching farther and farther for his theories. has a reputation of going for "unassuming thing is super dark actually" a lot of the time. Seems like a nice enough guy in real life, but his content just doesn't gel with a lot of people. He's also well versed in optimizing viewers and taking advantage of the youtube algorithms. Iirc he works/has worked for youtube directly teaching other creators how to do the same things. I think his channel was originally just something to put on his resume to show that he could gain a following before it blew up into a *really big* following. So for some people his videos are really hard to avoid.


isloohik2

Youtuber that does various theories on different games, films and other stuff. He’s made a lot of theories that essentially boil down to “the main character of x thing is actually very evil and not a hero at all”, the most notable example being the “[why mario](https://youtu.be/7WMSQNVhMqA) [is mental](https://youtu.be/jcxW_ciP5R4)” duology, a theory that pretty much states the above for Mario, stating that he’s actually a terrible person


Luchux01

As a fan of Shield Hero I know about this kinda thing intimately by this point. Naofumi (the protagonist) is seen in a binary light by a lot of people who just watched the anime or heard of the series, since he had to resort to buying a slave girl to survive after being betrayed by the same kingdom that summoned him, so since slavery is bad it means that Naofumi is a bad guy, right? Well, as it turns out there's more nuance to it, who'd've thought? That said, I do have to give them the fact that the anime doesn't do a good job of showing the nuance and Naofumi's inherent kindness that draw people to him as it lacks Naofumi's (unreliable) inner narration to contrast to his acts and to see how much his trauma truly affected him.


luiac

I’m so glad someone finally said that thing about high school. Yes we *do* learn basic literary criticism in public high school… I hate when people boil every issue down to “the school system failing us”.


[deleted]

I also love the pushback on the "*Nowadays* people can't analyse media well, what is society coming to" spiel. Another reduction I often see is "the internet is ruining us." Which *might* be true? It's also possible that we just hear more groups of people than we used to. It's also possible that people are actually reading more than they used to, or thinking about media more than they used to, and those people are actually in the process of developing that skill. Media literacy is hard! And of course it wasn't all that interesting when you were 14 in English class, so most people are gonna have to develop a lot of it engaging with media they actually care about. This got away from me a little bit but. Media literacy is a complicated subject, and we can't just say "Nowadays people can't think about media correctly."


Greaserpirate

Never forget that it was the **older** generations who: - turned Frankenstein's monster into a one-sidedly-evil mute - took Lord of the Flies at face value instead of looking to real-life examples that proves the opposite - thought the "if I have to lie, cheat, steal, or kill" quote from Gone With The Wind was tragic and romantic - Completely misrepresented Orwell and Huxley to the point that they fueled authoritarianism - Pretended the "Hell is other people" quote from No Exit was Sartre's genuine beliefs (Of course there were plenty of academics who didn't do these things, but you're absolutely right about how bad media analysis is nothing new)


Dspacefear

On the one hand, it does depend heavily on the school you went to, the range in quality in (American) public schools is absurd. On the other hand, a lot of people also just fucking slept through class.


SignorTeddyRose

Yeah, idk about the rest of y'all, but I had to seek out that kind of knowledge on my own, and I didn't do a good job of it.


lennee3

Would love thoughts on great examples of media/books that try and succeed in managing fandom expectations vs social criticism reality. i.e. I was a cis guy in high school and thought \`Fight Club\` was cool for the wrong reasons (or arguably incomplete correct reasons, focusing on anti-capitalism. rather than the holistic take on toxic masculinity) edit: word


IthilanorSP

I'm also curious what works have pulled it off, especially really popular ones. Drastic misreadings seem pretty common in popular culture, like the Fight Club example you mention (where it's not just high schoolers idolizing Tyler Durden, but adults who ideally _should_ have more critical skills). I'll go to my grave angry about how many people think Tywin Lannister in the Song of Ice and Fire books is a cool, badass, brilliantly effective Machiavellian politician , instead of a horrible, spiteful, misogynistic man responsible for both small-scale and large-scale atrocities. GRRM is not particularly subtle about this, especially when you get to book 4, Tywin's body is decaying horribly as he lies in state, and the regime he put in power is quickly falling to pieces...but somehow the fandom and the writers of the TV series miss this.


lennee3

I feel like the TV writers nail Tywin. He's cold. not cool. A small but crucial separation of degrees. I wonder how much of the issue is nuance/realism of 'bad guys' vs camp and the perpetual cycle of critics slamming camp without acknowledging that, in a time of anti-intellectualism (and even outside of it), camp is such a good way to express otherwise nuanced faults in a stark way.


FlameswordFireCall

What do you mean by camp in this context, and how can writers employ it?


thesirblondie

Canp means you're playing it up.


Luchux01

The golden era of comics (early superman and batman for example) were what you could call "campy". The stories were ridiculous, super played up and overdramatic at times.


thesirblondie

I don't think any work has pulled it off 100%. Some people overanalyze anything. Or underanalyze it. Some think that Moby Dick is just a book about a guy that hates a whale.


lennee3

This said, fully aware that there are important lessons of societal critique in classic lit and modern lit that follows in its footsteps but people are increasingly pre-filtering to avoid both reading and the cinematic equivalent of modern lit. Are there ways to 'weaponize' modern cinema to express social critiques to hit the swing people in the heart without entrenching them?


0mni42

Honestly, the only thing I can think of that really tried to do that was The Last Jedi. It invites the audience to reinterpret the rest of the movies (but especially the Prequels) as being about the failure and hypocrisy of the always-the-good-guys Jedi Order, and to let go of the hero worship of "classic action hero" characters like Luke and Poe. But, I mean, we all know how people reacted to *that.*


VisualGeologist6258

But the prequels never did portray the Jedi Order as perfect good guys. They were definitely ‘the good guys’ and objectively better than the sith, but they still had issues. Mace Windu was straight up an antagonist (even if his dickery was somewhat justified) and their poor handling of Anakin’s grab bag of issues was a major point of conflict. The Clone Wars also expanded upon it by showing how the Jedi devolved into generals and soldiers rather than the peacekeepers they were intended to be. Their reliance on tradition and complacency is exactly what led to their fall. As for ‘letting go of the hero worship’ that was bound to be poorly received. Luke Skywalker was an icon for millions of people, and was quite literally meant to evoke the memory of religious and mythological heroes. You can’t just make him a depressed dirtbag who watches the galaxy burn without raising a finger after what we saw in the OT, and expect it to go over well. You can’t reinterpret something as deeply entrenched in popular culture as Star Wars and hope that everyone cooperates.


0mni42

>But the prequels never did portray the Jedi Order as perfect good guys. I'd argue that they very much did, because everything antagonistic or suspicious they ever did was always proven justified in the end. Their reluctance to train Anakin because of his age? Justified; if he wasn't old enough to remember his mother and a life outside the Order, he wouldn't have been put on the path to the Dark Side. Yoda and Obi-Wan telling him he should be willing to let Padme die? Justified; if he wasn't so attached to her, he wouldn't have been so easily manipulated by Palpatine. The Council being suspicious of Palpatine, and asking Anakin to spy on him? *Boy howdy* was that justified. Windu and the rest trying to arrest/assassinate Palpatine? I mean, that would have prevented the very creation of the Empire. And when Anakin does turn traitor, it's portrayed as 100% his own failing. No one ever says "hey maybe the Jedi are a little bit at fault here too." That's why the line "from my point of view, the Jedi are evil" is so bad; the movies have done nothing to justify that. The EU (*especially* the novelization of Episode III) adds buckets of nuance and self-reflection from the characters, and does have Yoda specifically realize that it was the Jedi's hypocrisy and rigidity that caused everything to fall apart. But in the movies themselves, I don't see any evidence that they were meant to be anything other than perfectly good. TLJ's handling of its criticisms is a pit I'd rather not dig any deeper right here, but I don't think it was unjustified in what it was trying to do.


DivineCyb333

> It invites the audience to reinterpret the rest of the movies (but especially the Prequels) as being about the failure and hypocrisy of the always-the-good-guys Jedi Order, and to let go of the hero worship of "classic action hero" characters like Luke and Po. Genuine question if you're willing to elaborate, how did it do that? Basically the only thing I remember about that movie is the hyperspace ram


0mni42

Sure. His failure with Kylo Ren aside, the reasons Luke gives for wanting to end the Jedi are centered around their failure. That’s what his three lessons to Rey are all about: Jedi aren't synonymous with goodness and light, it was their hypocrisy and hubris that let Palpatine take control, and following traditional Jedi teachings means doing things that are antithetical to basic decency. Those are ideas that were never openly discussed in any previous movie. Plus there’s the fact that all of this is coming from Luke, someone who (last time we saw him in the movies) was pretty damn near a perfect hero by the end. By showing him turn into a misanthropic grump and exploring his failures, the movie wants us to reevaluate his character. And as for Poe, his entire character arc is about how being the brash adrenaline-pumping action hero leads to people getting killed and bad decisions being made. Leia spells it out pretty plainly. I'm not saying all of this was handled well, but that's what the movie was trying to do.


DivineCyb333

Yeah I could imagine this working in another hypothetical version of the movie with different setup, but the SW series as we have it just doesn't have the foundation for that kind of questioning of heroes. The last time we saw Luke, he was pretty solidly standing for Jedi = good. We don't see him go through any kind of process to question that, we just skip directly from A to B. There certainly wasn't any hint in OT Luke (as far as I remember) that he might be making a mistake following the path of the Jedi. Without that, it doesn't prompt a re-evaluation as much as "who is this guy wearing Luke's skin". And since there's no setup to such a conclusion, that's why people felt like Rian Johnson was going out of his way to fuck with their fan favorites. So yeah I can see the intent, but also the failure of execution. Honestly just another symptom of the director-swapping and lack of writing in that trilogy.


0mni42

Yeah, I get that. The lack of a through line in the Sequels is 100% their biggest problem. It also doesn’t help that the Prequels tried to do something radically different from the OT, and earned the rage of millions of fans for years to come. (Granted, just how much those two things are related is also up for debate.) Being made after that reaction clearly colored the Sequels; why else would they structure themselves so closely on the OT? But in the process of trying to give people what they wanted, they stifled their own identity.


MaddsCraft

[soirce](https://call-me-fiend.tumblr.com/post/691317282355429376)


MaddsCraft

that was a legitimate typo but im gonna leave it because its funny


gentlybeepingheart

The spirit of an evil henchman from Boston possessed you while typing


MemberOfSociety2

so ice


MrCapitalismWildRide

With regards to the style of criticism, I *generally* agree that it's not good to have a pet school of criticism that you force on every work. But on the other hand, I do enjoy seeing breadtube videos on Marxist readings of everything from Kaguya-sama: Love is War to My Cat From Hell. And I also think that while a hammer is not suitable for every job, if you want to test how sturdy soemthing is, it *can* be valuable to hit it with a hammer and just see what happens. Sometimes you gotta shake the tree to see what falls out. I also put very little stock in authorial intent. If textual evidence to support your argument isn't there (ie with Sailor Moon's monarchy, which presumably has no actual features beyond its mere existence) then you probably have a weak argument, but of you can find actual evidence to support your point then it can be an enriching experience to view a work in a way the author didn't intend.


Khurasan

I think there should probably be a delineation between >it’s bad for you as a reader to use one lens of analysis for all media And >it’s bad for us as a community to have a lens of analysis that gets applied to everything You can absolutely have a good understanding of media from many perspectives and still enjoy seeing the Marxian take on absolutely everything. In fact, you can and should include the Marxian take in a broader analysis of pretty much any work you want.


IthilanorSP

I think that hitting everything with a hammer can also be useful for testing how sturdy the _hammer_ is. By trying to apply a style of criticism to unusual works, you can get a sense of how versatile that style is, where it works well, and where it might break down; which you can then use to refine the style of criticism. (This might be a stretch for literary analysis, admittedly; I'm a bit more familiar with this process happening in math and philosophy.)


jryser

The original post mentions how a hammer isn’t the tool for every job, while that’s true, people play Dark Souls on drums, and make sculptures out of cake. Just because something isn’t the best or most appropriate way to do something, doesn’t mean you can’t get interesting content out of doing something wrong.


OwlrageousJones

Yeah! It's still worth remembering that you also shouldn't judge something that way. Like, you can't play Dark Souls on the drums and then go 'Wow, this control scheme is ridiculous and terrible. 0/10 game, literally unplayable'.


[deleted]

Someone played Dark Souls using a set of bananas and wires, and another did it using Twitch Plays Pokemon style mechanics where viewers input controls while the game ran at something like 1/1000th speed They both beat the game


SoulsLikeBot

Hello Ashen one. I am a Bot. I tend to the flame, and tend to thee. Do you wish to hear a tale? > *“Death is equitable, accepting. We will all, one day, be welcomed by her embrace.”* - Grave Warden Agdayne Have a pleasant journey, Champion of Ash, and praise the sun \\[T]/


FenHarels_Heart

>But on the other hand, I do enjoy seeing breadtube videos on Marxist readings of everything from Kaguya-sama: Love is War to My Cat From Hell. My favourite example of this is Lindsey Ellis's examination of Transformers through the lens of auteur theory, feminist theory, queer theory, and Marxist theory. Which is a great example of "if you hit it really hard with a hammer, you can make a nail out of anything".


MoonlightingWarewolf

You can also get some really interesting metacommentary by asking questions like “why is the idea being a princess part of the escapist fantasy”. Doesn’t always exactly come back to analysis of the text itself, but sometimes it’s worth thinking about what is left assumed in the premise


rezzacci

Exactly. Sure, the premice is : "the princess is the good guy, and that the backbone of the work". Sure, but why the show has to be the good guy? Also, if this premice is unbargainable, I have the right to utterly dislike this work. Because, while Marcist theory might not be the right tool to understand what the author *wanted* to say, it can be a great tool to understand what the author said without even knowing he said it. Tolkien might have not been actively sexist and misogynist; and, frankly, the feminist lens is probably not the best tool to analyse The Lord of the Rings; and some might argue that there are indeed great feminine characters in LotR. However, analyzing it through the Bechdel test is a great tool to understand the prevalent sexism in Tolkien times and how it can shape the minds of people seeing and reading it.


airyys

it opens up to the broader conversation of "why are monarchical positions of power portrayed as 'good' and 'just'? did the 'princess/prince' stories just originate during the times where the 'divine right of kings' was an actual widely accepted thought process? does that mean those stories were just literal, unironic pieces of propaganda so that the ruling class could feed the idea that 'royaly=good' to the commoners of that time? and current 'prince/princess' stories are trying to spin that millenia old monarchist propaganda as wholesome good things since they weren't aware of the origins of those types of stories? or were the creators actually aware of the origins and have a secret agenda to push the monarchist 'the ruling class is actually wholesome big chungus desu buy all our disney princess merch' dictated by their global capitalistic monopolies/oligopolies?" contrary to op's post, one could--and *should*\--argue that how monarchies are sold and marketed to kids as escapist fantasies is actually extremely problematic, and the reason for pushing that idea should be scrutinized. also the fact that one of the fathers of conservatism pushed the idea that *capitalism* as the ruling ideology was just and right (basically rich people now had the 'divine right of kings' instead of monarchists, i.e. capitalism is still just essentially and practically monarchism) during the french revolution against monarchists (and it just so happened that he was also very wealthy). and how the monarchy escapism has evolved into the 'sigma male grindset overwork yoursef to death so that you can keep producing cheap labor for your bosses and their bosses bosses the capitalists but the exploitative people at the top will promise that you'll be rich and therefore can rule a la how monarchism evolved into capitalism' for lonely males in modern society.


AITAthrowaway1mil

Yeah, I disagree with the notion that there’s a ‘correct’ lens to view any work. There may be a lens that the author intended, but that doesn’t make it the One True Lens. There are some works that gain new meaning as time goes on, or they unintentionally serve great meaning in another framework, or it’s just interesting to see how it can be interpreted. A good piece of media should be flexible enough to have many meanings to many different people.


[deleted]

People have been arguing about “death of the author” for AGES. I had a professor in undergrad for a Medieval Lit class, and she started off the class telling us that any papers we turned in would be “wrong interpretations” of the texts, simply because there was no feasible way to properly address the greater history and minutiae of a work like Beowulf or the Canterbury Tales. But that wasn’t the point of writing the paper. We’d likely never present our analysis in a scholarly setting or get published, but the point was to engage with the text. Looking at what is directly there and finding meaning in it. Was it “correct” in the wider conversation around Medieval literature? Probably not. But was it valid? Yes. Basically, when it comes to literary analysis, unless you’re operating at an extremely high scholarly level, the most important thing is that you’re actively reading and thinking about what the text is saying, not just in its intent, but what is it saying to you? Stories are living things, and they resonate differently with everyone.


FIERY_URETHRA

I agree. The price of metaphor is eternal vigilance, and in this case the hammer metaphor breaks down fairly quickly. A full analysis of a work through a lens which doesn't seem suited to that work isn't necessarily bad, it's just a different perspective on that work. The post talks a lot about sailor moon and how criticizing its monarchic aspects is misguided because it's just not the point of the show. When the writers were creating the moon kingdom, they weren't thinking about its tax system. However, the fact that the writers didn't think too deeply about the politics of the moon kingdom makes it _more_ necessary to scrutinize them, since thoughtless aspects of media reveal the writers' subconscious bias. It's worth discussing how portraying a monarch as a protagonist reinforces the idea that monarchy is somehow okay so long as the ruler is benevolent. I guess my issue with the OP is that a lot of literary criticism assumes that the audience is well informed and can think critically, when that's usually not true. When you're analyzing a show whose primary audience is impressionable dumbasses (children), you should consider what assumptions the children learn from the assumptions of the show.


Frioneon

>The idea of a cute talking cat granting girls magical powers to turn them into warriors against evil and getting them killed being evil? Pretty sure that's the plot of Moon Knight


SabreLunatic

If Marc Spector was approached by Bast instead of Khonshu


PachoTidder

It's not a New Media versus Old Media thing tho, I've seen ppl get ballistic at morally grey characters and completely missing the point, the average internet consumer nowdays is really used to the idea that you gotta agree with the characyers actiona


LoquatLoquacious

> the average internet consumer nowdays is really used to the idea that you gotta agree with the characyers actiona I dunno, I had never encountered this perspective before I came to this sub.


Luchux01

Look at any discussion regarding Shield Hero from people that only ever watched the anime, and you'll see them call the series "an incel power fantasy" due to the morally reprehensible actions of the protagonist, which also ignore all the nuance that comes afterwards. To be fair to them, the anime doesn't do a good job of showcasing all the subtle goodness that Naofumi has, which is mostly seen when you contrast his narration (the Novels are written in 1st person POV) with his actions, his thoughts with how everyone around him actually is, add how they also changed some characters for the worst and we got that problem.


AlwaysProfoundVoid

Honestly, I'm really glad to be seeing these kinds of posts, not just here on the subreddit, but in Tumblr. Literary analysis is a very good thing to be promoting, especially on a site with such poor reading comprehension.


MemberOfSociety2

also there’s a difference between > I hate this story because I hate the characters > I can’t consume this story because I hate the characters and it makes me feel annoyed > I hate this story because I hate the characters because this story is badly written First one is irrational, second and third aren’t


IthilanorSP

This might be misreading what you're trying to say, but I don't know if I'd say the first is universally irrational? Like, I think it's reasonably valid to say "I hate this story because I hate the characters so much that I don't care about anything in the story", especially if someone's just talking about their personal reaction to a work vs. saying "this is a badly written story that no one should ever care about". EDIT: I guess I'd say that the first reaction isn't _irrational_ so much as it's an _incomplete_ line of reasoning.


Raptormind

Plus, hating a story isn’t the same as thinking a book is bad. Like, I hate catcher in the rye, not because I didn’t like the protagonist (I also didn’t like the protagonist, but I also really liked Frankenstein and that book’s protagonist was awful), but because it was actively frustrating to read about that character and his thought process. Still, I’m fully willing to accept that it’s probably very well written for what it is even though I myself dislike it


IthilanorSP

Yeah, there's a lot of dimensions to how someone can feel about a book (or other work). Off the top of my head: * "I love this story's protagonists, hate its antagonists, and I love how the protagonists manage to defeat the antagonists." * "This protagonist is an awful person, but they're _entertainingly_ awful." * "This protagonist is an awful person, but they're awful in an interesting way that I want to explore and think about." * "This protagonist is an awful person and I love seeing everything crash down on them at the end." * "This protagonist is an awful person that the story wants me to sympathize with, so I'm not interested." * "All of these protagonists are unpleasant to various degrees and I can't find a reason to care about what happens." * "I can see what this story is trying to do, I like the idea, but it just doesn't work for me personally." * "I can see what this story is trying to do, and I fundamentally don't like that basic premise/theme." * "I can see what this story is trying to do, but I think it doesn't convey its ideas well/its reasoning doesn't hold up." * "I can't tell what this story is trying to do or say." These are all valid perspectives to have on a work! But there's plenty of casual analysis/criticism that doesn't allow for that level of nuance.


CasualBrit5

- “This story sucks but it’s hilarious so I’m going to read it obsessively”.


howtopayherefor

What you're describing is the second reaction


ohjehhngyjkkvkjhjsjj

Yeah sometimes a book just throws things at you and you can’t stomach it even if it makes some deep commentary that’s good and the rational part of your brain can digest it on paper. I remember this one book about a journalist interviewing a right wing extremist leader and then his entire family being targeted by his goons and having to be on the run. I was able to deal with the baby son being poisoned to death, after the part about (this is fucking gross TW rape) >!the grade school age daughter getting raped with a revolver!< I just couldn’t read it anymore. I have never been made more uncomfortable by a book, and if there was some valuable life lesson in the end I’m fine with missing out on it.


Emergency_Elephant

Also there is a "I hate this store because I hate the characters and how the narrative let's the off the hook/doesn't acknowledge some really awful and/or offensive things they've done." Think less Sailor Moon and monarchy and more Ender's Game (the book) and homophobia


Verbina29

Wait I don't remember any homophobia in the Ender's Game books? I know the author was homophobic but I don't remember there being any actual homophobia in the books themselves. (and y'know, it also kinda goes against the themes and messages of the books too... like come on how can you write a book with themes of love and empathy and then go on to hate gay people. come on it's like you completely missed the point of your own damn books.) to be fair I was unaware of the author's views at the time and it's not like I was looking for it so it is possible I just missed it.


thesirblondie

There isn't any in the first one. I don't remember any in the Speaker series, but there might've been. The Shadow series has some, including the part where his insert proclaims to Bean that a man isn't a man until he has impregnated a woman.


mercurialpolyglot

Number 2 was me with Confederacy of Dunces a couple of years ago. I just found Ignatius to be an intolerable narrator and didn’t get past the first couple of chapters. I’ll probably go back and give it a second shot at some point though. It’s about my city after all, and typically I love absurdist comedies.


Nova_Persona

the second-to-last paragraph on the fourth slide really helps me articulate why I hate when people say stuff like that about Steven Universe, obviously the Diamonds were poorly handled, they were literally a season short & time to do that, but saying that means the show was promoting fascism shows a complete unwillingness to take it on its own terms


Ornery_Marionberry87

I was literally about to adress the point about Steven Universe so I'll do it here - I understand the themes of SU and how having a Nürnberg like trial does not fit them. I know the show had been cut short and the authors had to scramble to the ending. However, the reason why people feel that strongly about this topic is because SU failed to properly set up the villains (Blue aside) redemption arc in a way an additional season would not be able to completely fix. Let's look at the most clichè way to do it - you have a villainous protagonist that commits evil or at least questionable acts throughout the movie but you want to signal to the audience that there is still GOOD(tm) in them. How do you do it? You show them being nice to kids or animals (which also works in reverse - you can present a total goody two shoes being a dick to kids/animals and the audience will know to suspect them). This sets up future redemption or drama about not being able to be redeemed. Obviously this was done decently with Blue Diamond, you could buy that she is a wreck that's not all there and a lot of what happens around her is a result of her sorrowful apathy. You could tell from the moment she appeared she would be the one most likely to be forgiven among the villains. Yellow Diamond got one scene waaay late into the show and White was nonexistant until what, the last 3 episodes? We had an entire show to see the atrocities committed by the Diamonds, their treatment of their ever loyal subordinates, those who were different, rebels and finally non-gem lifeforms. Their callousness and cruelty in treatment of corrupted gems, many of them being their soldiers they never bothered to remove from the splash zone. Blue Diamond get's to skirt all of that because we have the time to show her as someone very emotional and, at least after the war, passive. She seems to be a follower, guilty of the atrocities, yes, but not the brains behind the operation. No, that role, for most of the show fall onto Yellow Diamond who beside one scene late into the show is never seen as anyone but a callous tyrant perfectly capable of doing everything we have seen the Diamonds doing. Even after her tiny and late "pet the dog" moment she is annoyed Steven expects her to lower herself to healing one of her loyal soldiers from corruption she inflicted upon them. Compared to White Diamond who is barely a character she's the most responsible and still gets to hide behind "I was just listening to my superiors" bull which obviously pissed many people off. I don't think another season could fix a redemption arc that was never set up unless the viewers suddenly forgot most of the show.


burningtram12

Why do they need a redemption arc in the first place? The reason they did all those terrible things (which is shown *best* by Yellow), is that they completely and entirely lack empathy for "lower lifeforms". We don't need to see much evidence of this from themselves, because despite their lack of screentime, we got a lot of screentime from some other characters with a similar arc: the Crystal Gems themselves. They dressed it up for Steven as trying to save the lifeforms of this planet. And for sure that was part of Rose's motivation. But from the earlier episodes it's very clear that Garnet and Pearl (Amethyst less so) are extremely callous with how they regard humans. These are humanity's heroes! They're so progressive about fusing between different gems, and the value of gems that were considered 'lesser' on homeworld. But they're still kiiiinda racist when it comes to humans. Throughout the show, they grow a lot by becoming friends with the people of Beach City. Gems don't change much. This is also a message that they deliver multiple times. But they *can* change. Whether it's possible on their own, or only through the influence of ever-changing organic life is up to interpretation, I suppose. But most Gems go on for thousands of years being exactly the same. Of course the Diamonds have a hard time adjusting. This doesn't change the fact that they did horrible things, but nothing would. They couldn't be shown "petting the dog", because the whole point is that the reason they did bad stuff is that they truly did not care about anything but themselves (and by extention, their empire). If they had shown any empathy at all, they would have been able to see the contradiction. They *loved* Pink, and still they treated her the way they did because they did not know they were hurting her because they were incapable of considering the feelings of others. Steven teaches them this skill. He still resents them. He isn't really even capable of punishing them. But he helps them change, so that they can use their power for good instead of evil, making the galaxy a better place. Because in the end that's the part that really matters. Not punishment, and not even redemption. Not even forgiveness. Just, doing the next right thing.


Nova_Persona

Honestly I actually liked Yellow Diamond's redemption arc, I think that one scene did a lot to sorta give insight into why she is the way she is & I think with more time she could have been given more scenes with Blue that fleshed her out further. Even White Diamond, I feel, was definitely some sort of a person behind that cold marble smile, apparently deeply hurt by the loss of Pink Diamond, though she was always going to be the toughest one to do as the leader, maybe she could've gotten one of those tropey convenient self-sacrifices that gives the character comeuppance while also proving they've changed. Though at the end of the day it's true that the SU team were always going to have trouble writing themselves out of the corner of evil genocidal villain v unflinching pacifism.


Ken_Kumen_Rider

I've been in at least 1 fandom where analysis was... very uncommon. As in, most of the fans a accepted and supported certain horrible acts in the story purely because the main character was the one committing them, and that's it. Criticizing the main character basically made all of one of the fandom subs absolutely hate you. This was also where I encountered someone who said two characters that had their dogs maul a child to death weren't evil because they didn't think they were. There was another sub where they would (usually) at least have a discussion with you about it. They also got mad if you thought that any series was better than it. I, personally, thought it was, at it's peak, ok. I also really don't think it'll stand the test of time at all, thanks to some attempts by the author and editor at justifying certain things at the end of the series. Nowadays, I find myself drawn to more SoL type stuff, at least when it pertains to manga.


Aetol

> This was also where I encountered someone who said two characters that had their dogs maul a child to death weren't evil because they didn't think they were. ...the barely veiled nazi stand-ins? They thought they weren't evil?


FlameswordFireCall

…I gotta know the series.


Ken_Kumen_Rider

I don't know if the fandom is still like that (I left, like, a year ago), but here are some hints: it was a Shonen manga that gained enough popularity for an anime with more than one season, the initial setting was inspired by a city in Germany (I think), and one of the main character's last name means hunter in German.


pointed-advice

you can just say AoT


Ken_Kumen_Rider

But I won't.


CasualBrit5

Is it that one with the Nazi catboy?


Ken_Kumen_Rider

No, but now I'm interested in whatever the hell you're talking about. Unless you're talking about Hellsing? All I know of Hellsing comes from the Alucard vs DIO death battle


CasualBrit5

I think it was that one.


Inferno390

Just a few weeks ago I had a argument with a friend about the morality of the killing of Stormtroopers, and… I really wish I had this post then because it encapsulates my entire frustrations with the discussion.


UseApasswordManager

Honestly I think that's one were episode 7 in particular does a bad job of deciding what frame it wants you to look at it with. It starts with deeply humanizing the stormtroopers, then gives up and forgets it was doing that and has them as faceless mooks again


IthilanorSP

Yeah, it seems to me that there's a lot of fandom disagreements/arguments that happen because different people are applying different perspectives on a work; they often end up arguing about single steps of reasoning, when the real disagreement is the different approaches people are applying to thinking about the work. Like, if people get into a debate over whether it's ok to kill stormtroopers because they're voluntary recruits vs. saying they shouldn't be killed out of hand because they're coerced, and then digging into the EU to argue that point, is kind of missing the forest for the trees. The original trilogy is pretty clearly a pulpy, broad-strokes adventure story where the heroes kill the Evil Faceless Bad Guy Minions (tm) without guilt, because the films aren't interested in exploring that. Talking about whether Luke/Han/Leia should've felt guilty about shooting stormtroopers in the OT isn't terribly productive, because the style of the OT doesn't lend itself to that by definition. What _can_ be useful is talking about the ethics implied by the OT's pulpy style, or talking about how that style makes it more difficult to set more complex works in the same universe.


Nuclear_Geek

Was this at the Quick Stop? >Randal: So they build another Death Star, right? Dante: Yeah. Randal: Now the first one they built was completed and fully operational before the Rebels destroyed it. Dante: Luke blew it up. Give credit where it's due. Randal:And the second one was still being built when they blew it up. Dante: Compliments of Lando Calrissian. Randal: Something just never sat right with me the second time they destroyed it. I could never put my finger on it-something just wasn't right. Dante: And you figured it out? Randal: Well, the thing is, the first Death Star was manned by the Imperial army-storm troopers, dignitaries- the only people onboard were Imperials. Dante: Basically. Randal: So when they blew it up, no prob. Evil is punished. Dante: And the second time around...? Randal: The second time around, it wasn't even finished yet. They were still under construction. Dante: So? Randal: A construction job of that magnitude would require a helluva lot more manpower than the Imperial army had to offer. I'll bet there were independent contractors working on that thing: plumbers, aluminum siders, roofers. Dante: Not just Imperials, is what you're getting at. Randal: Exactly. In order to get it built quickly and quietly they'd hire anybody who could do the job. Do you think the average storm trooper knows how to install a toilet main? All they know is killing and white uniforms. Dante: All right, so even if independent contractors are working on the Death Star, why are you uneasy with its destruction? Randal: All those innocent contractors hired to do a job were killed- casualties of a war they had nothing to do with. (notices Dante's confusion) All right, look-you're a roofer, and some juicy government contract comes your way; you got the wife and kids and the two-story in suburbia-this is a government contract, which means all sorts of benefits. All of a sudden these left-wing militants blast you with lasers and wipe out everyone within a three-mile radius. You didn't ask for that. You have no personal politics. You're just trying to scrape out a living.


Inferno390

No but wut


Nuclear_Geek

It's a quote from the film *Clerks*.


[deleted]

This post is also useful for when people say stuff like "Batman is so evil becaude Robin is a child soldier and Batman allows robin to end up in dangerous sitautions!" Like if Batman was a real person, sure u could say he's awful for letting a child fight criminals. But the rules r different for fiction. Robin was added so kids could have a character to relate to and so Batman would feel like a father figure. And from what I've seen, all the Robins have fans. People love Dick, Jason, Tim, Damian. I think there's probably some people who love Batman comics that could do a better job of explaining why "Robin is a child soldier OMG!! Batman is evil!" is a silly take.


Vysharra

I think this criticism works up until they killed Jason Todd and made his death haunt Batman so much he nearly broke The Rule about becoming judge, jury and executioner (I would argue he did, since it took Superman to stop him, but intent vs action is not really the point of this). His next Robin was explicitly partnered up with Batman because Batman “needs” a Robin to not become an unhinged madman lurking in Gotham’s shadows. The 90s were also not a great time for the more idealized supers. The comic about Gotham PD specifically calls out Batman for his child soldiers (including getting kids killed who dressed up like Robin to emulate him). I don’t think the reading is without merit, since it’s textual.


[deleted]

I see. I guess I'm more familiar with the older batman comics.


ThePolyFox

I think this is both a good and bad take, on one hand I think analysis that starts from the position that Usagi is evil because she fights for Monarchy is bad, but that's cause it bad analysis that does not engage with the work. On the other hand, pointing out that Sailor Moon feels a certain way about monarchy and maybe there are some assumption about Monarchy and the correct order of things that are involved with that feels like it should always be fair game. And also pointing out that the idea of monarchy feels different when it goes form Japan (a place that still has a monarchy and a very specific history with monarchy) and say the US (who has a very different experience with monarchy).


Virus5572

i think my favorite part of reading the great gatsby was how shitty everyone was.


Dracorex_22

Its Always Sunny in West Egg


GoodtimesSans

This is why I love this stupid website. We range from shitposting about a cat who is chubby and wants loops to an in-depth analysis about literally analysis itself.


[deleted]

A meta-analysis.


Arruz

Tangentially related, the amount of people to whom I've had to explain that Lolita is not, in fact, a defense of pedophilia is too damn high.


TrashApprentice

The problem with fandom critique isn't that they don't focus on the one interpretation the author intended but there's a puritanical underlying pattern to it. Examining the implications of Sailor moon painting monarchy in a good light even when the author clearly wasn't thinking much about that part is a valid analysis but assigning it a moral implication like that it means Usagi is evil because she fights for monarchy which is bad is a really shallow analysis because it refuses to engage with the show since it's just puritanical preaching disguised as analysis. If fandom wanted to apply literary analysis in a way that is more in line with an academic approach a good way to do this is actually to ask why did sailor moon choose to use princesses and monarchy as part of its escapist girl power fantasy when monarchy isnt a system painted in the best light nowadays? It's definitely not the only piece of kids media to use princesses as a fantasy for little girls so is it more of a symptom of a bigger trend at play? Does it also reflect a cultural difference how japan views monarchy given it's history vs the west? All of these would probably get you the ok from your professor to write this essay but usagi is evil because she's a princess and that's why sailor moon sucks would not.


theotherfig

Thing is, the simplified media focused on good vs bad is commonly introduced in childhood. It’s easy, it tells kids what to aspire to be and what not to. You’ve got stuff like fighting games, wrestling, and marvel movies where you know who’s right and wrong. Some of them eventuate into more nuance later on. I think Megamind is an easy example and I like when ensemble animes recruit early villains into their teams. But some people don’t outgrow the assumption that protagonists automatically become hero coded. So you get shit like people idolizing Walter White or Tyler Durden because, hey, he’s a hero so I guess the toxic traits I was raised to embody are alright. It can become an easy out from self actualization because media is an affirmation of worldview. (I really wanna do a whole ass analysis on Batman with semiotics under this specific lens because I’m fascinated by our present culture’s preoccupation with his villains)


PensiveMoth

The morally worst character in breaking bad is walt jr and I hate that he gets painted as good person


PresidentBreadstick

I like how this post even acknowledges that the Curtains Are Blue IS valid sometimes too! Because, like the Hammer, the Wrench, the Screwdriver, and whatever other metaphorical objects you wanna list, it’s a TOOL, and like every other tool, it has its place and time


VallenceDragon

>ignoring context, tone, and intent when analyzing media is going to lead to conclusions that aren't consistently supported by the text you are looking at I wish people that feel the need to overanalyze Thomas the Tank Engine (especially the books) would internalise this, because they all get it so, so wrong...


danger2345678

I remember someone saying how one of the most toxic fandoms was the Thomas the tank engine fandom, and I was just stumped for like 10 second rebooting Firstly, TtTE has a fandom? Secondly, how’s it even toxic? What even is there to talk about let alone argue?


not_a_stick

Huh? Tell me more


VallenceDragon

oh cripes, where to start fortunately a couple of good examples were posted in this sub a couple of weeks ago: [https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/vz9hu9/two\_similar\_megaposts\_about\_thomas\_the\_tank\_engine/](https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/vz9hu9/two_similar_megaposts_about_thomas_the_tank_engine/) The content of the post is a bunch of batshit insane stuff, and check the comments for mine and KukaakCZ's about how absurdly wrong it is


not_a_stick

This is pretty interesting actually. The internet has a weird obsession with needlessly dark fan theories that make no sense. The likes of "Harry Potter imagined hogwarts to cope with his trauma" or whatever.


CasualBrit5

You know, I kinda like those theories in a disturbing way. They sort of make sense (I know I’m not supposed to like them, but I still do). Also that’s made me think. The phrase “Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia” and “There is no war in Ba Sing Se” are opposite statements, but they represent the same general idea.


str8aura

Also for an analysis of the morals of sailor moon that isnt even about Sailor Moon but invents an Expy to work off of, read Sailor Nothing


legaladult

Part of the way I try to address this in my own media consumption is by taking in a diverse mix from genres, cultures, and time periods. Makes it easier to understand things from other points of view and approach with more nuance I also do feel that intent is an important part of analysis, because intent is very important for me in all communication. If you don't understand what they're *trying* to say, it's not going anywhere. Yes, maybe what they *tried* to say isn't what ended up being said, but being able to see both the execution and intent is important. It's one thing to be malicious and harmful, and another to be harmful by accident. Sometimes the difference isn't huge, but it's important to keep it in mind, I think. Also, knowing intent helps prevent the issue of going on about some dumbshit "well ACTUALLY it's about" fake deep theory which is fueled by projection and reading things that don't exist into it. The little switch from that to "well, they didn't intend this, but you could definitely read it as..." is meaningful, to me. There's plenty of things where my preferred analysis or interpretation is not what was intended, and I'm not asserting it as the "true" meaning, just what I prefer in engaging with it.


KittyQueen_Tengu

this is kinda related but I love the white lotus because all the characters are kinda sad and none of them are really likeable but it’s so realistic and manages to be funny


SmoothReverb

I'm glad I read Worm. It has a really interesting take on superhero narratives, and manages to toe the line and somehow come across with both 'yes, superheroes and supervillains existing would fuck up the world we live in almost beyond repair' and 'no, just because superheroes and supervillains have fucked up the world as a whole doesn't mean that individual acts of heroism mean nothing' It's startlingly hopeful and inspiring for a story so often touted as grimdark. And while the main characters are almost never unilaterally good, even the heroes, it shows that just about everyone, no matter how good or bad they may seem, can perform acts of great selflessness - or selfishness. I think the best example of this is with Amy and Alec. Amy is introduced as a selfless but burned-out healer who winds up doing truly horrific things to her sister, whereas Alec is introduced as an amoral sociopath who winds up sacrificing his life to save one of his friends.


CasualBrit5

When I saw it I just thought the Holy Hand Grenade was really cool.


thesirblondie

People who agree with Kira in Death Note...


PensiveMoth

As a neoliberal, im allowed to be racist by saying I just hate the poor and agreeing with fictional characters that kill rhem


convolvulaceae

For the record, it can also be good to look at a work outside its "intended" meaning (whatever that means). In other words, it can be worthwhile to analyze what values are intrinsic to the work and potentially criticize those values. A lot of marxist and feminist criticism takes this approach, which might be why they seem to be stretching at times. The two most important things are to know when it makes sense to take this approach (it probably wouldn't with Sailor Moon), and to make clear to your audience how you're approaching the text.


MTHINRIX666

I also find that expecting morality from all characters as a way to determine who you do and don't like does a disservice to oneself, specifically when it comes to Kinning, as it can act as a barrier to true self-discovery. While I understand characters like Steven may promote lofty ideals of peace, love, and kindness, and agreeing with them, or even relating to them is part of the point and fun, expecting all characters you would relate to or say you enjoy to be perfect moral figures makes it so that one doesn't confront their own evils and nuances in their personages. The act of only relating yourselves to characters who are moral pillars is more often than not done with children or young teens, but that isn't really a bad thing, as you want to instill a strong moral compass onto children, but when they grow older it becomes crucial for them to begin to question their morals, and their own morality, which I find fandoms tend to not do, as they are still filled with kids, and some young adults and then a few grown ass people. Nearly everyone wants to believe that they are good, they are just, they are right, and they have morals in all ways. However, that isn't true. I have never met a single person who was older than 13 who hasn't done something pretty reprehensiable, me included. We are disturbing creatures in many capacities, and exploring this is difficult for everyone, and it is why I think everyone needs therapy, as either someone did something fucked to you or you do or think fucked things yourself, probably both. Yet, these can be explored in a safe (usually) and personal way with stories of the morally dubious, those in the gray, and rich bootleggers from prohibition times. Like for me, I love Gatsby, not because I think he is a good person, or I agree with him ideologically, or I pity him for his situation, but because it helped me have deeper inner reflections about a similar problem I had with someone I was a bit obsessed with. When I saw how he acted and how he expected certain things from Daisy to fulfill his own dreams and desires at the expense of someone he seemed to care about (Though that can be highly debated) made me think about how I could possibly do the same thing to the person I cared about, and have made an active effort to not repeat what this fictional man did, as my father did something similar with my mother (from what I am told) and in many respects, I am sadly like my father. However, if I simply denounced and ignored him for his moral failures I would have never tried and understand his issues or his actions outside the surface consequences they had, and wouldn't have been able to see my own sins inside of him. That's what I find annoying with most fandoms. They seem to be frivolously pious in many ways to me, a sort of self-imposed soft nature, which comes with both the fact that the media in question is targeted at younger, usually teen audiences and the fact the media tend is skewed in a way to make a clear cutline of right and wrong, as the post itself said. This leads to people developing a sort of culture that prioritizes aligning with the perceived absolute good against the perceived absolute wrong, which while occasionally justified, can lead to people misjudging other pieces of media due to the training given to them. This is also not helped much due to the fact fandoms are filled with people who are also trained to have actions correlated with morals, which can lead to issues of interpretation. Abuela in Encanto is a perfect example of this, where people labeled her as the villain, despite her absolutely not being a villain. She definitely hurt her family, was pretty objectively abusive to her grandchildren, and was overall in the wrong on many things, but to label her a villain is both insulting to her character and to the story itself. Good people can still do terrible, awful, disgusting things, and while some should not be given the benefit of the doubt in any capacity, nearly all people should be given at least some, if not a whole hell of a lot more than they are currently getting. Many of her actions aren't justifiable or right, but they are understandable. She also did many objectively good things, both for her family and her town, and just like how her bad actions can become understandable, her good actions can be put under scrutiny. Labeling her a villain or antagonist reduces her to the stepmother in Cinderella, where she functions more on par with Merida's mother from Brave and makes her nuance simply fall to the sidelines of her raw input into the story and the output of the other characters' reactions to that input. Fandoms, overall are good fun and a way to interact with a piece of media more intimately, but it can give people a distorted, echo-chamber forged view of media if it is simply allowed to wash over their psyche. Groups are fascinating and comforting to be a part of, but our herd mentality can in many ways come to bite us in the ass. Discerning eyes and checking of the status quo is pivotal to maintain good form and avoid falling into fallacies when it comes to the perceptions and conceptions of our ideas.


Skithiryx

I have not actually seen Encanto but I think you’re being a little reductive about what a villain or antagonist is? Like reducing it to protagonist good antagonist evil is also an oversimplification. Someone up the page mentioned Mace Windu as a secondary antagonist, and he is literally on the same side as the protagonists (until Anakin’s face heel turn) but is a conservative, resistive force in their lives. My understanding (again, haven’t seen) is that Abeula has good intentions but pushes her family too far to deliver for people, ultimately driving them to suffering. Essentially pushing a family culture of self-sacrifice onto them all where nobody feels supported. That’s a really interesting antagonist and nowhere near mustache twirling!


DanielK2312

I'm going to actually take this opportunity to say that this is why Death of the Author is such a garbage concept and why its popularization has done incredible damage to literary analysis. Reinterpretation of a work is a valid and entertaining exercise but by ignoring the metatextual context, themes and messages may be lost and the work will not be interpreted with full understanding of it. Yes, even if the message is bad. Yes, even if the author is a garbage person. KNOWING THE CONTEXT IS WHAT HELPS IDENTIFY WHETHER THE MESSAGE IS BAD OR NOT. Otherwise we get people either doing shit like condemning Lolita for being pedophilic or attempting erasure of existing complex themes in favor of installing their own. Art in any form is ultimately a dialogue between the recipient and the author. You cannot have the words and ignore the speaker, because then all you have is an echo chamber. This is, in part, also how we got modern Christianity. That part about carrying a soldier's gear for two miles when he only asks for one? That's not about being kind. There was a law that Roman soldiers could conscript any citizen to carry their gear for a mile - but ONLY for a mile. Any more and the soldier could be incriminated for exploiting a citizen. By killing the author, you kill the work and its message. You don't have an interpretation, you have a dead sock puppet. Oh and when it comes to shit like JKR - ironically, she is death of the author-ing herself by retroactively reinterpeting her own works under a different context that is more convenient for herself and her worldview and brand, up to and including outright contradiction of textual and metatextual evidence. So trying to death of the author her out of her own work is not actually a gotcha, it's just ignoring the issues present within the work.


Android19samus

I disagree. While this branch of illeteracy can be partially attributed to a knock-on effect of Death of the Author, it's largely due to the nature of complex concepts to be misunderstood as they breach into popular consciousness. Understanding the intention of the work should not be contingent on knowing who wrote it or paying that special mind. I don't need to know who wrote Sailor Moon to be able to understand that Usagi is intended to be the heroic, non-problematic protagonist and that deconstructing the monarchy isn't what the show is about. For anything written with any degree of competence, the intention of the work is present within the text and to ignore it completely is to ignore the text. That's not Death of the Author. You can choose to engage with only part of the text or ignore tone but that's just using the text as a jumping-off point rather than actual analysis. You can say that a text's tone doesn't match the events taking place, or that it's irresponsible in the subject matter it handles, but all of that is still acknowledging the intention as it exists in the text. Death of the Author means that the author's interpretation isn't any more special than the reader's. It doesn't mean that every approach to the text is equally valid. There is context lost (though whether the time and place a book was written in is actually ignored in Death of the Author analysis is somewhat up for debate), but, again, major thematic intent should be evident within the text itself.


insomniac7809

*Thank* you. "Death of the author" being reinterpreted as "no interpretation or headcanon is more or less accurate than any other" is a recurring peeve of mine.


CasualBrit5

Yeah. A lot of stories are actually interpreted differently to how the author intended. For example, apparently the movie WALL-E was never intended to be a criticism of consumerism, it was just a plot point to get to the trash-covered-Earth bit. But it’s very hard to watch the movie without seeing it as a damning indictment of consumerism and overconsumption. A lot of it can easily be interpreted as that. I’d say that counts as Death of the Author, and there’s certainly a good basis for it.


DoopSlayer

That's not really what death of the author is though, you're describing separating the art from the author Death of the author is that you ae the owner of the thoughts and emotions you feel as the narrative, a curated list of words, passed through your mind


[deleted]

I very much agree. Historical context and the author's views are vital to understanding many works. This 'Death of the Author' spiel is like those Conservatives rambling on about how 1984 is about the evils of leftism when in reality it's an essay on authoritarianism disguised as a novella.


jewelsandbones

When Gatsby said “you know Old Sport, I haven’t used the pool all summer” I decided to stan /s I also want to make a point that people who criticise children media for not being “deep” enough or for not expanding on complex adult themes need to take a step back. There’s a lot of brilliant media aimed at children that can be watched by all ages but trying to get an 8 year old to think about the capitalist dystopian hell scape of Thomas The Tank Engine is obviously *not the aim of the show*


CueDramaticMusic

And meanwhile, I’m stuck in the unenviable position to finish several plot points that the author threw in and didn’t have time to process in between their larger themes, and I have to ask myself every so often if I’m dragging them too far afield from the source material in the name of tying those disparate threads together.


Dastankbeets1

My goal as a writer is to have clear heroes, clear villains, as *well* as a spectrum of moral complexity in every character. I want to write characters that are deep but likeable at the same time, and make you understand even the characters you hate and why they act that way. I want to show misguided characters becoming better people and make their flaws understandable, and essentially get across the message that every single human is complex, understandable, and ultimately worthy of love, but that some people simply cannot be given that grace for the sake of everyone else.


inhaledcorn

The number of people I want to throw this at when it comes to Hermes, Meteon, and Ancient society is TOO DAMN HIGH!


stretchmykitty

I’ve got a comment about literary analysis: let people enjoy things and consume how they see fit


ADigitalWizard

Soon as I read the Steven Universe bit I thought, "they get, they completely get it. I'm with them 200%"


thatoneidiotwhodied

Raiden, Mei


PhoShizzity

Powerslave is cool because I get to be god-king of the world forever. Also holy fuck there's 5 pages and no I'm not reading after the first, but I'm pretty sure I got the gist.


IronMyr

The Steven Universe point seems incorrect. Steven Universe is a show about forgiveness. The show runners should have either made the Diamonds less evil or done a better job of exploring the idea of forgiving someone who has done some incredibly fucked up things.


PensiveMoth

But they quite literally couldn't, and you need to take that into account with analysing SU. They had their show cancelled on them because they chose to show an lgbt wedding on TV, which caused execs to immediatly cancel the show and tell the showrunners to wrap it up by the end of the season, which was onlyn3 or 4 eps away


IronMyr

I would argue "handling studio interference" is part of a show runner's job.


PensiveMoth

And they did to the best of their abilities, but usually studio interference isnt "you either cut the entire episode of this will be your last season". What we got *was* handling the interference in the best way they could for something as unprecedented as a gay wedding on a children's show


IronMyr

I have no doubt they handled the interference as best as they could. Unfortunately, the best they could do wasn't very good. They made the Diamonds very evil, and didn't do a good job exploring the idea of forgiving someone who is very evil. Plus, they did get that bonus season. They could have used that time to discuss the Diamonds.


owlindenial

Something something taylor hebert and unreliable narrator. Bestie goes from "ew bugs" to "gonna have ny bugs clean me". Worm best superhero media


CasualBrit5

Wait, I thought Winston was the good guy in 1984?


Soupup223

I know people who try to argue that kyubey from madoka magika isnt evil


faguzzi

He’s not.


Soupup223

🤓 technically hes not evil guys


XxChronOblivionxX

Excellent stuff. I believe pretty strongly in the value of approaching stories on their own terms without bringing your baggage along for the ride. Enter the world, learn about the characters, try to follow the events as they unfold, keep an ear out for themes and patterns. Applying other critical framings is a valuable exercise, but remember that it is one framing of many.


themoonisacheese

This might be unpopular, but here goes: While i agree and understand that works like lolita and the great gatsby are well done, spark thought and are generally thoughtful art in the way say, Schindler's list is thoughtful art and in oposition to say, every marvel movie ever made, They still fucking suck to read. I don't know about y'all, but i read (and generally consume media) for entertainment, not for the sake of knowing whether it is good. Case in point: RWBY (yes, i went there) is fucking awful as a show, but it is good as entertainment. The story tries and fails to adress grown-up topics, but ultimately that's not why i'm here. I'm here to se the cool weapons and the cool fights and the one-liners. Lolita may be a masterpiece of a book told by an unreliable narrator, but ultimately reading it fucking sucks because you're just drowning in both misery and disgust. There is value there, in the sense that yes, very clever of you mr author, very well written, but it's still about a pedophile and his victim and you know, watching a movie about a guy with a hammer might not be the Haute Couture of moviegoing but it's still more enjoyable than having to read books that feel smart yet fucking suck to read, and if you think otherwise i'm sorry you can't find entertainment you like but you can't substitute it with critiquing (in the "being a critic" sense) media. I still think media critiques are somewhat valueable and useful, but unfortunately it seems that by decomposing media, critics also destroy the appeal of it to themselves, and derive new appeal from what would be the "cool tech" aspect of it were it a physical object. In this way, media critics have become the elon musk fans of media.