#author intent

So, the title of this post is, while accurate, a bit vague. I decided to put my two cents out on this because, since I joined the ACOTAR fandom a few months ago, I've found a lot of very harsh words being flung one way or another, largely based around the characters of the book or the direction people believe SJM has taken/will take the narrative. There's also been a lot of rather nasty attacks on people for their takes, their ships, and their criticism. I'm not an expert on writing, but I thought it worth having a proper, fleshed out discussion on these topics.

Author's Intent vs Reader's Interpretation

When it comes to understanding a text and gaining meaning from it, Author's Intent and Reader's Interpretation are generally the two fields which are subscribed to. Authorial Intent argues that the meaning of a text should be derived by what the author wanted the reader to take from it, and that a text is inherently connected to the intent of the author; for example, because SJM doesn't put as much emphasis on certain side characters, the reader shouldn't consider them important. Or, that SJM and the narrative intend and clearly state that the IC and Rhysand are the good guys, it only makes sense to view them as such. Reader's Interpretation posits that texts are meant to be interacted with, and that the meaning people can derive from them is subjective, because individuals have different life experiences and perspectives which can lead them to understand a text in different ways; A reader can see Rhysand's actions as hypocritical based on their interpretations of what he did and how in ACOSF. Or, coming at the text with a different understanding on trauma or sexuality, a reader can come away from a text finding Tamlin to be a more sympathetic character than hateful one. Both of these arguments have existed for decades, if not longer. And the thing is...

Neither of these are wrong or right ways to read a text

There is no "one right way" to engage with or criticize a text! If you believe that SJM is a bad writer because she uses characters as plot points rather than giving them actual growth/retcons things as needed for her narrative, or that Tam’s actions have earned him his redemption, that is a valid assessment based on what you read in a text. If you think Lucien and Elain have no chance because Elain has on multiple times been shown being friendly, even intimate (not romantic intimate, just close) with Azriel and that the author seems to hint towards a rejected mating bond, that is a valid assessment too. Anything in a text, written, implied or intended, is a valid avenue of criticism.

At the same time, people are fully allowed to have their own head cannons and fanfics about characters outside the written narrative. Just because SJM wants you to ship Feysand, doesn’t mean you can’t write or ship TamlinxRhysand, or Gwynriel or Rhysta. Art, including text, is open to interpretation and you are allowed to make it your own too, even if the text itself makes it clear it’ll never happen. Hell, shipping Elain and Tamlin because they both like flowers is entirely valid! Fan fiction and ships don’t have to be defended by the text/author’s intent, they are your own creation and can be based on whatever you want! Have fun, go crazy with em.

What isn’t ok for criticism

You can criticize the actions and choices and motivations of a book character all you want, using whichever method of critique you want. If you want to call Rhysand a pedo because he came to a pic of his child, you can make that take. If you call Tamlin a serial abuser who brought everything on himself, you can make that take.

What isn’t ok, is using your takes to criticize the people who disagree with you.

(These are just a few examples I’ve seen in the last few days, but I’m pretty sure everyone in this fandom has seen personal attacks along these lines, some far worse than the ones I grabbed. It’s also not a matter of degrees of bad faith criticism, all of these are of the same vein and one isn’t more ‘valid’ than others because it wasn’t as harsh.) Believing Rhysand is a pedo doesn’t make it ok to call people who like him the same. Believing Lucien is a terrible person doesn’t make someone who likes him a person of questionable morals. Having a different method of criticizing a text doesn’t make someone else’s different way of approaching the text wrong.

At the end of the day, these characters, this world, this narrative are all constructs, not people. You are not Feyre, you are not Tamlin, you are not Rhysand or a Valkyrie or Elain or Cassian. You do not deserve to be judged for the actions of fictional characters, and you should not be judged for your opinions on these characters either. And you need to let others have differing opinions on characters, even ones you dislike intensely.

Oh darn it. I forgot to make a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy/Meaning of Life reference on Meat 42. At least we’re back to a 43, and things might therefore be luckier. Maybe.    (I am very silly when it comes to superstitions regarding numbers, sometimes, even though I don’t really believe them.)

MY TIMING SENSES WERE TINGLING!!!

Hmm. Well, strategy meetings and investigations are important.  (Also:  I am again reminded of the dreadful likelihood that Terezi went with Dirk, which continues to be a disturbing thought.)

Hmm.  For some reason, I have the impression that he does indeed have a vague idea where he’s going, but he may not actually know where/how to find it, yet. That seems pretty likely.  Thus, Roxy would be partially correct. (On that note: Interesting that Jake didn’t actually come with. I thought for sure he’d have snuck aboard at the last moment, or something, as a stow-away.)

Eh, I’d say it goes a little beyond “prove a point,” but it’s also probably incomprehensible to you, right now.  I guess we’ll all have to be patient before we can more thoroughly sort through his insanity in that regard. As for Jane...   I don’t know. It might be more trouble than it’s worth to contact her.  The fact that Dirk has her as a seemingly important part of his plans suggest that it could essentially be springing a trap on yourself. I wonder how she’ll react to finding out that Dirk’s been mind controlling people and that that probably invalidates the actual results of her election, in the sense that it dramatically undermined the democratic process. (That is a really complicated issue that is somewhat entangled with real life politics, though, so I don’t want to get into a deep and proper discussion of what determines electoral legitimacy on a philosophical or political level here.)

It is a very interesting choice on Alt!Calliope’s call to focus on incestuous questions and Dave being awkward, rather than to follow tat important call.

Dirk is so twisted at this point that I’d almost not put it past him, but at the same time, why, Dave, do you have to assume that the motivations are sexual in nature?   (I mean, honestly, it could be the fact that Dirk was trying to force him to have sex with Karkat that gave him the impression that Dirk was [and he is, but maybe not to that extent] way too carnally-minded and motivated.)   Honestly, Dirk’s head is way too concerned with philosophical matters, and if anything he’s probably going to make a clone of himself to have sex with or something stupid like that, if he REALLY has to engage in some sort of tension-releasing copulation that isn’t masturbatory in the way that having sex with someone you’ve brainwashed and twisted into being your personal object of amusement is.   Therefore, I juuust can’t quite see Dirk having sex with Rose/her new robot body.  (Gosh, I hate that I feel compelled to address this.)

I honestly quite agree with Karkat, and now understand a little bit more about why our focus strayed where it did--- though it would have been nice to receive some sort of narration to indicate that.  And yes, it’s sad that Kanaya’s being put on hold, I guess. A little bit.  (Not really. I understand politicians in places of power can get quite busy, and it may not even be Jane’s decision to have her on hold... though if it is, I can most certainly affirm that that is quite rude.)

I mean... to be fair, Karkat, it’s rooted in biology.  Humans not having a Mother Grub means that the don’t have a natural means to reduce the genetic load that would be caused by related populations interbreeding and therefore dangerously duplicating genes.  Thus, it is not actually arbitrary, which I am sure you would know if you had spent a bit more time acting like the “geneticist” your troll handle suggests you happen to be (yes, I know it means to refer to his ectobiological frog wrangling/recombination; even so, the point stands).

I take it that Karkat’s dejection about the election has kept him a bit preoccupied and out of the loop, lately.

This is horrible (Karkat’s part, I mean).    Roxy’s new new outfit sounds like something I would be very interested in seeing fan art of.   A pink-looking slightly more effeminate Dave look sounds aesthetically striking (and I’m not even a fan of pink). But yeah, good on her for not giving up in frustration for people confusing them, I guess.   ***shrug***

And we return to this awkward and slightly funny subject. Considering it was not resolved last time, I guess that’s reasonable.   (Some day, maybe I’ll write a post analyzing Roxy’s trans-iness and/or how they/he seems to have been affected by those around he/them in his/their path to figuring it all out.  This sort of issue is always a bit difficult to properly tackle without raising some people’s hackles, so to speak, though, so I am not sure if I’ll end up doing it.  Regardless, it’ll have to be quite some time in the future, should I do so, after I’m at least done reading both sides of the epilogues. I’m sure Roxy’s interactions with John will have some important light to shed on the matter.)   It’s sortof nice that Dave and Roxy can joke about this without it becoming too uncomfortable (apparently) for either of them.

...   Is revealing this something they’ve discussed before now?  I mean, doing this in front of friends and family could be sortof... bad for things between them, if Karkat’s still trying to figure out how he feels about it and whether he wants to press on vs throttle back?  I mean, just calling each other boyfriends is not something either of them were comfortable with, and just because Dave is now doesn’t mean Karkat necessarily will be.   I dunno.  I feel conflicted on the matter, despite the fact that it is on the border of being cute.

Yeah, see, this is what I meant:  Awwwwkwaaard.

Yeah, it definitely did serve as a good distraction, at the very least. ~~~ Jane either not knowing or not being willing to tell (we’ll have to wait for a perspective shift to her to be certain) is no surprise.

Gah. FINALLY.  If Roxy weren’t such a Void-y ball of fun, everyone would have known this for some time, by now.  (Also: This is another reason why I am quite certain that Dirk was responsible for at least the way that John died. He didn’t want him to be a threat to him.  [I wonder, though: will Candy John potentially pose that problem, in the future, given the fact that he will likely be able to traverse the two different timelines, should he become aware of them?   Heck, this could be the reason why one had to die in the first place. Or one reason.])

This is what you get when you    A S S   U   M E. Also, Terezi would really be useful due to her Seer powers in particular.

Well. That is a useful compromise. Good on you for finally figuring something out to bridge the gap between your morals and Dirk’s amorality.  (Also, that presents interesting potential conflict in the future, insofar as there might be a point where Calliope has to decide whether to allow them to take Jade with or not.)

Has little Timmy fallen down a well?   O: <

This is funny because it’s like that one time where Jade was sleeping and Dave couldn’t get in touch with her. That time his weird fursona came up. Tightest butt in the jungle, or some stupid nonsense like that.

Dave is smarter than Dirk would give him credit for, calling him the dumbest of the Stralondes, by the way.

Not only do they need one of his ships, but it is quite reasonable to assume that they might be able to entice him to follow with them to where Dirk is going.  This is a potentially dangerous gambit, like bringing Gamzee along anywhere, but I think it could pay off in the end.  I think that, as I suggested earlier, Jake’s probably going to be the one to end up killing Dirk, in spite of all the underestimation that and horrific invective that had been directed his way.   In all honesty, this would really seem to be the direction that Jake’s been being pushed in all along, considering all the failed opportunities to interject him into a place of importance in the story.  

Considering his level of devotion and love for Dirk, now, he very strongly reminds me of that one old clown story that AH wrote... the one where the clown was never able to pull himself away from the service of his abusive, evil master. I bring that up specifically to suggest that Jake WILL succeed, however.  I believe that, counter to the example that I just cited, and contrary to all of the deterministic forces that Homestuck has seen in play, the power of Hope will be what is necessary to do the impossible.  A Page has a long, pain-filled story arc, but when it finally blossoms into the great behemoth that its seed of potential suggested it was from the very beginning, amazing things can happen. A Page of Hope is perhaps one of the most potent Classpect-endowed figures that Paradox Space could conjure up.  I have come now to see that this turn on Dirk’s part was probably planned from the beginning, as was the fact that Dirk’s abandonment of him was likely meant to be the catalyst for the eventual realization of Jake’s full potential. Obviously, this will not likely happen in the near future, much to our short-term misfortune. Dirk, if you ever see this, know your folly:  Jake English is just the force you would need to break free of the shackles of the reality you live in---   if only you believed in the him that believes in you.   Instead, your Rage will consume you. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I love this dramatic comedy.

Honestly... this is great. From a writing stand-point, this is excellent. The decision to have Dirk drag Terezi along brings more significant stakes to things and drama for the future, especially with the fact that we DO know that he can be brought back to life, now, despite Dirk’s statement to the contrary. Despite all of my pathos earlier, the way this story (the story of Homestuck) is ending is actually getting me excited and washing away the scars that came from the darkest hour of the path previous.     I really like the mechanic of Dirk having reality warping powers and Alt!Calliope being able to counter them, but only in close proximity. With the speed of his ship being a factor, especially, this sets up for some really interesting potential action in the further development of the story, as well.                    That Hussie was able to so masterfully navigate these emotional waters and string me along to this point was brilliant too.    In sum:  WOW, GUYS, I’M PUMPED!!! ... But... while this would actually serve as an excellent, fully complete and enticing epilogue in and of itself, the fact remains... there is yet more. Not only in the Postscript, but in Candy.      This throws many spanners into the works, and I honestly don’t know how to feel about all that!     If this weren’t Andrew Hussie we were talking about, I would be incredibly afraid that what is to come would throw everything off and make the eventual follow-up in Homestuck^2 (which I know he’s at least directing, though he’s not quite as involved in the story as he was in Homestuck, apparently?!) potentially quite messy and of a much lesser quality than I might expect. Given this IS Andrew Hussie we are talking about, however, I actually am quite confident that eventually, it will work out splendidly, and raise his literary accomplishments to even greater heights. Though... I am filled with a bit of trepidation. That “eventually” will be so far in the future. ***laughs awkwardly*** ... Buuuuutttt there’s still more left, even on this page, so I had better get to that. ...

Okay so. First things first this is a good movie! It is well acted, well written, a good watch, and I think it tells the story the writer/director wanted to tell.

It didn't land for me.

One of the key points of this movie is near the end, when our lead gets pulled into the alien spaceship and we discover that the reason she's shunned by the town, the reason she keeps writing apology letters to her friend, is that she killed said friend when she was a child in an argument, by deliberately hitting her in the head with a rock (this scene echoes her much more accidental killing of one of the aliens early in the film).

The aliens then seem to decide not to possess her with one of their little alien parasites, and instead in the end of the movie she's living her best life in a village of alien-infested people, dancing and accepted by a town that had fully rejected and excluded her. This is where the writer/director and ai parted ways!

His intent was that she'd already paid for her crime with a life of isolation and the aliens basically did her a favour by not infecting her and giving her a fresh start among a newly infested town of people. He wanted to leave her better off than how we'd found her.

For me, the difference was that she deliberately hit her best friend in the head with a rock? When she was, what, 11 or 12, in the flashback? And viewing THAT memory is what made the aliens decide not to parasitize her. I felt like their thought process was "okay, so she's killed a couple of us during the invasion, regrettable but this happens- it IS an invasion- so let's just double check and OH MY. She is a killer by nature. Let's not include her."

And so in the end, I saw it very much as a case of incorporating those parts of humanity that the aliens found acceptable, and playing along with the remainder - giving those humans too dangerous to include little controlled environments in which they can live out their lives and die.

A big part of this I think is that all movie long we were going "Oh no what did she do why does everyone hate her I bet there was some awful accident she feels responsible for and everyone blamed her" and nope, you find out it wasn't an accident- her friend pushed her down so she killed her with a rock. I don't think she intended to kill her friend, that's not clear, but it was a big rock. It didn't land "wow she's been beating herself up for years;" it landed "oh yeah if she'd killed my kid and still lived in my town I'd spit in her face too."

Hence the uncomfortableness with the ending; I did not want her to get a happy ending. I felt she'd never actually dealt with the fact she killed her friend; she hadn't even moved away. I felt like she didn't grasp the consequences of her actions, and since the movie is taking place during an invasion she doesn't understand, I felt like that was on theme- right up to the end, where she gets a little play village that accepts her, just like the one she had in her house at the beginning.

I agree in principle with Death of the Author in terms of the viewer/reader’s enjoyment of work and their right to it, however as a meta writer to me the whole point is looking at author intent. 

Author intent is 100% of what I write about and do, the Jensen thing is irrelevant because A. he’s not the author he’s just the portrayer and B. he has to lie about stuff all the time especially when it’s a massive spoiler so his POV on things doesn’t change my POV of the author intent, eg. when he keeps forgetting that Dean likes music other than rock or when he lies about / teases upcoming storylines etc.

Meta is all about author intent, well, no that’s not fair, the way I meta is all about author intent, if something is too reaching or not what the author intended but comes across, I don’t count it, because my meta is a basis for speculation as speculation is what I really enjoy, so I cannot speculate based on what the author may not have intended at all, that makes no sense and doesn’t work in terms of figuring out what they want to do next. You have to really understand what they meant to do to understand where they’re going with it. 

I almost never intend for there to be consent issues, but I am 100% willing to warn for them if others see them that way.