reenka

It just occurred to me that it's not that I don't like enthusiastic recs, obviously-- 'cause I do that all the time-- and it's not that I'm not 'naturally fannish' in the omg-squee sense, because I totally get obsessive and excitable about things I read or watch-- but what really turns me off is when something's recced or pimped by just saying 'I like it, SO YOU SHOULD TOO!' ^^;;; I mean, I'm okay with the reccing-'cause-liking part, but that's just not a good reason to peer pressure anyone. And yes, it always feels like peer pressure to me. >.>;;;

It's like... the difference between sharing hobbies and 'creating a phenomenon' or marketing a story or a fandom or whatever.
    There are a lot of books (and movies & comics, etc) that mean a lot to me, that are personal to me. But they are personal to me, and therefore it would be disingenuous to defend them or 'sell' them, so when I want people to get into them too (and I do! I tell all my friends to read 'Sandman'), I'm constantly walking the line between assuring them they'll like it and why it's actually awesome and just describing what -I- like about it and such. Some things really are very well-done and worth reading/seeing... but to a person like me, if you over-stress how 'need to see' or 'have to read' something is, it makes me feel like a sucker. :/
    I hate the popularity game-- I mean, I really feel like the more popular or famous something gets, the more its own fans will ignore its real merits (and flaws) and just coast along on the 'obvious' awesomeness of it all and how clearly omg-genius & hot it is.

I guess what I mean is, I hate it when something I initially cared about for partly quirky subjective reasons becomes 'cool' and 'the thing to like'. :/ At a certain point of popularity, it's not okay to critique something as much, to geek out and just talk about all the little things that appeal to you, because rabid fans get uber-defensive, y'know? Of course once it's popular, it's FLAWLESS & GODLIKE. -.-; Like, if someone tells you they don't like something about Tolstoy's work, people would assume that person is an idiot, right? Either that or they'd get pissy you're harshing their buzz. Somehow the story/show/etc becomes an identity or status symbol for people once it reaches a certain level of popularity.
    Of course all larger communities have their good & bad side; on the one hand, you lose the intimate feeling & greater understanding between those first few fans, but on the other hand, more people are being exposed to the material (if you care about that sort of thing) and you get vindicated about how awesome it is. Mer.
~~

Btw, I really liked this post on purposeful misidentification in stories by

fictualities, 'cause that's pretty much what makes me feel most uncomfortable while reading (and alienates me in some more critical meta fandom circles). Fighting the narrative is hard work with little reward, and ohhh, I like my rewards, precious. :> Though I'd never feel I'd 'have' to fight the narrative just to identify with the 'missing' main girl-- I mean, um, having that degree of an agenda is hard work too :>
However, I can like 'bad' characters naturally merely based on the ambiguously-positive cues in the text, while still liking the good characters, simply 'cause I generally don't care who's good & who's bad :D Unless they annoy me & seem stupid. Then it's really on :/ But I totally never felt I was 'supposed' to dislike Draco, not the way I was 'supposed' to dislike the Dursleys, so yeah, it's obvious he's not entirely unsympathetic (so who cares). Seriously. He's always been just so cute!! *___* Man, who wants to be an intellectual -.-

EDIT - I just found

fairestcat's year-old post explaining Watsonian vs. Doylist approaches to a given canon (one justifying various events from the author-pov so they'd make sense & one from a character's), and maaaan, that explains a LOT about fandom conflicts :D Needless to say, I'm definitely a faithful Watsonian :> I tend to consider Doylist-style explanations cute and enlightening (ie, author intent & attendant issues are interesting), but ultimately it pulls me out of the flow of a show/story so I tend to compartmentalize it, I guess. Like, if the only way to explain something is to point to the writers' "smoking crack" or having whatever agenda, then I'm just plain disappointed in the show & don't bother with further analysis voluntarily. I guess I'd say it's useful to add some Doylist flavor but not satisfying emotionally to me as a fan ^^;;;; And in some ways, I do think there might be a rational vs. intuitive/emotional-style analysis divide between the two approaches....

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From:

yourpoison.livejournal.com

I am confused, because we always kind of butt heads on this 'cause I guess within the text, I'm always saying 'well, let's just go with what Harry's thinking/meaning to do' and you're always like 'but the fans! but JKR! but meta-role & intent/approval!' and so on :)) Though I guess that's talking about slightly different things, it's still about how one explains things in canon. Like, saying Harry's the author's darling and therefore you have to judge his actions/thoughts differently-- that's not Watsonian, though neither is it purely Doylist, but it -feels- Doylist to me, y'know? I'm totally with you when you say the only way to explain the character is the text, 'cause everything else explains the author :D Definitely :D

To me, the question of authorial intent is ever so slightly different; it's not trying to explain something through deux ex machina (from the outside), more nudge you in a certain direction that's supported by the text partly because that's what you're 'really' seeing. This gets tricky, obviously, but usually if I reread or think about it I can see how the text does support whatever the author's intent is, it's just that it's maybe badly communicated or something. Like the people who 'saw' H/Hr as 'intended' were reading different books than JKR was writing (like the way they kept comparing it to 'traditional' stories and romance templates), and I think that's important. Your Reader Response may be telling you this is a Grand Romance, for instance, but if the author is writing a thriller, then your interpretation is just wrong. But usually people aren't as stupid/deluded as the super-extreme H/Hr shippers....

To me it's not about ownership at all, though umm, obviously I'm not into that, and I don't even have any particular moral caveats. It's not 'wrong' to me personally to plagiarize, even, I just think it's pathetic & distasteful (lying and cheating in general just annoy me but they're too widespread and bred into human nature for me to get all huffy-- it would seem hypocritical). People who debate about fanfic just generally annoy me 'cause I feel there's no leg to stand on when people are saying 'don't write harmless stories set in my universe'; that's too much chutzpah for words. 'Don't -sell- stories' is one thing-- writing isn't something that's up to anyone to debate as far as I'm concerned, anymore than it's anyone's business whom I write love-letters to if I'm not selling them; of course, 'publishing' on the web or in zines is what makes things tricky, and it's not helped by people trying to make money through cons or fanart :/ Meh. Basically, I think the author 'controls' their text as far as copyright and while they write it; how they control -other people's creativity- is the question, given it's not infringing on anything. It's not so much that I'd want to stop them from having control so much as I don't see how they could, in fact, have any to start with :>

From:

malafede.livejournal.com

I'm always saying 'well, let's just go with what Harry's thinking/meaning to do' and you're always like 'but the fans! but JKR! but meta-role & intent/approval!'

Well, theoretically when I say things like that I am no longer talking about the text but talking about the author and/or the fans. I think it would be weird if being more for Watsonian theories meant you can no longer comment on the author -- like, then you'd never be able to say someone sucks :D Oh noes :D

It's not that you're using the author to explain the text, it's just that you're choosing to explain the author. I don't think my dislike for glorified characters (ie the more the author wants me to like them the more I dislike them) is in contradiction with a Watsonian approach -- it's an emotional reaction, not an analysis. *Then*, when you analyse you can explain why these characters suck because they're made up almost entirely of informed attributes but the text itself doesn't offer real proof of their awesomosity. :D

As you say, authorial intent *is* interesting, but not because it explains the text. It's because it's interesting to see what personal reasons, ideology etc motivated the author, why s/he made certain narrative choices, etc. And I'm not really one who says the Reader Response theory validates *all* responses, because the reading has to be logical and coherent with the text. H/Hr is invalid not because is doesn't stand up to JKR's declared intent, but because it doesn't stand up to the text.

When I said moral ownership (and I may be confused on the lingo) I meant the right to claim the characters/situations/world as your creations. Anyway, I tend to think most anti-fanfic arguments are kinda pathetic, because all seem to stem from either megalomaniac attitudes of the author either a complex some readers have towards the author. They really blow up the power the author has beyond writing the words -- I'm with you, authors have no control over the perceptions and judgements of the readers, but many anti-fanfic people seem to think they should. Not to mention the hysterical rhetorics about hurt feelings -- that's just plain unhealthy.

From:

yourpoison.livejournal.com

blacksatinrose that the best uses for extratextual meta and/or questions of authorial intent are to clarify things that the text always did support, but for some reason a reader needed 'help' to see it :>

From:

discordiana.livejournal.com

Well, in your case, it's not so much I'm surprised you comment on the author/fans as the fact is, for a long time you -mostly- commented on those subjects :> Probably 'cause they annoyed you most, but you see where I'm coming from, right :> Aaaand also in your case, I do notice 'explaining the author' bleeds into your attitudes towards the text :> :>

Well, you said it. If I'm more annoyed at fans or an author's attitude, I'm likely to spend some time on it. And impressions of the author's motive (like pushing a character too much) colour my feelings towards the character. I mantain it's a separate issue. Like I said, there's discussion of the author's choices and there's discussion of the character's choices -- they're separate, and they both can happen at the same time without bleeding into each other. When you say my explaining the author bleeds into my attitude towards the text, do you mean emotional attitude or my analysis? I think it's okay as far as emotional reactions go (there's no right or wrong there) but it's bad if it influences your analysis or used as evidence for whatever theory about the character's actions (as opposed to the way it's written -- author's choice!) I admir I did this. But, well, I was wrong :P

so you're using the text to justify a critical/deconstructive claim rather than having the basic purpose of studying how it works & providing analytical bridges where things get murky. This is still valid, but my point that is that it seems -different-. I think neither Doylists nor Watsonians are doing what I'd seriously call criticism, y'know? It's a more intrinsically fannish tinkering/meta.

Isn't it possible to be Watsonian when analysing the text, and also enjoy a different type of discussion (about the author?) Of course you'd use the text when commenting on someone's writing -- that's what they write. It's just seeing the text from different angles.

You're right that H/Hr is actually -invalid- because of the text; that's why I guess I agree with blacksatinrose that the best uses for extratextual meta and/or questions of authorial intent are to clarify things that the text always did support, but for some reason a reader needed 'help' to see it :>

I think it's interesting, because I've been reading JRRM's statements about how he doesn't want his books to be read from the POV that there's villains and good guys, *but* a lot of readers still apply this mindset to his characters. Even though I agree with him and generally think his text supports him, I'd feel uncomfortable using it in an argument with someone promoting the idea that a certain character is a villain. But you're right that pointing out the author agrees gives a larger impact to an argument that the text isn't black and white. But is it just a rhetoric tool or is it also logical??

From:

yourpoison.livejournal.com

I wonder what 'villain' means; is it a moral judgment (ie, 'this person's wrong') or a description of a literary role (ie, 'this character serves the traditional function of a villain in this story, and [by implication] it's a morality play')? One's a literary criticism (ie, correctable through referral to the author somewhat) and the other's just a subjective reaction to the text. You can -prove- that a character isn't a 'villain' in the archetypal sense, but you can't really prove they're not a bad guy except very circumstantially, y'know what I mean? I think, for instance that it's more 'correct' from a lit-crit pov to interpret Harry as 'the hero' and not as some bastard that got lucky-- but if you (while interpreting him as such) find issues with the portrayal on those terms, one has to consider it. There's a boundary between 'explaining' & 'explaining away', definitely.

And yes, I think it's bled a lot of times into your analysis especially when you're feeling personally offended and touchy. I mean, y'know, 'Watsonian' isn't the same thing as 'objective'-- and while you can and do try to be objective, I rarely see you look at Harry 'as is' without the Slytherin slant, I guess. It gets more complicated when the character exists in a world where there are radically different internal philosophies at play-- but I maintain to follow that type of meta to its logical conclusion, you'd have to judge each character entirely within their own philosophy & context. That is, just as I would accept Harry's pov, I would accept Draco's opposing philosophy-pov equally, just using it to explain rather than justify. I think this line between 'explain' & 'justify' works for you with Draco, but with Harry [or character-you-have-issues-with, whatever], you get defensive or more likely to see explaining as justifying sometimes & so there's resistance. ^^;