[.....this may or may not sound bitter. *cough*]

[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....

Comments

[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??

[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. ^^;