#HOWEVER. ppl in fandom are often bad at distinguishing between canon information and their interpretation. it just adds more misinformation

[lord-squiggletits]

Man, it doesn't matter what the medium or fandom is, truly the debate that ruins fandom discussions the fastest is when people try to decide which characters "deserve" what. Especially when it comes to them deciding which characters are evil, how evil they are, and how severe their punishment should be for their evil deeds.

It's really annoying/harmful on multiple levels. For one, morally speaking, the line between "evil, but can repent/compensate for their deeds" and "evil, cannot be redeemed, suffer and die forever" is harder to define than you think, and who has the authority to define it anyways?

But also, fictional stories (especially the better, more nuanced, more mature ones) are rarely ever about "deserving" and don't divide their characters neatly between the "good" and the "evil." Every time I see fans debate about "how evil" a Problematic Fave is, or if Fave 1 is better/worse than Fave 2, all I see is people ruining their own fun and stirring up bad blood between other fans. Why would you add this dichotomy of "deserving" to a FICTIONAL story and start real life beef with people over it? At that point you're getting more invested in your discourse over imagined good/evil binaries than you are invested in watching/reading/consuming the actual story itself.

#squiggposting #honestly it gets to the point where i try to avoid fandom discourse for new things i'm into such as bg3 #canon is crystal clear and then i walk into fanon discussions and it's like a funhouse mirror #fanon discussions and discourse get so wack they literally make me second guess shit i saw with my own eyes and ears #me playing bg3: yeah the themes of this are pretty clear i understand perfectly the emotions here are great #me looking at bg3 fandom discussions: what in the actual fuck is going on here. did we play the same game #it's also not helped by people who can't distinguish between canon and fanon #like. there's a difference bt things explicitly said by canon vs interpretations based on canon but not actually confirmed #there can be multiple different interpretations of a story. this is true and a very good thing #HOWEVER. ppl in fandom are often bad at distinguishing between canon information and their interpretation. it just adds more misinformation #if you're a veteran that actually knows the lore you end up stepping into discourse just to clarify: #no that isn't actually canon. it's based on this one thing that was said in canon but canon never actually says that. #you can INTERPRET THAT but the story never actually explicitly says it #just. what a fucking mess lmao. the best way to get accurate information on a story is to just play/watch/read it yourself #fandom cannot be trusted to 1. get lore factually correct 2. distinguish between canon facts and interpretation