#the curse of me rereading all of a.soiaf and immersing myself in it again is that I have a hard time watching video essays anymore

[dcviline]

making a video about a character called "the real [character's name]" and then completely speaking out your ass about them and being wrong about even the most basic concepts of that character sure is A Choice

#᯽ ooc. ⊱ ── ❝ 𝘖𝘩 𝘯𝘰 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘪. ❞ #the curse of me rereading all of a.soiaf and immersing myself in it again is that I have a hard time watching video essays anymore #because I will hear someone say something that's just outright incorrect and my brain will automatically start citing contradictions #especially when it comes to certain popular 'theorists' that are treated like the fandom authorities and you HAVE to agree with them #and then they will say the most tinfoil hat shit and pass if off like it's fact #like even I will admit I am delulu about things that's the point of fandom but like #I still have a separation in my head of what real canon is and my own fanon wish-fulfillment version of canon #this is about general fandom behaviors as a whole I guess bc it's not *just* a.soiaf (but it is more noticeable in that one to me) #where fanon gets pushed over canon to the point where people can't tell which is which #and that fanon is actively pushed onto others. sometimes in spite of how much it goes against the actual material. #again there is nothing wrong with personal interpretations and that's the point of media literacy actually like what do YOU get from it #but also with media literacy you have to be able to support those opinions with the text / film / etc. #or else you're just pulling shit out of your ass #(and text can be purposefully misused out of context to support a point too but that's a whole other can of worms) #and also . . . authorial intent is NOT the end all be all when it comes to interpretation #one thing can have different meanings to different people and it doesn't automatically mean either are wrong OR right #as long as there is text or subtext to support it #if we discourage different interpretations of subtext and themes we will kill the entire purpose of art #it's the 'why are the curtains blue' question over and over again #the author just wanted them to be blue. a good faith reader makes their own interpretation based on context and themes. #a bad faith reader will bend the text to suit the interpretation they WANT to be there without considering the text itself #and in the end BOTH of them might just be reading too deep #but it's important to do that when consuming media and art. if you can derive no meaning from what you consume then what is the point? #just try to do it in good faith #anyway !!! that's my ramble for the week. back to my bullshit.