#authorial intent

[cryptid-called-ash]

Fellow writers I have have a question:

#tumblr polls #poll #writers on tumblr #writers of tumblr #authors #authorial intent #writer #writer stuff

[aragornsrockcollection]

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but Tolkien saying his work wasn’t allegory did not make LotR immune from being a reflection of his experiences, especially with WWI, and strong parallels between the emotional journeys of his characters in war and the emotional experience of Tolkien’s generation didn’t happen by accident, and we don’t have to pretend they did.

Tolkien didn’t even pretend they did. He talked about how the dead marshes were designed in direct reflection of no man’s land after the rain, craters in the earth from shells filled with rain water, nothing living but the potential of fallen soldiers staring back from any of the pools.

It is also true to say that the War of the Ring isn’t an allegory for WWI. A war being an allegory for war is… kind of a weak allegory. What we’re looking at is someone using their own experience with the horrors of war to make the internal worlds of his characters experiencing the horrors of war feel more real. Lobelia Sackville-Baggins isn’t an allegory for obnoxious relations, but I guarantee her character was not birthed pure from Tolkien’s imagination without him having met people like her in the same English countryside environment that inspired the Shire.

People keep bringing up ‘Tolkien doesn’t do allegory therefore your argument is invalid’ on my post about how the experience of the hobbits in LotR speaks to the experience of young men of Tolkien’s generation being shipped off to fight in WWI. Specifically, the fact that a shiny glorified version of war was sold to them previous to leaving.

And I’m also not saying Bilbo is equivalent to the war propaganda in early 1900’s Britain, I love Bilbo, I love his stories of adventure, I do not think he was trying to mislead the youth of the Shire, ok? That’s not the point here.

But isn’t it interesting how much the Hobbits talk about their adventure vs Bilbo’s adventure, and the fact that nothing is like they thought it would be, while Bilbo is also proven to be an unreliable (though still heroic, well meaning and sympathetic) narrator of the events of The Hobbit? This discrepancy between what the hobbits (especially Frodo) thought adventure would mean based on the stories of their elders and what it actually meant? And how that feeling of disillusionment was also an enormous part of WWI, and WWI vet JRR Tolkien’s generation’s experience of war?

Tolkien saying LotR wasn’t allegorical does NOT mean the character’s disillusionment in the book and the people’s disillusionment in history don’t speak to each other.

That’s not allegory, it’s parallels, it’s commentary on how war works in the context of an in universe war, it’s writing what you know.

He absolutely uses allegory all over the place in his books though and he is a dirty lier when he says he isn’t, you can come for me for saying THAT now if you want, but first let me tell you what in LotR isn’t an allegory and why I think Tolkien hated the idea so much:

The Ring is not the Atomic Bomb.

If I were Tolkien, and I wrote this story in which there was a big evil weapon that could destroy the world, much of which was written before 1945 when the Atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it came out and became popular soon after those events and also during the Cold War and related nuclear arms race, I too would start telling people nothing I had written had any relationship with any events that had happened in real life ever.

To be clear ‘the Ring is the A-bomb’ is a completely tepid take. It only makes sense on the very shallowest level, and if you proceed with reading the books with the assumption that this is the intended take-away, you are going to be extremely confused at what the message about the atomic bomb even is.

The goal of the books is to drop ‘the bomb’ into the lava which ends the highly destructive war by breaking the spirit of the enemy (literally and figuratively, the literal spirit Sauron, and also once the will of Sauron is gone most of his troops, being slaves, flee). So the atomic bomb is good and should have been dropped!

… but the weapon that could destroy the world should never be used by anyone, to use it would make them evil themselves, and just as bad as the enemy, so the Atomic bomb is bad? And should not have been dropped?

Normal people change the course of wars! Wait, with atomic bombs? By not using atomic bombs? The bad guy is the one who made the atomic bomb, but the good guys have the atomic bomb, also there is only one atomic bomb and no chance of another atomic bomb, so that really captures the zeitgeist of the 50’s for sure.

But the world is understandably obsessed with the subject after the way WWII ended, so this comparison was absolutely inescapable in Tolkien’s book about the big scary weapon in the big scary war.

And even if the allegory were clear and consistent, it completely EVISCERATES everything else that Tolkien super cared about expressing with his work with the blunt force of a really really polarizing real life political agenda.

Tolkien cared SO MUCH about language, and the interactions of these fantasy races, and the enormity of history and mythology and our place in it, impermanence, hope in the face of despair, mortality, poetry, geography, what it means to be noble, what it means to heal, friendship, awe, a whole world. All that stuff he is remembered for, and the reason he is credited with creating a genre. He spent his whole life building and peopling this complicated world, and he didn’t want people to look at it and reduce it to a single real life issue that he didn’t even write in on purpose. He wanted his world and everything he put into it to be an escape that felt true, not a thin veil stretched over a hot-button issue.

Which I get, but I think his saying he didn’t intend there to be any allegory was just way simpler than saying “I put in tons of allegory, but you are picking up all the wrong ones.”

Like, come here and tell me Saruman and Isengard aren’t allegorical to the forces of industrialization in our world. Say it to my face. The trees literally take their revenge on them, COME ON.

Abstract concepts are even more liberally used for allegory, or tell me the Ring isn’t an allegory for Power that Corrupts.

Tolkien even says in the letter to his editor Milton Waldman (which was put by Christopher Tolkien as a sort of forward to the Silmarillion) that the type of allegory he dislikes is “intentional allegory.” Which is to say he dislikes obvious thinly veiled allegory which relates one to one with reality.

He kind of ignores the existence of moral allegory, which is indisputably a part of his books, which to remind ya’ll, are about fighting an ultimate evil and finding a part of it will always live inside yourself.

Listen, the man is not alive, I can never have this conversation to confirm, but I know in my soul he was mad at people calling his books allegory cause he invested so much in the literal world building and didn’t want people to sweep that all aside looking for what deep message he was trying to send about life by creating eighteen dialects of elvish.

He just wanted to make a cool language and for his literature friends to not blow past his cool language as window dressing. It’s not just window dressing, it’s a vital part of his world. But there is also a ton of allegory in his story. There is a ton of symbolism in his story, and he didn’t have a problem with that word, even though allegory is basically symbolism applied to narrative. He would have called what I am referring to as allegory “applicability.”

But ultimately it’s a big story, it fits a lot of things, and it is not going against his authorial wishes to read into it, and even if it was, stop limiting your experience of art by authorial intent. I think authorial intent is interesting, and it’s a fun angle to consider, thus why I try to imagine what allegory pissed off Tolkien the most in this post, but it is not everything and shouldn’t limit you.

For example, I don’t care what Tolkien thought, pipeweed is in fact marijuana, cause it makes me chuckle to think of hobbits stoned out of their minds.

TLDR: People who keep telling me to stop reading “allegory” into Tolkien’s work: you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

#tolkien #jirt #lotr #jrr tolkien #allegory #WWI #WWII #the ring #the atom bomb #authorial intent #ignoring authorial intent #but also what is commonly thought of as authorial intent is not as wide reaching as how it is often used imo

[inkwell-intermission]

experimenting with csp layer masks ft a reboot of my heir of lightsona and author-insert, who i want to probably call Authorial Intent

#homestuck #author insert #authorial intent #my hussian tendency to want a guy who is just me in there a little bit #heir of light #classpect #homestuck oc #hs intermission

[theniftycat]

Maybe killing the author should be the next mainstream praxis. It's not a perfect concept, there are things like accountability that are trickier to fit into it, but tricky doesn't mean impossible.

Only recently "fuck the authorial intent" was a very common sentiment, now it's not mainstream anymore.

Yeah, it's cool to have a chance to ask the author "What was the character X doing between 02:00 and 08:00 on that one Saturday night in May 2002?", especially if the author is nice enough to answer, but it's not an author's job.

Author's job is to create stories, mystify, make your imagination work.

It peeves me seeing the author say "Hahaha, guys, kill me already, set yourself free!" only to be met with an avalanche of questions about the colour of the socks of the vicar's wife.

Author's opinion doesn't really matter. You aren't required to know it. You're presented with a text, not with a chat bot.

Taking the word of god as the law puts you into very narrow borders. You have your own mind.

#death of the author #authorial intent

[send-me-letters]

Found in the preamble of an old copy of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Apply as needed.

#writing #fiction #Huckleberry Finn #authorial intent

[sigritandtheelves]

i just got what was probably the most hurtful "final reflection" paper i've had in 10 years of teaching, telling me that everything in the class was entirely useless. there was a nice little note to say "but it's not personal, you're a great person and professor" at the end, but... i'm just dumbfounded, especially after our last discussion in class had people gushing about how it was their favorite class ever. imagine being offended at being asked to consider things from multiple perspectives...

#i might have guessed tho #this student wanted to play 'devil's advocate' in every discussion #and stubbornly refused to engage with any theory #even tho it was a theory class #kept getting mad about 'correct' meanings #authorial intent #and the necessity of 'objectivity' #like... would not learn anything #never taught a brick wall before it was interesting #... bet you can guess what the student looked like

[rotting-creation]

what's authorial intent?

what's death of the author?

#poll #death of the author #authorial intent

[mysticdragon3md3]

#reminders #storytelling #story analysis #analysis #discourse #fandom #authorial intent #problematic #fandomfrictionfracas

[thatnerdyqueer]

FUck authorial intent. Fandomial intent. Give me some of that.

#authorial intent #fandoms #shipping #fandomial intent? #yeah thats a thing now #i said so

[kingoftheu]

You cannot just read authorial intent into places where it isn't there.

The Author Is Dead but that does not make you a Ouija Board.

#ouija board #bad media literacy #literacy #media criticism #television #literature #movies #authorial intent #death of the author

[kinogane]

By far my favorite subcategory of creator/audience interaction is

"Did you do (insert thing) on purpose?"

"...Yeah, sure, if you want me to."

#random thoughts #fandom #media analysis #authorial intent #death of the author

[captainofthetidesbreath]

Karna slapping Deli across the face, then Colin also slapping Deli across the face: "My (26M) skalds (21F, late 30s-40s?M) have unionized"

#Someone get Zac to tell us how old Colin is so I can make this joke less awkwardly. #Karna and Colin unionizing would be so powerful. #Karna Solara #Colin Provolone #Delissandro Katzon #The Ravening War #Dimension 20 #trw #trw spoilers #d20 things #this is not necessarily ship-oriented bc I don't go there but I don't tell anyone what to do. go forth with the post as you see fit. #I just remark that bc sometimes people want to know about OP's authorial intent. but do whatever. #I just can't not make this joke and wanted to make the joke. #trw things

[entrop-y]

i know it was almost certainly unintentional, but watching season eleven, it really seems like reid just has devastatingly hopeless, unrequited feelings for morgan

the online discussion of ‘queer coding’ in criminal minds often leaves a lot to be desired (and often fundamentally misunderstands what queer coding is) so i am not even arguing that—especially by season eleven—reid is an explicitly/intentionally queer coded character, but the dynamic of their relationship (the specific dialogue, the body language, and how reid handles morgan’s departure) just accidentally, but so clearly, frame it that way

#i think any kind of coding requires authorial intent #so for example while reid is indesputibly autistic coded #(he is autistic) #i would argue while he reads as queer he is not queer coded #(emily is the only character on cm’s original run i consider to be queer coded) #this doesn’t negate the interpretation or understanding of reid as being queer #i just don’t think it was intentional beyond season one #spencer reid #cm #criminal minds #derek morgan #emily prentiss #moreid #spencer reid x reader

[yrrtyrrtwhenihrrthrrt]

Boldheart- Hand kisses

(M) Ambrosius- Nose kisses

Blackheart- Neck kisses

(C) Ambrosius- Forehead kisses

That is all. Make of this what you will

#authorial intent is “thats where they liked to be kissed” but its up to interpretation #nimona #ambrosius goldenloin #goldenheart #nimona graphic novel #ballister blackheart #ballister x ambrosius #ballister boldheart #nimona 2023 #blackloin #nimona headcanon

[jahiera]

frustrating thing about any game with dichotomous endings is everyone wants to think that their ending is the more correct one when typically (if the writing is good) it’ll be more like both endings should be coherent within the narrative and how we arrive at the ending we get with the reasons and intentions is what’s interesting, and fun to pick apart. compare and contrast! how do these two endings intertwine, how do they play off each other. parallel stories are running in video games and they’re always in conversation with each other if the writing is well done, in a way that don’t work in any other medium for storytelling and it’s so so so fun.

#specifically with astarion in this case I think too the disaster of knowing authorial intent didn’t help much #I stand by that ascended astarion is simply not as well written on several grounds but none of them have #anything to do with it being the darker ending. that’s the best part of it #but that’s also my personal opinion & both routes are very interesting to analyze together #video games are just neat man. totally unique ways of telling a story in a way you just can’t do with #any other format and it’s fun! enough of who is right about what

[gegengestalt]

SHUT UP about the Brothers Karamazov sequel, I think Alyosha should become a teacher, Ivan should recover from his illness and become a physician because it's the best thing he can do to fight against suffering without having to abandon all his opinions on God and Mitya should go to America with Grusha because I don't like chauvinism nor fundamentalism and I don't think going to Siberia helps anyone

#This is the happiest ending I will take. I still think it would be bittersweet. Yes I am ignoring authorial intent on purpose #tbk #gegengestalk