How do y'all fall about the death of the author theory?

[Hans.Trondheim]

Basically, the theory states that how the author intended for their story to be interpreted does not matter and that the reader decides the intention based on personal interpretation. Let's say, as the author, you do not want people to thirst after the evil character that has no pros whatsoever but instead of thirsting after the character you want, they go for the evil one. Another example is if you intended a scene to be sad but for some reason, everyone who reads it finds it hilarious in context. How do you feel about that as an author or reader?​

Pretty much frustrating, especially when you finally proved that you're the one at fault.

Is it frustrating that people don't share your intentions or are they pretty close to understanding your intentions?​

"Close" is good enough. But if what you mean is miles away from the readers got, you question you competence as an author, especially if you did your homework and the results are still the same.

Kinda like how teenager girls refer to Yiruma's "River Flows in You" as "Bella's Lullaby" at the height of Twilight craze. It's annoying. Lol

 

[SPS4]

I've thought about the death of the author a lot, and I love the concept. The reader could be 'wrong', they could get the polar opposite message of what you mean to express, but it's real. The lesson they learn is the snapshot of who they are, and it reminds me that everyone's experiences are as legitimate from their own perspective as you or mine are from ours. Their experience is valid.

Sure, I could go into my writing endeavor with the intention to convey a very distinct concept or belief, but who am I to dictate how that message is perceived? What? Just because I wrote it, I have the right to tell people how to experience something? Because reading, like everything else, is ultimately an experience, once I put it out there, it's no longer mine.

Whatever the reader feels while reading my work is just as valid as what I felt while writing it.

And people change. You might think as a teen that Romeo and Juliet is about romance, and then you grow older and think that it was instead a warning about the rash nature of youth. The ability to be 'wrong' about an interpretation is beautiful because it gives you the chance to grow into seeing things differently.

 

[Thraben]

The Author is dead!

Long live the author!

 

[beast_regards]

Ah, yes, production "for modern audiences" is another reason the Death Of The Author doesn't apply anymore. Not only authors tell you exactly what she/they meant, you aren't even supposed to differentiate the message of the story different from the author. You aren't even supposed to consider work alone! Work doesn't matter anymore. You are supposed to celebrate the power of the party, because the power of the party created the work. The party is all knowing, and always right.

 

[laccoff_mawning]

Lets perform a little thought experiment about it here.

Imagine if you had a conversation with me, then I chose to make up my own interpretation of everything you said. Is that sensible? I then tell other people that you told me [insert my own interpretation of your words here] that happens to be nothing like what you just said. Is that sensible?

Lets imagine everyone did this with every conversation they ever had. That wouldn't be language. That wouldn't be communication. That would be a nightmare. We gotta draw the line somewhere.

So where do we draw this line? If you believe that the interpretation lies within the reader, then you believe stories behave differently in this regard compared to normal communication and language. I don't see any logical reason why this should be the case, though.

Its almost like people spent years in schools learning how to read (does anyone remember read and comprehensions? I certainly do.) only to throw it away in practice and say, "Hey! this story I read can mean whatever I want it to mean! Isn't that such a neat feature of language and communication?"

how the author intended for their story to be interpreted does not matter and that the reader decides the intention based on personal interpretation.

People can disagree with the moral to the story all they want, but to misinterpret the moral to the story seems to follow the same principle as the above logic. It's dumb. Imagine if a parent told a child "Don't put your hand into the fire." and the kid interpreted that to mean "Ok so I should put both hands into the fire."

Hey, if I write a story which states people should put their hands into fires, thats my fault for having a story with a bad moral to it.

Another example is if you intended a scene to be sad but for some reason, everyone who reads it finds it hilarious in context.

If this happened to me as an author, I'd assume this is my fault for failing to set the tone. Although I guess if 99% of readers understood and only 1% didn't, it would be the reader's fault.

 

[ConansWitchBaby]

I feel that this is outdated to all fuck. People could speculate and make their own AU about the story, back when communication between the author and audience was non-existent. Nowadays everything is as close to instant as we can get. The readers can ask. The authors can outright tell you what is happening behind the scenes. The delusions with AU's can be mitigated.

 

[prognastat]

I tend to fall on the side against "death of the author".

You can imagine all you want about a story you're reading and as long as it's all just in your head that fine, but the moment you start publicly arguing about what things mean then the author has the final say on what canon is.

If the majority of readers disagree with what the author says the canon is that doesn't mean the author isn't right. It just means they're a shitty author for not being able to convey what they intended to the majority of readers.

 

[RepresentingEnvy]

Interpretation of readers is interesting, but I agree with prognastat. Now, if the author intentionally leaves things vague for readers to find their own ideas, that is a whole other can of worms. Anything that the author doesn't explicitly specify will be interpreted one way or another by readers anyway.

 

[Buckhanan]

Isn't that just one of the quirks about communication? The message received is not exactly the one that is intended most of the time because people are different.

 

[Myeownyly]

It is not frustrating, and I would find it funny, but it would also make me rethink why. Honestly, I would roll with it.

It would only annoy me of someone starts explaining what I meant, putting words I to my mouth as a writer. That would absolutely infuriate me.

Lol.

 

[TheKillingAlice]

I believe it has always been that way, because people can feel differently about things. There's certain objective details that are humanly innate, you can't misread them unless you want to. Recently had a dude tell me people "froze for no reason" when it was during the first action sequence and monsters showed up, involving an old lady (with a trauma regarding those monsters), her just as old hubby and a guard who was very clearly described as not a knight with no experience as a guard of a very quiet region. So they each froze up at some point, in differing ways and differing levels of severity (hubby paused for half a sentence when his wife ran back into danger and he couldn't follow on any level of his being for two seconds or so). Now, some might think the dude was right - no reason given at all! Others might think it's actually just human behavior.
The thing is, as a reader, you can only ever use this rule of thumb: If it's written there, unless it's truly and factually not possible, you can assume something is meant the way it is written down.
If I, as the author, can't tell the story the way I want it to, that's just how it is. I know not everyone will understand it the way I want it to be understood, in that case, I can just give enough leeway for the story to be understood, no matter what, even if thin layers of it are understood differently.

But I have read stories that "told" the story this way, while all of the "showing" told something entirely different.
Funny anecdote (in my eyes): In one really bad example of a story I once read (I actually read it for the fun of its stupidity, together with a friend), with the main premise that the FL supposedly fled from an abusive relationship into the arms of a totally lovable man. In reality, the abusive dude (whom she was soooooooooooooo afraid of, you see?) wasn't mentally capable of keeping the FL (who easily talked back to him on several occasions, btw) in this supposed abusive relationship, it just sweemed like she didn't want to leave, rather than she couldn't. The good guy is cheating with FL on his fiancée who's constantly badmouthed while she wouldn't even be allowed to show up and give me a reason to hate her in 20 chapters. In fact, there's one scene in which the dude and FL have sex in his apartment, while the fiancée is away, and he tells FL that she can wear whatever from that one specific wardrobe in their home. That wardrobe is filled with clothes "totally her style", but they were actually gifts to the dude's fiancée which she wouldn't wear, because she prefers "dressing like a slut" (LOL). In a review, I don't know if it was me or the friend who reviewed it with me, said that it could happen once or maybe twice... maybe even three times. But if he was such an incompetent piece of shit that would gift her an entire wardrobe's worth of clothing she doesn't like, he should have probably stopped trying at some point.
Anyway, no, dudebro is not a good man, constantly showing signs of actually an abusive partner in the early stages and a vicious cheater (he really doesn't like his fiancée, even made that commitment just so she would shut up, so yeah, not a moment of misjudgement or change in feelings, just scum). His fiancée didn't do much wrong as far as I could tell. The abusive guy is just really sad and should seek out help. And the protagonist was acting like a bitch and a pick-me the entire time.
I don't know, it was funny to me.

 

[kitty_maine]

I personally subscribe to death of the author. I think once you send something out into the world, it is kind of destined to grow legs and get away from you. If it does, that's a good thing! That means that it's relatable to a lot of people and that they're passionate about it!

I think it's interesting to hear what the authors intentions were when creating, but ultimately their intentions don't really affect the interpretations I made while reading/watching/playing whatever they made.