lrt: I just don't understand the extreme the mindset has gotten to.

I get the rush of being able to post "it ain't that deep fam" memes at people analyzing a story, but...some folks act like authors just *never have any intent* beyond face value, and it ain't that shallow, fam!

Then again, my mindset is probably a little unconventional.

I think author's intent matters, but only so much. What audiences see when they look at a given story matters too. A character or an arc might resonate with folks in a way an author could never have guessed, y'know?

As a self-example, I once had a reader write me and compare The Fox and the Thief, and Alyce's efforts to hide her fox parts, to his life as a closeted gay man.

I'm not tooting my own horn--I didn't intend that. But there was enough in common between him and Alyce, y'know?--

--Part of my *intent* with TFatF is...Alyce and Grizz are marginalized in different ways, but there's a few commonalities in their experiences with oppression.

Well, apparently they're not the only ones with that common experience! And that's just as important as my intent--

--maybe even more so!

Here's another example: The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair. Somewhat famously, he wrote it with the intent of exposing how poorly workers in the meat industry were treated.

Well, what most people took from it was how poorly the *meat itself* was treated!

So what wins out in stuff like TFatF, or The Jungle? The author's intent, or the vibes the audience gets from it?

My personal answer to that is,
"Who the hell am I to say...?"

Which is part of why I really can't stand this trend of "take every story entirely at face value"--

--acting like stories don't have deeper meaning invalidates *both* the author's intent behind a story, and the thoughts it raises in the audience's minds.

Can you imagine how *dull* reading and discussing stories would be if that were true?

(end of thread, thanks for reading!)