Hypocrisy pisses me off
Nov. 16th, 2025 10:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamuzzy Ultimately I hate this hypocritical attitude that fandom believes whatever the author puts on paper is not the representation of their IRL belief system. UNLESS it's something the fandom hates. Then it's suddenly a manifesto.
Yes ...
Date: 2025-11-16 10:48 pm (UTC)What an author believes personally may or may not be reflected in what they write, they may or may not stipulate that, and there may or may not be clues in the work that hint whether or not the author agrees with the character(s) in question. Because people are diverse, they don't all make the same choices.
Me, I write a huge range of different things in original and fan works. It runs all the way from fluff through challenging to quite dark. I don't agree with all my characters. I write about very different worlds and their diverse choices. It's possible to discern some of my personal feelings, but not necessarily all of them, from how I describe things and what happens in the plot.
But then there are other writers, particularly those with a narrower specialty, who may for instance write inspirational fiction because they believe in Christianity, or whatever, and they'll say that. You see it a lot when a group doesn't have much representation, too, like women's lit or queer lit.
It's all fine. Any good literature class will teach you about how to analyze writing to extrapolate the author's intent or beliefs -- folks can find that information online or in libraries too. But if you haven't gotten those instructions, you're liable to make a lot of mistakes and get into pointless arguments.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2025-11-17 01:59 am (UTC)I don't deny that there are actual authors who put all their identity into the books, or they want to spread specific belief system, I mean, propaganda is a thing, so is censorship. And sometimes there are writers who are commissioned by franchise too, so the writer has to represent the values of the franchise .
But if I understand correctly, we are on the same page about that, that an author should be able to write about things they personally don't agree with IRL, I mean, this is how the story, worldbuilding, and the characters gets richer. And people should be able to write about dark topics without people accusing them of real crimes, or without constantly virtue signaling their IRL morals of "I actually don't do this IRL, I prommie, here is my clean certificate of good conduct!" whenever a fictional character does something morally questionable in ther book.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2025-11-17 02:54 am (UTC)Everyone. Regrettably English doesn't distinguish between you-singular, you-plural, or you-abstract in most dialects.
>> we are on the same page about that, that an author should be able to write about things they personally don't agree with IRL <<
Exactly. Fiction is imaginative. Otherwise you're writing creative nonfiction, or fictionalized accounts, or whatever. And if you can't write things you disagree with, you're shortchanged on villains and debates and a bunch of other stuff.
>>And people should be able to write about dark topics without people accusing them of real crimes, or without constantly virtue signaling their IRL morals of "I actually don't do this IRL, I prommie, here is my clean certificate of good conduct!" <<
Agreed. I'm not a fan of morality theatre. 0_o Walk your talk, don't talk your walk.
>> whenever a fictional character does something morally questionable in ther book.<<
Or not even immoral, but just really fucking dumb. I am smart. Not all of my characters are.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2025-11-19 06:29 am (UTC)Morality theatre is really a good way to put it. I know that from time to time there is this re-emerging moral panic and it will pass eventually (hopefully...). Just experiencing it is truly devastating and demoralizing.
It's interesting because lately I had a chance to acquire an edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray which also includes detailed author notes and sidenotes, and they described this exact phenomenon: people believed that what writer put on paper is equivalent of desires and intents, therefore art can be used against the artist in court as an evidence of crime. And that was in the 19th century. It's insane how history is always seem to repeating itself.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2025-11-19 08:34 am (UTC)It's okay. I've had readers flip out over a character saying something nice or respectful, just because when people said that to them it was manipulative or abusive.
>>Morality theatre is really a good way to put it. <<
Yeah, it's not about being good, it's about being seen as good. They care about appearances, not substance. That's a problem.
>>I know that from time to time there is this re-emerging moral panic and it will pass eventually (hopefully...). Just experiencing it is truly devastating and demoralizing.<<
People flail a lot. Often it's because they don't actually have a moral code or undestand how ethics work. I know some people care a lot about what others think, but I just can't be arsed, especially when it's this dumb.
>> people believed that what writer put on paper is equivalent of desires and intents, therefore art can be used against the artist in court as an evidence of crime. And that was in the 19th century. It's insane how history is always seem to repeating itself.<<
History repeats itself because most people don't do their homework. But if you study history, you see the patterns, you learn to recognize them unfolding in real time -- it becomes easy to predict a lot of what will happen. Which is damn depressing.