Interesting debate

[gategrrl]

There's an interesting debate happening on John Scalzi's blog called What Authors Know About Their Characters. It was sparked off by JK Rowling's answer to a question about one of her characters, the now famous "Dumbledore is gay" answer. The main point in contention  seems to be, who is in control of the characters in a book - the author, or the readers? Who dictates the characters' realities? And what role does the reader play in the writer/reader collaboration?

I admit I tend toward Scalzi's point-of-view. I think the writer, whether the answer is there explicitly in the text or not, has the final say as to what a character is, or is not: what the character will be, or will not be. (I'm not including television in this - TV/movies are more of a collaborative effort in production) 

Letter number 2 takes a POV that I only semi agree with. Sure, when I read a book (any book) the mythos and characters and settings and wonderment of being in that author's mind become my own while I am reading; and even if I write fanfic, or read fanfic, or imagine my own adventures for those characters, they still aren't *mine*. They're the author's. The one who imagined it all up is the one who gets to say definitively what those characters are like. And a reader may change them however to suit them in their own imagination - but it's not going to ever be the way the original author/creator considered and "grew" them. 

Anyhow, opinions, anyone?

Comments

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

OOoh, I haven't read the article, but I kind of disagree. Any art is subject to interpretation, and it becomes whatever each individual reader sees--whether it's a painting or a song or a story or any type.

I don't think either "dictates" the characters' realities, though. The writer does as he or she is writing, but beyond that, the characters are whoever you, the reader, think they are. Just like two people observing a car accident and seeing completely different things, I might read a story and get something completely different out of it than someone else. That's the way it goes.

I have to admit that I rather disliked JRK coming out and saying Dumbledore is gay--not because I didn't like that idea, because I love it--but because it seemed to me to be a sort of a desire to control what people think of her work--to try to make everyone interpret things in her way--in a sort of Boys at Bridge kind of way, if you will.

Most of the time, though, I love hearing the artist's interpretation of his or her work--what was originally intended. I love it when a songwriter says, "The song means whatever you think it means," but I equally love shows like Storytellers where the songwriters tell how or why they wrote songs. Some tell only the external circumstances, but some explain what the song meant to them as they wrote it or even what it was about. Whatever an artist (writer, musician, actor, whoever) wants to share about their work is interesting to me.

But yeah... I do see what JKR did in the way I said above. It's not that I don't think she can say whatever she wants, but she keeps retconning her stories--the ships, the jobs, whatever--after the fact, and sorry--it's too late. The books are written and people think what they want. If she were sharing *her* interpretation or her thoughts as she was writing it or anything even remotely interesting like that, I'd love to hear about it, but it's more the way she's been going about this that sort of rubs me the wrong way. *g*

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

story or any type

story *of* any type