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What a bunch of assholes. The "author's intent" is not for you to sit around second-guessing his motivations for writing a scene a certain way! His intent is for you to immerse yourself into his work, to suspend disbelief, and enjoy the fucking show as if these characters were real people in real situations.

Author's intent is not taught in high school precisely because it's easy for dumbass retards to misintepret the author's intent. That's why in high school you're taught to write essays in New Criticism--that is ignore author's intent, ignore the historical context and take meaning from the work itself as an isolated piece of work.

That's what DW and Stark and others mean when they say ignore author's intent. They've been trained like everybody else to use a New Critical approach to works of art, even if they don't know it, because high schools don't want to fuck around and have everybody misintepreting the author's intent. It's the same reason why you can't use first person singular or first person plural in essays in high school--because teachers don't want you confusing opinion with fact. In university, the rules are a lot looser and you can write essays with a Biographical, Historical, Formalist, Deconstructionist or whatever kind of criticism you want, but if you say something stupid like intepret author's intent incorrectly, they'll nail you on that. Also author's intent requires research, and high schools don't want to bother with checking countless sources (who has the time anyway) which can be done in university because the teacher student ratio's a lot lower. So the only practical kind of criticism that can be taught in high school New Criticism, along with Formalism.

If you are looking for books, look for works on New Criticism. Don't focus on whether New Criticism is more accurate than a Biographical Approach--focus on this sentence,

Rational analysis will never carry as much weight in a fictional universe as occurrence or author's intent.

And nail them on it. Both methods are equally valid, dismissing one for the other is like dismissing a pen for a pencil, both are useful in certain circumstances. But here's the key... in a versus debate where capability matters more than intent, what is depicted is most important.

<edit>The reason why what is depicted is more important in a versus debate is because author's intent is entirely subjective. For example I recently said in PST that the author's intent in BOBW was to depict a small Starfleet of 40 ships, and therefore Starfleet has 40 ships. But Uraniun pointed out a contradiction of a few Starfleet ships weren't there and I had to concede, because we were trying to figure out the size of Starfleet. What you say is author's intent can be another person's reader response. See Reader Response Criticism. Even if the author says the work is supposed to do something--if it doesn't, then the author is wrong about his own work, always a possibility.</edit>

<edit 2>If you are interested in knowing where New Criticism came from--that is what and how it actually works without all the gaps (they only have so much to teach you in high school and never all the important details) I would go right to the source and take out this book and read it. I do not think if you start throwing out terms like New Criticism that dumbasses will actually know what it means... they're so stupid that they actually think that author's intent is more important than any other kind of literary analysis, so you're determined to debate them ask them to show that author's intent is more important and show that the author can be wrong with some examples in Star Trek, Star Wars or wherever. This would require research on your part, again why author's intent is discouraged except when everybody plays by the same rules and actually does work and research, but knowing them they will not so if I were you I would not waste my time.</edit 2>

Brian

Suspension of disbelief only goes so far; if the author is making his characters stupid as rocks; I tend to throw the book very far away.

MKSheppard wrote:Suspension of disbelief only goes so far; if the author is making his characters stupid as rocks; I tend to throw the book very far away.

Mind you, that applies just as well to "suspension of disbelief" as a prerequisite to enjoyment of the material as it does to "suspension of disbelief" as a prerequisite to performing rational analysis. Basically, if the material sucks, you can't suspend disbelief for either enjoyment or analysis. But regardless, that doesn't change the fact that you're supposed to do so, if you intend to take the material seriously. All it means is that some material is too stupid to take seriously for any purpose.

The mark of an adequate story is that the suspension of disbelief is possible, at least in my opinion.

I've found that author's intent is rather annoying. I, for example, could intend for certain characters in works I write to come across as very intelligent or advanced in particular areas. If I can't actually write that, then my intent is worthless.

That's an excellent way of looking at it. According to the "author's intent" style of analysis, Captain Janeway is a highly intelligent, impeccably ethical person, not to mention being the most sexually desirable human female in the universe, hence Q's interest in her. According to the CBR/fanwhore/moron style of argument, anyone who points out examples of her stupidity and questionable ethics is clearly over-analyzing the material and ignoring author's intent.

To use Star Trek for another example (it bothers me that the only ones that come readily to mind are from Star Trek or myself ), we have Data, who at the intent of the author is supposed to be an extremely intelligent machine. However, we have the 'gigawatts per second' comment that Data makes - I believe there are other examples of Data being stupid on the main site. I could perhaps accept if he used a unit of time smaller than a second (which still doesn't make much sense, in all honesty).

OmegaGuy wrote:They actually agreed with that, but they said you couldn't apply real physics to a fictional universe because there were so many exceptions to the laws of physics in a fictional universe.

A good universe creator will try to limit the differences between real physics and that of his universe (unless trying to deliberately create a very variant science universe), so that most real physics still applies - characters die if fall from a height, basic mechanical principles - lever, wheel, etc still operate the same, etc.

Ask these morons what the laws of physics of our real universe are - if they know the answer then they know more than say Steven Hawking.
Sure, we know lots of physics - I have given examples - the basic principles of mechanics; there are also thermodynamics, motion, etc.
However, we don't know everything - in the world of real physics concepts of hyperspace, etc are being hypothesised.

But to reiterate my main point - in most fictional universes - SW, B5, even ST, the really basic physics is mainly followed.

Ford Prefect wrote:However, we have the 'gigawatts per second' comment that Data makes - I believe there are other examples of Data being stupid on the main site. I could perhaps accept if he used a unit of time smaller than a second (which still doesn't make much sense, in all honesty).

Um, why does a unit of time smaller than a second improve the statement?

Darth Servo wrote:

Ford Prefect wrote:However, we have the 'gigawatts per second' comment that Data makes - I believe there are other examples of Data being stupid on the main site. I could perhaps accept if he used a unit of time smaller than a second (which still doesn't make much sense, in all honesty).

Um, why does a unit of time smaller than a second improve the statement?

It doesn't really; after all, if he wanted to suggest 'gigajoules per nanosecond' using gigawatt/nanosecond is still incorrect (as the watt is a unit of energy in a time period already, as you would know), for all I know it might be more stupid. I personally might be more inclined to forgive Data for a slip up like that - it's still gigawatt/time period though.

Sorry to bump this, but they're still saying our definition is wrong.

http://superherochat.net/phpBB2/viewtop ... 13#1676113

Then leave and let them wallow in their own stupidity.

They say to provide a link to a definition of SoD that is the same as our definition.

OmegaGuy, not to play Mod, but didn't RedImperator (IIRC) say something in HoS or Testing about not running to SDN as your own personal debating support hotline? [To which your next post in the thread, hillariously, was one asking for a refutation of Darkstar's site. I must admit, if that was intentional, I admire your wit.]

Further, you just can't argue with people who refuse to accept basic laws of debate. It's like arguing physics without accepting the four forces or F=MA or something.

OmegaGuy wrote:Sorry to bump this, but they're still saying our definition is wrong.

http://superherochat.net/phpBB2/viewtop ... 13#1676113

Tell them to take their hands off their virginal peckers and go to school.

OmegaGuy wrote:Sorry to bump this, but they're still saying our definition is wrong.

http://superherochat.net/phpBB2/viewtop ... 13#1676113

No offense, but there comes a time where you must stand alone. If all reasonable avenues have been traveled, it's time to take a swing and suffer the concequences. If they don't like it, you suck. Take it like a man.

It's just that they took a definition from wikipedia:

wikipedia wrote:The audience accepts limitations in the story being presented, sacrificing realism, and occasionally logic and believability for the sake of enjoyment

.


To mean that 'sacrificing logic and realism' means you can't analyze a work as if it were real.

Do you know how to operate Google yourself? Or do your fingers not work?

OmegaGuy wrote:It's just that they took a definition from wikipedia:

wikipedia wrote:The audience accepts limitations in the story being presented, sacrificing realism, and occasionally logic and believability for the sake of enjoyment

.


To mean that 'sacrificing logic and realism' means you can't analyze a work as if it were real.

Ask them if you can't analyse a work of fiction "as if it were real", why are they posting in a vs forum about fictional characters fighting other fictional characters. None of the characters are real, so you can't analyse it. Ask them how they can come to the conclusion who wins in a vs forum when the very nature of the combatants "cannot be analysed".

The obvious fact of these comic book fan whores is they do use analysis, just selectively, and bitch about someone who can analyse better than they do - when was the last time one of them actually did calculations or figures instead of just saying this characters is omnipotent, because the comic said so bawawawa.

Ask them if enjoyment is all the be all and end all, then since you enjoy character x beating character y more than the other way round, you win the argument.

Of course sacrificing realism merely means its not real "out of universe". However "in universe" for all intents and purposes is "real". Why is that such a hard concept to understand?

OmegaGuy wrote:Sorry to bump this, but they're still saying our definition is wrong.

http://superherochat.net/phpBB2/viewtop ... 13#1676113

Boo-hoo, a bunch of meany slackjawed fuckwits say every accepted definition of suspension of disbelief is wrong. If you have a brain, then use it; it's not that difficult to link rational analysis to suspension of disbelief in an argument without appeals to the collective authority of the Stardestroyer.net message boards.

Darth Servo wrote:

Ford Prefect wrote:However, we have the 'gigawatts per second' comment that Data makes - I believe there are other examples of Data being stupid on the main site. I could perhaps accept if he used a unit of time smaller than a second (which still doesn't make much sense, in all honesty).

Um, why does a unit of time smaller than a second improve the statement?

It could indicate a ramp-up rate in power production. But Gigawatts per second just isn't all that impressive; so a shorter time frame would help.

SOD = "Stormtroopers of Death"


"Speak English or die!"

You can't debate against two-faced shell-game hypocrites like these people. They change the rules to make them what ever is convienent at the moment.