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More rambling. Here's a little thought that's been niggling at me all day, which I thought I'd share with those of you that care for whatever reason. If the author is a dick, does that colour your perception of any stories they might have produced? And if they have a message or a moral that you disagree with or find repugnant, how does that affect your enjoyment of the story as a whole?
I ask, because I think I do judge a story differently depending on my opinion of the author or their own views. I got to thinking about this because there was a story posted on Equestria Daily the other day that caught my interest, promising to explain the discrepancies between season one and two, and that sounded like an intriguing premise to me. I'm not going to name names, even though it'd be rather pointless and you probably know what I'm talking about or could find out yourself easily enough, but I don't like naming names, so I won't.
The thing is though, I went into it thinking it'd be a clever exploration of the differences between seasons, maybe take a few jabs but never really go too far, but it quickly became apparent by chapter two that the writer really seemed to have a problem with the second season, and kept presenting it as being full of plot-holes for things like the appearance of the construction crane in the Mare-do-well episode or Rainbow Dash's characterisation.
If there aren't many of them, I usually read the comments section after every chapter to see how people reacted, and I was curious after the first chapter why there were so many dislikes. While there I found someone who I recognised as a follower of Human who had also read it, initially praising it, but who had later edited the comment and said that it was pretty clear the author just really hated season two and it ruined the story for them. Reading the comments of chapter two, I found an author comment making it quite plain that that was indeed the case, making several comments about how season one was so gloriously perfect and season two was so poorly written and ruined it all, and that his story was the glue that would try to fix them together, and fix all the problems and tie everything up in one neat bundle with an adequate explanation.
After reading that, despite me liking the first chapter, I awarded the story in question possibly the second or third dislike I've ever given to a story on this site. I don't read crap. If a story looks like it's going to be shit or I have no interest in it, I simply don't read it, and thus don't rate it. This is why I don't give out many of them. I only ever read anything if I think it's going to be good, so all the dislikes I do give are to stories that I went into with high hopes but which quickly turned out to be disappointments. This time though, it wasn't even because it was badly written. It was because, whatever you think about season two, that kind of egotistical snobbishness that the author displayed coloured the rest of the fic, and reading it over again, it suddenly seemed very mean spirited, and I couldn't enjoy it anymore.
Maybe that's just because I disagree so strongly with that opinion. In my view, the additions season two made to canon like that construction crane don't contradict anything. It was never said anywhere in the show that they have absolutely no modern technology like that at all, just like it was never actually said anywhere that Twilight was an only child. People just assumed that. Adding new things we never saw before is world building, not canon rape.
At least, that's my opinion. Maybe you disagree. Either way though, the point of this blog is not for me to defend season two to its critics. The point is, the author held an opinion about something which I disagreed with, and his story quite clearly expressed that opinion too. So I couldn't get behind it, and I couldn't enjoy it. It's like when you read a book by some political newsman or something, when they talk at length about their opinions on the economy, or religion, or immigration, or other such topics. Great if you agree with them, but if not, you won't like the book. And that's what happened to me.
This is why whenever Human brings up topics that people can heavily disagree on, I try to fairly represent both sides and not side with one or the other unless I have to.
Anyway. What I'm trying to say is, before reading those comments, the story just seemed like another story to me, but discovering the author's intent and the purpose of the story afterwards just made the whole thing feel different, enough so for me to actually actively dislike it, and that doesn't happen often. I want to know from you guys how you feel about this. Is an author's intentions or opinions something that should factor into the story? Was I unfair to judge the story like that, and should I have given it more of a chance, or judged it just on its merits as a story while ignoring the disagreeable message? Can a story only ever interpreted how the author intended? If not, would alternate interpretations that ignore the intended message make the story any better? And most of all, putting aside messages and morals and other such things, if a story is completely free of any kind of message that you would find personally disagreeable, but the author is just a dick in general, would that also hang over his stories and affect your opinion of him and his work?
In short, when you're forming an opinion on something, just how important to you is its creator?
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Comments ( 48 )
How the author is does not effect my reading of the story, if it is well written. Honestly, i love "My Second Life" but I think Coal Buck is an ass, but it doesn't keep me from enjoying the story.
Definitely, If I knew if the author was a jerkass then I would dislike his fic because of the thought processes that led him to it. It is also the same with music, if you have heard of MC Chris then you will know that he is an 'alright' rapper, but learning he is a real douchenozzle in person really put me off all his stuff
Edit: Also Yelling at Cats, he is a good rapper and all, but a really dick, so I find it hard to listen to his shit.
And a few authors on this site which I prefer not to name, I have stated my dislike of them before and it is not needed again
This honestly sounds like what happened to me while I was in high school, I tried to reread the Chronicles of Narnia series, which I enjoyed in elementary school. However, after the second book or so, I just couldn't continue, since C.S. Lewis shoves Christian iconography and parables so far down your throat that he's tickling your toes. In this case, I wasn't aware of the author's feelings on religion before re-reading the series, but after reading it with more knowledge on Christianity and being mature enough to start seeing the subtexts...
==> 
>>262151
Really? Tell me more about this subtext stuff. I don't know anything about the Narnia series or Lewis.
though an authors opinion SHOULDN'T affect the story it often does, thats why i only read stories that either: show opinions i agree with, show no opinions other than that of the charactors or show both views equally. any other types of stories are usualy ruined by an author trying to prove a point
>>262156
That seems fair to me.
I had this problem with Chatoyance's stories. They were really well written, and had interesting story lines, but JESUS CHRIST! Humanity is the bane of all existance ever, and Chatoyance might be the largest douche ever. She will either ignore your comments, or just down right belittle you if you don't agree with her. The only time you are guaranteed a response is if you praise her work. Most times, if you bring up a valid point in an argument against her, she will simply delete your comment and move on. She writes conversion bureau stories, and I've only liked one, mostly because it doesn't go on, and on, and on about how awful humans are.
>>262257
Misanthropists ruin everything.
>>262280 I got human pride!
>>262153 Narnia is a magical land, where there is an avatar of the main God called Aslan. In the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (the chronology is slightly screwy), Aslan gives himself up to the main villains, who are all afraid of him anyway, and then dies. When the villains renege on the deal, he is resurrected and saves the protagonists in the nick of time. He is also the son of the main god, and when in the final book, it turns out that --Spoilers-- every single human protagonist ever (thanks to time dilation) had died in a subway accident, they all follow Aslan into 'the most wonderful place in the universe' or something along those lines, where everything is better and sweeter and more filling, etc., as they continue going up, on their way to meet Aslan's father.
I might not be doing it justice, so check out [url=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narnia]the wiki[/url]. There's a section on the religious controversy surrounding the series.
>>262324
I see the parallels, though I'm not exactly seeing your problem with it. Religious imagery or iconography isn't bad in an of itself. Was it trying to enforce an explicitly pro-Christian message that you took issue with, or is it just using religious symbolism? Because if the latter I don't understand why that would turn you off.
Myself I haven't read the story you are talking about. But as I understand it the author mixed in his personal opinions into the "story" when, supposedly you: the reader where expecting maybe a more neutral view of the whole concept. After all if he where to explain the discrepancies in the seasons he should stay to the facts and maybe some theorycraftin. After all you probably weren't looking for someone to rant about there personal opinions etc.
Do you feel the same way or am I missing the concept
>>262347 I was brought up completely without religion, although I always had the opportunity to learn whatever I wanted to. Hell, one of my grandmothers prays 5 times a day, every day. The thing I found distasteful is the way it's presented - for some reason, the way that Christian parables work, especially in a high fantasy setting, pisses me off. I think it has to do with the fact that it portrays nonbelievers as doubting the divinity/power of the deities in them, even though in such a setting, their power is real and blatantly brandished. They also tend to have people betray their cause for very silly reasons, in order to make the moral of the story clear.
>>262391
Ah, I see. Yes, I understand your problem there.
Whether I want it to or not, the opinions of an author do influence my receptiveness to their stories and the opinions I will form of it.
However, the problem I really have is with morals and such presented in stories, especially when they're presented as facts by the author.
All in all though I wouldn't "dislike" a story with very staunch opinions and such, unless it was nothing but blatant hate-mangering, I would simply ignore it and go on to stories that wouldn't constantly cause my mind to rationalize the viewpoints in the story to my opinions, which I do do.
Anyway that's just my two cents.
Carry On
>In short, when you're forming an opinion on something, just how important to you is its creator?
The only example I can think of involves a certain "musician"
I personally try to mentally see the author and their story as two totally separate entities. Sometimes knowing something about the author (ideals in particular) can ruin what could have been a good reading experience. However there's the flip side to this too. Sometimes knowing a little about the author can make it more enjoyable. Either way it changes your perspective so I try to read an analyze a story on it's own without that factor and THEN maybe learn a little.
As for the friendliness of the author, I think as humans we have a degree of gratitude or vindictiveness toward them that gets projected onto the story when we read it. It's really just natural. I have a hard time reading a story when an author is rude, or if they have an ego and think their story is amazing. I can say personally, that humility is a big deal to me as a reader (I think it's the punk rock mentality that I have). If a writer treats their story like it's the next big thing then I go in like: "Oh yeah? Impress me then. I bet it's not that great." Whereas if they act like they just tried their best and are glad people like it then I look at it as: "Ok I'll give this a shot. Could be great. If not, he tried. I'll give him some feedback and try to help."
Otherwise, unless the author is really obvious that their story is just a vehicle for supporting their ideals, I don't care.
>>262689
...That being?
>>262766 I hated most of it already anyway
I love this GIF, though
>>262827
Well, he looks like a sophisticated gentleman of class if ever I saw one.
>>262833 Do you know who he is?
>>262963
Not really, no.
>>262980 Skrillex
Make sure you listen to at least 40 seconds
Oh, and now I know that feel with a certain lunar author here on FiMFiction
I don't actualy mind the personality of the writer as long as it doesn't affect the story in itself. Unfortunatly the story you are talking about was nothing more and a negative part of the writer's personality and opinion blantantly exposed without any regards to other's opinions. In this case the personality of the writer did influence, and a lot, the fic and as such reduces it's qualities to all that disagree. A writer must be like an actor, in my opinion, and think like it's characters while writing even if they are the opposite of what the writer is in real life. If a writer lets his emotions influence his work when it is not necessary the story will losse quality.
And those are my two bits.
>>263138
...What did I just listen to?
>>263244
Your vagueness only makes my curiosity grow stronger.
I think that taking an author's intended message with a story into account when reading and forming an opinion on said work is a reasonable thing to do. If I was to read a story, and the author had some sort of moral or point that he'd try to get across, I'd like to read his/her story in the context of that moral or point, to see if it puts any aspects of the story into a different light.
>>263585
1. Noise. This remix is much better IMO:
2. Well, I know some people are easily offended by such things, so I won't publicly say the name. I was watching a certain author on here, and one day, I tried to post a comment on one of his/her blog posts. He/she apparently blocked me, and now every time I try to say something to said author (praise, corrections, etc), the comment disappears into the abyss of cyberspace. If you pay attention to my blog posts, you may have seen one where I said this:
FYI, random blocking is one of the few things that I find to be rude
FYI2, this happened with two authors on here, not just the one
>>264129
Huh. I wonder why that is. You didn't run over someone's cat or anything, did you?
>>264142 Eeeenope
>>264321
You sure?
>>264341 Why else would I say it?
>>264362
...I've got my eye on you...
>>264405 Why say "have got" when you can say "have" ?
>>264451
...You win this round, portalz...
>>264465 Aww, that's so sweet of you
I just realised the person you were talking about is Chaytoyance, you have no idea how much I hate her.
She writes Conversion Bureau stories, which while in itself is not too bad, she writes they with complete misanthropy in mind, which really bugs me as, while yes we have done some terrible stuff, I think the good we have done out weighs the bad.
She once wrote a Conversion Bureau story that killed off men, everywhere. And when some people called her a misandrist she either deleted the comments or tried to belittle them using straw man arguments.
Also, she is also a very annoying person in general
I usually don't care what the author's personality is. Even if s/he is an egotistical asshole, if the story is still great than I'll let it pass because, hey, why not?
Of course, if the author's intention is overt, and it's something I strongly disagree with(we'll go with politics for this example,) than yeah it can negatively effect my enjoyment, especially if said political views are poorly and overtly presented, like in a several dozen page long filibuster rather than being cleverly woven into the narrative(looking at you, Ms. Ayn Rand). I suppose the author's personal values, even if the author is from a different time, could also color my perception negatively(say, a female character is raped, but a big deal is not made of it, or the narrative seems to blame the victim, or worse that the victim ENJOYED it). In short, for me, the personality and views and personality of the author are a mixed bag. If it's not too much of a controversial subject to me or the story is still done well, even if the author's a prick I'll let it slide. But if the story is shit while s/he thinks s/he's Gods gift to the fandom I'd let the story and author have it with both barrels for wasting my time and for really rustling my jimmies.
I know the story and author you are refering to and I share your opinion of the intended purpose of the story and of the author's attitude in general. Said author is, as far as I can remember, the only author on FiMFiction who's stories I rather like but I do not watch them. Simply because I do not want to see their blog posts, I get enough of that stuff in author's notes and author's comments.
However, I am, IMO, lucky in that I can completely ignore any message or opinion a story is trying to push on me and I can keep my opinion of an author from souring my enjoyment of their work.
To, sort of, answer a few of the questions at the end of your post: The important thing is whether you can enjoy what you are reading. The issue of whether it is good or bad to let your opinion of an author color your view of a story is immaterial. That is my opinion, in any case.
>>266403
Well said.
I think I know who you're talking about. I used to like her conversion bureaus, and could look past the blatant human-hating that she stuck in there. But that story you're talking about (The entire premise behind it, actually) completely ruined her for me, I had to stop following her updates. Funnily enough, it was only when she insisted that Princess Celestia was actually a charlatan because the Changeling Queen defeated her that I was driven me over the edge. I don't even know why those two wound me up so much, I guess I wanted to stand up for poor defenceless s02 Celly, lol. Maybe my opinion was prejudiced beforehand from the dialogue I had with her about it, but I didn't even like the story as a story. It was really boring!
I think that's a rare case for me, though. Ofc if I can tell a story is going to preach something I don't like way too hard then I'd just wouldn't read it in the first place, but I wouldn't trash the author unless every single story they came out with was like that, and even then if I've already started the story and it's not something I seriously disagree with I'll at least finish the story. I don't enjoy leaving things half-done.
Human would have to get a shitload worse and you'd have to turn into the biggest wally ever for me to ever consider exorcising you like I did with them, I think your policy of representing both sides is doing you well.
>>267482
I was just talking to someone about some of this at the start of another fic when I warned the writer about making Celestia too powerful. Too many people make her into a perfect goddess mary-sue, Chat being one of the worst in this.
If you go by the canon, which most people who angry at Celestia's defeat never do, there is no reason to be surprised that a queen of the changelings who gets her power from love would feast off of the love of a major royal wedding between a princess of love and a knight actually named Shinning Armor, wouldn't tear the princess of the sun apart in a fight.
If we wanted to deduce Celestia's power level we could start by assuming she's no more powerful than the average magically educated unicorn. We've yet to see any characters aside from Twilight who might also have special talents in magic that aren't quite as "special", so we have no idea if the magic we've seen from Celestia is any indication that she's more powerful than the average. Starswirl could have been more powerful for all we know. Twilight even could have more raw power in her than her mentor, just not as well trained as someone who has lived for over 1000 years.
The only indication that a winged unicorn with longevity and a royal title is any more powerful according to canon is that she raises the sun and moon, but then we know already that before her the unicorn tribes did the same. We could be generous and say that it took a team of 100 well trained unicorns to perform that duty each night and day, but then their special talents may not have been specifically related to that spell.
The problem is that people like to say she's the goddess of the world, but than assume that means an all powerful deity, and not even by Olympian standards. Zeus was never as powerful as some authors' Celestias are made to be, they see her as being more of a Yahweh, an almighty ruler of the universe and creation. Discord isn't even that level and Celestia needed her sister and the elements to defeat him. A more accurate character to compare her to, even while being generous as to her power, would be Galadriel, "the mightiest and fairest of all the Elves that remained in Middle-earth". One could then compare her race as being the pony equivalent of Tolkienian elves ( maybe drawing comparisons of Shinning and Candace to the story of Beren and Luthien or, if you're not as much into Tolkien, Arwen and Aragorn). That's still all being generous to Celestia according to what has been set by the canon.
We've always known she was less powerful than Discord, the elements or harmony, and Nighmare Moon, so thinking it's against the canon for a changeling queen (who we know nothing of) with an energy boost would crumple before her might is just absurd.
>>282728
This, pretty much. I don't believe the treating of her as a deity is unwarranted considering the sun raising thing, and the imagery that invokes, (actual people have been treated as gods in real life for far less), but you're completely right about the assumptions of her level of power.
>>282735
What's more fun anyway is to make her goddess title something ponies gave her over the course of her rule, or even after she's long gone as is done in the FO:E series. Even if it's not important to the story it's still something to consider if Celestia is so much as mentioned in a story. You could even pretend her kind are nothing more than a genetic hiccup or resulting from a magical accident and her long life is the result of the same. There are so many possibilities but instead most writers just make her the ultimate mary-sue.
It's as annoying as people who write Equestria as a geocentric world but keep the sun at the same relative size to the earth and then go about explaining how that works. Why not, I don't know, make the sun smaller? Terry Pratchett can convince people a discworld on the backs or four elephants on a turtle swimming through space (orbited by its own sun and moon, somehow made sense and was possible given the unknown factor magical energies provide), but I have to put up with Celestia explaining how Newton's laws apply to her moving the sun around the sky like it's controlled by a flashlight after telling me it's a thousand times bigger than the earth it orbits?
>>282753
I don't know, a geocentric system with both entities remaining the same size is pretty interesting too. I read a story that used that once, about Voltaire the philosopher fittingly enough, and applying traditional Newtonian laws to such an absurd concept was intriguing to me. I'm sure you've seen it done to death, but I've only seen it done like that in that single instance, and I rather liked it.
The more creative ideas certainly have their upsides too, but I haven't seen many of those used before. More often than not, stories don't actually bother explaining it because it's not usually that important to the plot.
Personally though, the small sun idea you brought up is my headcanon for the series itself.
>>262257, tell me about it. I genuinely want to like Chatoyance's stories as dark, dystopian cyberpunk SF stories. It's just that her stories are blatantly vehicles to bombard readers with her views (including her absolute misanthropy) and/or give a "The Reason You Suck Speech" to her critics, Season 2 and Humanity in general. Not to mention her condescending attitude and complete and utter lack of tact dealing with critics also irk me. She is a very good writer; it's just that she is incredibly rude.
In short, if an author acts like prick and/or tries bombarding the reader with their views and/or their story was obviously written to spite someone or something, that's when I have problems trying to read their work.
>>548652
Completely understandable if you ask me. Writing fiction just to exposit your world views does strike me as a generally bad idea.
>>548652 If you've ever played Bioshock 2... She is Sofia Lamb. Look her up on the Wiki, I swear when I was playing I thought of Chat.