History Main / WatsonianVersusDoylist

As a fun aside, in the German-speaking fandom of the ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse, the two ways of analyzing the stories are called ''Donaldismus literaricus'' (which treats the work of Creator/CarlBarks and others as works of art and literature) and ''Donaldismus archaeologicus'' (which treats them as factual reports from the Earth-like planet called ''Stella Anatium'' -- the Star of the Ducks). In the D.O.N.A.L.D. (''Deutsche Organisation Nichtkommerzieller Anhänger des lauteren Donaldismus'' = German Organization of Non-Commercial Adherents of True Donaldism) the latter tends to dominate. Franchise/DonaldDuck comics are SeriousBusiness, definitely.

Simply put, if you were to ask a question about Sherlock Holmes, you would probably get a different answer depending on whether you asked it to Dr. Watson or Sir Arthur.

'''Doylist''' or '''out-of-universe''' or '''exegetic''' commentary considers the work as a created object, and prefers exegetic explanations with particular attention to the author's intentions. Doylist explanations are things like "The changed his mind" or "The actor died, so they had to retire the character" or "They didn't have the budget for an animatronic puppet, so they changed the character to an ordinary human". Doylist tropes include:

'''Watsonian''' or '''in-universe''' commentary restricts itself to making statements that are sensible within the story's reality. Watsonian explanations are things like "Character X was lying", "He had plastic surgery over the summer", and "The main character fell off a cliff". A more precise technical term for this is ''intradiegetic''. Tropes which take a generally Watsonian perspective include:

'''Doylist''' or '''out-of-universe''' commentary considers the work as a created object, and prefers explanations based on the real-world motivations or circumstances of the creators. Doylist explanations are things like "The author had a better idea", "The actor died, so they had to hire a new one", and "The author got sick of writing those books, so he killed off the main character". A technical term for this is ''extradiegetic''. Doylist tropes include:

A more modern example might be the proliferation of RubberForeheadAliens in ''Franchise/StarTrek''. It is revealed in a ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode that an ancient humanoid race "seeded" the galaxy with their genes, thereby causing humanoid intelligent life to evolve independently throughout the Milky Way. This is the Watsonian explanation. The Doylist explanation is that RubberForeheadAliens are cheap to produce, require relatively little imagination to write for (MostWritersAreHuman, after all) or design, allow the audience to easily read the emotions of alien characters, etc. (And budget was always a concern for ''Franchise/StarTrek''; when Klingons first exhibited the RubberForeheadAliens trope it was an ''improvement'' on their previous make-up!)

Another example is the InUniverse example in ''Theatre/NoisesOff'', where Freddie is such a method actor, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjkRw2GAxRo he needs a motivation for everything]]. The director and his co-stars tell him it's because the jokes later in the play will have no sense without certain things happening, and that he also plays the Sheik because it's part of a joke. Because Freddie's deeply depressed from a recent divorce, Lloyd gives up and gives him a Watsonian reason for why his character is doing anything and why he looks exactly like the Sheik.

When PlayingWithATrope, note that sometimes a Doylist explanation is interjected purposely into a narrative; for example, in ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'' the Knights of the Round Table (or what is left of them) are chased by the Legendary Black Beast of "AAAAAAAARGH" in the common surreal Creator/TerryGilliam style transitional animation, and are eventually cornered with no chance to escape. What saves them? The animator suffers from a fatal heart attack. Series with NoFourthWall or as little of one as possible exaggerate this line of thought so that the Doylist answer ''is'' the Watsonian one; ''ComicBook/TheUnbelievableGwenpool'' has its star try to make herself important enough because she knows that she'd otherwise either be doomed to ComicBookLimbo or become CListFodder for her out-of-universe writers.

On a less absurdist note, DirectLineToTheAuthor is a way of smuggling Doylist explanations into a Watsonian paradigm by introducing a fictional author. And finally, most creators don't stick to strictly one interpretation, as the pagequotes from [=PTerry=] suggest -- it should be also noted that in Discworld, Watsonian and Doylist perspectives frequently overlap with each other, as "narrative causality" is a commonly accepted force in-universe...

In the German-speaking fandom of the ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse, the two ways of analyzing the stories are called ''Donaldismus literaricus'' (which treats the work of Creator/CarlBarks and others as works of art and literature) and ''Donaldismus archaeologicus'' (which treats them as factual reports from the Earth-like planet called ''Stella Anatium'' -- the Star of the Ducks). In the D.O.N.A.L.D. (''Deutsche Organisation Nichtkommerzieller Anhänger des lauteren Donaldismus'' = German Organization of Non-Commercial Adherents of True Donaldism) the latter tends to dominate. Franchise/DonaldDuck comics are SeriousBusiness, definitely.

Compare and contrast LiteraryAgentHypothesis, which tries to have it both ways by positing that Doyle was acting as Watson's literary agent and writing a fictional account of real events.

Compare and contrast LiteraryAgentHypothesis, which tries to have it both ways by positing that the author was dramatizing real events.

LiteraryAgentHypothesis tries to have it both ways by arguing that the author was dramatizing real events.

* {{Retcon}}

* ExecutiveMeddling
* EnforcedTrope