Watsonian or
in-universe commentary takes the reality of a work as given, and thus restricts itself to making statements that are sensible within that 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:
The
Literary Agent Hypothesis is a way of smuggling explanations that would otherwise be Doylist into a Watsonian paradigm, by introducing a fictional author.
As the page quotes suggest, most people aren't "pure" Watsonians or Doylists; they switch between modes as the occasion warrants. The terms reference
Sherlock Holmes—where Watsonian commentary relates to the
in-universe author Dr. Watson, while Doylist commentary relates to the
Real Life author Arthur Conan Doyle—but they seem to have originated (or at least been popularized) on the
Bujold fan mailing list.
A modern example might be the proliferation of
Rubber Forehead Aliens in
Star Trek. It is revealed in a Next Generation 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 a very Watsonian explanation. The Doylist explanation of the
Rubber Forehead Aliens is simply that they are cheap to produce, require relatively little imagination, allow for the audiences to sympathize with alien characters, etc.
Sometimes a Doylist explanation is interjected purposely into a narrative; for example, in
Monty Python and the Holy Grail 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
Terry Gilliam style transitional animation. Fortunately for the heroes, when there is apparently no chance of escape the narrator explains that the animator suffered from a fatal heart attack - a beast that
arises out of nowhere and is killed by a surrealist
Deus ex Machina coming from a Doylist inclusion in the narrative.
In German-speaking fandom of Disney's Duck comics, the two ways of analyzing the stories are called
Donaldismus literaricus (which treats the work of Carl Barks 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.
Donald Duck comics are
Serious Business, definitely.
