Word of God - a divine resource or one-sided worship?

First of all, much apologies if such a thread like this has been made recently, I'm always up for redirections! Secondly, this is not another religion-based thread, but a discussion about Word of God as we know and love it.

I think this belongs here because while most (all but one so far) of my thoughts here are grounded in film theory, it branches into all sorts of mediums, though there are strict differences obviously.

The topic title is really more for the gag - this totally isn't a polarised argument. Generally speaking, what is Word of God to you? There are obviously times when it becomes useful (Ruggero Deodato trying to disprove accusations of snuff-filmmaking on his part comes to mind for one extreme example), but for me, I tend to find using it as a front when talking about something to be, honestly, a bit dry.

Good writing, in my view, should give the audience ample opportunities to unpack the material. This goes from explicit statements made by characters (either deemed Anvilicious or Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped, your view) to minor quirks and clues keying you in about someone or something (it's fairly easy to miss a character in Groundhog Day cheekily snatching up some cash he openly left for a bartender's tip).

Those opportunities, at best, should be relatively free to interpretation; you are the star! Artists may try to defend in some circumstances themselves, but their works aren't really going to work out the way they want to, probably. For decades, when discussing The Birth Of A Nation, people have asked "Was D.W. Griffith himself racist?". Really, it's not a useful question. Griffith was a great storyteller. The Birth Of A Nation is a racist film containing a great story (or great stories rather). Another popular example, argued amongst tropers on the What An Idiot page: does the ending to Night Of The Living Dead have a racist subtext? George A. Romero may say no, it doesn't. Then why do so many people make the assumption?

It's not an authorship thing to me, it's a generic thing, generic to mean "of genre", not "bland or repetitive". I don't consider it irrational for people to read horror films as representations of society's fears for example, the above Night example helping me out. Heck, William Peter Blatty said that The Exorcist is not a first and foremost a horror story/film to him, despite the fact that it's blatantly written like one (notice how the Regan sequences are episodic?) and simply is one. And so there're reasons as to why it was so popular when it was.

Take westerns too: even if you're John Ford and you dislike analysis of your films (in Peter Bogdanovich's notable documentary Directed by John Ford, he replies to a lengthy question about the subtext of Fort Apache with "Cut..."), westerns will always, regardless of their national or "authorial" background, take their roots and outlook in American culture. Go from there. It might help you consider why Red Dead Redemption almost acts as a showcase of western environments and tropes, for example, while ultimately taking a path that's not at all "new".

But discussing things on the basis of "originality" is oh-so-wrong. 99% of the time.

Maybe it's more useful to fans of a series, who like to see where something is going. I also won't doubt that it's always fun and interesting to hear an author's list of inspirations (that is, if they don't milk it too much), but those cited might not be relevant to one thing anyway. Or does it perhaps give you confidence in an argument? I'd be interested to read some thoughts!

edited 7th Oct '11 7:00:05 AM by TheSollerodFascist

I'm a hardcore believer in Show, Don't Tell, so I despise Word of God being used by authors: Stuff that your writing doesn't explain should remain open for fandom speculation.

It depends a lot...sometimes when things just can't be shown, either because it will cause padding or is just background detail, or just can't fit into becuase it will cause some kind of serious clash with current story...yeah, definitely agree...but on author trying to screw audience up and only clarify (or partial clarify) after is a no-no for me though...

For acceptable case: there's also the case of large worldbuilding, which you can only go into details when you spend a LOT of times explaining it (the 12 volume History of Middle-Earth, for one) or that the creator just can't produce because of various constraints is OK too...

Also thread title: man...it's starting to pop up a lot...although in this case it won't cause hassle though...at least, not like Altoid's "I hate faggots" thread (which is actually about meatballs called faggots...)...

edited 7th Oct '11 7:48:13 AM by onyhow

As far as I've seen, Word of God doesn't actually do anything. A director or writer or the God in question could tell their audience, "You know, X event doesn’t necessarily mean Y correlation." The audience will continue to believe it, because that's what they want to believe. A good number may honestly say, "Thanks for clearing that up for us," but most simply don't care.

Nice for clarification purposes, if you've a good head on your shoulders. Though I do agree, it can ruin some fan speculation, which is always fun.

As far as I'm concerned, Word of God doesn't mean much. In the fictional universe the creators made, what we see is what "happened". Anything that doesn't happen on the screen or on the written page should be left for the audience to decide. If the conclusion can be derived by what we have actually seen, then so be it.

Now if there was something that should have been made clear from on screen but wasn't, then that's just a case of bad writing. For example, if there is a murder mystery where person X is found guilty, then the author should either make the person's guilt or innocence clear, in which case no Word of God is necessary, or leave it ambiguous, in which case Word of God would contradict the point of the story.

On the other hand, if there is an issue unrelated to the resolution of the plot, such as "What happened to Character Y after the story?" then Word of God is unnecessary. Either the author continues the character's story later, or they don't. In either case, there's nothing outside the story that needs to be said.

edited 7th Oct '11 10:41:54 AM by Lawyerdude

I dislike when writers are blamed for promoting messages they never intended to promote, and Word of God is their best protection against that. (Yes, you could say that writing in a totally PC manner is their best protection, but sometimes you want to write a situation where any possible outcome would offend someone, and it's not always practical to portray the same situation multiple times in the story with different outcomes.)

You have to take it case by case. Authors are just as prone to being full of shit as the rest of us; they just happen to get paid a bit more for it.

If it's a series I like and the Word of God isn't a total asspull, I'm likely to take it seriously.

It's not necessarily a case of bad writing. World-building will always, always have holes. It's a side effect of readers not being omniscient and writers not having infinite pages.

edited 7th Oct '11 11:55:21 AM by Pykrete

Word of God is... probably not the best way to go about it.

I mean, I disdain Death of the Author. What the author says his work means is what the work means. Now, that doesn't mean we can't say it got across it's point poorly, and that it could represent something different to other people. But what it represents to you isn't necessarily what it is.

However, it would be a lot better on the author's part if things were just gotten in during the story itself. Granted, that's certainly not possible for everything, but people often underestimate how much can be done with background detail.

Bottom line to me is this: let's say an author has a hypothetical character with an ambiguous gender. When asked in interviews, he says that the character really is gay. Now, you, as a fan, don't have to accept this, when writing fanfiction and doing fan stuff, etc. However, that doesn't mean that saying the character is straight is right, because the author just said it wasn't, and the world is the author's creation. Ergo, what the author says is right about the work is right, and nothing you do to argue against it is going to change that.

All of this just reminds me of Alice In Wonderland (a fairly important work of literature to me). Hell, even today I got another, "Hey, you know he was high on shrooms when he wrote this, right? He had to be!"

Oddly enough, I can't help but laugh at such stupidity. And it's everywhere in fictional fan circles.

I think Word of God only really becomes necessary when this strange kind of speculation gets a bit too far out of hand. Sure, a fan can enjoy the work however they want, but I have to wonder if they read the same book or saw the same movie or played the same game as the rest of us did.

The work means what the work says, not what the author tells us he wanted to say.

As for what works imply... That's when it gets tricky, and authors can certainly expand and clarify setting details and obscure (or inconsistent) plot points for future canon.

Still, people are entitled to Wild Mass Guessing, and they often discover subtexts that the author deliberately put there (even though they won't admit it) and other juicy implications that authors would rather not have there (but can't change anymore).

edited 7th Oct '11 12:12:58 PM by SavageHeathen

No, because "what it means" and "what it comes across as" are two different things.

If it comes across as something other than what the author intended, it's probably just poorly written—or sometimes, written too well. That doesn't actually change the meaning, however. It just changes the audience perception of the work and what they'll think it means.

Interesting reads, thanks guys!

I might add some more thoughts in later when my head's screwed on a little better, but I'll just respond to some things briefly.

Some above posts are probably right in pointing out that I attach too much to the trope itself. Perhaps I was trying to avoid another wannabe Barthesian streak. On a casual level, there are only so many ways one can take Death of the Author, I think. At the same time though, I think it's totally possible to have a non-excursive discussion or analysis of a work that barely mentions an author or their "intentions" at all. Heck, that's something that arts academics warn students to stay away from on day one.

I also want to underline again that I think people underestimate the power of genre. A starting writer may pick up a copy of the infamous Robert Mc Kee's Story and sneer at many of its points, stylistic or otherwise, but the best points made in the whole thing are those on genre and how far too many things are anchored in it. It's not something entirely divorced from the author obviously, but it does more or less set the rules for them. It sounds (and is) very simple, and you're probably thinking "Duh? Where have you been?", but yeah. I get the feeling reading as I do on the web that some sort of holy authorial message comes first in the process, which I think is the path to making mistakes if you were to start out like that on your own.

I should probably point out too that my experience with fan-fiction and other fan works in general is really minimal, hence why I had to add an unconfident line about it maybe being useful for people looking at entire series. For example, I'll admit that I'm a Star Wars fan, but I have little to no experience with the Expanded Universe (though I know one exists... obviously) - I take my knowledge of the series off of the six films, what I've read in a book or two, and George Lucas' highly consistent word.

I like Word of God, especially when it's used to create a bigger universe than can reasonably be presented in the pages of the story in question. Extra background detail, All There in the Manual sort of stuff could cripple the pace of a story, but still be interesting and relevant.

I also hate Death of the Author - as far as I'm concerned, people can interpret a story any way they like, but the author's views will always be canon to me where there's a contradiction or conflict between views of the author and views of fans.

I like Word of God to enhance the perception of the work's universe, too, as well as when it comes to put some boundaries on things like WMG. And a consideration that has to be taken is that when the creator does not have full editorial power over his work, Word of God has much more importance, since it indicates "I intended to represent this but the publisher wouldn't allow it", which means the author is actually telling us what the work is like, in such cases it kinda has to be considered part of the work itself.

I like how it clarifies alot of stuff with works, but Fan Dumb can be stubborn anyways.

Word of God is final for things like character motivations, any sort of Shipping, plot points, rules of the world, and the intended meaning behind the story. These are all things where the creator of the work has direct control over, and as such, his word is irrefutable.

Where Word of God is not final are things like character alignment, the actual message that the work imparts, whether or not two characters are a good match (the author gets final say on who ends up with who; that doesn't mean that the final matchup was the best one, though), or anything that would be YMMV. That is left up to the reader to decide, not the creator. It's all well and good for the author of a story to say "these are the guys you should be rooting for", however, it's up to the reader to decide if those characters actually are worth rooting for.

for me Word of God is only good for tiny, unimportant details that a rabid fanbase "needs" to know about. It's the absolute worst form of Show, Don't Tell. If they really needed to know, at least put it in writing. If it was important and you had to explain it afterwards in an interview, then it was poor writing. Even a list at the end of a book would be better, like "X married Y, Z got his dream job, U and W lived happily ever after." (i'm looking at you, J. K. Rowling)

the only time it might make sense is if the Viewers Are Morons, but even then there should be a few people in the crowd who can understand it properly.

edited 9th Oct '11 10:47:07 PM by willyolio

Word of God is whatever the author explicitly says about their work. Death of the Author is fucking stupid because it says the author can't have an opinion or interpretation of the work they created. It's highly unreasonable to expect someone not to have an interpretation of something they wrote. It's their idea, after all, and one they've had to spend a lot of time thinking about. It's fine if fans have their own thoughts about what things mean, but it's really stupid to tell the author of the work that they're wrong about what they wrote.

Granted, where there's shrugging and flip flopping any fan's idea is as good as the author's, and is likely to meant to be that way.(And in those cases the author probably doesn't care too much.) And it gets really shifty in shared universes like Marvel and DC, or TV shows where writers can be fired and replaced.

(An author can say anything they like about what their writing means, so long as it doesn't clutter up the actual story. If they want to make a book with all that info, well, they've probably made extra money if they're popular enough. Sometimes I find that information revealed that way puts things in the story in a different light.)

I agree with this, to a point. My deal is; If I become well enough known that people are discussing my work, I'll leave their fan theories alone...if and only if they don't try to infer things about me and my beliefs from my writing. I'm simply trying to tell a good story, and if I wanted to do a book about politics, I'd skip fiction and simply write a fucking book about politics. If you want to know about me, ask me. You want to know about my book, read it (when its done). I think that's a fair request.

As to the Word of God / Death of the Author debate, I believe that there are three versions of a story; the one the author envisions, the one the author writes, and the one the audience reads. They are going to be different, sometimes wildly so; as an author you can fight this phenomenon with Word of God, but what's the point? You're likely to make a percentage of your fanbase unhappy, cause a lot of pointless arguments, And generally be seen as an author who has no respect for fans If you do.

Other than letting fans know about stuff you plain forgot to include, authors should let a work speak for itself.

To an extent, yes, but there has to be a point where the creator can say "Uh, no, that's not what I meant." Authors should say what they mean and mean what they say, but not every interpretation is valid. Sometimes a fan or critic just doesn't get it.

One example of this that really drove me up the wall was a transcript of a chat between Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and several Star Trek fans discussing Star Trek '09...one fan didn't seem to get that it was an alternate universe and not a reboot that erased the rest of Trek continuity. Either Kurtzman or Orci pointed out that the film itself uses the term "altered timeline." What did the fan say? "I think you're grasping at straws."

Grasping at straws? Really? The guy who WROTE THE DARN MOVIE was grasping at straws? How can you argue with the creator about something like that? Some things will always be YMMV in nature, but things like the setting are not.

Word of God can be annoying when it's all extra information that could just have been mentioned in the book or movie...but the creator still has a right to explain himself and in the end, he (or she) is the one who created the work.

But then again, there will always be people like me who say "Yeah, but I like my idea better." There's a difference between that and actually arguing with the creator and telling them you know more about their work than they do.

I agree with that. There is a difference between a creator saying something about his work that isn't in the work itself, and a fan claiming that the work says someting that it clearly doesn't.

Either way, Word of God shouldn't be necessary. I can tell you that the ship in Star Trek is called Cheesecake. Anybody, creator included, can point out that it's actually called Enterprise from the facts as presented in the work itself.

Sure, fans can ignore the work's canon or just make crap up if they want to, but claiming that there is something in the work that isn't there is kind of silly.

I'm fine with Word of God if something that was supposed to be in the work couldn't make it in due to things like Moral Guardians or Executive Meddling. One example would be Word of Gay being applied to Lexington of Gargoyles because adding that as a character trait on the show itself would've slapped it with a much higher age rating. Same goes for the comic book version as Greg Weisman couldn't afford to pay the raised licensing fee Disney imposed, so the comic stopped running before that could be incorporated into the continuity.