Applicability

Sooo...what exactly does Applicability do that the WMG subpage can't?

The Laconic suggests it's for cases where Word of God explicitly encourages speculation, but I've never seen it used that way.

It's always just "X example can be seen as an allegory of Y subject", with the author never being mentioned. Random examples: Adventure Time, Frozen Disney and YMMV/Ghostbusters.

Applicability is the open-ended reinterpretation of both realistic and fantastic events as representing something else, which remain even with the Death of the Author. It really shouldn't be anything close to WMG because that is strictly in universe theories that are subject to being Jossed.

Seems this thread hasn't really been touched in a while (almost five years to the day!), but I was told to bring my ATT query about the trope here.

In short: can Applicability be used to describe a single interpretation that a lot of people (such as a particular subculture or marginalized group) share, or can it only be used for works with a lot of different interpretations? Or is it about creators saying that fans can interpret their works however they'd like? And what should I do with these examples, especially the former which doesn't read like correct usage no matter what the definition is?

Edited by mightymewtron on Jul 26th 2020 at 3:34:19 PM

As I see it, applicability is the idea that readers can take their own associations from a work, regardless of what the author intentionally put or did not put into it.

To my mind, the fact that only one association has been taken from a given work is irrelevant: all that's relevant is that readers could take other associations from it, and that the association wasn't (as far as we know) an intentional allegory on the part of the author.

And, again to my mind, what the author says about a work is neither here nor there: an author can say "this work is an allegory for X", and readers can nevertheless find that the work has applicability to Y and Z, I feel.

As Tolkien put it (emphasis mine): "I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author."

All that said, our trope page seems to disagree with me somewhat, indicating that applicability as defined there is an approach to storytelling; essentially writing with the intention that readers can, if they want, apply the story as they will.

Either way, I don't think that the number of applications is important.

So does an autistic headcanon count if it's not an allegory, but simply an alternate reading of a particular character's behavior?

There seems to be some disparity between the definition and the actual usage of the trope when referring to works.

Edited by mightymewtron on Jul 26th 2020 at 4:12:08 AM

What is "autistic headcanon"? The theory that a character in a work is autistic?

Look, fan interpretations are like assholes. Everyone has one and they typically stink. They aren't worth troping unless they are so prevalent within a fandom that they generate memes, arguments, or conflicts, or unless they appear in fan fiction.

You would not use Applicability as a trope example and list out every single idea anyone ever had about how a work could be applied. Also, much of what is covered under that concept properly belongs in more specific tropes, like Alternate Character Interpretation. Like similar fandom tropes, that one should only be listed on derivative works, like fics, that portray the interpretation.

I'm not terribly happy with the quality of examples on the trope page for Applicability, either.

Edited by Fighteer on Jul 26th 2020 at 5:28:04 AM

In principle Applicability supposed to be related to Alternate Character Interpretation, as it's about how the audience interprets subtext in the material independent of Word of God. As the page quote shows, it's making a distinction from being Allegorical as that has a 1-1 comparison based on its inspiration. Applicability should be a discussion about themes that have a Values Resonance beyond simply fans of the genre.

The problem is... it's a very broad concept and difficult to trope properly. Well developed examples are hard to distinguish from other tropes like Values Resonance, Periphery Demographic and Germans Love David Hasselhoff, as those attract audience due to some sort of unexpected appeal.

Yeah, autistic headcanon in this context referring to people perceiving a character as autistic. Usually autistic fans finding the situation of a character relatable. (Personally I'd rather not imply that these types of headcanons born out of a lack of representation tend to "stink," since I'm autistic and those headcanons make me happy, but I agree that they usually don't have a place on these pages unless relevant.) Problem here is that it's not a potential alternate reading as much as just an Alternate Character Interpretation or Fanon.

I think the trope is a bit too unclear and I've been considering a wick check to see if it's being misused in similarly broad "this is a popular fan interpretation" way on other works pages, because it might require a TRS to make it more narrowly defined.

Edited by mightymewtron on Jul 26th 2020 at 1:44:32 PM