Needs Help: Literary Agent Hypothesis

"This is a thought experiment that occurs in many fandoms"

"opens up a huge range of fannish possibilities"

"not to be confused with Direct Line to the Author, which is where it is official canon that a fictional story is true, instead of just fanon."

This is an Audience Reaction. It needs to be tagged as one.

Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.

I am not sure about this. Many of the examples read like they are in-story or author-referenced to me.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

As-is, the description makes it quite clear that this is something the audience does to the work. I wouldn't be super bothered changing that to match the use, but then what would make it different from Direct Line to the Author?

Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.

Where would this leave the in-universe or implied-by-the-author ones (Darren Shan, Tolkien's legendarium)?

The distinction here is that Direct Line to the Author is when the author claims the work is only a record, and Literary Agent Hypothesis is when the audience claims the work is only a record. Said record may be of events from Real Life or from another dimension. The Thermians from Galaxy Quest are an In-Universe example of Literary Agent Hypothesis, because they think the Show Within a Show was a Documentary (they don't grasp the concept of Fiction).

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Too tired to make a full-fledged argument, but here's what the Square Peg Round Trope entry for it has to say (bolded part was bolded by me for emphasis):

• Literary Agent Hypothesis is possibly the most incorrectly understood trope on the whole wiki — so misunderstood has it been that almost every single link to it on TV Tropes is incorrect, as well as half its own list (previously the ENTIRE LIST was incorrect but it was partly fixed). Has spawned at least two other tropes in order to deal with the chaos its description caused — Direct Line to the Author and A True Story in My Universe. The same thing has started to happen to both of these. Specifically, the trope is about fan theories about how the work is a fictionalized version of real events (hence Hypothesis) but was always misused for canon examples of that, hence the other two tropes.

The trope isn't In-Universe Examples Only, hence the opening post.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 10th 2019 at 5:38:57 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

I'm going to do some carving on the article to remove the false allegation that it is about fanfics and fan-speak. It was originally written to be about a pretty common framing trope.

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. — H.L. Mencken

A Framing Device is a Canon tool. This rewrite is redundant to Direct Line to the Author. See the opening line: Sometimes, "this is a true story" is part of the fiction.

The rewrite is not compatible with saying Galaxy Quest is an In-Universe example.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

The trope is not about canon-vs-fanfic. Yes, there will be some examples that don't fit.

Direct Line to the Author (horribly misleading name, BTW), does read a little like a duplicate. It should be cutlisted.

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. — H.L. Mencken

Was it? The name "Literary Agent Hypothesis" seems a bit odd for something that's supposed to be observably true within the work.

e: The oldest version I could find on the Wayback Machine (May 15, 2006) seems to be consistent with the "fan interpretation" definition.

Edited by wingedcatgirl on Jun 13th 2019 at 4:28:10 AM

Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.

Huh. I guess if it has been that way since 2006, it won't hurt to leave it that way. I'll revert my changes. ^note I do remember writing the original as being about the legit Framing Device. Guess I lost track of it pretty quickly.

I suppose fixing the name of Direct Line to the Author should be addressed in its own thread.

edited to add: Whew. There are a lot of examples listed in the article that don't fit.

Edited by eyebones on Jun 14th 2019 at 6:07:33 AM

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. — H.L. Mencken

I'm more awake now. No, it's not canon-vs-fanfic, it's canon-vs-fanon. Literary Agent Hypothesis is a term predating us.

You can see Literary Agent Hypothesis in Watsonian versus Doylist:

---

In contrast, Direct Line to the Author is the Framing Device you described, where the author pretends they only retold an existing tale. I was first introduced to the idea with the Bunnicula series, where the author claims that Harold the dog wrote the stories, but couldn't find an agent willing to publish for a dog, making Howe an intermediary.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

The linked article links back to our article for Literary Agent Hypothesis. Hard to do that if it pre-dates us.

But anyway: LAH is strictly a fanon (or critique-ing) thing, then. That could be emphasized better in the article. What would be correct examples? Reviews and Epileptic Trees? Not sure how else you would refer to fan conversations employing the hypothesis.

It might actually be useful as the definition of a type (subset) of Epileptic Trees.

Edited by eyebones on Jun 14th 2019 at 7:18:06 AM

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. — H.L. Mencken

I'd refer to fan conversations employing the hypothesis as Audience Reactions; a subtrope of Epileptic Trees sounds about right.

We've already gone over how Literary Agent Hypothesis is a type of fan theory, while crazysamaritan already covered how Direct Line to the Author is a Framing Device, and how something can be an in-universe example of Literary Agent Hypothesis and not an example of Direct Line to the Author.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 14th 2019 at 8:20:12 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

If Literary Agent Hypothesis is about fanon/critics, should it be YMMV then?

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

Yes. The only potential alternative I see is making this IUEO due to the fan theory aspect making this subjective in some way (either it's subjective in-universe, or it's subjective in real life due to coming from Audience Reactions), but since out-of-universe examples haven't really caused any problems other than the ordinary misuse I briefly covered (or at least this thread hasn't brought up any other problems with examples), which is what usually gets something made IUEO, I favor making this YMMV.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 14th 2019 at 12:48:17 PM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

If we use the fanon definition, it would be in Audience Reactions.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I was already thinking the Audience Reactions index would be more suitable than YMMV.Home Page if this is made YMMV.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 14th 2019 at 12:47:20 PM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

The definitions of the relevant tropes to the best of my knowledge:

• Literary Agent Hypothesis is a fan theory that the work is based on real events and may or may not be accurate. Not sure if fanfic examples that weren't in the original work are allowed or if it's just fan theories.
• Direct Line to the Author is a Framing Device that the work is based on real events, usually having been told to the author who passed it off as fiction.
• A True Story in My Universe (bad name) is about when a fictionalized version of the work appears in the work itself as a Show Within a Show.

These are all separate and valid tropes, so I don't support cutting any of them.

However, LAH was persistenly misused for canon examples, and people realized that was a trope too, so the other tropes were created. And yet LAH is still misused a lot of the time (although not always).

FYI, I wrote the second sentence of the Square Peg Round Trope entry, as previously it didn't actually say what the problem was.

As I said above, the name of A True Story in My Universe is very non-indicative, which may be responsible for misuse. Something along the lines of Hey Theres A Movie About Us could work if it weren't too dialoguey.

Edited by Lymantria on Jun 14th 2019 at 4:04:27 AM

Join the Five-Man Band cleanup project!

Should there be a crowner? The main debate seems to be whether this should be put on the Audience Reactions index or not.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 29th 2019 at 7:29:01 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

It seems like the consensus is leading towards marking it as YMMV, and maybe rewriting the description for it.

A single prop crowner on labeling it as an Audience Reaction would be appropriate though.

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

Went ahead and made one.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

The crowner has been up for a little over a week and is unanimously in favor of making it YMMV, with ten yeas. Do we have enough consensus, or does the crowner need more votes?

Edit: No longer unanimous, but still largely in favor of it, with 12 yeas and 1 nay.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jul 9th 2019 at 9:11:08 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.