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I decided this needed its own post, so–
Here’s some context for “"The content of a piece of fiction does not reflect on the morality of its author.”
and
“Your personal interpretation of the content of a piece of fiction does not reflect on the morality of it’s author."
You can’t say, "Well it’s okay to judge the morality of an author based on their fiction if you’re correctly interpreting that fiction.”
Because, my friend, every person who interprets a piece of fiction believes that their interpretation is the correct one.
The tumblr user who recently posted believing that Hayao Miyazaki had nationalist beliefs and made movies that supported fascism believed that their interpretation was correct, and judged Miyazaki’s morals based on that assumption.
The people who think Nabokov wrote Lolita as an endorsement of child abuse rather than a work of fiction against child abuse believe that their interpretation is correct, and judge the author based on that assumption.
The moment you allow yourself to judge an author’s morals based on your assessment and interpretation of their fiction–
➡️ you are opening yourself up to falsely judging victims who were writing about the abuse and injustice they suffered or witnessed, because you falsely believed you were supposed to root for the abuser.
➡️ you are opening yourself up to falsely judging people who were writing about the horribleness of crime and abuse, and injustice who fumbled the message or didn’t portray it in a way that is clear enough for you.
Unless and until an author comes out and tells you why they wrote a certain thing a certain way, you cannot know for certain why they wrote it. You cannot judge their moral intent.
If someone writes a horrible dystopia and then in an author’s note says “I wrote this because I think this is the world we should live in and aspire to you” please, please judge them.
If someone writes a book about child abuse and gives an interview where they say “I believe that this is the way we should treat children, this is good and just” please, please judge them.
But you can’t know. You can’t believe that you know.
You have to judge people on their actions in the real world and their words that they say they believe, not the fiction that they create.
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