un-fuzzy the thinking

[beccaelizabeth]

I'm reading Torchwood meta and I'm wanting to poke it with stuff we learned in class.
Specifically the important difference between thing stated and things implied/infered.
Stated = in the text. Jack states that Ianto looks good in a suit.
Implied/infered = some readers can get ideas from this. We infer that Jack fancies Ianto.
Mushing everything together makes for very fuzzy arguments.
While there is room to differ about what is actually stated - I still need to do those alternate subtitle transcripts, for a start, and not everyone uses the subtitles - there is *immense* room to infer different things even from the same data.

Also? First time we see a thing =/= first time a thing happens; unless we're told it's a first, and even then there's often room for it to be untrue.

also also, whatever the rank structure of Torchwood is, we're in the dark about anyone except Captain and 2nd, as it's never been stated.

There's nothing to say Ianto is last. There's nothing to say the others even have relative ranks. There's Owen being a git about Ianto being the tea boy, but there's also Ianto giving orders and Gwen not quibbling about it. More than one way to read that.

Owen being rude to Ianto could be because Owen is rude (an aspect of character), because Owen is really wound up (emotion), because Owen wanted a particular reaction (manipulation), or because Owen was in fact stating the truth as he saw it (observation). It could be evidence of higher rank throwing privilege around, or it could be lower rank acting up cranky to get privilege. Ianto's reactions suggest Owen's claim of 2nd place is probably truthful, but there's so much else going on right then, plausible character explanations, plausible emotion or manipulation, that he could just be letting it slide to get a result he wants/fears, or not feeling sure enough of his ground after 1-04 to really push the point yet.

Getting stuck into one specific interpretation collapses the complexity of the source text and actually leaves you with much less fun characters.

Trying to write fanfic, sometimes you have to pick one version and go with it. Other times you can preserve some of the original ambiguities. Different effects either way.

Writing meta?

Why say 'this means' when you can have 'this can be read' and a whole bunch of different possibilities open up?



Mostly though it bugs me when people state things as equally true whether they're quoting or interpreting or, as far as I can tell, making stuff up.




PS There is no 'real' Ianto, he is a made up character, an assemblage of signs, linguistic and otherwise, performed in a particular way in the broadcast version. Cannot write about 'real' and 'persona' Ianto, is all a persona put on by actor. Character has more than one face? Cool. Word for this is not 'real'. Possibly 'work' and 'relaxed', but not 'real'.
/picky
... who am I kidding, I never /picky.

Comments

[faded-memories.livejournal.com]

Why say 'this means' when you can have 'this can be read' and a whole bunch of different possibilities open up?

I'd say, honestly, that "this can be read" is incredibly awkward. And I think it takes away from any conclusions/interpretations the person writing the meta has come to. Most people don't write meta to prove ten points, they do it to prove one. Also, it's implied that the post is their opinion, their extrapolations. I don't think it has to be stated explicitly every time, in every post.

[beccaelizabeth]

I was mostly thinking of shouty-argument-inducing interpretations, where the 'their opinion' part sort of tends to the loud. Don't know, maybe the world is less shouty than it seems and everyone is working from the same assumption after all.

it always seems more fun to me to spin up ten instead of 'proving' one (to get it jossed later).