Trust the tale, not the teller

[thuviaptarth]

Thank you to everyone who responded to this.

I really do think this is the oddest meme. I don't even know how to express what strikes me as so odd about it. The phrasing seems to depend on assumptions about how fiction writers relate to writing, and fiction readers relate to reading, that ... are just so far from the way I have always thought of these things that I don't even know how to say what's off about them. Maybe also about how people present themselves in particular circumstances versus what they really think or feel, too.

Also, either some of you are much better at stripping out what you know of people than I am, or else I haven't made clear things about myself that I think are perfectly obvious. I haven't been able to respond to posts by people I know even a little because I do know them even a little, and unless I remember very clearly my impression of them before talking to them, it's ... no, I can't make it go away.

Comments

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

I don't like this post! It's against the way I was reading the meme, which was that it wasn't serious. As far as entertainment goes, wrong anwers are just as good as right ones. (Although reading snacky's comment above, I appear to have been wrong about the non-seriousness of it.)

More importantly, you did ask -- and because you asked, people answered. Not necessarily because they thought the meme was valid, or were somehow more comfortable with the its assumptions than you were, or had thought at all about the question beforehand.

It's unfair to ask people to answer a meme if you're going to post about how uncomfortable it makes you afterward. It forces defensive answers from people who shouldn't have to defend themselves. I doubt there are many people on your flist, at least, who don't know the difference between the tale and the teller.

Ahhh, I feel better now. No offense intended, by the way.

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

*blink* I didn't say the meme made me feel uncomfortable. I said I thought its assumptions were odd in a way I found difficult to define. I wouldn't have posted the meme if it made me uncomfortable, and I didn't feel uncomfortable because of people's answers, although I am not so frightened of discomfort that that would necessarily have been bad. I don't feel uncomfortable. I feel puzzled. Entertained, but also puzzled.

I'm sorry the follow-up post made you feel tricked .

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

Ah. Sorry for the misunderstanding! You're right, you don't say anything about feeling uncomfortable.

I think the problem came in because of this:
I said I thought its assumptions were odd in a way I found difficult to define.

Since you're usually more articulate about your opinions, it seemed like in this case there was a reason you were avoiding saying what you "really" thought. I read this post as fairly evasive, mostly because I couldn't see any reason for the elipses and vagueness, since "trust the tale, not the teller" is, to me, a fairly orthodox viewpoint that isn't difficult to state clearly.