Rin and autism

[Steinherz]

Autism in any form is not a mental disorder, it's neurological. There's a difference. You can have Autism and still be perfectly sane.

Uhh... yes it is.

[Black Knight]

Even if the developers had stated outright that Rin is not autistic, it would mean nothing. Creators don't have interpretational fiat over their own works; death of the author, and all that.

Hell, Ray Bradbury thinks that Fahrenheit 451 is about TV undermining literature rather than censorship, but nobody takes him seriously.

[Leaty]

Death of the Author isn't the supreme law of the land either, you know.

[Black Knight]

I know. But that the ambiguity exists at all is enough to take the final say away from the author (or rather, eliminate the notion of a "final say" altogether).

[brythain]

I know. But that the ambiguity exists at all is enough to take the final say away from the author (or rather, eliminate the notion of a "final say" altogether).

The final say in any communication of course remains in the mind of the recipient of the communication. That has nothing to do with the intent or the framing, the medium or the objective meaning if anything of the sort exists. It also has nothing to do with the quality of that 'final say', and sometimes isn't even final.

The 'death of the author' thing is almost truistic from the point of view of the audience; it is de facto what happens to some extent unless the audience decides otherwise. But it's not a particularly clever or useful concept when attempting to discern what the original message was. In literature, that might not seem so important; in other disciplines, it is much more so, which is why the computer on which we're carrying this conversation out on has built-in redundancy checks for figuring out what bytes were actually sent and received, and whether those match.

In Rin's case, the problem is that the intended communication isn't clear to anyone, including her (as far as we can tell). Whether this is autism or just poor language ability is anyone's guess. She's a fictional character, and if you want to burden her with other layers of meaning and interpretation, that's on you. A good principle is to start with whatever is explicit and work towards more abstract and less supportable layers. Sometimes, this necessitates meta-textual analysis.

[Liminaut]

Death of the Author isn't the supreme law of the land either, you know.

Only mildly apropos, but one of my favorite GB Shaw stories: A young academic mailed Shaw a 20-page exegesis of one of his plays, with deep references and literary allusions. At the end of the letter the young academic asked Shaw "Is this what you meant by the play?". Shaw replied simply "It is now".

[300BillionDegrees]

Even if the developers had stated outright that Rin is not autistic, it would mean nothing. Creators don't have interpretational fiat over their own works; death of the author, and all that.

Rin's route makes it rather clear that art is interpreted, not understood. Art like Rin's route.

In my interpretation, anyway.

[NekoDude]

I can only relate the way I write lines for Rin. Either they're logical but blatantly insensitive, or they're composed in the following manner:

Write a rant that actually makes some sort of coherent sense, but ends up wandering way off topic. Now if she actually said all of this, she'd never get to the end before everyone tuned her out. Since she is aware of this, she tries to summarize. She's just really, really bad at deciding what parts to omit and what parts to leave in, so even though it all connected in her head, it doesn't connect in anyone else's.

That's how I do it, anyhow. (I have generally avoided writing her at all.)

[Munchenhausen]

Even if the developers had stated outright that Rin is not autistic, it would mean nothing. Creators don't have interpretational fiat over their own works; death of the author, and all that.

Similar to how The Who's song, I'm A Boy, is about someone trying to be a boy but is being forced to wear wigs, put on dresses and play with tea sets, otherwise they'd be hit.
Tumblr surprise surprise took to this and praised it as a song describing how difficult life is for Transgendered people in modern society and how much stick LGBTs get for being different.

In an interview, the guy that wrote it (can't remember which member it was) said that the song was literally just about growing up with bossy older sisters.

Rin's route makes it rather clear that art is interpreted, not understood.

Ehhhh, some art may need interpreting, but I'd wager most doesn't. Don't really need to interpret a 14th Century painting of Warrick Castle

[Notguest]

How can Rin be autistic when she doesn't do the hand flapping thing?

[Steinherz]

How can Rin be autistic when she doesn't do the hand flapping thing?

Most people who are High-functioning autistics don't do that.

[300BillionDegrees]

Ehhhh, some art may need interpreting, but I'd wager most doesn't. Don't really need to interpret a 14th Century painting of Warrick Castle

I dunno, even if you're looking at it as just basically a photograph made with paint, that is still just your interpretation of it. Someone else might see something wholly different.

[Munchenhausen]

How can Rin be autistic when she doesn't do the hand flapping thing?

I laughed a lot harder than I should have

Ehhhh, some art may need interpreting, but I'd wager most doesn't. Don't really need to interpret a 14th Century painting of Warrick Castle

I dunno, even if you're looking at it as just basically a photograph made with paint, that is still just your interpretation of it. Someone else might see something wholly different.

I can't imagine too many interpretations for this, for example

Thing is, most art is to be taken at face value. Paintings of country fields or majestic scenes are painted to show other people the wonders of the world, rather than to be interpreted and "understood", and paintings that recite popular tales (usually straight from the bible) are just straight-up becoming less popular. Paintings of this nature really took a downward slope in popularity now that photographs were getting better and better, to the point now that I can't imagine how much more advanced they can be without becoming literal holograms. Because photos are a lot more efficient than spending up to a decade painting a masterpiece, it's obvious why the more artsy-fartsy painting pieces are becoming more prevalent. You're not really capturing essence, you're just taking a concept and simplifying it to the point where a few haphazard paintstrokes are enough to convey what you had in mind.

If a painting needs the viewer to make an interpretation, it's just a lazy painter.

[Alpacalypse]

I can't imagine too many interpretations for this, for example

I'm taking that as a challenge .

The person painted there is wearing what appears to be plate armour, typically worn by the nobility at the time and his haughty expression may also indicate him being a ruler. However, he also appears to have a wart on his forehead - a stereotypical sign of evil - and is generally unappealing in appearance. The painting is therefore a criticism of the ruling class of the time, implying that their haughty and aloof attitudes make them (morally) uglier people.

Drama coursework teaches you to be awesome at bullshitting. Seriously, that was the course that got me through all my other essay subjects.

[Munchenhausen]

I can't imagine too many interpretations for this, for example

I'm taking that as a challenge .

The person painted there is wearing what appears to be plate armour, typically worn by the nobility at the time and his haughty expression may also indicate him being a ruler. However, he also appears to have a wart on his forehead - a stereotypical sign of evil - and is generally unappealing in appearance. The painting is therefore a criticism of the ruling class of the time, implying that their haughty and aloof attitudes make them (morally) uglier people.

Drama coursework teaches you to be awesome at bullshitting. Seriously, that was the course that got me through all my other essay subjects.

I'm impressed
In actuality though, It's just a portrait of Oliver Cromwell, the main reason why the British monarchy doesn't have much power anymore.

On an interesting note about the wart though, he actively wanted that in the painting.
Those who painted portraits have a habit of making whoever they're painting a bit more handsome/beautiful, because they were usually kings, queens or nobles. Age-old photoshop, if you will. Fixing crooked noses, removing monobrows etc etc.
When Parliament killed the king and this lad came to power, the portraiter asked him if he fancied his warts removed to improve his prettiness.
He said "No, keep them in. I want my people to see me for who I am, warts and all."

Which is where the saying 'warts and all' came from c: