Many moons ago in 2004, I realized something: I hate literary analysis.

I truly hate it.

I don't like reading into books in that way. I don't enjoy finding symbolism in a flower that is mentioned in two chapters of a 14-chapter book.

And that year I decided that (if I were capable) I would write the Next Great American Novel. It would be read in all the schools.

And it would mean nothing.

I would make sure everyone everywhere knew that I did not write any symbolism into it. That there was nothing to take out of it. That it simply was.

And then sometime later, South Park did just that.

Yes. I DID say South Park.

They did an episode called The Tale of Scrottie McBoogerBalls (which I am probably spelling wrong).

And it was my plan. My WHOLE PLAN. On my TV screen.

They wrote a novel to be the grossest piece of fiction ever conceived. And EVERYONE read a meaning into it. Pro-Life. Pro-Choice. Pro-Government. Anti-Government.

And it said what I always thought.

What if these writers we analyze to death weren't trying to write symbolism at all?

What if they were just writing because they enjoyed it

or because they had a story in their head that they HAD to get out before it consumed them?

And the thing is. That goes for everything. Not just books.

Yes, that. That exactly.

And it goes for TV and film and everything else we consume. Because people analyze the hell out of things.

Sometimes horrible things happen to characters not because the author/director/artist wanted to express a universal truth. They just hate that character.

Sometimes good things happen to character not because of symbolism, but because the creator knows everyone else hates them.

And unless we can ask the creator what they meant (which in the case of a lot of them is completely impossible right now) we can't. Really know. Can we?

I can have a feeling that Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter from a place of hate and loathing, but I'll never know.

And I can read a biblical narrative into Tron: Legacy all I want but unless I ask the writer and director I have zero foundation for that.

And yes, this whole thing pretty much came from me re-watching that episode of South Park and going I MUST TELL THIS TALE.

Which has lasted about 25 comments so I will stop with my beefy comments now.

pretty much this

Yep, pretty much that.

Where were these infographics when I was a junior in high school, they would have been a great comfort.

well StW started in 2008, so :|a

4 years off then X3