----- Original Message ----- From: Mistral mistral@centurytel.net
Just so that you're aware - there are _some_ of us (including myself) who don't accept anything as evidence that doesn't show up on the screen. That's all the canon there is. Character sketches and interviews
- even with Chris Boucher, who I'd regard as the only person who can
really speak with authority to long-term intent - simply *do not count*. This _might_ be causing some disparity between what you consider a reasonable view of the series, and what others consider a reasonable view.
But if you read through my discussions with Betty and Steve, the point is, there has thus far not been a single example of *onscreen* evidence for homo/bisexual relationships among the principal cast either. Chris Boucher was simply cited as supporting evidence, which I do realise not everyone accepts.
The artwork _is_ the message. It stands or falls on its own.
1) Sometimes it's difficult to work out what the author means, in B7 as much as in other texts. In which case, in order to do that, one has to look to other evidence which s/he has provided outside of the text itself. Without that, again, literary criticism falls flat on its face. After all, to take your Shakespeare example, if Shakespeare *had* left more in the way of notes as to what he intended, there would be a lot more agreement as to how his plays should be performed.
Chris Boucher and Terry Nation were both very clever writers, and they did (and still do, in one case) provide us with a lot of examples of authorial intent for the hard-to-read stories.
2) So, the medium is the message? There is nothing outside of the text? Again, I find it very difficult to do any sort of interpretation at all in a context in which all interpretations are deemed equally valid....
Fiona
The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Available for public perusal at http://nyder.r67.net
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