Just now, OandO said:

It doesn't work that way. As an artist you need to have an understanding of how your audience will interpret your work. If you meant one thing and they take away something else, you failed.

Really? So if an artist doesn't understand how an audience may interpret his or her work, they are no longer an artist?

And how many musicians, authors and screenwriters have you just robbed of their artist title by claiming that an audience reading a different meaning of their work to them marks their work a failure?

I'm sorry, but it works exactly like that. People decide what they mean, and what they intend (directly or indirectly). You get to decide what you hear, but not what was said. That is exactly how it works.

9 minutes ago, swiftcoder said:

One can declare that one meant a particular thing until one is blue in the face, but if the majority takes exception to what was actually said/done, one can still be run out of town (figuratively, one hopes).

And how does that change what was actually said???

Again, people can hear, infer, interpret whatever they want... The issue, with that not changing what the person has said/stated/thought.

9 minutes ago, swiftcoder said:

All of us exist within some sort cultural context, and the decisions we make are made within that context, whether or not one likes that fact.

Yes, we do, and yes they are. But, again, made WITHIN that context. Being in that context does not change what we decide.

You can insist that I am saying/stating/thinking/doing whatever you like. You can bring all of your buddies to join you. It may or may not have bad consequences for me, but it does not, at any point, change what I said/stated/thought/did.

I can say "my story features child soldiers". No matter how much you insist, I have said nothing more than that. The entire human race can insist that saying that must mean that I think child soldiers are OK - that still does not mean that I said that, or thought that, or thought anything about it. It means that "my story features child soldiers". It means nothing else. The rest of the debate the world was having without me.

On 3/27/2018 at 2:31 PM, Eimantas Gabrielius said:

Looks like you want to get attention and interest in your game by choosing this kind of controversial theme here...

Sorry to pick on you Eimantas*, but this post has concluded that the poster "wants to get attention and interest [by deliberately stirring controversy]". The poster did not say this. The poster did not mention this as a motivation in any way, nor has he or she seemed to imply it...

Yet this is the interpretation that at least one person has regarding the posters words, intentions, thoughts, aims, and so on.

This is the danger with insisting that interpretation guides meaning or intent. It does not.

*You may not have actually intended this meaning yourself, and I am only specifying this post as the clearest example of this at work.

If they set out with a particular intention and it is not realised, then yes.

That's not to say there can't be room for interpretation in art. If your intention is for the audience to reach their own conclusion and they do so, then clearly that's not a failure. But in this instance, the writer explicitly wants to guide their audience away from engagement with a particular topic, but there is a thematic link between the active narrative, and the theme they are seeking to avoid.

It's also not to say that failing on a single point robs the entire work of value, and for the intended experience and the received experience to be entirely separate would be highly unlikely.

You seem to be suggesting that intention trumps reality, but that's not the case. If there is an inference to be made, it is there because the artist put it there, whether intentionally or not. You can't blame the audience for thinking about something you created, even if you didn't mean for them to think about it.

3 minutes ago, OandO said:

But in this instance, the writer explicitly wants to guide their audience away from engagement with a particular topic, but there is a thematic link between the active narrative, and the theme they are seeking to avoid.

The writer did not say that he wanted to drive the audience away from engagement with a particular topic. He/she said that he/she did not want to engage in the discussion his/her self. You inferred the rest, and now are assuming that that makes it so.

5 minutes ago, OandO said:

You seem to be suggesting that intention trumps reality, but that's not the case. If there is an inference to be made, it is there because the artist put it there, whether intentionally or not. You can't blame the audience for thinking about something you created, even if you didn't mean for them to think about it.

I don't see how I am suggesting this...

I am saying that someone intends to mean what they intend to mean. If someone else infers something else, that does not change what the first someone intended to mean.

You seem to be saying that your interpretation trumps reality.

People do not put inferences in their language. They put implications... I think this is a distinction that you should Google, it is a very, very widely discussed aspect of language.

Blame is the wrong word, but I can shrug responsibility for an audience reaching a conclusion that I did not intend for them to reach. I may find this more difficult if it is a conclusion that I knew was obviously there, but your alternative is impossible.

In your definition, to be an artist, I must be aware of every inference that any audience can get form any piece of work I create. If an audience gets an inference, it is because I put there. If that inference leads to controversy, then I must have an opinion regarding that controversy, and I must be making a statement about it.

I'm sorry, but how does that not conclusion not seem ridiculous to you?

Basic social interaction happens thusly: I mould my thoughts with words or objects, so as to manifest a specific thought(s) in another person(s). That person attempts to interpret those words or objects, so as to meet or understand my thought(s). If they infer a different group of thoughts, mine are not changed to match them. That does not happen. If they infer a different set of thoughts, it does not follow that I intended that different set of thoughts. I am not that clever. It may, however, be the case, that I am trying to manifest multiple sets of thoughts, or that I am trying to look like I am manifesting one sets of thoughts, but am really aiming for another (this would be me IMPLYING something else). The other person can get the first set of thoughts (my statement), the second set of thoughts (my implication), or some other, unintended set of thoughts (their inference).

18 minutes ago, OandO said:

 You can't blame the audience for thinking about something you created, even if you didn't mean for them to think about it.

I'm just quoting this again because I am struggling to engage with it, and I really don't think you mean what it seems to be meaning...

1 hour ago, SomeoneRichards said:

I'm just quoting this again because I am struggling to engage with it, and I really don't think you mean what it seems to be meaning...

I don't think it's exactly controversial (heh) to point out that art is subjective and interpretation is independent of intent. Just as different languages ascribe different meanings to words, different cultural contexts or even individual histories can lead to radically different interpretations of the same work. Therefore, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to point out that it's a good idea to consider how people who aren't you will interpret your work. After all, you want to be confident that people interpret your work the way you intend, right? Making sure everyone is on the same page is just good communication.

Assuming that all meanings one can interpret from a work of art were intentionally placed there by the artist is of course quite silly - but that's not really what is being claimed here. It's more that people will interpret your work differently from how you intended, that is a simple fact of how art works, and how well you plan for this and how well you communicate will determine how much differently they interpret it. With some forethought, you can greatly reduce the likelihood of someone assuming that you meant something you didn't intend.

5 minutes ago, Oberon_Command said:

Assuming that all meanings one can interpret from a work of art were intentionally placed there by the artist is of course quite silly - but that's not really what is being claimed here. It's more that people will interpret your work differently from how you intended, that is a simple fact of how art works, and how well you plan for this and how well you communicate will determine how much differently they interpret it. With some forethought, you can greatly reduce the likelihood of someone assuming that you meant something you didn't intend.

That isn't what is being claimed here. It isn't even what is being responded to..

This is what is being responded to...

1 hour ago, OandO said:

If there is an inference to be made, it is there because the artist put it there, whether intentionally or not. You can't blame the audience for thinking about something you created, even if you didn't mean for them to think about it.

The transference of any responsibility for an interpretation from the audience to the artist, and the denial of any responsibility (or blame) on the part of the audience.

And the claim that to make a statement THAT something, is the same as to make a statement ABOUT something, which allows an interpreter to define the intention of the artist.

These are not disagreements about whether an artist can, or should, attempt to predict and/or curtail an audiences inferences - no one has denied this.

The original debate is about whether one can use a topic from real life without thereby making a statement about that topic. The later debate is about whether someone's inference or interpretation trumps someone else's intention or meaning - specifically when assigning blame or responsibility.

21 minutes ago, SomeoneRichards said:

That isn't what is being claimed here. It isn't even what is being responded to..

This is what is being responded to...

I interpreted what OandO said as meaning more or less what my previous post explained. Perhaps I should paraphrase more closely to their wording: "if the audience can infer something from a work, it is because the artist made that work in such a way that the audience could make that inference." Which really seems to be a statement of fact - if I make a game that involves cows in a major way, it doesn't seem like much of a stretch to infer that the game is about cows.

You appear to be interpreting what he said in a way that I don't believe he intended, but he worded his post in such a way that you could interpret it the way you did. Thereby you have proven his point (and mine).

I wouldn't make it about fault so much as that this is reality and narrowing the interpretation space in your favour is in your best interests as an artist. If you strongly feel that your work should be interpreted in a particular way, it is in your interests to write your work in such a way that it is difficult or impossible to interpret it in other ways.

I'm assuming that the audience is artistically literate and knows how to approach and "read" the work, otherwise the whole thing goes out the window. In that case, if the artist chooses to ignore, or fails to take in to account the context in which their work will be viewed, or the methods by which it will be understood and as a result their intentions are distorted or lost, that is of course the fault of the artist. This applies to the work as a whole, but also to its individual components. In light of this, my original point that there is a potential metaphorical link between the war and the romance may allow for an interpretation contrary to what was intended, and it could be drawn entirely from the contents of the game.

As long as there are other possible interpretations, then the morality could be ambiguous, and as I said earlier intentional ambiguity is perfectly valid. My real concern is that the writer be aware of possible approaches and how his work may be viewed.