Beyond Selidor

I imagine that she views the tie-in novels as canonical, too, or at least subscribing to canon (which is really the crux of her whole post).

In any case, THANK YOU for your comment. I thought that my response might be too affected by my identity as a literature student and reviewer and reader and perhaps just a case of not being an author and not understanding how it feels to see people 'misinterpreting' your characters (I remember you saying something about how readers hadn't noticed that Varius was black), so it's very good to have your perspective on matters.

But unless slashers are actually hacking your computer and inserting lots and lots of gayness right into your word files and buying or stealing all available copies and burning the pages with heterosexual love-scenes on them and laughing and dancing round the flames... how are you getting 'overruled?'. Okay, fine, so your characters are completely straight (or sexless, or whatever). What harm does it possibly do you, or your them, if someone wants to muse about what might happen if they weren't? Your book is still right there!

This reminds me of something Philip Pullman was saying in an interview given around the time Northern Lights was being adapted as a film. The interviewer asked Pullman how he felt about his book 'being changed'. Pullman walked over to his bookshelf, pulled out a copy of Northern Lights and said, 'Look! That's my book. It's still here. It's unchanged.'

Personally (correct me if I'm wrong) I think if your book doesn't provoke speculation about subtext and themes and that kind of stuff (not necessarily gay subtext, but things not immediately apparent on the surface) then you've failed as a writer. What's the point of writing something if it doesn't provoke discussion or speculation? That's why her follow-up comment about how she 'always takes authors at face value' bothered me so much. Why bother to even read the book if you're just passively absorbing what's there on the page?