I am often a pedantic fanboy when it comes to that theory called, alternately, “the death of the author” or “the intentional fallacy” (they’re a little different, but not in popular usage, which is mainly my concern).

I believe that evidence of the “intent” of a story’s author should be taken with a barrel of salt. I think it’s nearly impossible to divine intent from the substance of a story, and that, when any fragmentary evidence of intent exists, it mostly gets in the way of how you should be reading — you should allow yourself to make connections between stories and your own experience, author be damned. I think it’s fun to think about the author sometimes, but that, if you use the author as an excuse to berate people who don’t agree with your interpretations, you’re just an asshole.

Normally I’d be happy to argue about this. But not today — no, this is a post about Hyouka, and once again Hyouka avoids confirming anyone’s biases by pointing out that diversity of thought is perfectly okay — specifically, that different people read differently and different uses of fiction require different approaches.

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