I’ve heard, more like read, it somewhere, if I remember correctly, from an author that once they publish the story, it’s not in their hands anymore. It’s now in their readers. And those same readers have all the rights to see the story the way they understand it. Is this always true? Is it all about our interpretation now? How about the author’s intended purpose?

I’ve always been a believer in reading as a personal journey. It is something you do on your own, and along with the literary adventure come the ins and outs, the highs and lows of the story. But sometimes a story is not just meant to entertain; it’s also meant to ask questions, to challenge, and in many, many ways, to provide. So there’s some sort of silent communication between me, the reader, and the author. I believe that reading is akin to a journey, which I consider personal; therefore, it is inevitable that I will put my spin on the story based on my accumulated personal beliefs and prejudices, or just my simple thoughts. Maybe, despite the author’s real intention, I will think of it differently, and this will make reading unique for each person. We have different views, and we have different qualities that may or may not affect our absorption of things we read. So sometimes some people may find it horrible, but not for me. Or maybe I didn’t like it but the others did. And that’s pretty fascinating, the way we take a singular thing differently.

When a story is shrouded in lots of ??? we tend to formulate our own answers (until we actually get there), ‘cos like I said, some authors like to challenge, to provoke thinking, and that’s a great way of respecting the people who read their stories. Remembering 東京喰種 (Tokyo Ghoul) days and how each symbol paved the way for heated discussion and then connected it to the plot, I found that very interesting, even educational, ‘cos in those little details they managed to come up with answers…and some were even right. Maybe that is the reason I’m drawn to reading forums and discussions. I love to read people’s input on things I/we read.

Of course, with varying opinions come misunderstandings and disagreements. It is not always a healthy discussion, and sometimes things got messy because of our different interpretations (especially about shipping; don’t we all sometimes hype up the little things??…admittedly, shipping manifesto is my jam), that sometimes, even though the author has concluded it, we still stand our ground? Yes, regardless of how it ended, we still have our conclusion…we have lots of what-ifs and should-haves that we preferred, but alas, in the end, it’s not entirely in our hands. Despite the heartbreak, we’re still there to the end, and that’s part of reading. Of being invested in the story. I think we can all agree that we have our own different opinions on what we read, and these came from the way we took those stories and fused them with our own ideas and beliefs. It might be the authors first, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be ours.