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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TwinBahamut" data-source="post: 3764898" data-attributes="member: 32536">Certainly, bad stuff is out there... I don't think anyone would claim otherwise. However, I would argue that it is bad because it is not enjoyable, not for because of some lack of ideas or the like.However, regarding your Dr. Who comment, I don't think a distinction needs to be made between "what you read into something" and "what exists inherently in something" needs to be made. In fact, only three things really exist regarding a work. The author's thoughts when the work was created (intangible element of the past, impossible to exactly recreate), the work itself (the phyical unchanging thing), and the audience's interpretation (the individual response). Often, an audience reads something from a text that the author did not intend (whether from a failure on the author's part or the audience's own creativity), and that is perfectly fine. It is just how things work.There is no such thing as the one true set of ideas contained in a work. While I would not go so far as too 100% agree with the idea, the main trend of thought in literary criticism these days is based on the "Death of the Author", in which the identity and ideas of the author are irrelevant, and the main goal is examining a work based on the reader's identity and ideas.</blockquote>