Board Thread:False Info and Speculative Discussion/@comment-24732895-20140910035928/@comment-6383956-20140922115959

1) *facepalm* Okay, but not all of the theories in fiction theory are so rigid is the point.

2) No, there aren't rules. However, if you are a professional writer, and you either don't know what audiences experience or don't care, you're not a very good writer. Like I'm not even saying "write what the audience wants", but how are you a professional writer and you don't write with the audience's experience in mind?

3) It's not grasping for straws. It's Pavel's theory -- a portion of which you keep neglecting to include because it doesn't support you. The Hannibal example is exactly right -- when it was revealed it wasn't a stag, it was a metaphor, that overrode the knowledge you had. That's exactly how it is supposed to work. But in Malia's case, it's like... if the show Hannibal was like "that's not actually a stag" and then didn't tell you anything else. We know her legal situation is different from what it would be in the real world. We don't know what it is though. At all.

And here's a reason it isn't trivial to me: she's one of our main characters now (or, more specifically, her actress is in the main cast). And yet, she's the only one of whom that's true who's home and family life we have basically no knowledge of whatsoever. We know that in 3b her dad was super grateful to have her finally home again. And then we know she was in Eichen house, but checked herself out. We haven't seen or heard about her dad since. (Well, her adoptive dad.) And it would be a big help to understanding her home situation if we knew her legal situation -- in terms of, is Paul right she's being mainstreamed in classes? Is she also taking extra classes or special education classes to catch up? Does she have a social worker (my guess is no)? We know the situation is different from how it would be in the real world, but we don't know how disparate it is or in what ways.

But like, even Liam -- who, may I remind you, is a secondary character so far (his actor isn't main cast, at least). We know he lives at home with his mother and stepfather. We know his stepfather is a doctor. His homelife doesn't seem to be bad, but he's got these anger issues that he's being treated for. That's more than I can tell you about Malia's life at present and he's not as important a character.