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Dying Authors And Its Effect On Their Works

Last posted Feb 09, 2015 at 01:50PM EST. Added Feb 09, 2015 at 09:18AM EST
6 posts from 4 users

I've never been a person who understood celebrity deaths. Whenever a big name in any industry seems to pass away, people always act like it's tragedy worse than seeing their loved ones die. And anything that person might have ever made in their life is suddenly God's gift to humanity.

Death isn't a magical quality boost, so why are people treating it as one?

I got the idea from a comment chain on the RWBY entry. Albeit very poorly worded, one person shared he didn't like RWBY and didn't understand its popularity. As expected following Monty Oum's passing, he got downvoted into oblivion, disgusted people, was called ignorant, sociopathic and rude; and had his tastes called terrible with the better option being to kill himself.

But this happens each time. Michael Jackson, Robin Williams, Edward Gould; they all made some stuff in their life and if you even dare to dislike this after their passing you are a disgrace to the genebank. While during their life you could probably get away with explaining your dislike. And post-death all opinions related to their works are suddenly related to the person's death and it's disrespectful to dislike their works exactly because they're dead. Why?

Last edited Feb 09, 2015 at 12:54PM EST

I'll answer this in two ways: intellectually and shortly for those who don't care to read all the details.


People dying, and this applies to more than just celebrities as well, causes all of their work to cease. You can look at artists, writers, actors, musicians, and the like and all connect them to something they dedicated themselves to. When they're alive and well, they produce and create many works, showing them at their prime. Whether or not people spectate or appreciate them is not up to them. However, after they die, they can't possibly make anymore works as they did. A good example is someone like Shakespeare. For over a few centuries his literature has been read and reenacted over and over, time and time again. Why? Because it's something that a writer wrote before he died. People take a better look at something from an author post mortem because there won't be anything else from them, and they since there won't be anything else, they might as well see what they have produced.

As for connecting the work with their death, most people simply do that to assert that this person is dead and look down upon naysayers because they're criticizing the works, thinking they're criticizing the dead person themself. And as it is mostly looked down upon to speak ill of the dead, they target critics. That person who was down voted in the RWBY comment thread shouldn't have been treated so harshly, and it is even more disgusting that people told him to kill himself.


Short and sweet version, since the guy died, they can't do stuff anymore cause they're chilling in their tombs like the lazy zombies they are and since they made cool stuff dumb people defend it at all costs against people with opinions. Essentially, no free thoughts allowed.

Here is the thing about people's deaths, the people who find out about this are naturally unstable. What I mean is that someone's death is very upsetting and when someone criticises their work, not even mentioning their demise it will just come off as very insensitive.

If I was that guy I would say "Never liked his work, but it is very sad that he died".

Last edited Feb 09, 2015 at 11:15AM EST

I would say your example is pretty bad for the first post at least. He was being pretty disrespectful. Because when there are people saying stuff like "I hope their work dies with them." when someone had died about a week or two ago. Amy doesn't have to like RWBY, but she doesn't have to go out her way to go to a RWBY entry where she knows there will certainly be fans of it there who hold Monty in high regard and tell them that what they like is shit and thus should die now that the creators dead.

Now the second comment seems like it would have been downvoted regardless of whether Monty died or not. Go to the MLP entry and say something along the lines of "It's fedora wearing neckbeard/little girl show trash." and see how many downvotes you get. The first paragraph is telling them what you like is for weaboos and otakus.

Take this with any other dead person. If I went to someone who said "Rest in Peace Robin Williams I loved his performance as Genie" thread and said "lol alladin is shit its 4 kidz" what do you expect would happen.

Laud wrote:

Why? Because it’s something that a writer wrote before he died. People take a better look at something from an author post mortem because there won’t be anything else from them, and they since there won’t be anything else, they might as well see what they have produced.

Point isn't that they've given their works a second chance after their passing, that's normal as you remember their life after their death. The point is that they give their works a second chance after their death and suddenly and magically find it unparalleled in quality.

Like Oum I could understand a bit. He was still working on a popular ongoing series, which now has a bit of a grim looking future. But with authors who we most likely won't hear from again, how can we expect anything new from them?


Spider wrote:

Amy doesn’t have to like RWBY, but she doesn’t have to go out her way to go to a RWBY entry where she knows there will certainly be fans of it there who hold Monty in high regard and tell them that what they like is shit and thus should die now that the creators dead.

His first comment was poorly worded, no question there, but the other posts made up for it imo. I don't judge a person over a single comment.

Although our subculture entries are certain to attract fans of the topic, in the end they aren't there to serve as fandom hubs. They're objective, so people who dislike it are free to share their opinion as well. Would you instead prefer only fans constantly circlejerking unable to take criticism? Sounds pretty dull to me.

Maybe I should just remove that link from the OP post because in the end that post is nothing more than an example and unrequired for the topic of this thread. If you want to focus on that comment, please do it in that comment thread. What I hoped to discuss was how author's suddenly have all their works praised more than ever before, for no reason other than having died.

Last edited Feb 09, 2015 at 01:01PM EST

RandomMan wrote:

Laud wrote:

Why? Because it’s something that a writer wrote before he died. People take a better look at something from an author post mortem because there won’t be anything else from them, and they since there won’t be anything else, they might as well see what they have produced.

Point isn't that they've given their works a second chance after their passing, that's normal as you remember their life after their death. The point is that they give their works a second chance after their death and suddenly and magically find it unparalleled in quality.

Like Oum I could understand a bit. He was still working on a popular ongoing series, which now has a bit of a grim looking future. But with authors who we most likely won't hear from again, how can we expect anything new from them?


Spider wrote:

Amy doesn’t have to like RWBY, but she doesn’t have to go out her way to go to a RWBY entry where she knows there will certainly be fans of it there who hold Monty in high regard and tell them that what they like is shit and thus should die now that the creators dead.

His first comment was poorly worded, no question there, but the other posts made up for it imo. I don't judge a person over a single comment.

Although our subculture entries are certain to attract fans of the topic, in the end they aren't there to serve as fandom hubs. They're objective, so people who dislike it are free to share their opinion as well. Would you instead prefer only fans constantly circlejerking unable to take criticism? Sounds pretty dull to me.

Maybe I should just remove that link from the OP post because in the end that post is nothing more than an example and unrequired for the topic of this thread. If you want to focus on that comment, please do it in that comment thread. What I hoped to discuss was how author's suddenly have all their works praised more than ever before, for no reason other than having died.

Did you just stop reading my post? I addressed their other posts. I would not like a circlejerk or fandom hubs but that is the case for pretty much all entries.

As I said people should be allowed to dislike something even though it's creator died (because it's not relevant to the work). It's just really a matter of doing that while respecting the deceased if they have recently passed. And they should be aware that their criticism could also be criticized or ignored/dismissed.

See the problem is that your mistaking zealously defending someone because they're dead with plain circlejerking. But that's not to say it doesn't happen but really, it's only really for a short period after someones death just because that's a more sensitive time.

Skeletor-sm

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