#art interpretation | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jadewing-realms · 9 months

Text

disclaimer: written pre-release

i've had this sitting in my drafts for a bit since i started playing BG3, I kept seeing a particular kind of post regarding Astarion and it really started to frustrate me soooooo. here's a vaguely coherent rant nobody asked for pff

As I got into the game, following Astarion's romance subplot, doing research on the game and characters thus far, I encountered the schism between those who love Astarion and by extension, characters like him, and those that consider said characters as little more than toxic creatures, narcissists best dealt with swiftly and harshly. The latter tends, in the posts I've found at least, to view the former as poor unfortunate souls with the dreaded "i can fix him" mentality.

Now, I'm not here to say either is entirely wrong. I think to take a side here is to do the exploration a disservice and to forget the depth of nuance in art and media interpretation.

And that's just it. Because at the end of the day, interpretation is one of the key elements involved in this discourse. In the case of Astarion, especially with the game having been in early access for so long and no complete, guaranteed details of his past or arc made public yet, with so much up in the air as the full release drops, there are worlds of interpretations that can be made regarding our infamous vampire rogue.

Is one of those interpretations that he's both emotional and literal vampire who's every action is a trap for the protagonist in order to use them, and that he's irredeemable? Yes. Is another that he's simply trying to survive in a situation he's never been in after spending two centuries living like an animal? Also yes.

The error here, I think, is to treat one interpretation like it's more "right" than another. Which is what I've seen a lot of online threads do... Insisting one perspective is superior to the other. Which is bad faith even on a good day when either perspective is based in concrete, unchangeable fact. Even moreso in this case, until there's complete canon material to bank on, and even then that will have so much variety to it since most of it will depend on the actions of the player. It's a choice-based game. There is so much space for varied experiences, and none of them will be "right" or "wrong."

I feel like in modern media discussion, when considering whether a character is actively harmful or just flawed, it can be easy to forget that some of our most popular stories are ones in which someone is deemed beyond hope or redemption, a danger to all they encountered, only for their arc to raise them from their Pit of Dickishness and set them on pedestals as some of the most memorable, inspiring characters we know.

The timeless story of the Christmas Carol gives us an absolutely despicable old geezer who literally spells out the horror he'd inflict upon the poor if he could, simply for the sin of poverty. But in an effort to fixate only on how problematic he (very much intentionally) is, we might lose sight of how the whole point of the story is to watch him be forced to confront his ways, unpack all his crap, and become better for it in the end.

Characters like Prince Zuko, Edmund Pevensie, Greedling, Steve Harrington, Boromir, James Ford, friggin Darth Vader, we wouldn't have any of them if we only read them at surface level as toxic assholes and then left it at that. But through learning the nuances of these characters and watching them confront their actions and consequences and learn from them, they not only grow and change into better people, but we love them because they hold pieces of ourselves in them, despite their sharp edges. We can understand why they are the way they are, and maybe, if we're honest with ourselves, we can acknowledge that we might have done similarly awful things under their circumstances. It makes them relatable, admirable, and cautionary all at once. It makes them human.

None of that is to say that there are never characters built purely and solely to fear and loath, not at all. True scumbags can and do exist, both in fiction and reality. To try to enforce the idea of finding empathy for a true monster is often a tactic used in reality to gaslight people into excusing said monsters' behavior.

Which leads into the "i can fix him" argument. When applied to situations dealing with real dangerous and horrid people who can't or won't change? Absolutely Not Great (though that's not to say it can't be included in a story, there are valuable themes in that on its own). Condoning this dynamic as something good is what leads to abusive relationships and innocent people staying in unhealthy situations for far too long. I'm among those who can attest to that personally.

That said, when it comes to Astarion, no one can rightly say going through his romance arc or not is condoning anything. Because it once more comes down almost entirely to perspective and interpretation, because he's a video game character comprised of pixels and a well-written script and there are limitless ways he can be interpreted and interacted with.

Like, personally, yes, there are some dynamics I'd feel uncomfy pairing him with, even with the empathy I feel for his character. Platonic or romantic, doesn't matter. Does that mean I'm going to apply my interpretation and personal boundaries to the next person playing the Astarion romance? No. That would be assuming I've somehow discovered the "correct" way to interpret the game, which I have not and can never do because RPGs like Baldur's Gate 3 are such personalized experiences. People are 100% free to play a fictional game however the hell they so please, because stories are not inherently 1-to-1 reflections of reality.

Especially when it comes to the narcissism accusation, it sparks an extra layer of discomfort for me when it seems like characters who act selfishly or spin lies get called "narcissistic" when that's kinda severely over-generalizing what narcissism actually is??

Narcissism is inherently selfish, but not all selfishness is narcissism. Gaslighting is built on lies, but not all lies are gaslighting. This separation was literally bugging me so much, I talked with my therapist about it last week. And she agreed.

Some folks seem to forget is actual NPD isn't just about selfishness and manipulating. It's fragile ego and delusions of grandeur and the mind games, dysregulating highs and humiliating lows that they will weave in a web around you so that you, as a victim, can never get your mental and emotional footing. Usually for the purposes of then swooping in to offer themselves as your only source of stability. The whole "rely on me because your judgment is clearly faulty and you need to be protected from yourself" shtick.

You know. Kinda like Cazador.

The way I see Astarion, by contrast, is that he has an honesty to him that lacks such delusions. As much as he desperately tries to maintain this veneer of poise and sass and devil-may-care out of self-preservation, it's paper thin and crumples under the barest pressure. Like, the equivalent of a thematic sneeze and down he goes. Then you see him as he is. Which is just... frightened. Sad. Kinda pathetic, really. And absolutely, positively lost. All things he knows, but he legit believes he will be killed if he lets any of it show.

Comparing that to, say, Wyll, who's blissfully ignorant bluster reminds me painfully of self-aggrandizing family members that I love but can't interact with honestly because of the forest of self-delusion around them... well, it's not much of a contest.

If somebody interprets Astarion as a slimy, manipulating power-monger and gets rid of him the first chance they have, that's their story to tell and power to them for it. But the same must be said for the opposite. I don't appreciate the thought that there's a whole sect of the BG3 fandom that probably genuinely considers me "less than" or "unhealthy" or "problematic" in some way for being among those who like this character or others like him and their potential thematically and narratively. But if my interpretation is that he’s a frightened man who just wants to feel safe and free, that is also its own story and it's mine to tell if I wish. And both can be good or even powerful stories!

Is all of this based on my own personal nuances, biases, and priorities? Absolutely. And that's kinda the whole point... There's not a wrong answer with this, really. I experience these games and these characters through a lens that is mine and mine only, and I give meaning to the worlds I enter based on what makes the story feel most interesting and satisfying for me. And at the end of the day, what else is art for but to help us explore ourselves and learn a little bit more about what it means to be human. In all its glory and ugliness.

And that's a wholly personal journey nobody deserves to have micromanaged or belittled. I'm certainly not gonna go around looking down on anyone for having a different reading than mine. You do you, boo. But let me do me too.

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #astarion #my musings #in this essay i will #half of this feels incomprehensible because i added tidbits over the span of a week #but maybe someone somewhere will get something out of it #it was cathartic for me anyway #narcissism #character analysis #media literacy #art interpretation #thanks for coming to my ted talk

89 notes · View notes

jgyapologism · 6 months

Text

So, I saw this yesterday in relation to Only Friends, and I just want to get one thing straight:

How the audience perceives or interprets a piece of art often becomes part of the story.

The fact that the sentence that follows the highlighted sequence says "there are 'good' and 'bad' actions, ones that help people and ones that harm them" is already prescribing to a moral compass and moral understanding of the story.

We, as the audience, may or may not pick up on the artist's intentions behind a piece of art. We may prescribe new meanings and understandings that the artist may have never considered. But that does not make them inherently wrong.

Interpretation in art refers to the attribution of meaning to a work. As human beings, we produce and consume art with varying ideas, values, and morals.

As a writer myself, people will often comment on parts of my writing that speak to them, and they will prescribe meaning to it that I had either never thought of, or aren't what I intended. But do I tell them that they're wrong? No. Because art exists to be interpreted.

[Some even disagree whether the artist's or author's intention is relevant to the interpretation of the work.]

In the story of Only Friends, morality is a common theme, whether you pick up on it or not; whether P'Jojo and P'Den intended it or not. It does not matter if the characters are "consciously aware" that they are "thinking about what is 'moral'" because as human beings, we are all always, constantly, subconsciously weighing social mores and personal morals in our every day lives.

Though the characters in Only Friends are fictional, they represent real people. And real people are constantly making decisions based on their social and personal value and moral system.

I won't get into each character, and why/how they actually do show signs of moral thinking, but I just wanted to write this because it's becoming alarmingly more and more clear how spoonfed people feel the need to be when consuming art.

We don't need the characters or the artists to tell us what the themes of the piece are -- that job has always remained with the audience. And you may not see the themes of morality in this specific show, but that does not mean that they aren't there.

Don't diminish the themes that others are interpreting just because you yourself see no value in discussing it.

#only friends the series #ofts #ofts meta #i guess #media literacy #art interpretation #only friends meta

22 notes · View notes

artsy-waffle19 · 1 month

Text

it's so hilarious to me when people see any piece of "modern" art (aka something that isn't a hyperrealistic drawing or a (slightly smudged AT MAX) painting of a garden) and go "omg now THATS art, not some bullshit banana taped to a wall" and like- that banana was taped to the wall YEARS ago and you're 1: still mad about it and 2: still using this banana as a way to define what's art and what isn't and what exactly the intention-skill ratio should be for an art piece to be a good piece.....do you realize? do you realize what the banana has done to an entire generation and how they think about art? this fucking banana moved you so much that even after YEARS it still influences your way of interacting with art and if that isn't art then idk what is

#art #banana #maurizio cattelan #cattelan #cattelan banana #maurizio cattelan banana #artwork #art interpretation

5 notes · View notes

lafcadiosadventures · 1 year

Text

#john berger #ways of looking #caravaggio #art interpretation #teaching done right #i love this video so much #it's adorable #and the respect shown to children's approach is fantastic #the subs are full of typos lol #gif set #gif warning

16 notes · View notes

rustyscreech · 11 months

Text

I'm sleepy so I won't be able to articulate this well but for years now I've had a bone to pick with people who try to ""solve"" art. from cinema sins to ending explained to mona lisa is actually pregnant to who is coda from the beginners guide. there's this push (its not recent but its certainly amplified by the damn phones) where people really chafe against ambiguity and personal interpretation that to me really screams insecurity and anti-intellectual

the rise of ai for art is just the next iteration of that discomfort. no need to feel what mona lisa might be feeling; the robot will tell you where she is. no need to think about what comes next; the robot will write it for you.

why are tech bros so afraid to feel? why do you keep trying to solve art?

#ai #ai art #just a little rusty #art #meta #art interpretation #critical thinking #ok to rb btw

9 notes · View notes

vintagevamp876 · 1 year

Text

Van Gogh "Starry Night" in pink 🩷🩷🩷

#art #van gogh #starry night #pinks #artistic aesthetic #art interpretation

7 notes · View notes

alisondraenvs3000blogposts · 7 months

Text

Unit 04: Nature Interpretation through Art and Planning for "All" Scenarios (Blog post)

I decided to include this group of seven paintings, first because they are relevant to the topic at hand and second because, for an art project in high school, I recreated this painting, so it holds significant personal meaning.

Blog Prompt: Who are you to interpret nature through art? How do you interpret “the gift of beauty”?

Who am I to do so? I am a human being, and like all human beings, I have the unique intrinsic ability to understand, interpret, and create art. This is a unique human cultural ability, and since art has the ability to capture nature through the unique lens of a specific artist, it is an important part of nature interpretation.

To me, interpretation through art is a form of expression. With any form of expression, a certain level of experience, expertise, skill, curiosity, imagination, planning, etc. needs to be established. Your target audience can only be reached if you have the skills to do so.

Planning is especially important so that the correct equipment is brought on the expedition to prepare for all scenarios. This is especially the case if you're choosing to venture out into the wilderness by yourself.

I interpret "the gift of beauty", through my photography and art. I enjoy taking photos of landscapes all year. I also have a very huge collection of sunset photos because I have found that no two sunsets or sunrises are alike due to the differentiation of gases and the percentage of gases in the atmosphere during the rising and setting of the sun. I also very much enjoy painting landscape photos. Below is my version of Franklin Carmichael's Mirror Lake, 1929, landscape, as well as landscape and sunset photos I've taken:

Aside from capturing beauty through art, sometimes it is more important to allow oneself to live in the moment with nature and fully allow its beauty to encompass all of you. A memory is only captured and remembered in your head. In Unit 4, the text speaks on how there have been declines in social aspects, and although this was taken from research in the 30's, this also holds true today. A huge aspect of maintaining social qualities such as memory and imagination, compassion, and fitness is allowing one's self to fully engulf in nature and live and appreciate the moment. Hens take technology, painting, drawing, etc., out of the picture. Capturing and perceiving those moments are important, but not every single time. It is important not to lose the appreciation of nature from overindulgence in capturing art interpretation.

When it comes to photographers, they are able to capture the beauty of nature at a standstill through their photos. Photographers have the ability to capture any event almost as a historical timestamp. Emotions can be captured, as well as tragedy, more specifically climate change tragedy, which really showcases how powerful this art form can be in creating a movement for change and proof of what needs to be changed. This is the same for videographers in documentaries, short films, etc., as well as poets and authors through there literature and choice of words. Photos captured during protests help create a movement for change that spans far beyond the protest itself. An example of this is the pipeline protest that took place in Canada. Photos taken of the protests, videos, and articles, which are all art forms, help establish more rapport and awareness toward the situation. Art is so vast, representative, and impowering to the point where it is no wonder it is part of this course, used as a form of nature interpretation.

#art interpretation #nature art #envs3000

2 notes · View notes