Watsonian vs Doylist Analysis: What It Is and Why You Should Care (feat. Vampires, naturally)
While the terms may be unfamiliar, if you’ve ever waded into the murky cesspool that is internet fandom culture, the odds that you’ve engaged with Watsonian and/or Doylist discourse at some point are pretty high.
As you might have gathered, the terminology originated within the Sherlock Holmes fandom, (potentially dating back to the 1980s - though there is some disagreement here) as a way to distinguish between two schools of thought resulting from textual inconsistencies in Arthur Conan Doyle’s popular series:
Essentially, a Watsonian interpretation would attribute these inconsistencies in plot or characterisation to the character John Watson’s position as an unreliable narrator, who is recounting the Sherlock Holmes stories from memory; on the other side of that coin, A Doylist criticism would name the author and his infamous disdain for his most popular work for such carelessness.
Today, these definitions have broadened into blanket terms for intra- and extra-textual discourse - that is to say “in-world” vs “real-world” criticism.
Let’s take Buffy the Vampire Slayer as an example.
Across the hit show’s seven season run, viewers have observed a noticeable decline in the quality of its fight choreography after season four. Confronted with this decline, we see how the fan-response diverges:
The Watsonian critic might point out the change in tone that occurs around this time in the show, when the storyline takes a darker, more character-centric turn, as Whedon really gets into the meat of the “Chosen One” trope and the emotional toll this kind of pressure is taking on the Slayer. So, when a depressed and traumatised S6 Buffy listlessly describes herself as “going through the motions” (S6E7: Once More, With Feeling), you could argue that this is reflected in the repetitive, simplistic fight scenes.
The Doylist critic would point out that both SMG’s original stunt double, Sophia Crawford, and stunt coordinator Jeff Pruitt left the show before season five, following alleged friction with Whedon.
Is this starting to feel familiar?
Typically, in the world of cutthroat internet discourse, this would be the part where #2 comes out with some approximation of “lol calm down it’s just a show” and #1 fires back something along the lines of “it’s easy to just let people enjoy things” and so on and so on in perpetuum. And not to disparage either hypothetical fan, but the comparative feat of mental gymnastics required to form a Watsonian analysis is obvious in this example.
However, for many fans, this effort is a rewarding and entertaining process in itself: “headcanons” and the fanfiction that expands them are an inherently Watsonian exploit, after all. The appeal is easy enough to understand - Watsonian discourse is built upon the pretence that a work is completely self-contained, and self-sustaining; to “kill” the author in this manner is arguably the most immersive way to engage with a work.
In turn, it’s easy to dismiss Watsonian discourse as a bit of harmless fandom fun.
However,
Being the bitter, miserable, she-demon that I am, I relish any opportunity to drain the joy from life’s simple pleasures (a “fun-vampire”, if you will). And so I would be remiss if I failed to point out the ways in which this kind of engagement can be seriously problematic. Because in the process of killing the author, we essentially divorce the author from culpability, and - by extension - ourselves from reality. Consequently, it becomes all too easy to allow writers to explain away problematic and harmful tropes, stereotypes, and characterisations with a convenient, complex “in-world” mythos that devout fans will line up to defend, with little to no regard for the reality of a flawed, intelligent creator crafting every detail of the work in question.
In keeping with our theme, I hereby proffer Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga (and its haggard but surprisingly resilient fandom) as an excellent example of such problematics.
[and not solely because actively and publicly dragging Twilight as an adult is the only way to atone for my tweenage obsession with the entire sparkly shitshow]
In recent years, SMeyer has - rightfully - come under fire for a whole holy host of reasons, but easily the greatest crime perpetrated by the Twilight Series has to be its portrayal of Native American people, and more specifically the very-non-fictional Quileute Tribe. Given the dearth of representation in mainstream media, Twilight, tragically enough, may be one of the most prominent works of the 21st century to centre Native American characters and (Steph’s bastardisation of) culture, making her treatment of those characters all the more impactful and damning.
For a more detailed and better-informed review of the many and varied failings of the Twilight Saga than I’m capable of, I would direct you to this collaboration between the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture and the Quileute Tribe. But for our purposes here I’m going to highlight one of the more unsavoury aspects of the series’ “mythology” that I still struggle to believe ever made it to print.
I am, of course, talking about ‘Imprinting’ - the convoluted werewolf-soulmate-loophole that forced you to watch Taylor Lautner make goo-goo eyes at the most cursed CGI abomination since Henry Cavill’s upper lip. That’s right, in case you’ve forgotten (*repressed), Stephenie Meyer wrote her way out of her own unconvincing love triangle by having Jacob fall helplessly in love with Bella’s newborn baby (retroactive spoiler alert, I guess?).
Gross. Terrible. Unnecessary, you cry.
And you would be correct.
But as any veteran twi-hard can tell you, it’s not technically paedophilia, guys, just read Eclipse. And to spare you that indignity, here’s the conversation they’re referring to, wherein Jacob shares the news that his friend has imprinted on a two year-old girl:
“It’s not like that; you’ve got it all wrong,” Jacob defended his friend, suddenly vehement. “I’ve seen what it’s like, through his eyes. There’s nothing romantic about it at all, not for Quil, not now. … Quil will be the best, kindest big brother any kid ever had. There isn’t a toddler on the planet that will be more carefully looked after than that little girl will be. And then, when she’s older and needs a friend, he’ll be more understanding, trustworthy, and reliable than anyone else she knows. And then, when she’s grown up, they’ll be happy as Emily and Sam.” ‘ (Eclipse, c8, pp175-6)
Taking a moment to process this shameless, textbook-perfect description of grooming, if we return to our hypothetical fans:
Doylist Fan writes: “The whole imprinting on minors’ thing is so creepy and unnecessary! SM only had Jacob imprint on Renesmee because her happy ending had to resolve the love triangle drama in a way that didn’t threaten the desirability of her protagonist in the eyes of the reader.”
Cue the Watsonian fan swooping in to explain how it’s not creepy, because the nature of werewolf-soulmate-magic guarantees that the child is never actually in any danger from the grown man, who won’t experience romantic or sexual attraction to her until she’s an appropriate age (whatever that is).
In turn, we see how an overly Watsonian viewpoint can blind the reader to the wholly valid criticism of a white author going to pains to not only legitimise (and romanticise) grooming in a book marketed towards young people, but to also link it to a very real, marginalised group of people, painting abuse as a sacred and celebrated part of a culture she stole, reinterpreted, and ultimately profited from.
Obviously, I’m going to extremes here - I don’t mean to suggest that all Watsonian discourse is harmful, or that the majority of readers don’t occupy the grey area between the two concepts: capable of suspending enough disbelief to enjoy a work of fiction while still recognising it as just that.
Rather, let this be a cautionary tale, instilling the importance of consuming your literature responsibly - because the clear alternative to critical thinking is defending fictional predators on the internet.
Here endeth the lesson.