Not really? I tend to think of what I’m doing here in similar terms to the way I think of studying history and archaeology, which is my “real job” – there are the “primary sources” (that is, the games and anime), and there are our interpretations, and although it can be interesting and productive to compare interpretations, for me everything has to go back to the sources. When I read what another person thinks, my instinct is to dissect it into bits that make sense to me and bits that don’t, and assess it in terms of how well it fits with what we all know. Of course, a good story is a good story, but I think that’s entirely separate to what I normally do. Does that make sense?
