Some folk need to hear this:
“It’s left up to interpretation” means the writer intentionally included clues that could lend itself to multiple readings because they wanted some aspect of the story to remain permanently ambiguous as part of their vision for the work.
Example: Inception. The story is an exploration of dreams and the malleability of reality. It is designed from the ground up to disorient you as a viewer. Whether the top falls or keeps spinning at the end is intentionally left up to interpretation— there are clues that indicate it could be both real or still a dream, depending on your reading. There is no definitive answer to whether the top fell or kept spinning.
However I’m seeing a lot of people say “it was left up to interpretation” when what they mean is “No character looked into the camera to spell it out Dora the Explorer style, so I don’t get it and/or I’m ignoring the actual text.”
It’s like the ending of The Sopranos. It’s controversial because it does not spell out what happened. It relies on the audience picking up on the themes and context clues of the show, with the final episode HEAVILY foreshadowing Tony’s death, but the entire series does this as well.
Tony says multiple times people in his lifestyle have two endings: jail or dead. We see multiple characters meet this fate for taking the exact actions Tony himself eventually does. We get multiple conversations where it is hinted at, including: “You never hear the one that gets you.”
And, most damning, Tony himself says: “I don’t think anything happens when you die. It just stops.”
So, a tense scene with “Don’t Stop Believing” going in the background, getting louder and louder. Bell rings. Tony looks up, his face shifts. Cut to black on “Don’t stop.”
It stopped. Tony died. It was an assassin walking through the door, not Meadow. Sure they could’ve shown Tony getting his brains blown out, the ambulance/police, the family’s reaction— but it would not have been anywhere near as powerful or memorable as the actual ending. We don’t need to see the murder or its aftermath because we knew where this was going from the jump.
This was confirmed by the creator referring to the final scene as “the death scene.” I also watched an interview with some of the other writers in college, and they genuinely felt it was an obvious, clean ending. Most of the writing team were confused by the audience’s confusion; Tony himself has been predicting his own death/murder since episode 1.
I think the confusion regarding these two concepts (and The Sapranos ending in general) ultimately comes down to issues with media comprehension and also a refusal to engage with media as written. Audiences tend to create an ending in their head, or come to a certain conclusion, and refuse to let go of it, regardless if the text supports it or not.
It’s bizarre to me as a writer. I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently because of TADC in general. No spoilers, but I called the finale beat-for-beat. I quoted Applejack leaving the theater: “I didn’t learn anything! I was right all along!!!”
I am not psychic, nor do I know Gooseworx/anyone at Glitch. I am just a writer who has studied story structure. The setup for the ending was always there, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to call how they would payoff.
Good writers — which, sorry, Gooseworx is — can set up their stories and quietly tell you from the beginning how it will end, if you know how/where to look. Any “ambiguity” is people struggling to comprehend the narrative as written or being unwilling to let go of their personal vision for the show.
It’s frustrating to watch as a creator because people complain if they’re spoon fed and they complain if they’re trusted to piece it together themselves. Even in my own fanfics I’ve had people dramatically misinterpret things that are clearly, directly stated, then get angry at ME over it.
Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes writers fumble. Setup/payoff is the basis for all storytelling and we’ve all seen the many ways storytellers can trip over their own feet trying to accomplish it. And there are many shows/books/movies/etc that can be analyzed in multiple angles/perspectives, intentionally and unintentionally.
But analysis ultimately requires an understanding of the text as written and I see a lot of people struggling with that currently.
I’m not sure what the solution to this is beyond education around critical thinking and textual analysis, but I worry how it will impact writers/creators going forward.
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