“The Incident”, authorial intent and reading narrative gaps
Or: Why you’re right, but the person you’re arguing with online is also right.
Fandom is a heated and emotional space, full of passionate people with a particular passion for the same object. Despite this shared passion, however, there is a huge amount of conflict around certain topics within the space, especially when a divisive issue is raised. Such an issue has been raised in the Emmerdale fandom over past weeks, involving concerns and speculation surrounding Robert Sugden having a one night stand with Rebecca White under the influence of alcohol. Termed “the incident”, this has caused a split down the fandom, with many a reading being presented as correct.
In this post, I’m going to try and argue that, within reason, all of these readings are valid, largely due to the existence of a distinctive narrative gap in the scene. It is this gap that takes away a lot of the context for the scene, and produces the opportunity for people to create further readings than they would have been able to if this gap didn’t exist. I’m going to be referring to ideas drawn from Roland Barthes’s essay “The Death of the Author”, concerning ideas surrounding authorial intent and the reader (or in this case, viewer) as author. What I hope to achieve with this post is to help people come to an understanding that there is no real point in trying to put forward one objectively true reading of this scene, as such a reading does not exist.
Just to give some context: I’m a third year undergraduate studying for a BA in English Literature with a minor in creative writing. This is not me trying to put myself on a pedestal above anyone else, but me trying to explain what kind of point of view I’m coming at this subject from.
The Problem with Narrative Gaps
The incident is presented to us in two parts, as is to be expected because of the nature of how soap operas separate scenes in order to explore multiple narratives in one episode. In the first part of the scene, we see Rebecca find Robert on the floor of his bedroom in the Mill drinking from a semi-empty bottle of whisky. She sits with him, he offers her the bottle, and she drinks. In the second part of the scene, the bottle is basically empty. We don’t know how much either party has drank, or what has happened or what has been talked about in the gap between the first and second part of the scene. I’m focusing in on the bottle of whisky on purpose here, because the level of drunkenness of both parties alters the dynamics of the scene hugely. Many claims have been made by many parties, myself included, speculating about this. It has been argued that Rebecca only took one swig and was basically sober. It has also been argued that she drank a good portion of the bottle and, while not being as drunk as Robert, was still very drunk. The amount of whisky in the bottle only indicates to us how much has been drank, not by whom.
The key thing to note with the narrative gap that exists within this scene, is that, from a purely objective point of view, nothing happens in this gap. A TV drama is a text like any other text, and the text is all we have. There is no canon that exists outside of what we see or are told. In short, there is no answer as to who drank the whisky, for example, because that answer does not exist within the text. Anything we, as viewers, put forward is no more than speculation.
No author can walk a reader through step-by-step everything that happens within a story so as to avoid narrative gaps. It isn’t feesible. Emmerdale in particular is limited by the parameters of being a relatively short programme with only a limited amount of time to get across what needs to be put across. As Richard J. Gerrig states in his essay ‘Readers’ Experiences of Narrative Gaps’: ‘Authors count on readers to use inference processes to bridge narrative gaps of various sizes.’ That is to say, the author leaves it up to the reader (or viewer in this case) to use their own intuition to fill in the gaps in the story that they do not have time to tell.
This reliance on reader inference, however, can be problematic when it is believed that all readers are going to draw the same conclusion. There is no such thing as a neutral reader, as every reader has their own set of experiences and biases. For example, an Emmerdale viewer who identifies heavily with Robert is more likely to read the situation in a way that is sympathetic towards him, whereas a reader who identifies more with Rebecca or who simply doesn’t like Robert as a character, is less likely to offer him a sympathetic reading.
It is not to say that either of these readings are wrong. They’re both valid readings, and can both be seen as correct without there being a contradiction (I’ll get onto that in the next section). What is illustrated, however, is that Emmerdale has failed to recognise the impact of this narrative gap if they intend to present either character in particular in a sympathetic light. This gap in the narrative allows for too much speculation.
To put it as simply as I can, it can’t be said for sure what happened between Robert and Rebecca in between the two halves of the scene, because whatever happened does not exist within the text. Whatever happened exists within the mind of each individual viewer.
The Author (screenwriter) Is Dead
There is no way we can know what happened between Robert and Rebecca during the gap in the middle of the scene. So this leads to speculation, and speculation leads to debate. I have no problem with this debate existing. Debate is an integral part of fandom and if fandom had no debate, I believe that fandom would struggle to exist.
However, a problem I’ve observed since the incident is people trying to prove, objectively, that their reading of the scene is correct, or believe that winning a debate is somehow going to lead us closer to learning what the true reading of the scene is. The thing is, there is no true reading. An objectively correct reading of that scene doesn’t exist, no matter what the writer intended for the scene to do.
Let’s assume, for a moment, that the writer was trying to write the scene so that Rebecca would appear to be the victim in the situation. As this scene was developed from a script to what we saw on our screens, there would already be multiple readings of it before it even reached the viewers. The writer would interpret what they’ve written one way, and the director would interpret it another, and then the actors in the scene would interpret it another way which would impact on how it was performed, and then onto post production and so on. Before the episode was even aired, whatever ‘meaning’ the writer would have intended for the scene to have would have already been at least somewhat lost.
Some may argue that the writer’s intention for the scene is ultimately the correct one. This brings us onto Barthes, in his seminal essay, “The Death of The Author”. Wikepedia sums up the arguments made in this essay better than I ever could (I know Wikipedia isn’t a real source but this isn’t a uni essay so I’ll do what I want):
In his essay, Barthes argues against the method of reading and criticism that relies on aspects of the author’s identity—their political views, historical context, religion, ethnicity, psychology, or other biographical or personal attributes—to distill meaning from the author’s work. In this type of criticism, the experiences and biases of the author serve as a definitive “explanation” of the text. For Barthes, this method of reading may be apparently tidy and convenient but is actually sloppy and flawed: “To give a text an author” and assign a single, corresponding interpretation to it “is to impose a limit on that text”.
It’s a divisive essay within the literary community, for sure, but I believe it to be incredibly applicable in such situations as the Emmerdale fandom’s reading of ‘the incident’. What is especially applicable is the ideas surrounding the ‘author-God’ and the idea that any text can be picked apart to find its core meaning. In order to do this, many readers apply intention to an imaginary author, a construction of the author that does not exist. It is easy to try and validate a reading of a text by stating ‘this happened because the author believed/intended x, y or z’. However, it is impossible to know what the author truly intended as we cannot exist within the author’s head. Furthermore, as I stated earlier, with TV shows especially, the original intention of the author cannot be retained because the story relies on the interpretations of to many other parties.
So what happens when we remove this idea of ‘the author’? (I should probably state at this point that the constructed idea of the author is not the living, breathing author themselves, but a concept invented by the reader based on a narrow reading of the author’s intentions). Barthes claims that each reader of a text is themselves an author, as they essentially ‘write’ their own meaning for the text by reading it in their own way. This means that any text can have any number of possible readings and these readings can all be valid, as a text has no ‘true’ objective reading.
Applying this idea to ‘the incident’ then. We’ve already seen how widely this scene can be interpreted because of the lack of crucial information provided in the narrative gap. There is no meaning to found in this gap, as I said before, as it presents something that doesn’t exist. However, just because this gap is a form of absence, it does not mean it cannot be read. The contrary, in fact. This absence is not a black hole that sucks all away all possible meaning, instead, it opens up a space for viewers to construct a meaning that helps them to understand the scene as part of the wider narrative as they view it. No two viewers are going to interact with the scene the same way because no two viewers have the same experiences or biases. Therefore, this absence means something different to ever reader.
Essentially, what Barthes argues allows us to open up a space for the reader to make the text their own, and thereby make it into a text they can understand and work with within their own understanding of the text. There is no one, true, objective human experience, so thereby there is no one, objective way to experience a text. Thus every reading of a text is valid, as it fits into the narrative understood by the reader themselves, a narrative that is only truly understood by them.
Conclusion
What I’ve tried to do in this long, overly complicated post is to try and argue that there is no correct way of understanding ‘the incident’. We saw what we saw on screen, but that’s the only truly shared experience. How each of us interpreted the scene, and how we understood what happened during the gap in the scene and after the scene, is unique to each of us. There will be similarities between the way some of us view the scene, due to similar biases and/or life experiences, but no two readings will be the same. Every viewer has to try and consolidate this scene within the wider narrative in a way that works for them. There are as many versions of this scene as there are viewers of the episode in question.
There is no point trying to argue for an objectively 'correct’ reading because that reading does not exist. Every reading (within reason) is a valid reading. We can debate and discuss, but ultimately, none of us are objectively right or wrong.
I always tried to play in one of these during the course of an Intercon weekend. It breaks up the serious, immersive character stuff a little. If you’re part of the horde, you get your characters on an index card with a basic description of what your deal is, and when you’re up you get out there and do improv for a few minutes till that character cycles back out, and you go get your next horde character card. It’s great if you like to do improv comedy, a good excuse for rampant ever-changing silliness.
And this is the nerdiest gush post ever, but my F/O would be STELLAR at this.
The idea of watching him play an increasingly ridiculous series of horde characters, just winging the comedy the entire time....well. It makes my dumb trickster-loving heart skip a beat.
What can I say. I’ve always had a soft spot for the funny ones.
Hi, welcome to my blog and please excuse the mess! I’m still learning how to make it look all spiffy.
You can call me Ari. I’m a nerdy simmer and my obsession has finally led me to make my first Simbler and a Maxis Match CC finds blog! (boop). I plan to put up a bunch of lookbooks, lots of them themed, as well as some gameplay. (I usually have several save files going at once.) You’ll also find lots of miscellaneous character-sim screenshots floating around. I’m hoping to also get a lil’ better at building so eventually I can put up some lot downloads! You can find me on the gallery as DirectorPurry.
Besides the sims, I love movies and TV and other RPG video games, like Dragon Age and LA Noire. My sim traits are bookwork, creative, and geek. I’ve got a cat named Harry Potter and I watch too much YouTube. I also like to cook! (And I still play Pokemon Go, so hit me up if you want my friend code. I’m desperate for achievements.)
