If you could separate one work from its creator, what would it be?

polymath

New member
Aug 28, 2008
118
0
0
So in light of the furor over comments made by Ender's Game author Orson Scott Card's comments on homosexuality, I pose a question to you all. If you could separate one piece of work from it's creator what would it be?

Plus it'd be nice if you could give a reason. Off the top of my head, reasons you might want to do this include:

The creator's personal views taint the work (See above).

A piece the creator produced you feel is a misstep and you want to give them a mulligan.

An otherwise mediocre creator has one exceptional piece you'd like to imagine was the sole work of another artist (what we'll call the M. Night Shyamalan Effect).

Or whatever reasons you can think off, just argue your case.

A couple of quick rules:

The piece of work stays the same, it just has a different creator, so just because you don't like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, doesn't mean that in this scenario, taking away Lucas or Spielberg will result in a new film, it just means they're no longer responsible.

Has to be one individual piece of work, so you can't get rid of all three Star Wars Prequels, unless you want to get rid of Star Wars entirely from George Lucas's Resumé. So even if you make it so Lucas didn't make Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones, he'd still have made the other two.

And any side benefits that might have resulted from an individual work stick with them. So if George Lucas never makes Star Wars (man is he coming out of this poorly) he still founds Lucasfilms and Industrial Light and Magic, so you don't get to take those away from him.
 

Nigh Invulnerable

New member
Jan 5, 2009
2,500
0
0
Hmmm....I'd have a hard time with this. I'd separate the works of Burzum from Varg Vikernes. The man's a convicted murderer, white supremacist, and lunatic, but he writes some really neat dark black metal (and basically created the format in the modern generation of it.
 

Phlakes

Elite Member
Mar 25, 2010
4,282
0
41
Cheating a bit but I'd separate DNF/Colonial Marines from Gearbox (more than they already are, considering neither was completely theirs) so people stop using them as an excuse to hate everything else they have done/will do.
 

Malty Milk Whistle

New member
Oct 29, 2011
617
0
0
Probably Wagner, his music was incredible and uplifting, but the man was a anti-semitic bastard, so there's that.
Also, the entire of Games Workshop's mythos, it's so good! yet GW is run by some money grubbing hoebags.
 

Mid Boss

Senior Member
Aug 20, 2012
274
12
23
I'd have to say Micheal Jackson. Love his music. I don't know if he was a child molester, but he did become one of those celebrities that have spent FAR too long in the lime light and have been completely burnt by it. Dangling his baby off a balcony with a towel draped over its face being just one example.
 

Angelous Wang

Lord of I Don't Care
Oct 18, 2011
575
0
0
I would of said the next Star Wars (and all future games), but apparently that has supposedly already happened. We are yet to see if he has truly given it up though because nothing has been released since he said he did.

I suppose I'd like to have the first Dead Space taken away from Visceral Games and given to someone who won't use EA as a publisher ever (keeping the game otherwise as is).

That would mean EA could not ruin 2 and 3, as they would not have the series. I don't care if that means 2 and 3 never happen, because I kind of wish the current versions didn't anyway.

But at least that creates the possibility we might have gotten better versions of 2 and 3.
 

Yojoo

New member
Sep 9, 2010
165
0
0
My first pick would easily be the given example, Ender's saga. Orson Scott Card wrote a fantastic series of books with a lot of intriguing food for thought spread throughout them, and they have nothing to do with his extreme political views.

If I had to come up with my own, it might be the novel Sword of Shannara from Terry Brooks. The Shannara series, though it eventually lost my interest, was great fantasy and represented some of my favorite books when I was in high school. But I can't get it out of my head that, while most of the books are original and great, the first novel in the series is a painfully obvious rip-off of the Lord of the Rings.
 

Queen Michael

has read 4,010 manga books
Jun 9, 2009
10,400
0
0
HalloHerrNoob said:
Mein Kampf. Okay, okay...just trolling.
[...] Also, and this might sound really out of place, all music from Richard Wagner who, lets face it, was pretty unlikeable and kinda crazy....than again you gotta be a little mad to write the stuff he wrote.
Malty Milk Whistle said:
Probably Wagner, his music was incredible and uplifting, but the man was a anti-semitic bastard, so there's that.
This thread is just full of ninjas. I'll have to go with Wagner anyway, though, because Ride of the Valkyries is extremely hummable.
 

shadowelancer

New member
Mar 18, 2009
378
0
0
the Warhammer mythos. It was good before GW changed how the Ork ships worked from "It works because they think it should" to "psychic-psychic-bendy-spoons"
 

Queen Michael

has read 4,010 manga books
Jun 9, 2009
10,400
0
0
shadowelancer said:
the Warhammer mythos. It was good before GW changed how the Ork ships worked from "It works because they think it should" to "psychic-psychic-bendy-spoons"
Just so you know, the OP did say that the work in question would stay the same. So this wouldn't really change the parts you don't like.
 

Zipa

batlh bIHeghjaj.
Dec 19, 2010
1,489
0
0
Star Wars after the original trilogy aka before ja ja binks.
 

Headdrivehardscrew

New member
Aug 22, 2011
1,660
0
0
Phlakes said:
Cheating a bit but I'd separate DNF/Colonial Marines from Gearbox (more than they already are, considering neither was completely theirs) so people stop using them as an excuse hate everything else they have done/will do.
Hmmmm. In that particular case, I'd first separate Gearbox from the money Sega gave them. And they're still soulless hacks.

OT: Michael Jackson and his complete oevre from the Jackson family. Shit started out bad, was hilarious in the late 1990, makes me puke out loud these days.

The Star Wars thing and Indiana Jones should have left the clutches of ye olde Lucas before Indiana Jones IV and the prequel crap. Dude's insane.

Most actors and off set microphones should also be kept separate. They're actors, not politicians or necessarily very smart people.

The Hobbit should be brought back to the roots of JRR Tolkien lore and ways of seeing and doing things. I don't like the Jackson / big spender approach to what was essentially a children's book. It's like putting a V12 900bhp engine into a tricycle. A 90 minute pre-Aladdin Disney approach could have done the trick nicely, not a twelve-hour 3D epic of trite bullshit and mindblowing nonsense.
 

saintdane05

New member
Aug 2, 2011
1,849
0
0
The Dark Knight Returns.
Frank Miller's work (especially his new stuff) is often sexist, racist bullshit that has his self insert fantasies go around punching people he doesn't like. It is also poorly drawn, too.

The Dark Knight Returns is what happens when Frank isn't crazy.
 

Gearhead mk2

New member
Aug 1, 2011
19,999
0
0
Mick P. said:
It's a sure sign of immaturity if you can't enjoy something for what it is. People, like everything else, are multifaceted things, and you are just cheating yourself of a thought provoking experience and being kind of a bigot while you are at it.
Not really. Separation of art and artist isn't important sometimes, but other times it can't be ignored. Look at the Ender's Game series. I LOVE those books, they are great classic sci-fi, but I cannot in good conscience buy them, at least not firsthand. Why? Because the guy who wrote them is a right-wing religious nutbar who donates some of his royalties to anti-gay organisations. Given that the Ender series has tolerance and communication as one of it's main themes, I was actually pretty shocked when I found out about the author's views. I refuse to give money to people like that. Sure, I miss out on some good sci-fi, but I'd rather have that then hand over my money to some homophobic fundie pastor who's probably so deep in the closet he can't find the door out.

And of course there's the times when separation of art and artist has no effect. Even ignoring all the awful things Chris Brown has done, his stuff ranges from meh to disgusting. I genuinely don't get why he was ever popular, even before he started smashing women's faces in.
 

Lilani

Sometimes known as CaitieLou
May 27, 2009
6,581
0
0
Mick P. said:
It's a sure sign of immaturity if you can't enjoy something for what it is. People, like everything else, are multifaceted things, and you are just cheating yourself of a thought provoking experience and being kind of a bigot while you are at it.
These days, "enjoying" someone's work often involves giving them money at some point. Whether you're seeing a movie, buying a comic, or buying a book the creator is going to end up with at least some portion of your money, or at the very least your contribution will add just a tiny tic to their success. The more money a bigot has, the more money they have to spend on bigoted things. So, by not partaking in their work, you're not contributing to whatever other causes they might put their money to work on.

For example, to this day I haven't eaten Chick Fil A once since it came out that their CEO was a homophobic dick who donates money to groups that lobby to keep gay marriage illegal and even to bring back sodomy laws. I realize my not buying from them isn't doing much, but I just don't want a single dime of my money to end up in his power to give to those hateful groups. If he's going to use his professional income to contribute to his personal political causes, then that makes my professional exchange of money personal as well. And I'm not going to contribute to that.