Death of the Author

Introduction

"Death of the Author is a concept from mid-20th Century literary criticism; it holds that an author's intentions and biographical facts (the author's politics, religion, etc) should hold no special weight in determining an interpretation of their writing. This is usually understood as meaning that a writer's views about their own work are no more or less valid than the interpretations of any given reader. Intentions are one thing. What was actually accomplished might be something very different. The logic behind the concept is fairly simple: Books are meant to be read, not written, so the ways readers interpret them are as important and "real" as the author's intention. On the flip side, a lot of authors are unavailable or unwilling to comment on their intentions, and even when they are, they don't always make choices for reasons that make sense or are easily explainable to others (or sometimes even to themselves)."

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How to tell what is and what isn't Death of the Author

The authors statement's should only be used if it consistent with the story makes sense with the verse.

An Example of author statements that shouldn't be used is Godzilla being able to destory all of IDW, when that wouldn't be consistent with the IDW Comics and the authors of the Godzilla IDW Comics have made ridiculous statements before. Another example is Stan Lee stating Galactus is the strongest Marvel character when this isn't consistent with the comics at all.

Author statements that can be used are statements like ZUN calling Hecatia the strongest as there's characters that reaffirm it in the series and nothing goes against this statement.

One should also watch out for wording like "to my knowledge", "probably", and "if you want it to be" as these are normally a dismissive comment from the author to get a person off their back about questions they frankly do not care about.

Conclusion

Death of the Author is a important thing one should watch out for. One should only use author statements if they are consistent and make sense with the story and if the author does not make statements that would be completely absurd. Otherwise, it should be deemed Death of the Author and should not be used.