Okay. So! Because there's more to this topic than "Are they or aren't they?", I'm going to talk about Sam and Max's childhoods for a bit. Or more precisely, some conclusions I've drawn from looking at various bits of debatable and not-so-debatable canon. [Full Disclosure: A generous chunk of these thoughts were sparked by content posted on the Sam and Max Character Pages for the Sam & Max Wiki.]
I begin with a gratuitous image of their aforementioned soft, marketable baby-styled selves:
Aww, how cute.
The relevance? Well, "Terror on the Tanbark" is about young Max's attempted takedown of a bully who beat up Sam. The implications become more substantiated if this quote from an old interview (with Steve Purcell, who's answering as both Sam and Max) is thrown on the table:
How and where did you both meet?
Sam: In the 12th Century I was a club-footed nomadic stone mason and Max was a bog person. Our colorful misadventures are the stuff of many a strolling medieval troubadour.
Max: Really? Cause I thought we met in third grade when I stole back your sack lunch from that kindergartener that beat the snot out of you.
Sam: Oh yeah. I forgot.
So it seems Sam was bullied quite a bit as a child. And once he had Max for a friend, Sam relied on Max to pick his fights for him on at least a few occasions. Possibly more.
Also: In Chariots of the Dogs, we find out that little Sam will follow Max's lead in just about anything, and that Max has no qualms about stepping all over Sam if it means getting his way. Sam was also once
a computer geek
, a trait commonly (if stereotypically) associated with introversion.
My conjecture? Max is and has always been comfortable in his own skin -- something a picked-on kid like Sam can admire. And even though Max was arguably a worse friend to Sam back then, their friendship was still established by an event where one protected the other. I tend to imagine kid!Max attacking Sam's provocateurs with a mindset akin to a sibling who won't stand anyone but himself messing with his kid brother. The fact that Max has never cared what anyone else thinks also leaves room for young Sam to be himself in ways he probably can't around other people.
A lot of this carries into adulthood. Sam is much more comfortable with himself and calls all the shots now, but he still admires -- and is constantly cracked up by -- Max's lack of inhibitions. He's also not without some insecurities, and with few exceptions can't totally ignore his instinct to please others. (He is a dog after all. A six-foot tall talking dog who walks upright, but still.) Max's end of the relationship has evolved from just hanging around Sam because they share the same interests to actually caring about Sam's opinions ... at least most of the time. And whatever else happens, their loyalty to each other never falters when it absolutely needs to count for something.
All of this is to say that Sam and Max have always been more alike than not; and in some ways their friendship might have acted as a means of bringing latent character traits to the surface. But there's enough differences to leave room for the kind of "rubbing off on each other" which can only come with two people spending so much time together. Which traits were changed or brought about which, on the other hand, is a matter for debate.
Aaannnnd now I've written an essay too. Yikes. I cannot claim the same finesse as Omegabegin in this area, but hey, I've gotta start somewhere. ^^;
I liked your essay. It had pictures! Also, there really isn't any "are they aren't they" debate. They aren't. It's preeeeeeeetty established. I'm also getting a little uncomfortable at some of the language that is starting to be used. I don't think you guys mean anything by it, but can we please try to avoid terms like "homo" or "gay for each other"? Yeah, maybe I'm a little sensitive, but if you'll humor me I'll give you a cookie!
I don't think you guys mean anything by it, but can we please try to avoid terms like "homo" or "gay for each other"? Yeah, maybe I'm a little sensitive, but if you'll humor me I'll give you a cookie!
I'm very sorry to ask about it just when you want people to stop talking about it... But what's wrong with the word "homo"? Isn't that the normal, non-slang way to say it? I might be influenced by French use of "homo" and "hétéro" to mean gay and straight respectively, but I'm confused as what would be offensive about it.
Homo is a bit dehumanising. Gay is the non-offensive term.
I'd also like people to stop using "gay" to mean "in a relationship with each other." Two friends of the same gender can be gay and not attracted to each other. I could believe in Max being gay and not realising it, though that I doubt it, but I can't believe in him being attracted to Sam. He'd probably find that gross no matter the circumstances.
So it seems Sam was bullied quite a bit as a child. And once he had Max for a friend, Sam relied on Max to pick his fights for him on at least a few occasions. Possibly more.
Also: In Chariots of the Dogs, we find out that little Sam will follow Max's lead in just about anything, and that Max has no qualms about stepping all over Sam if it means getting his way. Sam was also once a computer geek, a trait commonly (if stereotypically) associated with introversion.
My conjecture? Max is and has always been comfortable in his own skin -- something a picked-on kid like Sam can admire. And even though Max was arguably a worse friend to Sam back then, their friendship was still established by an event where one protected the other. I tend to imagine kid!Max attacking Sam's provocateurs with a mindset akin to a sibling who won't stand anyone but himself messing with his kid brother. The fact that Max has never cared what anyone else thinks also leaves room for young Sam to be himself in ways he probably can't around other people.
I completely agree. You've said what I think about their childhoods much better than I could.
Edit: Never mind. Shwoo already explained it. And my explanation was long-winded and included examples of other offensive words that probably didn't need to be explained.
I don't think you guys mean anything by it, but can we please try to avoid terms like "homo" or "gay for each other"? Yeah, maybe I'm a little sensitive, but if you'll humor me I'll give you a cookie!
Sorry madm'. I used "no homo" to mock splash's offensive use of vocabulary. Really. I'm reading back on my comments and I feel that I may have come off as homophobic. I'm sorry if I seem like that.
i doubt it'll make me look better, but i'm gay myself so...
I suppose my reasonings is that I'm in a bros-for-life relationship with a very dear friend. People often mistake us for a couple and I find that somewhat uncomfortable and offensive frankly. It doesn't do so much with the idea of gayness itself. It has to do with stuff that runs deep in the skin, so that's just me.
I was never single.... but I have a friend that is always single.. If I had not married and had kids I could totally see myself having the same kind of symbiotic relationship with my friend hanging out and always together.... I still say they are more like brothers.... and their relationship is more of the "you are the only other person alive that understands me
" kind of thing.
If Steve didn't intend for them to come across as gay, then they aren't. It's as simple as that.
This is actually not true! What you're putting into your characters is usually far more than what you intend - at least when you're inspired.
Having said that, none of the actions of either Sam or Max indicate they're sexually interested in the other - all I recall is a low number of innuendos (like in S1E4), which didn't live further than a few frames / seconds.
I'm also getting a little uncomfortable at some of the language that is starting to be used. I don't think you guys mean anything by it, but can we please try to avoid terms like "homo" or "gay for each other"? Yeah, maybe I'm a little sensitive, but if you'll humor me I'll give you a cookie!
Mmmmkay, but what's the politically correct word, then? I thought "gay" was OK.
(Wait. Did I just write "politically correct" in a Sam&Max forum? )
Idk, is that offensive? I never really thought it was.
Also, I'd say gay is a lot better than homosexual because homosexual implies sex, therefore people use the word for scare tactics. And that's frankly not cool.
Also, I'd say gay is a lot better than homosexual because homosexual implies sex, therefore people use the word for scare tactics. And that's frankly not cool.
Homosexual doesn't imply sex. Not sexual relationships, I mean. It comes from "homo" (the same) and sex as in biological sex. "Heterosexual" => different sexes. That's all there is to it. I do find "androphile" and "gynephile" less confusing tought. And bi of course is self-explanatory. I usually say I like guys because I can never remember if I'm homosexual or heterosexual. You need to take your biological sex (figuratively), the people you're attracted to's sex, and compare the two. It's three different steps instead of just one ("who am I attracted to?").
"Gay for each other" sounds weird to me. I'm not "straight for so and so", I'm just straight. It's kind of turning sexual identity into a type of feeling or something. That's a bit weird. But I can't judge easily what's offensive or not in another language.
This is actually not true! What you're putting into your characters is usually far more than what you intend - at least when you're inspired.
This is just like the Asimov short story "The Immortal Bard". For those too lazy to follow the link, a scientist brings Shakespeare into the present, where the Bard enrolls himself in a night class studying his own works. The teacher flunks him.
This is supposedly based on Azimov's own experience when an English professor went on and on about the deeper meanings of one of Azimov's stories. After the class Azimov explained who he was and told the professor that he was full of it, presumably politely. The professor stared at him then said, "What do you know? You're the author."
Suffice to say people can read different things into something, but that doesn't mean the author didn't have a clear idea of what he was trying to achieve in the first place.
I remember my literature classes stresses "don't assume that the author's interpretation is the "right one"/ the only valid one". Not only can you put a lot of meaning subconsciously, but once something is published, it "belongs" to the readers. I very much agree with Hugo on this.
From a 1878 speech, translated by yours truly:
Before it is published, the author has undeniable, unlimited rights over his work. But as soon as it is published, the author isn't its owner anymore. The other person takes possession of it, call it what you will: human spirit, public domain, society. [...] Your blood heir inherits your blood. The writer, as a writer, only has one heir, that's the spirit heir, the human spirit, the public domain. This is the absolute truth.
I believe that when you share your story, it stops belonging to you. Everyone owns its own version of it, and it's part of them. So I don't think there is a "right" and a "wrong" answer when you analyze a story. There might be if you only care about analyzing the author's story... But what's the point? So many more meanings can appear after the author's death. It can become a symbol for something that didn't even exist at the time.
I'm all for taking the author's opinion and interpretation into account though.
No, I understand that. That's why I said the author probably has a clear idea of what they were trying to achieve. At the same time it bugs the hell out of me when people dissect something to death. When they don't talk about the characters and their actions and motivations but what they "symbolized". It never seems to occur to them that a writer might be trying to create "real" characters who live and breathe and fart. No, they must symbolize lust or angst or the national deficit or something :mad:
I remember my history teacher telling us the old chestnut about how The Wizard of Oz was all about bimetallism, because she wore silver slippers on the yellow brick road and walked to the Emerald City. After class I explained to my teacher that that metaphor was bogus; Baum never wrote anything like that into the story. She smiled at me and basically said I didn't notice it because I was a child when I read the story.
I said, "No, it doesn't work because the Emerald City isn't actually all green in the book. It just looks that way because everyone is forced to wear green-tinted glasses before entering the city under the ruse of "protecting their eyes from the city's overwhelming glare". When they debunk the Wizard everyone finally takes their glasses off and see the truth. It's not 'til later that the city really does become covered in gems. Also Baum did include allegory in his later stories and it was really, really obvious."
She was an awesome teacher so admitted that I was probably right. I love people who can admit when they're wrong
Hehe, I remember in high school a bunch of student told my literary teacher about how authors didn't care about that kind of stuff we were analyzing and it was stupid to do so, and the next day the teacher came to class with a book that had copies of the notes of some French author - can't remember who - and we were all completely taken aback. Every single word was super analyzed and replaced with one that served the message better, etc.
Bottom line is, it really depends. Some authors will intend deep meanings, some won't, and you can over-analyze things but you can also miss things completely.
What I do agree with is that if the author says "I didn't do that intentionally", we should believe them. We can still interpret it that way, it's there, and they might have done it without noticing, but let's not call them filthy liars.
Actually, if you go down to the core of the message, Sam is the national deficit. See, Max is the exuberant and thoughtless actions that LEADS to the deficit. Notice how he seems very dualistic, mentally fractured. This obviously is meant to show how the problems that cause the national deficit are caused by mutliple people, but in this combined into a single problem, leading to the split. Sam and Max spend all of their time together because Sam is the deficit, they CAN'T be separated because they can't exist without each other.
Notice how Sam seems to try and reign in Max's actions, notice how he seems to prefer the simpler things in life? The deficit itself is a thing that pulls back our actions, it limits us, it makes us somewhat less exuberant. Notice how, in the finale of Season Two, they go to Hell and have statues there in their honor. Perhaps the deficit and the actions of various parties that cause it cause far greater evils than we can realize? Notice how, in the next episode, the caninification of the deficit(Sam) is suddenly left without the problems that cause it to exist. Now he seems lost, doesn't he? He feels like a very part of his being is stripped away, and suddenly becomes violent, erratic. This is what happens when you take away the creature comforts of government spending, you find yourself with an uncomfortable period of adjustment and anger from certain parties. The deficit will fight to exist.
The full message probably won't be clear until the finale of The Devil's Playhouse. After all, this season is far more story-centric. That means that the financial messages offered by the Sam and Max universe are going to become less and less subdued as time goes on, it's the natural progression of things.
@avistew I didn't say the author isn't going for an effect; I meant people try to force their ideas onto a text without trying to understand it as a whole first. I had a friend read a story for me about a young woman traveling to an island. The story is basically the conversation between the girl and the boatman on the row over. She told me that my description of that trip reminded her almost exactly of the time she visited an island off the coast of Ireland. The misty, quiet day and sense of mystery and expectation matched her experience almost perfectly. She asked if I'd had something like that in mind when I wrote the story and I told her no, I've never even been to Ireland. It was a wonderful to feel that my story had connected so deeply to her personal experience, though.
At the same time if someone told me the water they were crossing was actually the River Styx, and the boatman was carrying the young woman across to the afterlife I would tell them flat out that wasn't so. My story was meant to be very much about life, and my characters were never named, but to me they are still very much real and alive with back stories I discovered as I was writing. I admit that I don't know everything about the two of them, I'm always learning new things about my characters as I write for them, but what I do know about I am personally very definite on. Not everything necessarily gets into a story either. Most of the time my notes are twice as long as the story itself; very rarely do I hammer it out as I write it. I try to give my reader the minimum of information they need to understand the story since I think there is a beauty in efficiency, and it opens up more to the readers imagination.
I'm not interested in writing "literature", but that doesn't mean I don't want to challenge my readers either. When a book takes pains to spell everything out for me I get bored; I figure my readers might be the same way.
I totally agree with you. I was just trying to show how it goes both way.
Incidentally, my mother does that. Correct you on stuff. When she first met Ian he talked about taking the bus in winter and she corrected him saying that buses didn't run in winter because of the snow. He then talked about something else Canadian and there again she interrupted him to tell him what he actually meant.
It's extremely frustrating and I should know, I grew up with that.
God I hate that. When I first moved to California people did that to me constantly. That's why after a couple years I gave up talking about growing up overseas, or my past at all. It just seemed impossible to convince them I wasn't a liar, so I decided to let people assume whatever they wanted. You can try your hardest to make a "statement" or create a persona for yourself, but in the end there really is only so much you can do to control other people's perception of you. I decided that what other people think of me doesn't really matter. Their thoughts don't change my intrinsic nature, so why worry about it? If I was ever going to change their minds I could only do it through action, not words.
Okay, so that's not technically getting the thread back on track, but it is talking about our relationships as individuals with society so it's at least heading in the right direction.
Okay, so that's not technically getting the thread back on track, but it is talking about our relationships as individuals with society so it's at least heading in the right direction.
I'll help!
So, do you guys think Sam and Max are gay?
You can try your hardest to make a "statement" or create a persona for yourself, but in the end there really is only so much you can do to control other people's perception of you. I decided that what other people think of me doesn't really matter. Their thoughts don't change my intrinsic nature, so why worry about it?
Good for you. I agree with that.
It's hard not to care when your parents don't believe a word you say and you're forced to live with them, though.
Fortunately, that kind of situation is only temporary.
Suffice to say people can read different things into something, but that doesn't mean the author didn't have a clear idea of what he was trying to achieve in the first place.
What I do agree with is that if the author says "I didn't do that intentionally", we should believe them. We can still interpret it that way, it's there, and they might have done it without noticing, but let's not call them filthy liars.
I feel we're mixing up two different parts of the "process", at least a little bit. It's one thing how the writer shapes characters - usually he has a clear idea where they're going, but sometimes something unintentional slips in, and, especially in a long story, the characters may stray from what the author has intended for them originally. The best example here is probably Tolstoy and Anna Karenina - when he was asked why he killed her, he replied: "I didn't kill her. She died."
Reader's interpretation is quite another story. It depends on so many things - personality, maturity, current life situation, actual mood, etc. This is actually a great thing about literature (or any form of art), but it can be quite painful when a specific interpretation is taught as universal truth - both examples (the Asimov story and the Oz story) demonstrate this very well.
To get back from quite a long curve, I do think it's possible to create a gay character duo, without consciously intending it, like a kind of secret confession - however, I'm sure it's not the case with Sam and Max.
Comments
I begin with a gratuitous image of their aforementioned soft, marketable baby-styled selves:
Aww, how cute.
The relevance? Well, "Terror on the Tanbark" is about young Max's attempted takedown of a bully who beat up Sam. The implications become more substantiated if this quote from an old interview (with Steve Purcell, who's answering as both Sam and Max) is thrown on the table:
So it seems Sam was bullied quite a bit as a child. And once he had Max for a friend, Sam relied on Max to pick his fights for him on at least a few occasions. Possibly more.
Also: In Chariots of the Dogs, we find out that little Sam will follow Max's lead in just about anything, and that Max has no qualms about stepping all over Sam if it means getting his way. Sam was also once
My conjecture? Max is and has always been comfortable in his own skin -- something a picked-on kid like Sam can admire. And even though Max was arguably a worse friend to Sam back then, their friendship was still established by an event where one protected the other. I tend to imagine kid!Max attacking Sam's provocateurs with a mindset akin to a sibling who won't stand anyone but himself messing with his kid brother. The fact that Max has never cared what anyone else thinks also leaves room for young Sam to be himself in ways he probably can't around other people.
A lot of this carries into adulthood. Sam is much more comfortable with himself and calls all the shots now, but he still admires -- and is constantly cracked up by -- Max's lack of inhibitions. He's also not without some insecurities, and with few exceptions can't totally ignore his instinct to please others. (He is a dog after all. A six-foot tall talking dog who walks upright, but still.) Max's end of the relationship has evolved from just hanging around Sam because they share the same interests to actually caring about Sam's opinions ... at least most of the time. And whatever else happens, their loyalty to each other never falters when it absolutely needs to count for something.
All of this is to say that Sam and Max have always been more alike than not; and in some ways their friendship might have acted as a means of bringing latent character traits to the surface. But there's enough differences to leave room for the kind of "rubbing off on each other" which can only come with two people spending so much time together. Which traits were changed or brought about which, on the other hand, is a matter for debate.
Aaannnnd now I've written an essay too. Yikes. I cannot claim the same finesse as Omegabegin in this area, but hey, I've gotta start somewhere. ^^;
You sell yourself short. I love these well-written posts. ::giggles with glee::
And again! I should get back to working on the Wiki! >_< Might as well tonight since I have nothing to do tomorrow!
I'm very sorry to ask about it just when you want people to stop talking about it... But what's wrong with the word "homo"? Isn't that the normal, non-slang way to say it? I might be influenced by French use of "homo" and "hétéro" to mean gay and straight respectively, but I'm confused as what would be offensive about it.
I'd also like people to stop using "gay" to mean "in a relationship with each other." Two friends of the same gender can be gay and not attracted to each other. I could believe in Max being gay and not realising it, though that I doubt it, but I can't believe in him being attracted to Sam. He'd probably find that gross no matter the circumstances. I completely agree. You've said what I think about their childhoods much better than I could.
Sorry madm'. I used "no homo" to mock splash's offensive use of vocabulary. Really. I'm reading back on my comments and I feel that I may have come off as homophobic. I'm sorry if I seem like that.
I suppose my reasonings is that I'm in a bros-for-life relationship with a very dear friend. People often mistake us for a couple and I find that somewhat uncomfortable and offensive frankly. It doesn't do so much with the idea of gayness itself. It has to do with stuff that runs deep in the skin, so that's just me.
" kind of thing.
This is actually not true! What you're putting into your characters is usually far more than what you intend - at least when you're inspired.
Having said that, none of the actions of either Sam or Max indicate they're sexually interested in the other - all I recall is a low number of innuendos (like in S1E4), which didn't live further than a few frames / seconds.
Mmmmkay, but what's the politically correct word, then? I thought "gay" was OK.
(Wait. Did I just write "politically correct" in a Sam&Max forum?
Also, I'd say gay is a lot better than homosexual because homosexual implies sex, therefore people use the word for scare tactics. And that's frankly not cool.
Homosexual doesn't imply sex. Not sexual relationships, I mean. It comes from "homo" (the same) and sex as in biological sex. "Heterosexual" => different sexes. That's all there is to it. I do find "androphile" and "gynephile" less confusing tought. And bi of course is self-explanatory. I usually say I like guys because I can never remember if I'm homosexual or heterosexual. You need to take your biological sex (figuratively), the people you're attracted to's sex, and compare the two. It's three different steps instead of just one ("who am I attracted to?").
"Gay for each other" sounds weird to me. I'm not "straight for so and so", I'm just straight. It's kind of turning sexual identity into a type of feeling or something. That's a bit weird. But I can't judge easily what's offensive or not in another language.
Also, I'm so sorry for starting this >.>
This is just like the Asimov short story "The Immortal Bard". For those too lazy to follow the link, a scientist brings Shakespeare into the present, where the Bard enrolls himself in a night class studying his own works. The teacher flunks him.
This is supposedly based on Azimov's own experience when an English professor went on and on about the deeper meanings of one of Azimov's stories. After the class Azimov explained who he was and told the professor that he was full of it, presumably politely. The professor stared at him then said, "What do you know? You're the author."
Suffice to say people can read different things into something, but that doesn't mean the author didn't have a clear idea of what he was trying to achieve in the first place.
From a 1878 speech, translated by yours truly:
I believe that when you share your story, it stops belonging to you. Everyone owns its own version of it, and it's part of them. So I don't think there is a "right" and a "wrong" answer when you analyze a story. There might be if you only care about analyzing the author's story... But what's the point? So many more meanings can appear after the author's death. It can become a symbol for something that didn't even exist at the time.
I'm all for taking the author's opinion and interpretation into account though.
I remember my history teacher telling us the old chestnut about how The Wizard of Oz was all about bimetallism, because she wore silver slippers on the yellow brick road and walked to the Emerald City. After class I explained to my teacher that that metaphor was bogus; Baum never wrote anything like that into the story. She smiled at me and basically said I didn't notice it because I was a child when I read the story.
I said, "No, it doesn't work because the Emerald City isn't actually all green in the book. It just looks that way because everyone is forced to wear green-tinted glasses before entering the city under the ruse of "protecting their eyes from the city's overwhelming glare". When they debunk the Wizard everyone finally takes their glasses off and see the truth. It's not 'til later that the city really does become covered in gems. Also Baum did include allegory in his later stories and it was really, really obvious."
She was an awesome teacher so admitted that I was probably right. I love people who can admit when they're wrong
Bottom line is, it really depends. Some authors will intend deep meanings, some won't, and you can over-analyze things but you can also miss things completely.
What I do agree with is that if the author says "I didn't do that intentionally", we should believe them. We can still interpret it that way, it's there, and they might have done it without noticing, but let's not call them filthy liars.
*Claps*
Nonsense, I loved it! Visual cues are always an excellent addition to any essay as well; good job on that
We should so start a coalition of essay writers.
Notice how Sam seems to try and reign in Max's actions, notice how he seems to prefer the simpler things in life? The deficit itself is a thing that pulls back our actions, it limits us, it makes us somewhat less exuberant. Notice how, in the finale of Season Two, they go to Hell and have statues there in their honor. Perhaps the deficit and the actions of various parties that cause it cause far greater evils than we can realize? Notice how, in the next episode, the caninification of the deficit(Sam) is suddenly left without the problems that cause it to exist. Now he seems lost, doesn't he? He feels like a very part of his being is stripped away, and suddenly becomes violent, erratic. This is what happens when you take away the creature comforts of government spending, you find yourself with an uncomfortable period of adjustment and anger from certain parties. The deficit will fight to exist.
The full message probably won't be clear until the finale of The Devil's Playhouse. After all, this season is far more story-centric. That means that the financial messages offered by the Sam and Max universe are going to become less and less subdued as time goes on, it's the natural progression of things.
At the same time if someone told me the water they were crossing was actually the River Styx, and the boatman was carrying the young woman across to the afterlife I would tell them flat out that wasn't so. My story was meant to be very much about life, and my characters were never named, but to me they are still very much real and alive with back stories I discovered as I was writing. I admit that I don't know everything about the two of them, I'm always learning new things about my characters as I write for them, but what I do know about I am personally very definite on. Not everything necessarily gets into a story either. Most of the time my notes are twice as long as the story itself; very rarely do I hammer it out as I write it. I try to give my reader the minimum of information they need to understand the story since I think there is a beauty in efficiency, and it opens up more to the readers imagination.
I'm not interested in writing "literature", but that doesn't mean I don't want to challenge my readers either. When a book takes pains to spell everything out for me I get bored; I figure my readers might be the same way.
Symbolizing the national deficit?
Incidentally, my mother does that. Correct you on stuff. When she first met Ian he talked about taking the bus in winter and she corrected him saying that buses didn't run in winter because of the snow. He then talked about something else Canadian and there again she interrupted him to tell him what he actually meant.
It's extremely frustrating and I should know, I grew up with that.
need I say more?
Okay, so that's not technically getting the thread back on track, but it is talking about our relationships as individuals with society so it's at least heading in the right direction.
So, do you guys think Sam and Max are gay?
Good for you. I agree with that.
It's hard not to care when your parents don't believe a word you say and you're forced to live with them, though.
Fortunately, that kind of situation is only temporary.
Who wants to tell him?:mad:
THIS THREADis NOT ABOUT THEM BEING GAY! WHY DO YOU PEOPEL NOT UNDERSTAND THAT?
I feel we're mixing up two different parts of the "process", at least a little bit. It's one thing how the writer shapes characters - usually he has a clear idea where they're going, but sometimes something unintentional slips in, and, especially in a long story, the characters may stray from what the author has intended for them originally. The best example here is probably Tolstoy and Anna Karenina - when he was asked why he killed her, he replied: "I didn't kill her. She died."
Reader's interpretation is quite another story. It depends on so many things - personality, maturity, current life situation, actual mood, etc. This is actually a great thing about literature (or any form of art), but it can be quite painful when a specific interpretation is taught as universal truth - both examples (the Asimov story and the Oz story) demonstrate this very well.
To get back from quite a long curve, I do think it's possible to create a gay character duo, without consciously intending it, like a kind of secret confession - however, I'm sure it's not the case with Sam and Max.