Why Xenoblade Requires Literary Analysis (And Not Just Opinions)
Imagine three people looking at a statue:
- Person A: "I like it because it's shiny." (Very low adequacy; ignores the form, the history, and the artist's intent).
- Person B: "It is a 6-foot bronze casting from 1890." (More adequate, but "dead." It ignores the emotional impact and the social meaning).
- Person C: "It is a 6-foot bronze casting that uses its 'shining' quality to contrast with the dark theme of its era, reconciling the viewer's aesthetic joy with historical grief."
Person C is more concrete because it integrates what each view reveals while overcoming their limits. It doesn't throw away the "shiny" or the "bronze"; it gives them a reason to exist together.
---
You cannot find the "truth" of a work of art (Xenoblade) by sitting in a dark room alone with a book, writing notes, and editing your videos. You cannot reach truth through purely unchallenged subjectivity.
However, discussion is one powerful form of mediation, but not the only one.
The “other” is not only other critics.
- The “other” can appear as:
- contradictions in the text
- tensions in your own thinking
- historical context
For the philosopher Friedrich Hegel, truth is not a "thing" you find; it is a process you participate in.
1 - The Subjective Encounter (The Immediate)
When you first read a poem, experience a story or see a painting, your relationship is immediate.
You have a gut reaction or a personal interpretation. Hegel would say this is "subjective spirit." It feels true to you, but it’s abstract, because it hasn’t been tested against anything beyond itself.
It’s just one person’s perspective.
The famous "that's just your opinion, man!" idea comes to mind.
2 - The Critic and the Other Consciousness (The Mediation)
Enter the second critic. They have their own immediate relationship with the art, which likely contradicts yours.
- In a Formalist view, you might both just be "wrong" or "right" based on the text.
- In a Hegelian view, this conflict is necessary. By disagreeing with you, the other critic "negates" your subjective certainty. They force you to provide reasons.
3 - The Intersubjective Truth (The Synthesis)
Truth doesn’t sit between positions; it emerges through their collision.
When you and the other critic clash, you are forced to move away from "I just feel this" toward "The interpretation is made because of this and this."
A new, more concrete understanding emerges, which can itself be challenged again
Truth is ongoing, not final, and so is interpretation.
The "truer form" of the art is the Sublation (what Hegel refers to as "Aufhebung"):
You preserve the valid parts of both interpretations while moving to a higher level of understanding that neither of you could have reached alone.
And that new understanding doesn’t end the process; it becomes the next position to be challenged.
Why the Interaction Matters
Without mediation, the artwork remains only partially actualized in understanding. Insight emerges through the process of mutual correction and expansion
Not midpoint but a movement.
By engaging in a literary analysis, you transform the art into a dynamic process. Hegel wants to see how two opposing views (your view vs. the other person's view) are actually two halves of a larger, more complex truth. Even if you argue for contradictory angles.
Hegel is not saying:
>
No. Not all interpretations are made equal.
He’s saying:
>
In short:
- person ↔ artwork
- person ↔ other person
- interpretation ↔ contradiction
Truth is not contained in the artwork alone, nor in the individual viewer, but emerges through a process of mediated engagement between you, the artwork, and the perspectives that challenge you.
A Hegelian approach to literary critique doesn't "win" an argument by proving the other person wrong; they "win" by creating a theory so large, inclusive, and sophisticated that it actually explains why the other person thought they were right in the first place.