Here's another example of personal reinterpretation:
The song "Golden Brown" by the Stranglers is, on its face, a song about a man's sexual relationship with a woman. It is also metaphorically about his previous use of heroin. Textually, the song is comparing heroin use to an unhealthy sexual relationship, and is about the sadness both cause the narrator.
But the first time I heard the song, I couldn't pick up on all the lyrics and wasn't able to analyze the metaphor. What I did pick up on was the profound melancholy and the references to having been happy with someone. I heard it at a time when I was mourning the death of my grandmother. Because of that, to me, "Golden Brown" will always be a song about grief and loss, and about missing my grandmother.
That personal reinterpretation is in
flagrant contradiction to the plain meaning of the text. It literally required me not hearing the lyrics referring to the narrator's lover as a "temptress," because I sure as hell wouldn't have associated the song with my grandmother if I had heard those lyrics initially. But I didn't, so "Golden Brown" means something very different to me than it was ever intended.
But I would never argue that "Golden Brown" is about the death of my grandmother, or even that it's about grief and loss per se. That's my subjective reinterpretation. Textually, it's about a toxic relationship as a metaphor for heroin use.
Absolutely! The affection
Lower Decks has for
Star Trek is clear if you watch it with an open mind.
Lower Decks never mocks
Star Trek -- it affectionately ribs it for its sillier tropes, but the respect and love
Lower Decks has for
Star Trek is clear. In particular, you should note that the earnest feelings of enthusiasm for service with Starfleet that Tendi and Boimler have are never mocked or disrespected, and that a key character arc has been Mariner's personal growth manifesting as becoming a better officer.