" “I don’t like the show.” is fair. But “the show is morally and artistically horrible because it never did [thing it actually did in a slightly different narrative circumstance]” is counterproductive. " I'm gonna need that sentence printed on a shirt or tattoo'd on my skin :'D
I do get frustrated sometimes. I love this story and so I want for there to be robustly critical conversation about it, all of it. I completely believe that media criticism is vital in and of itself, and can be at least as valuable as a way of gaining understanding of real world issues. So it disappoints me when fan commentary is written in the language of someone who’s capable of engaging with the issues the books and/or show raise, and then ends up being a refusal to engage, through selective denial of the text, or gleeful invention and attribution of motives, or whatever.
When…you can just not like something? You can dislike something on its own merits, or for absolutely no reason at all? You can make a judgment that weighs the pros and cons of a certain stance without outright denying the existence of countervailing evidence? You can change your mind or say “I’m not sure” or express an opinion that has nothing to do with the show or whatever? It’s really okay. There’s plenty of vital commentary - some of it quite critical - that isn’t D&D ARE THRALLS OF THE GREAT OTHER AND ALL OF THEIR DEEDS MUST BE EXPOSED AS TEMPTATIONS TO THE DARKNESS. You know? (I mean, obviously you know. But sometimes I wonder if people generally know.)