If you want to rant on people interpreting art as metaphorical/allegorical, at least consider if the author intended it to be such. At least then you might be able to muster some credibility.
Which I'd consider bad news for the argument because Lord of the Rings is, despite Tolkien's opposition deeply allegorical. Whether it's the machinist east vs the pastoral West, the ideal Catholic community, the return of the King as a Christ like figure, and so on. It's at times painfully obvious.
You, just like Tolkien appear to have a conservative attitude towards fiction which always tends to deny obvious, often political intent in fiction because from your point of view, which I wouldn't even agree with, it allegedly diminishes art.
Tolkien was quite right that his work was not allegorical. He created a fantasy world to explore themes that were important to him. It was not some coded message where Sauron is Hitler or something. He rightly despised such allegories, as do I.
> You, just like Tolkien appear to have a conservative attitude towards fiction which always tends to deny obvious, often political intent in fiction because from your point of view, which I wouldn't even agree with, it allegedly diminishes art.
I deny attempts to twist the plain meaning of words to fit a narrative. Tolkien created a fictional world to tell a story and convey certain universal truths he felt were important. Frank Herbert did the same. Some people, however, would like to twist that to fit a political agenda. Yes, for some strange reason I find that appalling. It doesn't simply diminish the art... it destroys it. As many are wont to say in such situations: go make your own art.
Honestly I don’t really care if anyone wrote an allegory or not, but how is this different than writing an allegory? If I had to define what writing an allegory in fiction means I would probably use this exact phrasing.
This should tell you and all english (and german) teachers enough. Not everything has a deep meaning, and certainly the protagonist isn't sad because he has blue curtains.
Honestly, writing literature is not dissimilar to programming in this way. You have to consider the structure of your piece as you build it, and then even if you do so you might create unintended behaviors.
"I wrote the Dune series because I had this idea that charismatic leaders ought to come with a warning label on their forehead: 'may be dangerous to your health'. I mean I think the most dangerous president we've had or one of the most dangerous at least, not because he was a bad guy but because people didn't question him... one of the most dangerous presidents that we've had in this century was Jack Kennedy because people said 'Yes sir, Mr. Charismatic leader, what'll we do next?' And we wound up in Vietnam. People don't realize that he was one of the major moving forces getting us into Vietnam."
And further: "And I think probably the most valuable president of this century was Richard Nixon because he taught us to distrust government... and he did it by example... which is the best kind of teaching."
He openly talks about wanting to know why people drank the koo-aid or said Sieg Heil and murdered Jews and Gypsies... but at no time does he say his work was allegorical. These were simply ideas he wanted to convey in his work.
It's funny, though... at around the 30:00 mark in that second link there was someone very offended at his writing of gay characters, saying that his writing of them would only lead to violence against gays. His response was insightful, truthful, and pure comedy gold... but the kid seemed very disturbed. He, like some in this thread, seemed to read into the book what he wanted to read, and was incensed when no one else agreed with him. :D
One last note: That second link was almost certainly a great talk, but the UCLA's recording is clearly damaged. The recording cuts out so much that it is extremely aggravating to try to listen to it.