Word of Saint Paul

Once a work has been published to general acclaim, speculation runs rampant. What did X really mean? How could Y do that? How are we supposed to interpret Z? For some reason or another, the primary creator keeps quiet, so when someone else with at least some authorative status to the work says something, it can be easily accepted and incorporated into the common view.

Do note that Word of Saint Paul might contain mistakes or misunderstandings of the original creator. Thus, they can easily carry the germ for future debates.

The dividing lines among Word of God, Word of Saint Paul and Word of Dante are somewhat fluid, but if it can be reasonably supposed that someone has had a role in creating the work, or a close personal relation to the primary creator, then it is probably Word of Saint Paul instead of Word of Dante.

In a film or TV series, typical sources of Word of Saint Paul are the primary actors, the cameraman or the score writer. In literature, it can be the author's spouse, the editor, or the publisher.

Named for Saint Paul the Apostle, who through diligent missionary and organisation work very much changed Christianity from a minor Jewish sect into a budding world religion, while clarifying lots of things to what Jesus said.

Examples of Word of Saint Paul include:

Fan Works

• After Naruto Veangance Revelaitons ended, the author's former stepbrother took control of his Twitter Account and revealed, among other things, that "da cooger" was going to be revealed as Tsunade under another name and that Sakura aged from 13 at the start to 16 at the end.

Film

• When interviewed about his role in Inception, Michael Caine asserted that any scene that included him was one guaranteed to be in the real world. This either explains the film or makes the Mind Screw even more confusing.
  • A costume designer stated that the last scene showing Cobb's children in fact used different children from an earlier scene and they were wearing slightly different shirts, which suggests that the final scene isn't a dream.
• In commentary on Scott Pilgrim Versus the World, Aubrey Plaza, who plays Julie, asserted that her character had (and possibly has) an unrequited crush on Scott, which is why she's so hostile to him. While Bryan Lee O'Malley, the creator of the original Scott Pilgrim comics, responded that Plaza was "making shit up", Edgar Wright, the director of the film adaptation, supported this view.
• The last Harry Potter film suggests a romance (or at least a pair of reciprocal one-sided crushes) between Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood, which is a widely fanon supported couple, but not one that happens in canon. Mathew Lewis, who plays Neville, asserted the two had a brief fling, but ended up marrying their canonical partners.
• Haruo Nakajima, the original actor who played Godzilla, believes that the Showa (1955-1975) incarnation of Godzilla is female. However, according to Toho Studios, all incarnations of Godzilla to date have been male (yes, even the remake version).
  • Zilla being male isn't just stated by Toho, but stated in-movie by Niko Tatopolous, who blatantly refers to Zilla as a he.
• Johnny Depp has said that Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean has syphilis.
  • And that he (Sparrow, not Depp) is bisexual.
• Samuel L. Jackson has stated that in Revenge of the Sith he, as Mace Windu, beat Palpatine. The novel implies that Sidious let himself lose, and the film leaves it ambiguous.
• Tim Curry has stated that Dr. Frank N. Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show is Pansexual.
• At the end of Dinner for One the two characters go upstairs and, it's implied, have sex and the actors said it was entirely innocent.
• Blade Runner: Harrison Ford has stated that he believed Decker to not be a replicant, as being one would undercut the theme of his character rediscovering his own humanity, and turns the man vs. machine climactic battle into a robot vs. robot fight. Ridley Scott on the other hand, claims that Deckard was always meant to be a replicant.
• George Clooney told Barbara Walters in an interview that he played Batman as gay in Batman and Robin.

"I was in a rubber suit and I had rubber nipples. I could have played Batman straight, but I made him gay."

Literature

• In Heirs of Alexandria, Christianity gained another early high-powered missionary and organiser in Hypatia, and thus split into two groups, based on different Words of Saint Paul: the Pauline branch and the Petrine branch.
• Virginia Heinlein shaped a lot of how Robert Heinlein was viewed by regulating which of his book were published, and how, according to Frederik Pohl.
• August Derleth shaped much of the popular understanding of the Lovecraft Mythos, and codified a lot of it.
  • Which has been hotly contested as Derleth split the mythos between what was basically good or bad (Elder Gods vs. The Great Old Ones) with the Elder Gods having been added after Lovecraft died. The main conflict is that the Elder Gods tend be fairly benign, while The Great Old Ones try to destroy humanity, often going away from the Blue and Orange Morality that makes up the mythos. In recent times, Derleth's concept of good and evil is becoming less common, with the Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game) tabletop game removing it from the 6th edition.
• To a similar degree, that is true of Lin Carter with the work of Robert E. Howard.
• In the Star Trek Deep Space Nine Relaunch books, Andrew Robinson, who played the character Elim Garak, has filled in much of Garak's mysterious and covert past.
• Christopher Tolkien is often this to JRR Tolkien when it comes to posthumous works. In particular, the published version of The Silmarillion is often assumed to be canon, when it is simply the most well-known interpretation of a number of unfinished and contradictory sources. On the whole, Christopher is pretty careful to separate actual Word of God from his own thoughts on paper.

Live Action TV

• According to Jim Parsons of The Big Bang Theory, his character Sheldon has Asperger's Syndrome.
• The finale of Stargate SG-1 contains a long Time Passes Montage with little to no dialogue throughout. Several of the actors involved have given their take on what happened—such as Amanda Tapping and Chris Judge saying they played their parts as if Sam and Teal'c had developed a relationship, and Michael Shanks saying the reason that Vala is crying and being consoled by Daniel in one scene is because she miscarried.

Theatre

• The actress who originated Patrice in 13 has said that her characters last name is Parker, though the script lists only first names for all the characters.

Video Games

• A developer for Infinity Ward has stated that Captain Price from Modern Warfare is the grandson of the original Captain Price. Also when Price's voice actor was asked about what happened to Price and what his motivations were he stated that Price was put in a gulag for two years at some point after Call of Duty 4 (instead of 5 as most players assumed, this means he was captured in 2014 rather than 2011) and that the experience left him rather unhinged and he is willing to do anything to win the war at this point.

Web Animation

• According to Vivienne's best friend Faustisse, who worked as one of the show's illustrators, Alastor of Hazbin Hotel is aromantic in addition to also being asexual. She has also stated that Husk is pansexual.

Western Animation

• Long before Candace and Jeremy were an established couple in Phineas and Ferb, Jeremy's voice actor commented that Jeremy liked Candace back. Of course, it really wasn't all that hard to figure out, but still.

Real Life

• St. Paul is the Trope Namer, and there's a lot of debate about whether his opinions, particularly those about women, reflect those of Jesus, considering that St. Paul never met Jesus (aside from a vision) and did not meet any of the original apostles until quite far into his career, and in fact started his career as a persecutor of Christians.
  • While we are on Christianity, there are also St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, who codified many of the basic tenets such as the trinity, a concept that is not found in the Bible itself.
• The most famous real-world example (apart from St. Paul) is probably Friedrich Engels. He worked closely with Karl Marx, and did a lot to popularise and explain Marx's theories. However, he didn't have Marx's philosophical schooling, and thus misunderstood several elements, and made those misunderstandings stick around. To Engels' credit, there was probably no one else around who could do even remotely such a good job.