> We cannot know what a character on TV is actually thinking—that’s the very purpose of acting, to allow us as much access into a character’s thoughts as their

> We cannot know what a character on TV is actually thinking—that’s the very purpose of acting, to allow us as much access into a character’s thoughts as their expressiveness allows. Novels, on the other hand, are an intrinsic medium, wherein consciousness is directly accessible. The writer can lay bare the contents of a skull to a reader. The author appears to have an idealistic and mistaken idea of how semantics work. The author implies that words have absolute meaning, and therefore one's thoughts can be made "directly accessible" through words alone. This is clearly false. Everyone has their own semantics. Communicating clearly, minimizing ambiguity, is a non-trivial task. It is ridiculous to assert that all authors are somehow more capable of this than any actor, if indeed this is even their goal (beyond entertainment).