To me, the < and > redirections never point toward or away from the command. Rather, they point into or out of the file. And really that's because they do: like

To me, the < and > redirections never point toward or away from the command. Rather, they point into or out of the file. And really that's because they do: like, >file is really 1>file, and <file is really 0<file. I think if your intuition on how redirections work is based on whether it points at the command it's worth rethinking how you look at redirections.