I do think it’s a bit odd that he holds criticism of the work at this point to be categorically unfair, since he seems perfectly happy to accept praise.
In an early author’s note that has since been removed (the one that pbasvezrq Dhveeryy vf gur ningne bs Ibyqrzbeg), EY mentioned having to be meak about accepting praise prior to revealing that there is a certain spell on the Pioneer Plaque, which seems somewhat similar to (if weaker than) what he said in the rant, about the criticism not being wholely warranted until people see where the story winds up. At the same time, he opened the rant by stating that if people overwhelmingly missed the point, it reflects on his skill as an author. (Also from the redacted author’s notes are counterpoints to this, where he shows exasperation that people fail at understanding things like “No, I do not, in fact, advocate what the villain does”.)
I believe it was stated that those notes were redacted because it was pointed out to him that readers like to self-handycap their analysis of the story for sake of suspense (aka why there are still loads of people convinced Quirrell != Voldemort), or restrict their understanding to that of the viewpoint character, etc. With this in mind, he’s kinda had to deal with it from all sides: praise/criticism/speculation/etc are all littered with people missing something crutial, and he seems to have given up on pointing this out at some point in the middle of the fic, at least until the shitstorm that spawned around these last few chapters.
In an early author’s note that has since been removed (the one that pbasvezrq Dhveeryy vf gur ningne bs Ibyqrzbeg), EY mentioned having to be meak about accepting praise prior to revealing that there is a certain spell on the Pioneer Plaque, which seems somewhat similar to (if weaker than) what he said in the rant, about the criticism not being wholely warranted until people see where the story winds up. At the same time, he opened the rant by stating that if people overwhelmingly missed the point, it reflects on his skill as an author. (Also from the redacted author’s notes are counterpoints to this, where he shows exasperation that people fail at understanding things like “No, I do not, in fact, advocate what the villain does”.)
I believe it was stated that those notes were redacted because it was pointed out to him that readers like to self-handycap their analysis of the story for sake of suspense (aka why there are still loads of people convinced Quirrell != Voldemort), or restrict their understanding to that of the viewpoint character, etc. With this in mind, he’s kinda had to deal with it from all sides: praise/criticism/speculation/etc are all littered with people missing something crutial, and he seems to have given up on pointing this out at some point in the middle of the fic, at least until the shitstorm that spawned around these last few chapters.