Have you heard of some of the Coraline theories? Like the theory that Coraline is struggling to cope with the death of her parents and refuses to believe they’re really gone, hence the rotten groceries. There are a few others but I don’t have too many characters to get through them all, if you haven’t checked out the Theorizer on Coraline you should. Pretty interesting. Are you in a position to confirm or deny these theories? Or are we all just looking into it too much?

neil-gaiman:

I wrote the book. Henry Selick wrote the film, and made it with hundreds of people. Since that time millions of people have read the book and enjoyed the film, and some of them have come up with lots of glorious theories and some of them get sent to me, (many of these Coraline theories, if they were true, would preclude other Coraline theories, equally as glorious). 

And there aren’t just glorious theories. There are also barking-mad theories. There are even theories I find on the one hand barking-mad and offensive, but on the other hand sort of sweet, as people obviously put lots of time and effort into deciding that (for example) watching Coraline will brainwash you, or whatever.

And my conclusion is that I don’t think I need to be part of this conversation. It’s fan-fiction, on a large scale, and fan-fiction should, I think, exist apart from the author. So I am glad the theories are out there, even the barking-mad ones. (But watching Coraline will not turn you into an Illuminati mind-slave.)