If you'll allow me a small but important nitpick: I would say that the value of a piece of art is subjective. Critique, if done correctly, is based on measurable factors. "And it was all just a dream" could be fairly, and reasonably, be called: predictable, unsatisfying, and lazy. Whether someone thinks that the content leading up to, and including the ending is valuable or "good" is subjective.
To put it a different way, music is "subjective" in that people have different tastes based on their values of music genres, but the ability to play a song correctly is a measurable, obvious thing which you can critique. Similarly, a painter may paint in a style that I strongly dislike, or paint on subject that I don't care about, but the means of how that art was created can be judged as "good" or "bad". The methodology of how the work was made can be discerned.
Sometimes things like the intention of why something was created in the way it was made, can be used to deflect a certain amount of criticism. "It's supposed to be out of beat to create confusion for the listener", "It is drawn with lots of harsh right angels to lead the eye in this direction", etc. but (more often than not) when a fault is found or described, it is unintentional in spite of whatever the creator might later assert.
I think that it would be illogical to offer lots of negative criticism of something, and follow that up by saying, "Yet, in spite of all of those critical issues, it's great!" There might be some strange exception, or someone who would claim that simply to act as the tedious contrarian, but the assessment would be negative.
Getting back to this subject: whether the criticism of the ending to Minecraft is well applied or not, is a different issue. I don't have an opinion on the matter. I've never seen the ending to Minecraft, and don't really care about seeing it. I'm simply trying to say that, just because something exists within a subjective field does not mean it can't also be verifiably bad.
as a representative of someone who the poem spoke to, I'd like to comment.
The themes in this piece run fairly deep; and to call them trite or predictable is both a completely fair statement of an opinion, and revealing that one may not be reading with the intended context.
It's very common to end a story with "it was all a dream". It's not quite so common to embed vedic scripture within and talk to the philosophy that we are all components of the universe experiencing itself, and that our individual egos are as fictional as the player character. This is the statement the piece makes.
As the author mentioned, it would be easy to read words like that and miss the point for lack of context. At the risk of being labeled a pedant, which may be fair, I agree that without a meditative practice or other such deep, self reflective experience it would be hard to see the value in the words. What is an introspection into the soul for one will look like pretense to the other.
To be critical of this piece as a piece of narrative is to judge it by the wrong terms. It's a philosophical argument that looks like a story.
Hmm, if I'm going to be honest, most of what you were saying kind of flew over my head.
I think I understand the jist of what you mean, and I can agree that, if the...I don't know what the right word would be, the "meaning and essence"(...?) of the thing is more "Here's a philosophical concept" rather than "Here's an A to B story" then I can see why it would be seen as more subjective. I suppose someone could judge the logic of a philosophical concept, but that's way, way outside my depth. :)
I like how you've defined value here and its separation from critique.
A related idea is that of perspective.
Creating something often requires picking between multiple options, and to do that successfully the creator must keep in mind their goals (evoking an emotion, telling a particular story, conveying an idea, etc) along with the desires of their target audience.
The creator's goals and their intended audience forms the perspective that they view decisions from.
Critiquing something involves choosing a particular perspective (our own, the creator's, or the target audience's), and which one we choose is based on the subjective value we give each perspective.
When we describe a creation as bad we must remember that it is bad relative to our chosen perspective.
For example: imagine a funeral scene that has a soundtrack playing that would be considered happy by its target audience.
* From the creator's perspective they wanted a sad and solemn scene; which, makes the soundtrack an objectively bad choice.
* The target audience in general regards it as one of the funniest and best scenes.
* We find the scene too funny to be sad and too sad to be funny.
All of these perspectives are correct relative to themselves, and which one you choose to let color your view of a creation is a personal opinion.
I suppose I can understand that. I think that there could be some "wiggle room" there, but it would depend on how hard something like an ending would clash with the thematic elements leading up to that ending. I.e. a dreary, dystopian future leading into Baby Elephant Walk for the credits would probably be an objectively poor choice unless could be executed in some sort of "perfect" way. There's just such a wide array of small choices that can dictate the final product that, yeah, I can't really disagree with what you're saying. There's always an exception to an exception, or even a mere alternative to the standard.
In a way, it's frustrating because I do think it would feel more satisfying if the general principals were more concrete, but in the same breath, that lack of precision is also what allows for enough variety to help spark creativity and unexpected twists and turns. I do think that there is something to be said for, say, arbitrary restrictions, to help encourage someone to be more creative with limited tools, but the variety of options also has clear and obvious benefits as well.
