Love that triangle idea--that really does cover it. I always feel like there's a big grey area for interpretation. Because sometimes I'll support somebody's personal interpretation for them, but then challenge it as an objective interpretation of the actual work in question. Some people would probably disagree and give the reader even more power, but I feel like that if you go too far in that direction we might as well not be talking about the actual canon. We lose one side of the triangle.

Like with MD, I wouldn't argue with a personal interpretation that Diane had a backstory that included sexual abuse because she certainly could have. It was just a problem for me to think of it as important to the story because it left out most of the story without even really adding anything to it. Or sometimes something can mean something to a reader personally but if it was actually part of the canon it would change a lot of other things.

But you did put your finger on something I think is interesting about Nolan. He might not always do it brilliantly, but the idea of everybody making up their own reality is really interesting. If an author's going to have a pet idea he likes to explore that's a good one!