Necessary disclaimer: If you only believe one thing I say, please believe me when I tell you that this is not directed at or prompted by anything in particular. It's the result of many bouncing thoughts and a collection of my own experiences while in fandom. If you think I'm talking about you, you're wrong.

I've been thinking lately on the chicken and the egg.

Not in a literal sense, because that's silly and somewhat random. But I've been thinking of it in a metaphorical fashion as applied to fannish opinion.

Chicken: A person's opinion on a character

Egg: A person's evaluation of said character.

Explainy? Sure thing.

The standard thought is that the egg precedes the chicken. That is, the actions of a particular character ultimately leads a person to like or dislike that character. This will often lead to seemingly objective attempts to justify one's dislike of said character due to X, Y, Z. This will often, inevitably, lead to fans of said character raising an eyebrow and going, "Buh?" cause X, Y, and Z aren't as concretely objective as the first person might think.

My thought lately is that sometimes the chicken precedes the egg. That is, people take an intuitive liking or disliking to a character, and that affinity - or lack thereof - affects their perception of and evaluation of canon events. Also known as (by me) failing to give the benefit of the doubt due to a lack of sympathy.

Take the idea. Run with it. It intrigues me.