I am of two minds about authorial intent. On the one hand, I do like to respect the... integrity of canon, I guess? In other words, I want what I write to seem like a reasonable and organic growth from the books we already have. On the other hand, I do not think that canon is the be-all and end-all of the world. Sometimes I think Lewis's theology is abhorrent. Sometimes I think what he says just doesn't make any logical sense. (This is mostly stuff related to Calormen, btw. And also Rilian's age vs. Caspian's age.)

Also, I don't think my approach to writing fanfiction -- the whole "slip it in as if it could be canon" notion -- is the only way to interact with a text or film or what have you. There are people who want to fix a text. There are people who want to do something completely bizarre. There are people who just read a text very differently in the first place, so their view of what will slide right in is not going to agree with mine. And that's fine. They're all valid. I may find some of the end products completely aggravating, but this is not a zero sum game. All our stories can coexist without invalidating each other.

So I tend to find claims that "you're doing it wrong" short-sighted at best and mostly just very, very sad.

(YOU are NOT doing it wrong, btw. You are doing something very, very RIGHT. *hugs*)