I wonder whether JP knows about the general opinion about his apparently silly lyrics or not.. He puts so much dedication into them that he seems like a child when explaining their meanings in an interview.. I don't think he'd like to read what most of you guys think about some of them.. Idk, just a guess.. ;V
JP lyrics are,at least to me, pretty good excluding Illumination Theory and The Count of Tuscany. Those kinda had me go like "I know you can write better stuff"
IT has good, complex and -as Architeuthis said- deep lyrics, which TCoT has not, so Idk how they can be matched at all.. I don't think all JP's lyrics are good, but I just don't care for what I don't like.. So I don't get why almost everyone tends to joke about them; I mean, they're not that bad.. Is one guy, which isn't a writer but a guitarist, this is what he does, and also the main composer of the band... and, apparently, the rest of the guys in the band don't wanna write a thing.. So it's really all about him since MP's departure..
Unfortunately TA gets that same feeling for most people, that it's not serious lyrics because they don't talk about RL's issues but "only" tell a story*.. Two things about this argument: first, it'd be very boring having in every album lyrics like the ones in I&W, ADToE or DT12, and also it'd be boring for JP to write always the same... How many times might have happened that he wouldn't have anything to write about and kind of feel forced to it because the song wasn't an instrumental and had to have *any* lyrics? (see Wither's meaning).. And second, there are ppl -like me- that just prefer these kind of fictional lyrics every once in awhile..
*which isn't true; TA has a straightforward meaning about what music might become if it continues in the way it's going right now [Just like a Black Mirror episode].. The story is sort of an excuse to compliment that argument... and, again, coming from a guitar player, I wasn't expecting the super mega mindblowing plot as many seem to have expected...