Canonicity and the Nature of Fic

You know, I’m right alongside the critics who bemoan all the fic in which the sole and single resemblance between the fic character and canon character is name and possibly coloring. Or, at least, I’m right alongside the idea that this kind of fic should be clearly labled so I can avoid it. But I also see the same people pushing for total canonicity, which I really think is missing the point of fanfic itself.

My observation is that fic proliferates most vigorously in stories with lots of holes to be filled in and lots of contradictions to be reconciled. Rationalizing the disjunctures is practically the job description of a fan. Who but a fan could have come up with an explanation for “photon torpedos” (what’s it going to do, overexpose the enemy?), or the infamous “twelve parsecs”. It’s the slippages that make stories ficcable. The more incongruencies, the more fic possibilities in order to explain them (eg Harry Potter). Stories that are whole in themselves are infinitely harder to write more about (eg Cowboy Bebop).

When there are a lot of holes and inconsistencies, there are also a lot of different ways to reconcile them. The premise that a fic author choses to use in explaining why seemingly senseless things could, in fact, work in a plausible way are usually pretty individual to the author in question. I rather think this is why so many older ficcers lean toward the “Slytherin apologia” even though Rowling herself has somewhat rebuked that tendency. A little kid generally accepts that the bad guys are the bad guys and doesn’t need epistemological maps drawn for why they’re there; they’re there to be the bad guys. Older readers find themselves wondering why the hell Hogwarts would have tolerated the presence of the house if everyone in it really is evil and all the dark wizards come out of it. They need to explain what’s really going on. And you can’t do that canonically. Because if you could, then the hole wouldn’t be there to be filled in.

So, while I’m all about accurate meta-data, I’m also inclined not to throw stones at other people’s character interpretations, even when I think they’re so full of it they need a laxative. I’m happy to throw stones at bad writing, but “bad fic”…

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means” –Inigo Montoya

Situatedness

I'm reading David Brin's essay collection Tomorrow Happens. Brin's vision of technology and its possible effects interests me. On top of that, I consider his views both practical and optimistic, which is a rare combination.

It even makes me willing to mostly forgive his total and utter inability to plot out his stories if they're longer than one volume. I won't buy another trilogy from him, but neither will I excoriate him for making such a mess of the one he's already published. Very often.

I can't help wondering, though, what would happen if he spent a year or two in Japan.

You see, his practicality and optimism are both extremely, almost archetypally, Western. His vision of what would be a good world tries to balance individuality with community, but starts out from the basic assumption that individuality is priviledged and cannot, under any circumstances, be sacrificed. The one short story of his I've read that was set in Japan was a caricature of suicidal overachiever-ness in a society prone to drone-ness.

So I kind of wonder whether he would actually manage to grok wa, or just spend a year or two feeling uncomfortable and vaguely smug.

He says he wants a culturally neutral philosphy/politics/psychology. And I can't help consider that a bit naive, because I can't quite bring myself to believe such a thing could exist. And if it did, I think it would have to abrogate his other desire for a philosophy/politics/psychology that honors and celebrates diversity. I really think the best we could do is an awareness of the differences from one culture to the next, and an ability to switch around among them.

(Tangentially, I'd forgotten what a pain it is to type "philosophy" on a QWERTY keyboard.)

Brin doesn't like cultural relativity, and I can sympathize. Often it becomes an excuse not to take action or make judgements. But I think he's lost sight of the fact that, yes, all ethical systems and politics and so forth really are completely relative. We are all situated somewhere. Someone wrote those stone tablets, they didn't just appear hand delivered by the Universal Truth. People don't seem to think very often about the reasons behind the easy right and wrongs, like "it's wrong to murder someone" (a perennial favorite among the disputationally challenged, because it seems so self-evident). But I think we should. Why is it wrong to murder someone? "Just because" is not a useful answer. Neither is "because God/my mother/the government said so", at least not for an adult who can presumably make her own decisions. "Because I wouldn't want people to do it to me" is better, and that's often what this one comes down to if you push people on it. On the other hand, that is more or less the basis, as far as I can tell, for anti-homosexual legislation. That's relativity in a nutshell for you. And I think that is what Brin's optimism leads him to overlook.

He'd like for all of us to understand one another, which would, ideally, lead to all of us having the same basic moral system. What I'm not sure he's capable of seeing is the way in which that desire leads him straight to Japan. Because, of course, when you get right down to it, the moral system he wants everyone to have is basically his own, which differs from the more prominant Japanese sets. And around and around we go.

And that's humanity in a nutshell for you.