The venerable roots of fanon

[branchandroot]

It's common for textual purists to disparage fanon, and I have certainly done that before. But it struck me, today, that fanon is, in it's own way, a venerable institution and deserves recognition for its tenacity, if not its precision.

Consider, for example, Gensis. Specifically, consider Eden, and the go-round with the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The serpent incites rebellion (by, I might note, telling nothing but the truth) and all parties get a really raw deal out of it, including labor pains, limblessness, and species enmity. There is not a scrap of textual indication that Satan or Lucifer, or any incarnation of the Devil at all, is present in any way.

The idea that the serpent was the Devil is fanon.

It's an extrapolation with no direct textual basis, running, I suspect, via Milton and the Romantics, and their various promethean reading of the Devil and a misconstrual of the name Lucifer (lightbringer being, as best I recall, a psalmic reference to Lucifer being as to Christ as Venus the Morning Star is to the Sun--herald or forerunner of light) whereby the fruit of knowledge is elided with the light of fire.

Not even going into the difference between the figures of Satan and Lucifer, though Satan's original role of Jehovah's Prosecutor General does connect to the idea of temptation and form another cross connection to the actions of the serpent.

The thing is, this is what people do. This is what people do with any text at all. They read it and take from it bits that make the most sense and extrapolate those bits into whatever form has the most meaning and accessibility to them. There's nothing heinously evil about this activity.

It's only when fanon becomes the basis for attempted textual explication that the perpetrator needs to be whacked one.

Comments

[naanima.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I don't see how people manage to link the snake with the Devil. It is all interpretation and generalisation of a concept that people put under one umbrella term. A physical manifestation does not equate one being. As for the Lucifer and Satan, I'm not that knowledgeable in the latter but I do enough of the former that when people call him the Devil and put him half man and hlaf goat form that I get tetchy.

As for Milton and the Romanatics. ARGH! The only thing I took from them was some bad poetry and a 38 hour stretch of doing a 11000+ words essay that came down to me living on four litres of coffee and oreos, and trying to pretend that I was being objective. Well, at least I passed the unit -_-;;;

[branchandroot]

*laughing* Yeah, I remember slogging through Paradise Lost; it was a pain. Milton is hard for Statesiders on general principles. There's this sneaking tendency to see Milton's Satan as a hero, because anyone who's rebelling must be a hero, right? And that wasn't the way Milton thought at all.

I did some light research a while back on the history of the Devil as figure and concept. It was fascinating, and now I can't remember the title of the best book. *sigh*

[naanima.livejournal.com]

See, the thing is I like some of the basic concepts that Milton had. They were grandoise and while Milton obviously was all about Satan being bad, bad, bad for rebelling I was all 'but he's so cool'. It was the whole fighting against fate, etc. It was an bizzare experience 'cos I was doing philosophy at the same time, and Nietzche and Milton together made a strange sort of sense though I was much more SATRE! I swear the man never grew out of his teenage angst.

But yes, need to do more resaerch. I have always been fascinated the Jews perspective of Lucifer.

[kenllama.livejournal.com]

::I have always been fascinated the Jews perspective of Lucifer.::

Could you elaborate on that? I'm not sure I've ever seen a Jewish perspective on Lucifer? (Satan yes, Lucifer no) I'd love to see what they'd have to say.

[naanima.livejournal.com]

See, this is when translation and interpretation of the Bible comes into play. The problem with 'Lucifer' is that it is not so much as a term used for Satan as much as it is a rank. The Socino defined Lucifer as 'Light-bearer' and in the same passage there is an implication of the rank of the Light-bearer passing on to the next person, or son of God. And here is where I get confused because Morning Star is also rank or function, yet is different from Lucifer, however, the two terms is interchangeable in most texts, and it is all very confusing because the Talmud talk of the Morning Star and the Day Star (Lucifer) at the same yet is obvious that they are not the same thing.

So, yeah. Hope this helped ^^;;;

[kenllama.livejournal.com]

::So, yeah. Hope this helped::

sort of ;) i do remember the Morning Star bit now, but I don't remember the whole situation. I should remind myself of some of this...

thanks!
k

[branchandroot]

though I was much more SATRE! I swear the man never grew out of his teenage angst.

*grinning* Nope, never.

*gazes into distance* Nietzche and Milton, hm? Wow, talk about two texts that deconstruct each other.

[naanima.livejournal.com]

And yet he was strangely endearing.

Exactly. But reading Nietzche's Superman ideal and Milton's Paradise at the same time... it was an interesting experience, their contradicting ideals helped me in understanding what the hell Nietzche was going on about. And Nietzche was hard to understand (at least for me).

[ladycrysiana.livejournal.com]

One of the most fascinating cooincidences in my studies has been studying Marx simultaneously from a philosophical and an historical point of view between a Conscience and a general history course. (And having professors who had opposite opinions of Marx, for that matter.)

[naanima.livejournal.com]

*laughs*

How did you survive?

Marx as whole bored me, his ideals were too naive, and it is only made worse when it is studied at a historical POV. The problem, as my philosophy lecturer use to us, is that the philosophies are usually perfect (most of the time), and is based on the assumption that humanity as a whole is intelligent enough to do what is benefitial for all. However, that is a load of crap because people are selfish and dumb.

I so loved his lectures.

[ladycrysiana.livejournal.com]

It was a fascinating semester. The philosophy professor who, for the record, loved Marx, basically said that Marx had the best ideas ever, ignoring the fact that even if one assumes that people are basically good, people could probably never pull it off. The history professor just said, "Marx = wrong. Especially in his model of history." Which was mostly just a discussion of Marx's way of seeing history as being too simplistic.

[liliascrescens.livejournal.com]

^o^ I like to blame pretty much everything on Milton, myself. (Though I actually like PL quite a lot--no small thing, considering that I'm much more into novels than poetry, generally speaking.)

When it comes to fanon, the thing I reproach myself for most is following it blindly without asking where these tropes are coming from--even when I knew some of the prevalent GW characterizations weren't what I had seen in the series, I didn't even consider whether they were sprouting from doujinshi, or some canon source I hadn't seen yet (the manga, e.g.), or some random person's random thoughts. Not that there's some hierarchy to the origins of fanon, or anything. It's just interesting to me now to trace the way certain ideas can spread, and what affects people's willingness to run with someone else's interpretation.

[branchandroot]

*nods* Some things, like safehouses, I'm willing to accept as viable when the author needs some propinquity and isn't actually interested in developing a less lazy plot device. Others, like Bouncy!Duo, I file under undue influence. Someone made it work nicely at some point, and was indiscriminately copied. Ficcing Under the Influence? Does that get a ticket? Do you have to prove you can explicate in a straight line?

I think I should probably go to bed before I get any sillier.

[solitude1056.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: "Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by the folk." Henry Jenkins, from Textual Poachers: Media Fans and Participatory Culture. I suppose in some ways, the fanonization of religion happens in part when you don't have a specific canon basis (like when the Jews were carted off to Babylon) or when the majority of the people are disenfranchised from the original source. Which, if you think about it, does fit how many English-speaker writers do feel that way about the source material, if it's not in their own language.

Oh, and don't get me started about the ridiculousness of trying to link Eve/Mary/and the woman clothed in blue with twelve stars. Metaphor, people, metaphor, do NOT use this as a basis for arguing Mary is the mediatrix! *froths at the mouth*

Err, was I raving?

[branchandroot]

*reassuring* Not badly. Yeah, the whole Cult of Mary is its own example of fanon in action, isn't it?

Perhaps we can get a copy of the excellent Mr. Jenkins specifically to cram down George Lucas' throat. Now there's a man who doesn't understand the concept. How on earth does he think he can create a myth from anything other than common cultural property? And, supposing he succeeded, he wants to exert copyright over it? *shakes head*

[moumusu.livejournal.com]

I always thought Gundam Wing was nothing but the fanon. That's the part I liked anyway, because the show was a mess.

That made me think about Duo. I liked him, and I got to see him more in fanon. I say go for whatever satisfies.

[branchandroot]

*nods* Probably the best policy.

[ladycrysiana.livejournal.com]

My entire knowledge of GW and YYH was from fic. Of course, I never ficced for the series, either. Something interesting is that typical fanon for at least part of the FMA fandom is that Roy really likes coffee. (Or, as people are more likely to say it, Roy/Coffee OTP.)

[branchandroot]

I'm fairly sure it was Coyo who started the thing with the coffee. At least, I think that's where I got it from. It might, possibly, have been Whitecat. I contributed to it myself, to be sure. It's the kind of fanon I'm fond of; there's no textual basis, but it fits with the character and serves as a handy prop.

I was fascinated, watching how tropes spread in FMA. I've been able to see it happen some in tenipuri, too, but not as much, having come on board later.

[ladycrysiana.livejournal.com]

What other ones are there in FMA? ...one thing I know spread through the fandom was the name "Moofy" for pre-Wrath Wrath (Anime version, obviously.) Of course, I also know where that one comes from.

[branchandroot]

One of my other favorites is that Hawkeye would casually hold a gun on other officers who either got in Roy's way or annoyed her too much. One that I know for a fact is entirely Calintz's fault is that Ed will let his hair grow much longer as he gets older.

[ladycrysiana.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, the whole concept that Hawkeye and Roy are secretly Suoh and Nokoru, except not. I think either Sakki or Whitecat might be responsible for my irrational love of Hawkeye/Havoc.