On AU and Canon
Congrats to everyone who won in the MEFAs this year! You are wayyy too numerous to name, so simply know that I am grinning like an idiot for everyone.
Now, Dawn Felagund, a rather prominent writer in the Silmarillion part of the Tolkien fandom, posted an absolutely great article about AU and Canon.
My personal opinion: I don't take fan fiction seriously enough to bother trying to categorize what is canon and what is AU. Not to say, of course, that taking fan fiction seriously is bad; I just, well, rarely take things seriously *g* I also read both canon and AU, so I don't care that much; if it is well written, I'll read it.
I also like simplicity, so I like to view Canon and AU rather on a line that is all but identical to a probability line.
AU--------------------------------------------------CANON
On the right is Absolute Canon. The farther right you are, the more likely it was to happen. At 100% canon are facts like, Aragorn was born March 1 2931 TA. On the left is absolute AU; that is, the farther the left, the less likely it happened in canon. At 100% AU (or 0% canon) would be that Celebrian did *not* sail after her ordeal with the orcs. Tolkien states quite explicitly that she did. To keep her around in Middle-earth would be AU.
For the most part, most elements in fan fiction tend to fall in the middle.
I do agree with Dawn that the AU element is thrown around quite often, and likely unnecessarily. Just because your interpretation does not agree with another author's does not make it AU; it makes it your own interpretation.
What you decide to label AU, however, is up to you. If you honestly think that an event was more likely to happen in canon, don't bother with the label. For instance, one of my more recent ficlets consisted of Elrond teaching young Aragorn about the stars. I would put it, on that scale, at around 80-90% canon for a multitude of reasons:
*Aragorn lived in Elrond's house in his youth
*Elves like stars
*Elrond is knowledgeable and likely tutored Estel here and there (IMO, not too often because he had a joint to run, but on special occasions).
And there are more. So it's safe to say that it is much closer to "canon" than some of my other stories.
For instance, I'd put "How to Raise an Orc" at about 10-15% canon for, again, a multitude of reasons:
*Aragorn had better things to do than hang out with Legolas and become close to him
*I don't see Thranduil losing any arguments against impertinent elflings.
*"Canon" was "abused" for the sake of story and humor. The "rightness" of this can be debated.
There are enough elements for it to still be on the canon scale (Thranduil is Legolas' father, for instance), but enough liberties taken that, IMO, makes it less canonical.
The difficulty of this is, of course, is that while 100% canon is little debatable (dates, boring facts, etc), things such as personality traits, possible events that may have happened, inferences made from the text, all of these fall somewhere else on the scale and where *you* think it falls on the scale may be different from what someone else believes.
Nonetheless, I prefer "likely to have happened" to "likely did not happen" as to complicated terms that I would never, in my life, remember.
But it was still a great article.
Now, Dawn Felagund, a rather prominent writer in the Silmarillion part of the Tolkien fandom, posted an absolutely great article about AU and Canon.
My personal opinion: I don't take fan fiction seriously enough to bother trying to categorize what is canon and what is AU. Not to say, of course, that taking fan fiction seriously is bad; I just, well, rarely take things seriously *g* I also read both canon and AU, so I don't care that much; if it is well written, I'll read it.
I also like simplicity, so I like to view Canon and AU rather on a line that is all but identical to a probability line.
AU--------------------------------------------------CANON
On the right is Absolute Canon. The farther right you are, the more likely it was to happen. At 100% canon are facts like, Aragorn was born March 1 2931 TA. On the left is absolute AU; that is, the farther the left, the less likely it happened in canon. At 100% AU (or 0% canon) would be that Celebrian did *not* sail after her ordeal with the orcs. Tolkien states quite explicitly that she did. To keep her around in Middle-earth would be AU.
For the most part, most elements in fan fiction tend to fall in the middle.
I do agree with Dawn that the AU element is thrown around quite often, and likely unnecessarily. Just because your interpretation does not agree with another author's does not make it AU; it makes it your own interpretation.
What you decide to label AU, however, is up to you. If you honestly think that an event was more likely to happen in canon, don't bother with the label. For instance, one of my more recent ficlets consisted of Elrond teaching young Aragorn about the stars. I would put it, on that scale, at around 80-90% canon for a multitude of reasons:
*Aragorn lived in Elrond's house in his youth
*Elves like stars
*Elrond is knowledgeable and likely tutored Estel here and there (IMO, not too often because he had a joint to run, but on special occasions).
And there are more. So it's safe to say that it is much closer to "canon" than some of my other stories.
For instance, I'd put "How to Raise an Orc" at about 10-15% canon for, again, a multitude of reasons:
*Aragorn had better things to do than hang out with Legolas and become close to him
*I don't see Thranduil losing any arguments against impertinent elflings.
*"Canon" was "abused" for the sake of story and humor. The "rightness" of this can be debated.
There are enough elements for it to still be on the canon scale (Thranduil is Legolas' father, for instance), but enough liberties taken that, IMO, makes it less canonical.
The difficulty of this is, of course, is that while 100% canon is little debatable (dates, boring facts, etc), things such as personality traits, possible events that may have happened, inferences made from the text, all of these fall somewhere else on the scale and where *you* think it falls on the scale may be different from what someone else believes.
Nonetheless, I prefer "likely to have happened" to "likely did not happen" as to complicated terms that I would never, in my life, remember.
But it was still a great article.