This is not a pipe (pt. 2)
In which I continue the rambling essay begun here.
Before I get to whether we should bother with the notion of canon at all,
I'm going to backtrack a bit. I want to further analyze why canon can be
problematic. If every fan approaches a text with a different background,
mindset or bias - a set of conscious and unconscious "lenses" - is there
any common ground to be found at all?
What trips us up are not the nouns (bones) and verbs (muscles) of a fandom
- the People, Places, and Things. For the most part we agree on the actions
in a given text, on the events, on who was there and the words they said.
In the recent discussion of Timeless, no one disputed the bare bones and
muscles of the episode. Basically Boy meets Girl, Boy and Girl set date,
Boy finds out Girl is dying, Girl doesn't show up for date, Boy gets Girl's
address out of Bartender, Boy shows up at Girl's house with airline tickets,
Boy and Girl set off in Van for Parts Unknown. Later discussion delved into
when Boy left Girl to help Hero, Boy's attempt to save Girl's life with
magic stone, and Boy's reaction to Girl's death.
So where do we fall into the fannish abyss?
With Emotions, Motivations and Meaning. What characters feel and why they
do what they do. And the implications, in the grand scheme of the text. This
is where a unified canon scatters to the winds of interpretation.
We run into difficulty when we attempt to confront the adjectives and
adverbs - the spirit - of the text. Why was Methos attracted to Alexa? Was
it out of love at first sight, infatuation, lust, escapism, or calculated
survival? Did Alexa return the attraction or was she uninterested? What made
the experienced immortal behave like an awkward schoolboy? Why did Alexa
break the date? Was Methos persistant or obsessed? Did he pursue her
because she was dying, or was that only a motivation for him to try harder?
Does the pairing of the "A" story (a new immortal's need for the threat of
death to make her feel alive) with the "B" story (a mortal's choice to defy
impending death and live the time left to her fully) effect these questions?
How does the POV, writing, acting (including chemistry and body language),
and the "logic" of the story structure influence a fan's view of these
elements?
This is where a pipe is not always a pipe.
even more yet to come...
Before I get to whether we should bother with the notion of canon at all,
I'm going to backtrack a bit. I want to further analyze why canon can be
problematic. If every fan approaches a text with a different background,
mindset or bias - a set of conscious and unconscious "lenses" - is there
any common ground to be found at all?
What trips us up are not the nouns (bones) and verbs (muscles) of a fandom
- the People, Places, and Things. For the most part we agree on the actions
in a given text, on the events, on who was there and the words they said.
In the recent discussion of Timeless, no one disputed the bare bones and
muscles of the episode. Basically Boy meets Girl, Boy and Girl set date,
Boy finds out Girl is dying, Girl doesn't show up for date, Boy gets Girl's
address out of Bartender, Boy shows up at Girl's house with airline tickets,
Boy and Girl set off in Van for Parts Unknown. Later discussion delved into
when Boy left Girl to help Hero, Boy's attempt to save Girl's life with
magic stone, and Boy's reaction to Girl's death.
So where do we fall into the fannish abyss?
With Emotions, Motivations and Meaning. What characters feel and why they
do what they do. And the implications, in the grand scheme of the text. This
is where a unified canon scatters to the winds of interpretation.
We run into difficulty when we attempt to confront the adjectives and
adverbs - the spirit - of the text. Why was Methos attracted to Alexa? Was
it out of love at first sight, infatuation, lust, escapism, or calculated
survival? Did Alexa return the attraction or was she uninterested? What made
the experienced immortal behave like an awkward schoolboy? Why did Alexa
break the date? Was Methos persistant or obsessed? Did he pursue her
because she was dying, or was that only a motivation for him to try harder?
Does the pairing of the "A" story (a new immortal's need for the threat of
death to make her feel alive) with the "B" story (a mortal's choice to defy
impending death and live the time left to her fully) effect these questions?
How does the POV, writing, acting (including chemistry and body language),
and the "logic" of the story structure influence a fan's view of these
elements?
This is where a pipe is not always a pipe.
even more yet to come...