Fannish 5: Five Un-Favorite Fannish Events
Five canon events that you found unbelievable and wish had not happened.
1) Dresden Files: the transformation and murder of Susan Rodriguez.
Let me just say that yes, I get it--Susan's death brought down the entire Red Court of vampires by boomeranging a bloodline curse right back at them. However, what I HATE is that:
a) Susan and Harry Dresden never talked about what either wanted to happen if he or she got turned. Kind of a logical thing to think about if you're going up against hundreds of thousands of vampires, including an ancient and powerful vampire who was the head of the whole Court, but this never came up.
b) Susan never said that she would give up what was left of her humanity or her life to save her daughter. I think that Butcher just took that as a given--which, since Susan was repulsed by the idea of being turned, was a bad move. Her fear, horror and free choice should have been acknowledged. They weren't.
c) Susan didn't CHOOSE to give up her humanity or her life. Harry manipulated Susan, goading her into tearing out the throat of the man who'd betrayed her and kidnapped her daughter. This was detestable for two reasons: it deprived Susan of all agency and it showed Harry as being willing to manipulate and exploit someone who was, as stated overtly in canon, his True Love.
Butcher could have written a scene that played out the same way but which had backstory that allowed Susan agency and free will and Harry common decency. He didn't. And that still bothers me.
2) DCU: Oracle's recovery and transformation back into Batgirl.
I remember Barbara Gordon as the Silver Age Batgirl. And I loved her. She was fantastic, and no arguments.
But I loved Oracle even more. I loved Barbara because she didn't give up when she got shot in the back and was paralyzed from the waist down; she re-invented herself as a super-hacker, a broker of information that even the superheroes themselves came to, not to mention being a leader of a team of superheroes, the Birds of Prey. And she pursued a few relationships as well...all without leaving her wheelchair.
There are not a lot of comic book characters who manage to be superheroes in a wheelchair. Oracle was THE representative of disabled women. She wasn't an alien. She wasn't a mutant. She was a human woman in a wheelchair, which meant that she didn't have any superpowers to help her overcome any obstacles. What she had was a damned good brain, a body that had been physically well-trained before the Joker shot her and a ton of determination. She made herself into a hero, because she felt that stopping the bad guys and saving lives, not only in Gotham but all over the world, turned on having the right information at the right time.
And then...DC Reboot. And miraculously Barbara Gordon got her ability to walk back and she was put back in the Batsuit. Oh, there was a lot of fuss about how there was so much alien tech in DC's universe that it was just impossible to believe that something couldn't fix her back. But you know something? There's just as much alien tech in the Marvel Comics universe, and I haven't noticed anyone trying to get Charles Xavier out of his wheelchair permanently.
The ridiculous part? They didn't NEED another Batgirl. Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown had both filled the cowl quite well on different occasions. Personally, I was hoping that Cass, an intricate and complex character in her own right, would get to keep the title. But no.
Fans of Oracle begged and pleaded and beseeched. Scores of disabled people wrote essays about how important Oracle was as an icon. None of it mattered. DC had a great, innovative hero who spoke to people all over the world...and the Powers that Be threw her away for another Spandex suit.
It's been a year, DC. That still hurts.
3) Harry Potter: Peter Pettigrew's death.
I have a fuckton of issues with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but Peter is the one that really bugs me.
Rowling set up the basis for a redemption arc for Peter. He betrayed the Potters--but not out of conviction and not for money. He changed sides because Voldemort had, in his words, "weapons you can't imagine." He fled England...only to be drawn to Voldemort's side because he was the closest Death Eater in proximity. He argued against messing with Bertha Jorkins' mind and protested murdering Frank Bryce. Voldemort himself said that Peter's loyalty to himself and to the Death Eaters was only fear, and that he would not be with the Death Eaters if he had anywhere else to go.
As the story progressed, we saw, over and over, that Peter kept making the wrong choices and kept hating it more and more. We also saw Voldemort gift him with a hand made of pure silver...which, logically, should have been used to fight a werewolf, since there were werewolves on both sides. The main argument in the fandom was whether the werewolf Peter killed would be Remus Lupin or Fenrir Greyback.
Personally, I was hoping that the seventh book would show Peter finally making the right choice and laying down his life to save Harry's. I didn't think he would survive this, but I hoped, in his last moments, we would see a glimmer of the young man who had been a friend to James and Lily. I even dared to hope that we might get some explanation of why he'd changed sides. Had Voldemort used those nameless weapons on him or on his family? Had he been blackmailed? Had Voldemort simply ripped information out of Peter's mind with his Legilimency? There were all kinds of possibilities.
But Rowling "can't abide a traitor." She didn't realize--or so I believe--that while becoming a Dark wizard may be a one-way street, you can, in fact, back out of a one-way street, turn around and go back the way you came. Which way you drive is YOUR choice...but Rowling loathes traitors so much that she didn't give Peter any choice in the end. His one moment involved an involuntary spasm of mercy for Harry that surprised even him. And honestly, I don't think that mercy CAN be involuntary. It can be an impulse, genuinely heart-felt altruism, or well-seasoned with remorse--but involuntary, no.
I don't suppose that this bothered many Potter fans; Peter was and is a hated character. But it bothered me. Choice was supposed to matter in this universe--and it was supposed to matter for everyone, not just the people on Harry's side.
4) Highlander: The goddamned Ahriman Arc.
Especially the Nonexistent Episode--the one that spawned Clan Denial.
5) Forever Knight: Season Three.
Or, to be more precise, Season MASSACRE. If I have to pick one of the episodes to unhappen, though, I pick the final episode of the series. That thing was the ultimate downer ending--and there was NO reason for it. Nick Knight, Natalie Lambert, the other human and vampire characters of Toronto, and the audience all deserved better.
***
1) Dresden Files: the transformation and murder of Susan Rodriguez.
Let me just say that yes, I get it--Susan's death brought down the entire Red Court of vampires by boomeranging a bloodline curse right back at them. However, what I HATE is that:
a) Susan and Harry Dresden never talked about what either wanted to happen if he or she got turned. Kind of a logical thing to think about if you're going up against hundreds of thousands of vampires, including an ancient and powerful vampire who was the head of the whole Court, but this never came up.
b) Susan never said that she would give up what was left of her humanity or her life to save her daughter. I think that Butcher just took that as a given--which, since Susan was repulsed by the idea of being turned, was a bad move. Her fear, horror and free choice should have been acknowledged. They weren't.
c) Susan didn't CHOOSE to give up her humanity or her life. Harry manipulated Susan, goading her into tearing out the throat of the man who'd betrayed her and kidnapped her daughter. This was detestable for two reasons: it deprived Susan of all agency and it showed Harry as being willing to manipulate and exploit someone who was, as stated overtly in canon, his True Love.
Butcher could have written a scene that played out the same way but which had backstory that allowed Susan agency and free will and Harry common decency. He didn't. And that still bothers me.
2) DCU: Oracle's recovery and transformation back into Batgirl.
I remember Barbara Gordon as the Silver Age Batgirl. And I loved her. She was fantastic, and no arguments.
But I loved Oracle even more. I loved Barbara because she didn't give up when she got shot in the back and was paralyzed from the waist down; she re-invented herself as a super-hacker, a broker of information that even the superheroes themselves came to, not to mention being a leader of a team of superheroes, the Birds of Prey. And she pursued a few relationships as well...all without leaving her wheelchair.
There are not a lot of comic book characters who manage to be superheroes in a wheelchair. Oracle was THE representative of disabled women. She wasn't an alien. She wasn't a mutant. She was a human woman in a wheelchair, which meant that she didn't have any superpowers to help her overcome any obstacles. What she had was a damned good brain, a body that had been physically well-trained before the Joker shot her and a ton of determination. She made herself into a hero, because she felt that stopping the bad guys and saving lives, not only in Gotham but all over the world, turned on having the right information at the right time.
And then...DC Reboot. And miraculously Barbara Gordon got her ability to walk back and she was put back in the Batsuit. Oh, there was a lot of fuss about how there was so much alien tech in DC's universe that it was just impossible to believe that something couldn't fix her back. But you know something? There's just as much alien tech in the Marvel Comics universe, and I haven't noticed anyone trying to get Charles Xavier out of his wheelchair permanently.
The ridiculous part? They didn't NEED another Batgirl. Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown had both filled the cowl quite well on different occasions. Personally, I was hoping that Cass, an intricate and complex character in her own right, would get to keep the title. But no.
Fans of Oracle begged and pleaded and beseeched. Scores of disabled people wrote essays about how important Oracle was as an icon. None of it mattered. DC had a great, innovative hero who spoke to people all over the world...and the Powers that Be threw her away for another Spandex suit.
It's been a year, DC. That still hurts.
3) Harry Potter: Peter Pettigrew's death.
I have a fuckton of issues with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but Peter is the one that really bugs me.
Rowling set up the basis for a redemption arc for Peter. He betrayed the Potters--but not out of conviction and not for money. He changed sides because Voldemort had, in his words, "weapons you can't imagine." He fled England...only to be drawn to Voldemort's side because he was the closest Death Eater in proximity. He argued against messing with Bertha Jorkins' mind and protested murdering Frank Bryce. Voldemort himself said that Peter's loyalty to himself and to the Death Eaters was only fear, and that he would not be with the Death Eaters if he had anywhere else to go.
As the story progressed, we saw, over and over, that Peter kept making the wrong choices and kept hating it more and more. We also saw Voldemort gift him with a hand made of pure silver...which, logically, should have been used to fight a werewolf, since there were werewolves on both sides. The main argument in the fandom was whether the werewolf Peter killed would be Remus Lupin or Fenrir Greyback.
Personally, I was hoping that the seventh book would show Peter finally making the right choice and laying down his life to save Harry's. I didn't think he would survive this, but I hoped, in his last moments, we would see a glimmer of the young man who had been a friend to James and Lily. I even dared to hope that we might get some explanation of why he'd changed sides. Had Voldemort used those nameless weapons on him or on his family? Had he been blackmailed? Had Voldemort simply ripped information out of Peter's mind with his Legilimency? There were all kinds of possibilities.
But Rowling "can't abide a traitor." She didn't realize--or so I believe--that while becoming a Dark wizard may be a one-way street, you can, in fact, back out of a one-way street, turn around and go back the way you came. Which way you drive is YOUR choice...but Rowling loathes traitors so much that she didn't give Peter any choice in the end. His one moment involved an involuntary spasm of mercy for Harry that surprised even him. And honestly, I don't think that mercy CAN be involuntary. It can be an impulse, genuinely heart-felt altruism, or well-seasoned with remorse--but involuntary, no.
I don't suppose that this bothered many Potter fans; Peter was and is a hated character. But it bothered me. Choice was supposed to matter in this universe--and it was supposed to matter for everyone, not just the people on Harry's side.
4) Highlander: The goddamned Ahriman Arc.
Especially the Nonexistent Episode--the one that spawned Clan Denial.
5) Forever Knight: Season Three.
Or, to be more precise, Season MASSACRE. If I have to pick one of the episodes to unhappen, though, I pick the final episode of the series. That thing was the ultimate downer ending--and there was NO reason for it. Nick Knight, Natalie Lambert, the other human and vampire characters of Toronto, and the audience all deserved better.
***