celebration of good fanon

[kattahj]

During the recent fanon discussion, I've seen the only nice defence of good fanon in this LJ. Go have a look.

And I figured I should stop whining and speak up for some specific good fanon. So here are a short list of my favourite of those ideas that were never shown in canon yet are all over the place in fanfiction.

Doyle is a (borderline)

Comments

[elfbystarlight]

I'm fairly sure that the Jim Butcher novels have non-Christian religious symbols used against vampires/demons in the same way as crosses are. Been a while since I read them so I'd have to go back and see, but other good candidates for the concept are the Mercedes Lackey 'Diana Tregarde' books (very much like Anita Blake in genre)... Tanya Huff, perhaps, Rosemary Edghill? I read too much in that style and can't keep them straight any more, but it's not a particularly unusual idea. I was actually surprised when Buffy went for the cross-only approach - it felt unusual, at least in terms of anything written in the last ten, twenty years.

I think that's why it bleeds across... when universes are similar, an idea used in one seems only logical in another.

[kattahj]

I think that's why it bleeds across... when universes are similar, an idea used in one seems only logical in another.

Yeah. The Buffy approach really makes no sense - we know that Hecate exists, and Osiris, and unspecified powers beyond that, but for some reason, vampires are Christian-specific.

I mean, it's different in Dogma, where there's just one God. They can use the concept of Holy Water without having to discuss what makes it holy - it's the influence of God. (And interestingly enough, calling upon God also makes other things holy, such as golf clubs.)

In all honesty, I think it cheapens religious symbols to use them as mere *props*, there because it's tradition and not because it makes any sort of sense in the universe given.

[elfbystarlight]

In all honesty, I think it cheapens religious symbols to use them as mere *props*, there because it's tradition and not because it makes any sort of sense in the universe given.Agreed - it makes no sense *unless* you subscribe to the belief that Christian symbols have inherant power rather that symbolic power - which is a belief found nowhere outside Christianity (to be fair, I don't know enough of the finer details of Christianity to know whether that's typical or not, only that I know of some who do have that belief

[kattahj]

A pantheistic approach with the arbitrary poles of 'good' and 'evil' above everything. :)

There are certain things that are doubtlessly Christian - the crucifixion does seem to have happened, for example, since we know vampires like to brag that they were there. But the "heaven" mentioned is a very vague concept, and "hell" is even vaguer - hell dimensions (plural), a hell where evil people go where they die, and hell-on-earth, have all been used.

I'd say the Buffyverse was created by a lapsed or non-practising Christian who isn't aware that the world isn't as uniform in belief and structure as it might seem from the inside of a mainstream faith.

Yeah, that, and the idea that if you take what you like from any source you can find, you don't have to come up with some sort of internal structure to it.

Using the terminology of Tolkien, I don't think Whedon is taking his role as sub-creator nearly seriously enough.

[elfbystarlight]

Agreed - but then Whedon has the 'Hey, that would be cool, let's do that' impulse, whereas Tolkien instead had 'You know what would be unutterably beautiful and fitting?' and then spent ten years working out how the internal logic would allow whatever it was to happen :D

[kattahj]

Agreed - but then Whedon has the 'Hey, that would be cool, let's do that' impulse, whereas Tolkien instead had 'You know what would be unutterably beautiful and fitting?' and then spent ten years working out how the internal logic would allow whatever it was to happen :D

Tolkien was unbelievably anal, and I tend to think he goes too far. (Like when he explains that most of the hobbits aren't called what they're called in the books and in fact, they're not even called hobbits.) But at least you can believe in his world.

Am reminded of the someone who said that cook books and sci-fi are alike: you reach the end and go "Yeah, right. Like that's gonna happen."

I wonder if it's a combination of personality, medium and audience - the TV genre doesn't (seem to - I don't know a lot about it) allow for a great deal of mulling over, of making things seamless or thinking about *why*.

The TV genre doesn't allow a lot of the background to be showed, but that doesn't mean the writers can't outline it in their heads

[elfbystarlight]

Tolkien was unbelievably anal, and I tend to think he goes too far. (Like when he explains that most of the hobbits aren't called what they're called in the books and in fact, they're not even called hobbits.) But at least you can believe in his world.

Different tastes... I, personally, liked the story being presented as a translated history written after the fact, because it means it's not claiming to be absolute truth, just way of looking at events. It's that kind of detail that draws me into that universe, seeing how the names and so on were translated into English. But then it may be because I'm just as anal about my own worlds.

Am reminded of the someone who said that cook books and sci-fi are alike: you reach the end and go "Yeah, right. Like that's gonna happen."

[g] Oh, I like that one!

I think it would be less. Whedon doesn't strike me as self-disciplined (I mean anal) the way Tolkien does, but more of the indulgent type. And let's face it, in many cases when writers are given free reins we end up with a sodden mess. (

[elfbystarlight]

If I'm going to be bitching at other peoples' editing, you'd think I'd read my own posts before clicking 'post', wouldn't you? But apparently not. Apologies for errors, it's late and I'm tired, but too interested to just go to bed without responding. :)

[kattahj]

Different tastes... I, personally, liked the story being presented as a translated history written after the fact, because it means it's not claiming to be absolute truth, just way of looking at events. It's that kind of detail that draws me into that universe, seeing how the names and so on were translated into English. But then it may be because I'm just as anal about my own worlds.

I think the main reason it annoyed me was because I'd already read the books in translation (without the appendices) for most of my life. I didn't need a *third* name for my favourite characters. It really *distanced* me from the story, since it made me feel that I wasn't properly "in" it, didn't get to see things the way the characters saw it, which was one of the main reasons I bought the English original in the first place.

JKR is a particularly irritating one, since she says - and possibly believes - that she does have that kind of background detail about her world, yet it is notabley absent from the texts itself...I wouldn't trust anything that

[elfbystarlight]

Oh, interesting... may I ask how the names were translated in the version you read? (What to, and what the translations mean?) I can see how that would be frustrating, though... on the other hand, it's good that the names were translated, as with most of them, the meaning is more important than the word itself... more so for the elves, but to a certain extent to the hobbits and men as well.

Also, I am right there with you on that peeve. And she relies far too much on meta - whereas I think that if you have to ask 'it looks like this, is this true' and she says 'no, actually, you have to keep in mind while reading all this stuff I'm telling you that isn't in the text'... then perhaps she should have revised the text a little. For example, the wizarding population as actually presented in the books is far too small to be self-sustaining - but she's never clarified in the texts that it's much bigger than that, only in interviews and so on. Little things like that bug me.

[kattahj]

Oh, interesting... may I ask how the names were translated in the version you read? (What to, and what the translations mean?

Well, not all of them were translated, of course. And some were only slightly altered - Baggins became Bagger, which sounds more Swedish though it doesn't mean anything. ("Bagge" means "ram", which leads the thoughts quite in the wrong direction.) Though Sackville-Baggins became Säcksta-Bagger, which is a pretty straightforward translation of the first word. "Took" remained the same, which has the Swedish meaning of "fool".

Brandybuck - Vinbock (wine billygoat)
Strider - Vidstige ("far paths" or "wide steps" - that one's one of my favourites)
Rivendell - Vattnadal (water valley)
Mirkwood - Mörkmården (dark marten - makes no sense, but sounds good)
Butterbur - Smörblomma (buttercup - yeah, like the Princess Bride)
Goldberry - Hjortongull (gold-of-cloudberry)

Those are the ones I can remember right now... Tolkien really *hated* the Swedish translation, I learned a couple of years ago.

[elfbystarlight]

Hmm. Thank you for taking the time to answer, I realised after I asked that it might be a lengthy request!

I can see why he might not have liked them... the exact meaning of the words was important to him, so a 'close enough' translation probably would have been irritating :)

[kattahj]

Yeah. Anal. *grin*

Most of the translations *sound* good, which the literal ones quite often wouldn't have. The translator took *huge* liberties, and often was a bit sloppy (translating the same thing differently in different places and such), but the end result was very enjoyable, at least to me.