How the other half lives...
If you're written fanfiction for some time, you're bound to encounter, sooner or later, feedback along the lines of "usually I don't care about character X, but you've made me think about him/her" or "your story really made X work for me". Actually, that's the best version. Sometimes the feedback sounds more like "X is scum/ I've always hated that whiny X/ X totally ruined the show/film/book for me but..."
Now, I've experienced several emotional reactions. It's easiest when the feedback is for a story about a character whom I've have mixed feelings about myself - Gaius from Merlin, for example, or Simone on Heroes -, and I have written those. (I've also written stories where the pov character was one I disliked intensely. It blackly amuses me that my very first Heroes story back when I was in fervent love with the show was a Sylar pov, and trust me, even before loathing him as one embodiment of much of what went wrong I never cared much for Sylar.) Sometimes I even write to figure out a character I'm not sure about better. Then feedback based on the "look what you've done, you've made me suddenly understand X!" principle is immensely satisfying, flattering even.
However, when the feedback is for characters I'm absolutely passionate about, whom I feel ridiculously defensive for, then the instinctive reaction is another matter. Cases in point: Connor back in my Angel days, or Abigail Brand ever since Astonishing X-Men. Then even cautiously phrased character dislike in the feedback, phrased, for example, like "if Connor was like that on the show, I might have liked him" or "you've almost made Brand bearable to me" raised my hackles. I felt like replying "well, obviously this IS how I've seen him/her on the show/in the book, that's why I fell in love with him/her". (This wasn't what I replied, btw; I usually told myself to see the reaction as a compliment and simply reply with "thank you" or "I'm glad you enjoyed the story".)
Why I am I reminded of this again? Because I suddenly find myself on the other side of the fence, so to speak. Not about a character I dislike, though. No, it's more complicated. Now, as a reader, I've experienced cases where someone else's stories made me reexamine canon and become more interested in characters I had overlooked. For example, Lennier on Babylon 5, whom I had liked fine during the original broadcast but had never paid much attention to and hadn't found that interesting. Later on, when after acquiring the B5 dvds I read fanfic by deborah_judge and eye_of_a_cat during my rewatch, and this definitely made me far more interested in the Lennier scenes than I had previously been. So that's familiar to me, but what I'm experiencing right now is something else. A sense of disconnection, is perhaps the best way to phrase it, about much of Morgana-centric fanfiction in Merlin. It's not a case of "oh, this makes me see Morgana in a new light"; more a case of "I'm sorry, but I can't see how this Morgana is the show's Morgana; maybe she's more inspired by Katie McGrath in her interviews and audio commentary?" Don't get me wrong: considering that Morgana's s2 arc, if it can be called that, was frustrating because of the passivity and the way she responded rather than acted, I can understand fanfiction compensating by writing her more active. (My own way of dealing with my passive-Laura-Roslin-in-later-s4.5 of BSG frustrations was writing a missing scenes story for her, after all.) My problem is more that the Morgana of much fanfiction doesn't seem to share any flaws with the tv version at all; she's so strong, witty, active, reaching out to Gwen, even graciously forgiving Merlin if it's a post-Fires of Idrisholas tale, that I can't reconcile the two in my head. I can't see fanon!Morgana being willing to write off everyone she grew up with if that means her own freedom, which canon Morgana did (even though she was "troubled" by the prospect). I can't see her crumbling when being questioned by Aredian, or being condescending to Gwen both in To kill a King and Witch's Quickening. I can't see being willing to let people be executed for an abduction that never took place. As for forgiveness - active or passive, does Morgana strike you as the forgiving type in either season? Or even the type to wait and investigate what possible reasons someone might have had before judging type? Her scenes with Uther argue against the former, and her scenes with Arthur in both "To kill a king" and "Lancelot and Guinevere" (where she gets a full rant out which turns out to be superflous as he's already doing something completely different from what she thought he would) against the later. Plus, you know, I actually like Merlin better than Morgana and I'd still completely understand if the next time they meet she'd give him no chance to explain but try to kill him right away.
(While we're on the subject of post-Idrisholas Merlin and Morgana encounters, one of my pet peeves related to Merlin, not Morgana, is when Merlin is made to say some variation of "the Dragon made me do it". Not only because on the show, Merlin tends to take responsibility for his deeds with bad consequences, not to blame them on someone else - cases in point "I did a stupid, stupid thing" in "The Witchfinder" re: magical display, or trying to save Gwen by declaring himself as a sorceror in "The Mark of Nimueh" - but also because in this particular case, the fact the Dragon was the one to deliver the information that killing Morgana would break the spell the castle was under is immaterial, because subsequent events showed this was indeed true, and not a lie on the Dragon's part. Not to mention that Merlin doesn't immediately go from getting that information to poisoning Morgana; he's struggling with the decision for the rest of the episode and only goes through with it after getting more evidence Morgana is indeed connected with the attacking knights and the spell the castle is under. So I think while writing Merlin sorry that he did it is ic, he'd still stand by his decision as his decision, and most definitely would not lamely state he only did it on the Dragon's say-so. Back to Morgana now.)
And the fanfiction I mean isn't simply s1 canon only, total denial of s2 based. Mind you, writing Morgana as strong yet fully accepting s2 is more difficult than writing her solely based on s1, I get that. But I think it's do-able. For starters, you can very plausibly argue Morgana post-The Nightmare Begins was in a state of depression - genuine, clinical depression - and that this made the difference between, say, her cool bravery when negotiating with Toran who had her surrounded in 1.12, and her fear of Aredian in 2.07. You can write her getting out of this post Fires, and getting her agency back. (Preferably some conversation with Morgause on how Morgause didn't tell her the whole truth, either, and thus left her in the dark while using her as well would be nice, btw.) But that's not mutually exclusive with acknowledging Morgana has in both seasons displayed some tendency to make things about herself when they really aren't, or that she's more likely to flare up than to go "wait and see" about an actual wrong done her, or that the relationship with Gwen, with both of them keeping more and more secrets from each other, wasn't idyllic. One of the reasons why I wrote Discordance was that it struck me virtually all fanfiction seemed to assume the only trouble between Gwen and Morgana could be caused by external circumstances (someone, usually Arthur and /or Merlin, keeping them apart or trying to). I thought that Gwen, who wasn't after vengeance against Uther, would definitely object to seeing "all who serve him" being condemmed to death, to say nothing of people dying just as her father had done, innocently, because Uther made a wrong assumption, only this time one Morgana could have nipped in the bud (by, oh, leaving a letter declaring her intention of leaving Camelot instead of allowing the kidnapping assumption). It's not that I don't think Gwen doesn't love Morgana. Or vice versa, whether you interpret it platonic or not, they undoubtedly care very deeply for each other. But I think that if they ever do get all issues out in the open, it should be acknowledged there are issues, and not all of them blameable on someone else or external circumstances.
In conclusion: I'm not sure I have one, except that I'm frustrated, and wonder whether this is what readers felt when writing to me about other characters "I like your version of X, but..."
Now, I've experienced several emotional reactions. It's easiest when the feedback is for a story about a character whom I've have mixed feelings about myself - Gaius from Merlin, for example, or Simone on Heroes -, and I have written those. (I've also written stories where the pov character was one I disliked intensely. It blackly amuses me that my very first Heroes story back when I was in fervent love with the show was a Sylar pov, and trust me, even before loathing him as one embodiment of much of what went wrong I never cared much for Sylar.) Sometimes I even write to figure out a character I'm not sure about better. Then feedback based on the "look what you've done, you've made me suddenly understand X!" principle is immensely satisfying, flattering even.
However, when the feedback is for characters I'm absolutely passionate about, whom I feel ridiculously defensive for, then the instinctive reaction is another matter. Cases in point: Connor back in my Angel days, or Abigail Brand ever since Astonishing X-Men. Then even cautiously phrased character dislike in the feedback, phrased, for example, like "if Connor was like that on the show, I might have liked him" or "you've almost made Brand bearable to me" raised my hackles. I felt like replying "well, obviously this IS how I've seen him/her on the show/in the book, that's why I fell in love with him/her". (This wasn't what I replied, btw; I usually told myself to see the reaction as a compliment and simply reply with "thank you" or "I'm glad you enjoyed the story".)
Why I am I reminded of this again? Because I suddenly find myself on the other side of the fence, so to speak. Not about a character I dislike, though. No, it's more complicated. Now, as a reader, I've experienced cases where someone else's stories made me reexamine canon and become more interested in characters I had overlooked. For example, Lennier on Babylon 5, whom I had liked fine during the original broadcast but had never paid much attention to and hadn't found that interesting. Later on, when after acquiring the B5 dvds I read fanfic by deborah_judge and eye_of_a_cat during my rewatch, and this definitely made me far more interested in the Lennier scenes than I had previously been. So that's familiar to me, but what I'm experiencing right now is something else. A sense of disconnection, is perhaps the best way to phrase it, about much of Morgana-centric fanfiction in Merlin. It's not a case of "oh, this makes me see Morgana in a new light"; more a case of "I'm sorry, but I can't see how this Morgana is the show's Morgana; maybe she's more inspired by Katie McGrath in her interviews and audio commentary?" Don't get me wrong: considering that Morgana's s2 arc, if it can be called that, was frustrating because of the passivity and the way she responded rather than acted, I can understand fanfiction compensating by writing her more active. (My own way of dealing with my passive-Laura-Roslin-in-later-s4.5 of BSG frustrations was writing a missing scenes story for her, after all.) My problem is more that the Morgana of much fanfiction doesn't seem to share any flaws with the tv version at all; she's so strong, witty, active, reaching out to Gwen, even graciously forgiving Merlin if it's a post-Fires of Idrisholas tale, that I can't reconcile the two in my head. I can't see fanon!Morgana being willing to write off everyone she grew up with if that means her own freedom, which canon Morgana did (even though she was "troubled" by the prospect). I can't see her crumbling when being questioned by Aredian, or being condescending to Gwen both in To kill a King and Witch's Quickening. I can't see being willing to let people be executed for an abduction that never took place. As for forgiveness - active or passive, does Morgana strike you as the forgiving type in either season? Or even the type to wait and investigate what possible reasons someone might have had before judging type? Her scenes with Uther argue against the former, and her scenes with Arthur in both "To kill a king" and "Lancelot and Guinevere" (where she gets a full rant out which turns out to be superflous as he's already doing something completely different from what she thought he would) against the later. Plus, you know, I actually like Merlin better than Morgana and I'd still completely understand if the next time they meet she'd give him no chance to explain but try to kill him right away.
(While we're on the subject of post-Idrisholas Merlin and Morgana encounters, one of my pet peeves related to Merlin, not Morgana, is when Merlin is made to say some variation of "the Dragon made me do it". Not only because on the show, Merlin tends to take responsibility for his deeds with bad consequences, not to blame them on someone else - cases in point "I did a stupid, stupid thing" in "The Witchfinder" re: magical display, or trying to save Gwen by declaring himself as a sorceror in "The Mark of Nimueh" - but also because in this particular case, the fact the Dragon was the one to deliver the information that killing Morgana would break the spell the castle was under is immaterial, because subsequent events showed this was indeed true, and not a lie on the Dragon's part. Not to mention that Merlin doesn't immediately go from getting that information to poisoning Morgana; he's struggling with the decision for the rest of the episode and only goes through with it after getting more evidence Morgana is indeed connected with the attacking knights and the spell the castle is under. So I think while writing Merlin sorry that he did it is ic, he'd still stand by his decision as his decision, and most definitely would not lamely state he only did it on the Dragon's say-so. Back to Morgana now.)
And the fanfiction I mean isn't simply s1 canon only, total denial of s2 based. Mind you, writing Morgana as strong yet fully accepting s2 is more difficult than writing her solely based on s1, I get that. But I think it's do-able. For starters, you can very plausibly argue Morgana post-The Nightmare Begins was in a state of depression - genuine, clinical depression - and that this made the difference between, say, her cool bravery when negotiating with Toran who had her surrounded in 1.12, and her fear of Aredian in 2.07. You can write her getting out of this post Fires, and getting her agency back. (Preferably some conversation with Morgause on how Morgause didn't tell her the whole truth, either, and thus left her in the dark while using her as well would be nice, btw.) But that's not mutually exclusive with acknowledging Morgana has in both seasons displayed some tendency to make things about herself when they really aren't, or that she's more likely to flare up than to go "wait and see" about an actual wrong done her, or that the relationship with Gwen, with both of them keeping more and more secrets from each other, wasn't idyllic. One of the reasons why I wrote Discordance was that it struck me virtually all fanfiction seemed to assume the only trouble between Gwen and Morgana could be caused by external circumstances (someone, usually Arthur and /or Merlin, keeping them apart or trying to). I thought that Gwen, who wasn't after vengeance against Uther, would definitely object to seeing "all who serve him" being condemmed to death, to say nothing of people dying just as her father had done, innocently, because Uther made a wrong assumption, only this time one Morgana could have nipped in the bud (by, oh, leaving a letter declaring her intention of leaving Camelot instead of allowing the kidnapping assumption). It's not that I don't think Gwen doesn't love Morgana. Or vice versa, whether you interpret it platonic or not, they undoubtedly care very deeply for each other. But I think that if they ever do get all issues out in the open, it should be acknowledged there are issues, and not all of them blameable on someone else or external circumstances.
In conclusion: I'm not sure I have one, except that I'm frustrated, and wonder whether this is what readers felt when writing to me about other characters "I like your version of X, but..."