To be honest, I think a lot of it is my doing, although since I don't write much from his perspective I will say that he's meant to be a lot scarier in Henry's POV than he is "objectively." I know it doesn't really read that way though. The whole thing owes a lot to my relationship with my mother.
Gaunt actually does get a POV in a thing I'm working on, where I think he comes off a lot more sympathetically then when we're not in his head (actually he comes off rather Stannis Baratheon-like, so he's not especially cuddly, but he wasn't in real life either). I also did give him his own daddy issues, largely because Edward III resents all his other sons since his favorite died. lareinenoire also writes a good sympathetic!Gaunt.
Oh, I'm not saying it's implausible. (Chances are in that family that of you start as a younger son and end up on the top in effect if not in title for years, you are not a cuddly person.) But the - in lack of a better term though I hesitate to use it in a small fandom - universality of it reminded me of how "Daddy issues" has become such a default thing, no matter whether or not there is actual canon to justify it. And makes me want to look for something to go against the trend and gift a main character with an entirely functional relationship with his father. (Time for some DS9 rewatch?)
Well, this particular fandom is tiny and closely-knit -- this is the biggest ficathon turnout ever, and the first time in several years that anyone outside a particular circle* has joined -- and as such there's a lot of shared characterization happening, which I like to think is a different sort of phenomenon than particular possibly-idiosyncratic characterizations appearing frequently across a large fandom that lots of people write in.
This is particularly the case since there are quite a few people in the tiny relatively stable center of the histories fandom who don't write Richard II fic at all, and even out of those who do I don't think many of them have written fic where Gaunt appears or is mentioned frequently, so really this particular trend in characterization is perpetuated by maybe three or four people, and I can say with some certainty that I pretty much started it. So, really, the answer to the question in your post is essentially "It's angevin2's fault
( ... )
there's a lot of shared characterization happening, which I like to think is a different sort of phenomenon than particular possibly-idiosyncratic characterizations appearing frequently across a large fandom that lots of people write in.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking when this came up. People explicitly responding to and building on each other's world-building is a little bit different than 'everybody decides Draco is a woobie because he has neat hair' (or however Potter fandom worked).
Slander! Potter fandom decided that Draco wore leather trousers. :) But yeah, I know what you mean. A couple of years back, one of the Fannish 5 memes asked about fanon you yourself have adopted, and I realised I had, in several instances. Sometimes something just makes so much emotional sense to you that after reading it, you adopt it.
...I'm still getting more and more motivated to write a crack fic titled "How Not To Strangle Your Nephew And Keep Your Legitimate And Illegitimate Kids Sane, By John Of Gaunt, With Annotations By Katherine Swynford". In a few years. When I have time. :)
Gaunt actually does get a POV in a thing I'm working on, where I think he comes off a lot more sympathetically then when we're not in his head (actually he comes off rather Stannis Baratheon-like, so he's not especially cuddly, but he wasn't in real life either). I also did give him his own daddy issues, largely because Edward III resents all his other sons since his favorite died. lareinenoire also writes a good sympathetic!Gaunt.
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This is particularly the case since there are quite a few people in the tiny relatively stable center of the histories fandom who don't write Richard II fic at all, and even out of those who do I don't think many of them have written fic where Gaunt appears or is mentioned frequently, so really this particular trend in characterization is perpetuated by maybe three or four people, and I can say with some certainty that I pretty much started it. So, really, the answer to the question in your post is essentially "It's angevin2's fault ( ... )
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Yeah, that's what I was thinking when this came up. People explicitly responding to and building on each other's world-building is a little bit different than 'everybody decides Draco is a woobie because he has neat hair' (or however Potter fandom worked).
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...I'm still getting more and more motivated to write a crack fic titled "How Not To Strangle Your Nephew And Keep Your Legitimate And Illegitimate Kids Sane, By John Of Gaunt, With Annotations By Katherine Swynford". In a few years. When I have time. :)
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