Thoughts on fandoms, endings, and YA -- Allegiant SPOILERS
Again, lots and lots of spoilers. Please stay away if you haven't read it but plan to later.
If you're not going to read the series, but are willing to have some dialogue about the concepts, I'll sum up inside.
What is Kim talking about now?
The Divergent series is a just-completed trilogy of YA dystopian books. At the very end, the main female character, Tris, dies a very self-sacrificial death while completing a very necessary mission, which leads to the possible repair of their messed up world. Her boyfriend, Tobias/Four, survives and is left in a world that is better for everyone, including himself. But with his girlfriend gone, he lacks a traditional happy ending. The author did not choose to "Harry Potter her" by giving her a death and resurrection, or write a last minute save into the story. She's well and truly dead.
And the fandom did explode
It's not outrageous that, when the beloved main character of a story dies, the fandom surrounding her would be hurt, mourning, angry, etc. I mean, if they gave a collective shrug to her outcome, that would be worrying. So I get it. I understand that people are upset. I am. I'm sad and hurt and mourning and angry.
But I'm not angry at the author.
Basically I have found myself in a position opposite to almost the entire fandom, or so it seems right now. I don't hate the ending. I think that the ending Roth wrote makes total sense. I don't think it's "inappropriate for YA." (I actually think that is one of the stupidest and most pedantic responses I've seen so far, and yet it seems to be the most bantered around where I've been reading.)
This is one of the first series I've read that has had the untimely death of the main protagonist. It hurt. I wish that she hadn't died. I certainly struggled to process the ending because I thought that a miracle would be offered at the last minute.
For a split second, I thought that the ghost/memory of her mother was actually her mother in the flesh come to rescue her.
For a few minutes, I thought that the death serum would wear off and she'd recover from her wounds.
Then, once I realized she really was dead, I expected Four (the boyfriend) to die as well. It would be poetic and all that, plus it would spare him/us the grief of seeing him continue without her.
(Honestly, once I figured out at about 80% through the book that Tris was doomed, I thought they'd have sort of parallel deaths--hers in the Bureau and his in the city.)
I understand that people are upset that she died. I am, too. I would have loved it if she'd survived and had a family and happy life with Four. I even wrote a short happy end so my daughter could have an easier way to think of it if she wanted to.
I guess that what I want to express most is that I strongly feel that just because an ending doesn't make me happy, it doesn't mean the book is badly done. It doesn't mean that the author has betrayed me and stolen the dollars and time I've invested by not giving me the ending I want. It doesn't mean that the editing was bad, or the book shouldn't be YA, or that the author should be killed (which...really? I can't believe people are making freaking death threats.).
I seem to think better in points these days, so there are three things I'm focused on in reaction to this whole...thing.
1. YA books and loss
Some have said that this type of ending doesn't belong in YA, or that it proves that YA writers end up in YA because they can't write. Those are two totally different things, even though I've seen them said by the same people like they're equal and supporting points.
For the first, this is mostly grown women who claim to be scared to see teen readers all filled with despair about Tris dying. And I get it, believe me. One of my first thoughts was how my twelve-year-old daughter and teen students were going to react to this. For most of them, this is their first major character death. Yes, they read HP, but most of them were not invested in the adult ships and, though Fred dying was saddening, it was not like one of the Trio had died.
At the same time, though, why would I want to keep her fictional experiences so separate from real life? Everyone dies. Not everyone gets a happy ending. I feel like letting her experience that in the "safe" environment of fiction is a way for her to start processing those concepts. It certainly was part of my reading life.
There is, if you go back and read it, an amazing beauty to the way this heroine died. She'd been trying to throw her life away because of guilt and despair. She finally reaches the point where she's ready to live, and that's when she has to give her life. It's not a suicide mission because she's young and reckless and full of bravado. She saves the life of her brother, who didn't deserve it, and she makes an immeasurable difference in the future of that world. She changes everything and she dies in peace. To say her death was useless...what? It's a good death. (Perhaps that has to do with worldview? I'm not someone who's afraid of death. Dying and pain, yes, but not being dead. Tris wasn't either, and her death scene makes it clear she's at peace with it.) And her sacrifice accomplishes so much.
I feel horribly, heartbreakingly saddened for her boyfriend. They could have had a beautiful life. But she wouldn't have been whole if she hadn't done what she did. Their big plans would have failed and that world would have only gotten worse. She would have been consumed by guilt if she'd let her brother die instead. Tobias's life is sadder, but it's decent. And after the life he's had, decent is actually really great.
(I could add here something about people being scared of their own mortality and the whole mindset that makes women/men -- but perhaps mostly women? -- want to be sure that when they die their significant other won't replace them quickly. Like...they would have been loved less in life if their SO didn't cling to their memory forever? But I'm not terribly sentimental in real life, wouldn't mind it if my Mr married again right away, etc. but I wonder if that means I'm not normal?)
Why do we think teens need safe books? Are we really back to the idea that YA means easy/safe/starter books? Really? I'd get that mindset if it was from people who didn't read YA, but this is coming from YA devotees. *sigh*
The second idea here is that the ending is badly written and that trilogies, and YA ones in particular, lead to bad writing. Sure, trilogies leave room for it. They let authors delay things that would probably do better if delivered earlier, they can leave room for loose world building or second volume slump, etc. But blanket statements are just dumb. (ha)
Just because someone doesn't like a book or plot line doesn't mean it's badly written.
Just because an author has a fan base doesn't mean she is under their control and must deliver a novel with all of their points satisfied. (Which, of course, would be impossible. If so, Harry Potter would have ended up in bed with...pretty much everyone in the series, right?) And that brings me to...
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2. Shipping coloring your priorities
If the Divergent series was first and foremost a romance, then killing off either of the two main characters before they'd had a long and happy life together would have been a betrayal. (Unless you're Nicholas Sparks. Or writing The Time Traveller's Wife. Or...plenty of other stuff. So...okay.)
But, and I can't emphasize this enough, this series is set in a dystopia. All a dystopian society can realistically do is to get markedly better.
One of the biggest criticisms of Mockingjay was that it didn't end happily enough. Same now with Divergent.
Dystopia books have always seemed to be ones where all bets are off. Listen, all I can say is that if you want sparkly unicorn rainbow wedding cupcake happy endings, you're in the wrong genre. Abandon all hope, ye who enter...etc.
Enough said.
Neither Divergent nor The Hunger Games are primarily romance series. They are focused on good but flawed people mired in horrible, dehumanising systems that were determined to exploit them in every way possible. That these characters found even a modicum of romance and joy in their lives exceeds expectations and already sets them far ahead of most of the rest of their world. But the focus of the story itself, and of the story the author wanted to tell in the first place was not the romance. It was the society. It was on these characters being small but powerful lights in the darkness who gave everything they had to set things in their world right. Willingly and without expectation of reward.
Yes, we want them to have a beautiful life.
Yes, they "deserve" a beautiful life.
But that doesn't mean it has to happen. And if it does happen in a dystopia, it would be against the norm of the genre. It would unexpected.
Consider the end of 1984 where they are brainwashed, they do forget/lose their love, and they don't even care. It's tragic. It's horrible. And it is completely consistent for that world.
With Divergent the characters have a lot to work through individually. And they do it. They work through it, they reconcile, they're stronger than ever. And then Tris dies. It's tragic. But it works because she doesn't want to die anymore. Finally, after weeks and weeks of being reckless and daring death in order to assuage her guilt, she moves past it. This allows her to die sacrificially instead of suicidally. And it's beautiful. Painful, but beautiful. Most importantly, if she hadn't done what she did, the entire plan would not have succeeded and the world would be immensely worse off.
In case I seem unaffected, I would have been thrilled to have had a miracle ending where she lives anyway. For David's gun to misfire. For a Sleeping Beauty kiss from Four in the morgue that woke her up because the death serum wore off and her wounds weren't fatal. Would have been lovely.
But I don't rage that it didn't occur that way.
So here is the primary thing that bothers me the most about the shippers who are upset. Many of them are now saying variations of "If you had to kill someone, Roth, why didn't you kill Four?"
I definitely don't understand how Four has suddenly become expendable to shippers, and is now offered up as a sort of "if you had to kill someone, kill him" offering. They're saying that the unsatisfying outcome of the happy-ever-after-in-love relationship is what's leaving them unsatisfied, while at the same time saying that...what? That they'd accept a death of that same pairing as long as it was the other one who died.
I don't...I mean...WHAT???
I liked a point made by this review on Hypable which said, "people who are frustrated at or feel betrayed by author Veronica Roth for killing Tris for whatever reason - Tris and Tobias belong together, she should’ve lived based on sheer principal that you don’t kill your protagonist, etc., arguably miss the point of the series: this is not a story with a happy ending, this is a dystopia where people who should live, die."
When it comes down to it, I was very invested in Tris and Four, their relationship, and their future. If any two people deserved a happy ever after, it's these two. In fact, I think that they're up at the top of the list of contenders for my OTP.
(I'll be callous enough to remind the fandom that even in normal, non-dystopian life, crazy tragedy strikes a lot of people who "don't deserve it" because of course, if they did deserve it, it's not a tragedy. It's just desserts. And those are horrible stories worth reading, too.)
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3. Fanfiction and fandom culture creating expectations of ownership
Fandom tends to create a feeling of community ownership of the material, the author's time, and most especially, the author's product. We feel that in response to our loyalty, we should get the ending we want because that is the ending we deserve.
Like we're ordering toppings on our pizza, instead of reading the product of someone's imagination.
We put in a lot of time and effort to forum talks and fan fiction, to speculation of outcomes, etc. We spend a lot of time saying things like "I will be shocked if ____ does/doesn't happen." Or "the author would never ____" Or generally patting ourselves on the back as clever readers and discerners of the messages/intent/direction that the author is sure to be writing in the end of the series.
Sometimes we're right and we can feel good about that. I certainly enjoyed seeing most of what I expected come to fruition in Harry Potter. I have a nasty feeling about another series willowwand and I are reading (Brodi Ashton's) because the fandom buzz for the bad boy is so strong and the author seems like she might be headed in that direction for the ending. But, that's a risk we know we're taking by reading a WIP.
I know people who feel hugely "betrayed" (their word) that Katniss ended up with Peeta instead of Gale. After all, they'd already been betrayed by not getting a Harry/Hermione outcome. Now, they're done with fandoms because they're all horrible and the authors betray them, etc.
I...hmm...okay?
An article from a blog I just read had this to say: This is not just a reaction to a story not going the way readers hoped it would. This is a reaction to the realization that you are powerless in a community you have helped build from the ground up. The fan community is often such a democratic arena, fans can be lulled into a false sense of democracy, but at the end of the day, they don’t really have a vote. If an author has built an empire, she’s allowed to rule that empire as she sees fit. She’s not going to get that much pushback from publishers, nobody shuts the door on that much money. As a fan you may have helped build the kingdom, but it is the author who reigns on high as queen.
I wonder how much the reading and writing of fanfiction on WIP series has influenced our willingness to go along with what the author has planned. With fanfiction, we can keep looking around until we find a fic author or AU arc that gives us what we want. And that is beautiful. It's something I hold dear. But are we so used to being able to find what we want with the characters slotted into it that when canon doesn't behave like our fanfiction...we're disappointed?
Fandoms don't like it when their authors don't behave as they wish. I get it. But I don't think an argument that their preferences should drive all of the author's choices is a valid one. I don't think that the author has failed to follow some implied author/reader contract by diverging from what the fandom expects. Being a fan is a risk-taking venture. I can see that some people would cut their losses and leave. That some people wouldn't go see the movies. That they might warn others away. But fan commitment and preference isn't a mandate to the author, and I commend Veronica Roth for writing the series that she envisioned.
If you're not going to read the series, but are willing to have some dialogue about the concepts, I'll sum up inside.
What is Kim talking about now?
The Divergent series is a just-completed trilogy of YA dystopian books. At the very end, the main female character, Tris, dies a very self-sacrificial death while completing a very necessary mission, which leads to the possible repair of their messed up world. Her boyfriend, Tobias/Four, survives and is left in a world that is better for everyone, including himself. But with his girlfriend gone, he lacks a traditional happy ending. The author did not choose to "Harry Potter her" by giving her a death and resurrection, or write a last minute save into the story. She's well and truly dead.
And the fandom did explode
It's not outrageous that, when the beloved main character of a story dies, the fandom surrounding her would be hurt, mourning, angry, etc. I mean, if they gave a collective shrug to her outcome, that would be worrying. So I get it. I understand that people are upset. I am. I'm sad and hurt and mourning and angry.
But I'm not angry at the author.
Basically I have found myself in a position opposite to almost the entire fandom, or so it seems right now. I don't hate the ending. I think that the ending Roth wrote makes total sense. I don't think it's "inappropriate for YA." (I actually think that is one of the stupidest and most pedantic responses I've seen so far, and yet it seems to be the most bantered around where I've been reading.)
This is one of the first series I've read that has had the untimely death of the main protagonist. It hurt. I wish that she hadn't died. I certainly struggled to process the ending because I thought that a miracle would be offered at the last minute.
For a split second, I thought that the ghost/memory of her mother was actually her mother in the flesh come to rescue her.
For a few minutes, I thought that the death serum would wear off and she'd recover from her wounds.
Then, once I realized she really was dead, I expected Four (the boyfriend) to die as well. It would be poetic and all that, plus it would spare him/us the grief of seeing him continue without her.
(Honestly, once I figured out at about 80% through the book that Tris was doomed, I thought they'd have sort of parallel deaths--hers in the Bureau and his in the city.)
I understand that people are upset that she died. I am, too. I would have loved it if she'd survived and had a family and happy life with Four. I even wrote a short happy end so my daughter could have an easier way to think of it if she wanted to.
I guess that what I want to express most is that I strongly feel that just because an ending doesn't make me happy, it doesn't mean the book is badly done. It doesn't mean that the author has betrayed me and stolen the dollars and time I've invested by not giving me the ending I want. It doesn't mean that the editing was bad, or the book shouldn't be YA, or that the author should be killed (which...really? I can't believe people are making freaking death threats.).
I seem to think better in points these days, so there are three things I'm focused on in reaction to this whole...thing.
1. YA books and loss
Some have said that this type of ending doesn't belong in YA, or that it proves that YA writers end up in YA because they can't write. Those are two totally different things, even though I've seen them said by the same people like they're equal and supporting points.
For the first, this is mostly grown women who claim to be scared to see teen readers all filled with despair about Tris dying. And I get it, believe me. One of my first thoughts was how my twelve-year-old daughter and teen students were going to react to this. For most of them, this is their first major character death. Yes, they read HP, but most of them were not invested in the adult ships and, though Fred dying was saddening, it was not like one of the Trio had died.
At the same time, though, why would I want to keep her fictional experiences so separate from real life? Everyone dies. Not everyone gets a happy ending. I feel like letting her experience that in the "safe" environment of fiction is a way for her to start processing those concepts. It certainly was part of my reading life.
There is, if you go back and read it, an amazing beauty to the way this heroine died. She'd been trying to throw her life away because of guilt and despair. She finally reaches the point where she's ready to live, and that's when she has to give her life. It's not a suicide mission because she's young and reckless and full of bravado. She saves the life of her brother, who didn't deserve it, and she makes an immeasurable difference in the future of that world. She changes everything and she dies in peace. To say her death was useless...what? It's a good death. (Perhaps that has to do with worldview? I'm not someone who's afraid of death. Dying and pain, yes, but not being dead. Tris wasn't either, and her death scene makes it clear she's at peace with it.) And her sacrifice accomplishes so much.
I feel horribly, heartbreakingly saddened for her boyfriend. They could have had a beautiful life. But she wouldn't have been whole if she hadn't done what she did. Their big plans would have failed and that world would have only gotten worse. She would have been consumed by guilt if she'd let her brother die instead. Tobias's life is sadder, but it's decent. And after the life he's had, decent is actually really great.
(I could add here something about people being scared of their own mortality and the whole mindset that makes women/men -- but perhaps mostly women? -- want to be sure that when they die their significant other won't replace them quickly. Like...they would have been loved less in life if their SO didn't cling to their memory forever? But I'm not terribly sentimental in real life, wouldn't mind it if my Mr married again right away, etc. but I wonder if that means I'm not normal?)
Why do we think teens need safe books? Are we really back to the idea that YA means easy/safe/starter books? Really? I'd get that mindset if it was from people who didn't read YA, but this is coming from YA devotees. *sigh*
The second idea here is that the ending is badly written and that trilogies, and YA ones in particular, lead to bad writing. Sure, trilogies leave room for it. They let authors delay things that would probably do better if delivered earlier, they can leave room for loose world building or second volume slump, etc. But blanket statements are just dumb. (ha)
Just because someone doesn't like a book or plot line doesn't mean it's badly written.
Just because an author has a fan base doesn't mean she is under their control and must deliver a novel with all of their points satisfied. (Which, of course, would be impossible. If so, Harry Potter would have ended up in bed with...pretty much everyone in the series, right?) And that brings me to...
.
.
.
2. Shipping coloring your priorities
If the Divergent series was first and foremost a romance, then killing off either of the two main characters before they'd had a long and happy life together would have been a betrayal. (Unless you're Nicholas Sparks. Or writing The Time Traveller's Wife. Or...plenty of other stuff. So...okay.)
But, and I can't emphasize this enough, this series is set in a dystopia. All a dystopian society can realistically do is to get markedly better.
One of the biggest criticisms of Mockingjay was that it didn't end happily enough. Same now with Divergent.
Dystopia books have always seemed to be ones where all bets are off. Listen, all I can say is that if you want sparkly unicorn rainbow wedding cupcake happy endings, you're in the wrong genre. Abandon all hope, ye who enter...etc.
Enough said.
Neither Divergent nor The Hunger Games are primarily romance series. They are focused on good but flawed people mired in horrible, dehumanising systems that were determined to exploit them in every way possible. That these characters found even a modicum of romance and joy in their lives exceeds expectations and already sets them far ahead of most of the rest of their world. But the focus of the story itself, and of the story the author wanted to tell in the first place was not the romance. It was the society. It was on these characters being small but powerful lights in the darkness who gave everything they had to set things in their world right. Willingly and without expectation of reward.
Yes, we want them to have a beautiful life.
Yes, they "deserve" a beautiful life.
But that doesn't mean it has to happen. And if it does happen in a dystopia, it would be against the norm of the genre. It would unexpected.
Consider the end of 1984 where they are brainwashed, they do forget/lose their love, and they don't even care. It's tragic. It's horrible. And it is completely consistent for that world.
With Divergent the characters have a lot to work through individually. And they do it. They work through it, they reconcile, they're stronger than ever. And then Tris dies. It's tragic. But it works because she doesn't want to die anymore. Finally, after weeks and weeks of being reckless and daring death in order to assuage her guilt, she moves past it. This allows her to die sacrificially instead of suicidally. And it's beautiful. Painful, but beautiful. Most importantly, if she hadn't done what she did, the entire plan would not have succeeded and the world would be immensely worse off.
In case I seem unaffected, I would have been thrilled to have had a miracle ending where she lives anyway. For David's gun to misfire. For a Sleeping Beauty kiss from Four in the morgue that woke her up because the death serum wore off and her wounds weren't fatal. Would have been lovely.
But I don't rage that it didn't occur that way.
So here is the primary thing that bothers me the most about the shippers who are upset. Many of them are now saying variations of "If you had to kill someone, Roth, why didn't you kill Four?"
I definitely don't understand how Four has suddenly become expendable to shippers, and is now offered up as a sort of "if you had to kill someone, kill him" offering. They're saying that the unsatisfying outcome of the happy-ever-after-in-love relationship is what's leaving them unsatisfied, while at the same time saying that...what? That they'd accept a death of that same pairing as long as it was the other one who died.
I don't...I mean...WHAT???
I liked a point made by this review on Hypable which said, "people who are frustrated at or feel betrayed by author Veronica Roth for killing Tris for whatever reason - Tris and Tobias belong together, she should’ve lived based on sheer principal that you don’t kill your protagonist, etc., arguably miss the point of the series: this is not a story with a happy ending, this is a dystopia where people who should live, die."
When it comes down to it, I was very invested in Tris and Four, their relationship, and their future. If any two people deserved a happy ever after, it's these two. In fact, I think that they're up at the top of the list of contenders for my OTP.
(I'll be callous enough to remind the fandom that even in normal, non-dystopian life, crazy tragedy strikes a lot of people who "don't deserve it" because of course, if they did deserve it, it's not a tragedy. It's just desserts. And those are horrible stories worth reading, too.)
.
.
.
3. Fanfiction and fandom culture creating expectations of ownership
Fandom tends to create a feeling of community ownership of the material, the author's time, and most especially, the author's product. We feel that in response to our loyalty, we should get the ending we want because that is the ending we deserve.
Like we're ordering toppings on our pizza, instead of reading the product of someone's imagination.
We put in a lot of time and effort to forum talks and fan fiction, to speculation of outcomes, etc. We spend a lot of time saying things like "I will be shocked if ____ does/doesn't happen." Or "the author would never ____" Or generally patting ourselves on the back as clever readers and discerners of the messages/intent/direction that the author is sure to be writing in the end of the series.
Sometimes we're right and we can feel good about that. I certainly enjoyed seeing most of what I expected come to fruition in Harry Potter. I have a nasty feeling about another series willowwand and I are reading (Brodi Ashton's) because the fandom buzz for the bad boy is so strong and the author seems like she might be headed in that direction for the ending. But, that's a risk we know we're taking by reading a WIP.
I know people who feel hugely "betrayed" (their word) that Katniss ended up with Peeta instead of Gale. After all, they'd already been betrayed by not getting a Harry/Hermione outcome. Now, they're done with fandoms because they're all horrible and the authors betray them, etc.
I...hmm...okay?
An article from a blog I just read had this to say: This is not just a reaction to a story not going the way readers hoped it would. This is a reaction to the realization that you are powerless in a community you have helped build from the ground up. The fan community is often such a democratic arena, fans can be lulled into a false sense of democracy, but at the end of the day, they don’t really have a vote. If an author has built an empire, she’s allowed to rule that empire as she sees fit. She’s not going to get that much pushback from publishers, nobody shuts the door on that much money. As a fan you may have helped build the kingdom, but it is the author who reigns on high as queen.
I wonder how much the reading and writing of fanfiction on WIP series has influenced our willingness to go along with what the author has planned. With fanfiction, we can keep looking around until we find a fic author or AU arc that gives us what we want. And that is beautiful. It's something I hold dear. But are we so used to being able to find what we want with the characters slotted into it that when canon doesn't behave like our fanfiction...we're disappointed?
Fandoms don't like it when their authors don't behave as they wish. I get it. But I don't think an argument that their preferences should drive all of the author's choices is a valid one. I don't think that the author has failed to follow some implied author/reader contract by diverging from what the fandom expects. Being a fan is a risk-taking venture. I can see that some people would cut their losses and leave. That some people wouldn't go see the movies. That they might warn others away. But fan commitment and preference isn't a mandate to the author, and I commend Veronica Roth for writing the series that she envisioned.