Harnessing the Dragon: A Middle Ground for Fanfiction
With Naomi Novik's recent announcement about the Organization for Transformative Works there's been a renewed energy in discussion of fanfiction and its impact on the specluative fiction community. I'm not really going to comment on the OTW -- I tend to concur with John Scalzi on its feasibility and potential danger to the fanfiction community
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I would agree with you on the transformative element if we were talking about work in the public domain. I do think that there is a distinction, and not just a legal one. When a work is still living -- when its originator is still alive -- I don't think its story is yet complete, and therefore you can't have that level of reflection that you describe. It needs to be complete first before it can be considered in total and reflected away from itself.
The mythology element with Arthurian tales and things like the greek (and earlier) gods is an interesting point and I believe I've heard it brought up in defense of fanfiction. I don't think that adequately explains why it took so long for those phenomena to resurface, though. And I think they served different purposes -- moralistic ones, allegorical ones. I really don't see that going on in fanfiction, and I don't think it's the community's intent. I think they are primarily attempting to create a world in which to inhabit, which leads to my theory that providing them that world and getting out of the way is a better solution than trying to tell them they shouldn't have those desires.
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