On fiction

[andrewducker]

I've been reading lots of the discussion of Dumbledore's outing with interest. Not, per se, in his being gay or not (it fits in perfectly well to the background, but doesn't really add or subtract much to the plot, which is presumably it wasn't in the book), but in the reaction to it, which was much more interesting

Comments

[atreic]

But contradictions are awful! It is much harder to suspend disbelief if there is a glaring contradiction. And if you accept all fanfiction as "as true" as canon, then there are glaring contradictions all over the place

[andrewducker]

Contradictions with the same text are obviously a problem. Contradictions between different texts that aren't supposed to be dependent - that's fine. "Batman Begins" contradicts "Batman", which contradicts the 1960's Batman series, which is different to Batman: Year One. All of them are equally true.

[atreic]

Well, yes. But that's just a question of definition and making sure you're talking about the same thing. And there is obviously a continuum - it seems reasonable to expect a series of books to be consistant, and there is a fuzzy line between where there is a series-as-a-whole and when there are just similarly-inspired-things (as you claim Batman is. I haven't read Batman, I don't know, but I am prepaired to believe you. Hitchikers in its different mediums is a good one). So the question is where the line is (and maybe the answer is just that it's fuzzy) and what is a unit. At the moment people seem to think there is a self consistant Harry Potter universe that covers the books and the films but not the fanfic, and are confused by whether JKs proclamation is in this blob or out of it.

[lizzie_and_ari]

The interesting point here is that she was asked.

JK Rowling didn't call a press conference and tell everyone that Dumbledore is gay (along with McGonagall and Grubbly Plank), Aunt Muriel was arthritic and that Alecto Carrow had his tonsils out when he was 12 - despite all these things quite possibly being in her head.

Someone (who presumably had read the books) asked her whether Dumbledore has ever been in love - she was specifically asked about some of the character background in her head.

She answered the question.

I don't see how that is unfair to anyone - except to persecute the question-asker.

Anywaym art is art, and personally I totally agree that Dumbledore was gay. If you choose not too, you can do that too. Now have a cup of tea and get on with the rest of your life.

(This comment is not addressed to you, Andy, but to the Wounded)

Lxxx

[makyo]

I've seen explanations for the numerous different kinds of cybermen in Dr WhoSome DW fans do get really quite worked up over particularly detailed points of canonicity and continuity while simultaneously ignoring other (to me, equally significant) ones

[andrewducker]

Exactly!

If Russel T Davies wants to then he'll have a technobabble explanation at the time. If he doesn't, he won't. Either way round, 98% of the audience will be perfectly happy.

[laserboy]

Well you need to have an element of reality to get invested in a story. If you have silly handwavy resolutions to everything, it's immensely boring, not to mention lazy. (I give you bad Voyager episodes and most of RTDs Who episodes).

[guyinahat]

Bizarre indeed.

I think a good example would be all the books churned out from Tolkien's notes. How much of that was rambling, how much did he ever mean to be published, who cares if it reads well?

[octopoid_horror]

I, on the other hand, have seen too many bad-to-mediocre authors/film-makers etc try to dress up their works by virtue of things not originally or obviously contained therein

[andrewducker]

Ooh, that last paragraph is interesting. Of course, in the various bits of Dumbledore biography in the last book there was talk of his "unusual interest in Harry Potter". So possibly it was going on, but Harry never noticed or found out about it.

I totally agree that having 5000 pages of background material doesn't add anything. I never saw Chronicles of Riddick precisely because it sounded like it was a bad roleplaying game condensed down into a movie with no actual coherence to it.

[heron61]

In addition to being in complete and total agreement with your primary point, I saw both the theater release and the director's cut of Chronicles of Riddick and very much enjoyed it. The director's cut is fairly consistent and one one level the film is a fascinating commentary on race (which is far more clear if you understand that Vin Diesel is considered black by many of his fans who are people of color (IIRC, he has one black grandparent or something similar). It's also rip-roaring pulpy fun, and impressively like Exalted in space.