celebration of good fanon

[kattahj]

During the recent fanon discussion, I've seen the only nice defence of good fanon in this LJ. Go have a look.

And I figured I should stop whining and speak up for some specific good fanon. So here are a short list of my favourite of those ideas that were never shown in canon yet are all over the place in fanfiction.

Doyle is a (borderline)

Comments

[thornsilver]

The Star of David, is not actually a religios symbol. In Anita Blake universe, Jewish vampire hunter uses little Torah scrolls to repulse vampires.

[kattahj]

That is incredibly cool. :-)

I suppose I should edit the original post, then. I tend to define everything that people wear to define their religions as religious symbols... but I suppose by that definition my old "Christians have more fun" sweater would have been a religious symbol too.

[mamadeb]

Not Torah Scrolls (Handwritten on parchment? Not gonna be that small. Really. And you *don't* want to carry around items that, if you drop them, you have to fast for 40 days.) They used little books in silver covers, and she doesn't say what the books are. I personally suspect either little chumashim (printed Torah texts) or tehilim - books of psalms. Or both.

Yeah, I paid a lot of attention to that scene. More intersting than her outfit at the time. :) And it was way cool.

[kattahj]

Whatever it was, it sounds very cool. I might have to check it out.

[musesfool]

A star of David works just as well against vampires as a cross does.

I'm fairly certain Joss rejected this on the Bronze, saying that vampires and Christianity have a long history of enmity, and so crosses work even if one doesn't believe in them, but other religious symbols do not. (I used to have the quote at my disposal, but that was a couple fandoms ago. I could probably google it up.)

Other vampire myths have their own take on the situation, of course, but I'm fairly certain this is not the case in the Bverse, despite there being nothing onscreen to contradict it (except that Willow never uses one and does use a cross, despite mentioning her status as Jewish a couple of times), so to me, using it in a fic would smack of wrongness.

[kattahj]

I'm fairly certain Joss rejected this on the Bronze, saying that vampires and Christianity have a long history of enmity, and so crosses work even if one doesn't believe in them, but other religious symbols do not.The Bronze isn't canon, though. So if I think his explanation sounds like complete idiocy - which I do - I am free to ignore it

[musesfool]

Obviously, mileage varies. I gave up on having the cosmology of the Buffyverse make sense years ago, so I'm willing to accept that crosses work for some reason and other symbols don't.

And I like the space cannibals.

[kattahj]

Obviously, mileage varies. I gave up on having the cosmology of the Buffyverse make sense years ago, so I'm willing to accept that crosses work for some reason and other symbols don't.

I know, I know, I should check out my sense of religious coherence at the door...

I just can't seem to learn it. Some ideas are for me stronger than canon. :-)

And I like the space cannibals.

I'd think they were super-awesome as Buffy demons, or aliens, or anything besides "they went out in space and went nuts and now everyone who witnesses their actions will join them." Non-ironical use of horror effects that make no sense bugs me crazy even when it scares me.

[greenygal]

Apart from Terry Pratchett, I can't think of any canonical writer who went for the idea.

Chris Claremont in an issue of X-Men where they take on Dracula--Kitty Pryde's Star of David burns him. (Because she believes in it. A cross didn't work for her.)

I'd be surprised if that hadn't come up elsewhere in comics, actually, but that's the only example I'm presently calling to mind.

[kattahj]

I'm sure it *has* appeared elsewhere. In a non-Christian environment, it's really the only explanation that makes any sense whatsoever.

[elfbystarlight]

I'm fairly sure that the Jim Butcher novels have non-Christian religious symbols used against vampires/demons in the same way as crosses are. Been a while since I read them so I'd have to go back and see, but other good candidates for the concept are the Mercedes Lackey 'Diana Tregarde' books (very much like Anita Blake in genre)... Tanya Huff, perhaps, Rosemary Edghill? I read too much in that style and can't keep them straight any more, but it's not a particularly unusual idea. I was actually surprised when Buffy went for the cross-only approach - it felt unusual, at least in terms of anything written in the last ten, twenty years.

I think that's why it bleeds across... when universes are similar, an idea used in one seems only logical in another.

[kattahj]

I think that's why it bleeds across... when universes are similar, an idea used in one seems only logical in another.

Yeah. The Buffy approach really makes no sense - we know that Hecate exists, and Osiris, and unspecified powers beyond that, but for some reason, vampires are Christian-specific.

I mean, it's different in Dogma, where there's just one God. They can use the concept of Holy Water without having to discuss what makes it holy - it's the influence of God. (And interestingly enough, calling upon God also makes other things holy, such as golf clubs.)

In all honesty, I think it cheapens religious symbols to use them as mere *props*, there because it's tradition and not because it makes any sort of sense in the universe given.

[elfbystarlight]

In all honesty, I think it cheapens religious symbols to use them as mere *props*, there because it's tradition and not because it makes any sort of sense in the universe given.Agreed - it makes no sense *unless* you subscribe to the belief that Christian symbols have inherant power rather that symbolic power - which is a belief found nowhere outside Christianity (to be fair, I don't know enough of the finer details of Christianity to know whether that's typical or not, only that I know of some who do have that belief

[kattahj]

A pantheistic approach with the arbitrary poles of 'good' and 'evil' above everything. :)

There are certain things that are doubtlessly Christian - the crucifixion does seem to have happened, for example, since we know vampires like to brag that they were there. But the "heaven" mentioned is a very vague concept, and "hell" is even vaguer - hell dimensions (plural), a hell where evil people go where they die, and hell-on-earth, have all been used.

I'd say the Buffyverse was created by a lapsed or non-practising Christian who isn't aware that the world isn't as uniform in belief and structure as it might seem from the inside of a mainstream faith.

Yeah, that, and the idea that if you take what you like from any source you can find, you don't have to come up with some sort of internal structure to it.

Using the terminology of Tolkien, I don't think Whedon is taking his role as sub-creator nearly seriously enough.

[mudskipper]

A star of David works just as well against vampires as a cross does.
[...] Apart from Terry Pratchett, I can't think of any canonical writer who went for the idea.

Well, there is that wonderful scene in Polanski's The fearless vampire hunters where someone waves a cross at the jewish vampire, and he just laughs and says something like "oh no, that won't work on this vampire". Then again, that's a parody of the vampire fandom, so I'm not sure it counts...

[kattahj]

There are really three possible approaches: either a god makes the symbol work, or it's the faith of the one wielding it, or it's the faith of the vampire. The trouble with the Buffyverse among other is that none of those approaches seem to fit.