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.

The most fascinating part of the conversation has been over whether JK has the right to go around telling us things that weren't in the books, and whether she should be doing so at all... There seems to be a feeling that writers are there to produce books, and outside of that should be neither seen nor heard. This hasn't just been obvious in recent discussions, but also over the epilogue to Deathly Hallows, and the other bits and pieces of information released about what happened between the ending of the story proper and the epilogue. People seem to be actually aghast that she would have all of this extra information in her head, or that she would have things worked out that weren't in the final book. This seems to stem from some kind of gross lack of understanding about both the writing process and fiction itself.

At some point in the past JK had an idea for a story. She then spent over ten years thinking about that story, the characters involved in it, the world they inhabited, and which chunks of it should be written down in order to produce the best book she could. There will be all sorts of drafts, notes, and ideas that came up along the way - some of which were cut because they weren't right, some of which there wasn't space for, some of which were discarded because better ideas occurred to her, and some of which actually made it into the hands of her agent, then her editor, and then were printed in book form and made it into the sticky hands of the readers. The idea that some of these chunks are any more real than others seems to be evidence, to me, of some kind of psychosis. As with all fiction, it's all made up.

If all you're interested in is the book then that's fine, but I've seen people claiming that Dumbledore isn't gay unless her statement about him goes from her, to her agent, her editor, her publisher, is put onto bits of paper and then sold to them in the form of a book. How, exactly, this process conveys some kind of holy aura of truth upon the statement is quite beyond me, and while I understand that some things will always feel realer to people than others, making blanket statements about the 'truth' of fiction seems barking mad to me.

Personally, I've grown up with the idea of multiple conflicting narratives. I've read Star Trek novelisations, seen the TV series, watched the movies and read the comics. They aren't the same, they contradict each other, and I can happily enjoy them all without having to have them all fit together perfectly. Further down that line we have things like the Marvel or DC universes, which are hideously inconsistent and contradictory - and again, it just doesn't matter. I've seen explanations for the numerous different kinds of cybermen in Dr Who, and how they all came into being - and it's a great game to play, trying to tie all these things together, but the second you take it seriously, and start making pronouncements about how X is real and Y is clearly not you've lost sight of what you're actually talking about - which is fiction and thus _made up_. None of it is actually any more real than any other bit.

I also, to be honest, feel the same way about fanfiction. It's just as real as any other kind of fiction, and just because it's not written by the person who first wrote about character X or Y doesn't change that in the slightest. True, fan-fiction writers may frequently lack the skills of the professionals, but that's got nothing to do with their writing being fan-fiction. Alan Moore, one of my favourite writers, has made most of his career from other people's characters and worlds, and that's just fine with me.

Comments

[atreic.livejournal.com]

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.

I mean, you can just say you can enjoy things without worrying about the contradictions, but each patch of what you're enjoying tends to be self-consistant. If you were reading a story where on one page the main characters split up, and on the next page they were married and no-one ever mentioned them splitting up, that wouldn't be a good story. Consistancy is a part of belivability which is part of losing oneself in a story. And yes, I know dragons under London arn't believable... but there's maybe something about more fundamental illogicalities that don't even work in story.

Yes, it's all made up. But some of it is "more real" than other bits. If I said that "Bottom rode on a purple dragon" that wouldn't be true, if I say "Bottom had his head turned into an asses" that would be true. Or at least more true. There's definitely a difference. Like, when we talk about Bottom we know we are talking about Shakespeare's Bottom, and what Shakespeare's said he did.

[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.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

I've seen explanations for the numerous different kinds of cybermen in Dr Who
Some 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.

For example - there's a guy on one of the usenet DW newsgroups (who, admittedly is regarded as something of a nutter by most of the other readers) who keeps asserting that because it was mentioned in one story over thirty years ago that Time Lords only get thirteen incarnations, the BBC *must* wind the series up when the thirteenth actor to play the role wants to leave, and that any failure to do so would be a gross betrayal of the viewers, the fans, and everything that the series stands for.

Arguments along the lines of "but what about the three mutually-inconsistent destructions of Atlantis?" or "are the BBC really likely to axe a profitable, popular and critically-acclaimed series just because of one line written three decades ago by a writer who's been dead for twenty years?" bounce off him (and his similarly-minded cohorts) like mere leaden bullets off reinforced dalekanium.

I've also never had a satisfactory answer to the question "Why, in a universe where time travel (and hence the arbitrary rewriting of history) is possible, how is it even meaningful to talk about 'continuity' or 'canon'?"

[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.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

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.

A bad character in a film doesn't become good just because the scriptwriter actually has a whole novel of background about him and knows that he's really deep and important.

In this case, it doesn't change a thing about my reading of the books if I think Dumbledore is gay or if he isn't. If it -did- change anything for me it would either suggest that I was prejudiced or that I was very um, what's the word, active in wanting gay people to be out and proud rather than quiet about it. Which makes me think it's just a publicity stunt (whether for her own books, not that they need it, or a gay rights/awareness type of thing). Unless the character is in a relationship that just seemed to be with the wrong gender, their sexuality wouldn't matter. There is a whole aging batchelor/spinster thing going on at Hogwarts. Maybe they've all got t3h gh3y.

Actually, it does change one thing - during the campaign against Dumbledore, you'd think that the Ministry of Magic types would have outed him and suggested he wasn't fit to teach in a school. As those who glean all their knowledge from the worst of the tabloids know - gay people are usually paedophiles too and are certainly not fit to teach children.

[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.livejournal.com]

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.

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

Mt issue is not with her having ideas outside of the books - it is her attitude about the whole thing.

[taromazzy.livejournal.com]

Have I missed the memo from Peter Tatchell outing fictional characters?

Is Gandalf gay?
Postman Pat?
His black & white cat?

I can barely keep up!

[andrewducker]

JK announced that Dumbledore was gay when she was asked at a talk whether he'd ever had any girlfriends. She apparently had previously had to tell the scriptwriter for one of the films.

[wordofblake.livejournal.com]

In terms of the huge volume of notes, and allowing someone else to carry on the story, that is the only way we will get to read A Memory of Light now that Robert Jordan has died.

People who go on to read Harry Potter from now on can take this fact and interpret Dumbledore as a gay role model, and good luck to them I guess.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Harry Potter is odd because it is now somewhere between a series of novels and a fantasy theme park. many of us grew up in a world where a novel (or novels) told a story leaving us to dream of what else happened. the author telling us exactly what happens cuts down on those dreams. JKR is not the only who will have had realms of back story she didn't squeeze in - every decent fiction writer will. the difference is that prior to her they mainly had the decency, or restraint, to let go of their creation at its birth and leave it to the inheritors, the readership. I don't really give much of a damn TBH - I'm not a slash writer, not a rabid HP fan, and I don't care about "canon". I do, very slightly, feel we're losing some of the imaginative dimension fiction brings to our lives if this becomes the norm rather than the exception.

(And btw fact fans, fans wanting to write sequels to their idols books is not a very new phenomenon - at least one unauthorisied sequel to Gone with the Wind was published eg and was the subject of a copyright action. )

a rant at the whole gone with the wind thing

[ratmist.livejournal.com]

If that book had held a candle to Margaret Mitchell, it'd have been fair enough. *southern girl rankled* It was dreadful, soppy weak pap. It was one case where I didn't care that a 'fanfic' was subjected to copyright action, when generally I don't think they should be.

(not ranting at you - still ranting at that horrible book, years after it was published!)

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

I rewatched the Omnibus that came out just after the first film quite recently, and she had half a shed load of extra material, including really cute stuff like character illustrations, and what the secret door to Diagon Alley looked like. While she's not my favourite author, I think that kind of world building is pretty much essential anyway.