On Fri, 14 May 1999, Presley H. Cannady wrote:
At 05:11 PM 5/14/99 GMT, Gary Kleppe wrote:
I'm gonna agree with Krista and Reid here. This tired old argument is
your basic logical fallacy of "all or nothing." I think just about all
of us would agree that any reasonable reader should be willing to accept
some variation in the characters. But it doesn't follow that a reader
should accept anything a writer does with the character.
That sounds offly capricious. How do you define when a fanfic writer
has "deviated" from the source too much? It's an arbitrary call, and
any feeling on the matter is subjective and therefor shallow.
All art is subjective. There are no hard and fast rules for when too much
is too much; it isn't a binary problem. But if you look at the character
and think, "I can't ever imagine X doing that," then the author has a
problem.
Folks, you can make these characters do _anything_. Kasumi as a
psychopathic killer, Ranma as a murderer, Nabiki as a honorable martial
artist... I've seen literally dozens of convincing variations on
characters, and I like to think I've written a few as well. But they have
to make sense, or the reader is left feeling cheated.
Let's take a scene. Ranma tells Akane he never wants to see her again, and
takes off with Ukyou.
Fine, except it doesn't jibe with his actions in the past. It's no good to
say that Ukyou is the better choice of him; that may be true, but that's
not what Ranma has thought and expressed all throughout the manga. People
do not reverse their views, emotions, and mindsets overnight without a
strong catalyst.
So, if we still want to go with the above scene, we're dealing with one of
three things:
A) This is an alternate universe in which events happened differently and
Ranma never got interested in Akane. This is going to require some massive
rewriting of the events in the manga, as the feelings the two have for
each other drive events to a fairly significant degree.
B) Something happens to change Ranma's feelings in between the events in
the manga and the above scene. Guess what - it isn't fair or believable to
just say, 'it happened'. The readers will expect to see a event that has
that great an impact on the story, and which causes that large a change in
Ranma. Considering the strains their relationship has survived in the
past, it'll have to be a pretty impressive falling out.
C) The author is lazy and sloppy, and shows us contradictory events that
make no logical sense. Ranma admits that he loves Akane at Jusendo - two
weeks later, he's brushing her off and heading out with Ukyou, who he had
previously shown no romantic interest in. Sure, it could happen - but we
_need_ to see those two weeks, and the events in them _need_ to be
believable. Otherwise you're asking us to assume the highly improbable for
the sake of the way you want the story to go; to pick up the slack for
your own lack of effort and plot. And that isn't fair.
To draw an analogy, if a fan artist does a picture of Ranma, it's
probably not going to be indistinguishable from one of Takahashi's, and
that's fine; but if someone hands me a picture of Dagwood Bumstead and
tries to tell me it's Ranma, well, sorry, but I have a bit of a problem
with that. Because *some* variation is acceptable (to a particular
reader) doesn't mean that ANY variation is.
Any variation is acceptable, because you cannot quantifiably prove that
audiences will NOT accept Dagwood renamed as Ranma. What about parody,
the obvious example of where such incredible variations have been
successfully received by their audiences? No, what you're talking about
is an outmoded, baseless and entirely subjective code of honor that
has absolutely no legal, historical or moral basis beyond one's own
personal feelings.
In short, I don't know about you, but I could write or read a fanfic
that depicts Dagwood as Ranma.
False logic. If we have Dagwood throwing Moko Takabishas, dressing in
Chinese clothing, and basically doing Ranmaesque things, then it qualifies
under parody. But it's still not Ranma - it's Dagwood acting like Ranma.
Personally, if you were to show me a picture of Dagwood and told me it was
Ranma, I'd look confused and say, "Uh, no, that ain't Ranma." If you
insisted, I'd ask you to explain. If your explaination wasn't convincing,
I'd tell you you were full of s--t. :)
I defy you to produce a person who, given the circumstances in the above
paragraph, would just accept the claim without question. Go to a con and
try to sell that picture of 'Ranma', and see what success you'd have.
"The Death of Love" by Steve Pardue. I also liked the story, though I
did have a problem with its treatment of Kasumi... but I digress. :)
Of course, this is the prerogative of the audience--to take issue with
aspects of a certain story or a broad form of practice. Nevertheless,
understand that the audience can easily go the other way. I, for
example, NEVER take issue with an author's representation of an
existing character--unless it is an historical character. There
lies my preference for technical and historical accuracy, which
I readily admit distends arises from my *personal* taste. Once
again, I must point out with extreme emphasis the exception of
parody. I must admit that Jackie Chan's "Fantasy Mission Force"
had my rolling over myself and laughing hysterically.
I don't take issue with interpretations which I personally dislike, but
which fit into the facts. For example: I like Akane. Zen's Bitter End has
her as suffering from a rage disorder, one which grows worse.
Now - I don't agree with that characterization; it's not how I see Akane,
and I doubt it happens to be the case. However, Zen's picture of her
_does_ fit her past actions in the manga. So while I might not like it, or
agree with it, it is consistant with the backstory presented, and is a
perfectly valid interpretation.
On the other hand, if I saw a fic which had Ryouga openly in love with
Kuno, and failed to explain/give a reason for it, I'd call the author on
it. It isn't consistent with the backstory.
-The Reverend Prez
* * *
+-----------------+-<The Badass Reverend of Funk Prez>---+
| Presley H. | Political Science / Computer Science |
| Cannady II | and Electrical Engineering Undergrad |
|<revprez@mit.edu>| at the Mass. Institute of Technology |
+-----------------+-<Anime Manga Development Group>------+
+ Author of Liars and Dreamers, a Robotech fanfic +
+-------<http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/1731/index.html>-+
| MIDN 4/c A-2-2 SQD, MIT-Harvard-Tufts NROTC Battalion |
|_|"The art of war is of vital importance to the state"|_|