Canon and characters
May. 29th, 2004 06:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethThe defining thing about fanfic is we all have this one canon to start from. Unless we're writing Highlander, where there are a half dozen contradictory ones, or Witchblade, where you have the comics and the two versions of the TV series pre and post reboot. Or... well, there are others. But most fandoms have a core canon they work from, or a name for the corner of canon they call their own. I'm a Highlander the series fan, and I'm with Clan Denial on what I call canon from that. I've never read the Witchblade comics and I love the idea of someone having a ghost sidekick so if I ever play there it is likely to be pre reboot.
Buffy and Angel, canon is the episodes as broadcast. Not the movie, not the comics, and god knows not the books. But even within that you get areas where things look contradictory. When a new bit of information trashes what we were all taking to be canon, its called getting Jossed. Spike fen got Jossed when Dru sired him, because until we saw that we'd taken his word for it that Angel was his sire. I wasn't in the fandom back at the start, but it must have seemed like a serious change to go from tweedy Giles who first cast a spell in 'The Witch' to 'The Dark Age' and a Giles who kicked ass and cast spells for fun back in the day.
The fun happens when you try to not ignore one set of facts or the other but to find a way that both can be true.
So, my long thoughts like the one I was trying to have yesterday. That one isnt finished but I keep on devolving into babble when I try to proceed, so its possible I cant get there from here. Back up and try a different route.
When characters say contradictory things, it might be because they remember it different at different times. Like pre and post Dawn or Connor. Or just the way memory is actually quite malleable in day to day life. 'He forgot' can either be an epic trust or Ben-Glory thing, or it can be little and incidental and not reflecting on the characters at all. Neither place is somewhere I want to go to explain Giles, because it is so much fun to go for the twisty explanations.
'He was ashamed' and 'he lied' are reasons that have many many stories in them. Gothic horror, thing in the basement, secret rooms.
The little pieces of Giles' past we have to work with can be a bugger to make fit together. Did Band Candy literally make everyone teenagers again, or just horny and irresponsible? Giles' verbal "I was 21" would seem to be contradicted by the former, but if just the latter then not a problem. A lot of little contradictions can turn into if-thens like that.
Either Giles snapped suddenly and went from good student to Ripper overnight when he turned 21, or it built up slow and he started acting that way back in school, even back at the Watcher academy. Weekend rebel or sudden choice? Could be both. Spending years content with weekends down the pub with his mates, then realising he didnt want to be split down the middle like that. Could be a whole secret identity thing, dont tell the rough types that you're secretly a brain. Secrets weighing him down, then getting to a point where he has to choose which person to be. He chooses Ripper the rebel. Briefly. Then he runs home.
Ethan:We used to be friends, Ripper. When did all that fall apart?
Giles: The same time you started to worship chaos.
Okay, if-then : If he started to worship chaos before Eyghon, then the friendship was falling apart before Giles turned his back on that life. If he started to worship chaos *after* the thing with Eyghon, then they were still friends after Giles went back.
Which is the option with the most stories in it?
Also, Giles does not deny they were friends once. Which seems pretty obvious, but they could have been colleagues, or people that hated each other but were part of the same ritual. Back in 'The Dark Age' we had only 'Ethan and I' to work with, but 'A New Man' gives us this, and a comfort level such that even after all we've seen between the two of them Giles can still get drunk with the guy.
Slash isn't the only possible story from the available data, but it is one I'd like to explore. To play with the message. Also if you're going to set out to fix the insane-evil-dead cliche, you kind of have to start with the cliche. I wouldn't say Ethan is evil, but I know I'm radically outnumbered there. Insane would seem to fit by the majority definition. And we havent seen nor heard from him since the Initiative took him. Working my way through explaining why he isn't evil, and why insane isn't what I'd call it... well, okay, yes, insane but not in a totally bad way... well, that story would redeem him without taming him, or making it all about the love of a good woman *shudder*. I do not want to domesticate Ethan. I want to get Giles to be wild. And show how that can be a good thing.
Okay, my brain is stuttering to a halt again, but I think I've got mostly to where I wanted to be. Basically the trick with canon is to take the pieces that seem important to you and from them spin out the story you want to tell. Canon Giles and Ethan may not be my Giles and Ethan, but you can get here from there, and that to me seems enough.
Buffy and Angel, canon is the episodes as broadcast. Not the movie, not the comics, and god knows not the books. But even within that you get areas where things look contradictory. When a new bit of information trashes what we were all taking to be canon, its called getting Jossed. Spike fen got Jossed when Dru sired him, because until we saw that we'd taken his word for it that Angel was his sire. I wasn't in the fandom back at the start, but it must have seemed like a serious change to go from tweedy Giles who first cast a spell in 'The Witch' to 'The Dark Age' and a Giles who kicked ass and cast spells for fun back in the day.
The fun happens when you try to not ignore one set of facts or the other but to find a way that both can be true.
So, my long thoughts like the one I was trying to have yesterday. That one isnt finished but I keep on devolving into babble when I try to proceed, so its possible I cant get there from here. Back up and try a different route.
When characters say contradictory things, it might be because they remember it different at different times. Like pre and post Dawn or Connor. Or just the way memory is actually quite malleable in day to day life. 'He forgot' can either be an epic trust or Ben-Glory thing, or it can be little and incidental and not reflecting on the characters at all. Neither place is somewhere I want to go to explain Giles, because it is so much fun to go for the twisty explanations.
'He was ashamed' and 'he lied' are reasons that have many many stories in them. Gothic horror, thing in the basement, secret rooms.
The little pieces of Giles' past we have to work with can be a bugger to make fit together. Did Band Candy literally make everyone teenagers again, or just horny and irresponsible? Giles' verbal "I was 21" would seem to be contradicted by the former, but if just the latter then not a problem. A lot of little contradictions can turn into if-thens like that.
Either Giles snapped suddenly and went from good student to Ripper overnight when he turned 21, or it built up slow and he started acting that way back in school, even back at the Watcher academy. Weekend rebel or sudden choice? Could be both. Spending years content with weekends down the pub with his mates, then realising he didnt want to be split down the middle like that. Could be a whole secret identity thing, dont tell the rough types that you're secretly a brain. Secrets weighing him down, then getting to a point where he has to choose which person to be. He chooses Ripper the rebel. Briefly. Then he runs home.
Ethan:We used to be friends, Ripper. When did all that fall apart?
Giles: The same time you started to worship chaos.
Okay, if-then : If he started to worship chaos before Eyghon, then the friendship was falling apart before Giles turned his back on that life. If he started to worship chaos *after* the thing with Eyghon, then they were still friends after Giles went back.
Which is the option with the most stories in it?
Also, Giles does not deny they were friends once. Which seems pretty obvious, but they could have been colleagues, or people that hated each other but were part of the same ritual. Back in 'The Dark Age' we had only 'Ethan and I' to work with, but 'A New Man' gives us this, and a comfort level such that even after all we've seen between the two of them Giles can still get drunk with the guy.
Slash isn't the only possible story from the available data, but it is one I'd like to explore. To play with the message. Also if you're going to set out to fix the insane-evil-dead cliche, you kind of have to start with the cliche. I wouldn't say Ethan is evil, but I know I'm radically outnumbered there. Insane would seem to fit by the majority definition. And we havent seen nor heard from him since the Initiative took him. Working my way through explaining why he isn't evil, and why insane isn't what I'd call it... well, okay, yes, insane but not in a totally bad way... well, that story would redeem him without taming him, or making it all about the love of a good woman *shudder*. I do not want to domesticate Ethan. I want to get Giles to be wild. And show how that can be a good thing.
Okay, my brain is stuttering to a halt again, but I think I've got mostly to where I wanted to be. Basically the trick with canon is to take the pieces that seem important to you and from them spin out the story you want to tell. Canon Giles and Ethan may not be my Giles and Ethan, but you can get here from there, and that to me seems enough.