[LMB] OT: subversion in fanfic; was OT: slash

[Azalais Aranxta]

On Tue, 12 Dec 2006, Sylvus Tarn wrote:

> When I said slash subverted the canon, this comes out of a
> larger theory very dear to my heart:  that people who are
> really putting their all into something---be it art, writing or
> whatever, are in some fashion transforming part of themselves
> in that work.  Sounds obvious, doesn't it?  But it leads
> directly to the corollary, which is that, ultimately, no-one
> else can do [your story/art/characters] as well as you, because
> they're different.

This is not the usual meaning of the word "subversive" in my
experience.  I agree with what you're saying here.  I was told by
someone who shall remain nameless that my Potterverse fic didn't
appeal to them because it didn't read like Rowling.  I said that
I would never waste my time trying to produce a poor imitation of
Rowling when I could write a decent Azalais instead.

Generally when fanfiction writers talk about subverting canon
they mean deliberate subversion.  That would usually occur in
those situations in which the creator/s of a canon is perceived
by some of the people who are writing in it as having produced
new canon that doesn't for them live up to the promise of earlier
canon, and the fans are therefore writing fiction that is
deliberately AU.

> This is why I don't think something really good and really
> personal can truly be copied.  Thus, I didn't mean to suggest
> that slash *in particular* subverts canon; all good fanfic
> must, in my view.

See, I don't think most fanfiction INTENDS to copy canon.  Some
certainly does.  The Sugar Quill is an archive that's only
interested in fics that are trying to copy Rowling's tone and
style and relationships of choice.  But there's a lot of fic out
there that doesn't.

Subverting the canon to me implies a deliberate intent to set the
canon on its ear.  For instance, in "House of Ill Faith" when
Lucius Malfoy's sister says to the sorting hat "Please--not
Gryffindor!" that's kinda subversive.  But sexualising a
friendship isn't subversive, particularly when you know it's
something that the writers couldn't put on TV/in a children's
book/whatever if they wanted to.

> the Potter/Draco slash I stumbled upon not only subverted the
> characters' canon sexuality,

What canon sexuality?

We know in Potter canon that Harry is interested in girls,
because he has had a relationship with Ginny and he has gone out
with Cho.  But we don't know that he is NOT interested in boys
also, and he spends much more time thinking about Draco Malfoy's
looks and clothes than he does even about the looks and clothes
of Ginny, whom we're supposed to believe he's in love with.
There's no canon sexuality.  There's a canon relationship, which
Harry ended.

Draco has no canon sexuality.  Draco has a relationship of some
sort with Pansy Parkinson but we don't know whether they are in
love, just went to the Yule Ball together, are platonic friends
who are physically comfortable with each other enough that she
can lie on his lap, or what, because we rarely see them
interacting except through Harry's eyes and when we do see them
interacting they're not alone together.

So to a slasher this is not "subversive".  We don't know that
Harry and Draco are heterosexuals, we know that Harry has
heterosexual interests and that Draco has a female companion who
may be a romantic interest or may just be a really good friend.
That's a far cry from knowing that they are Kinsey 0-1 and could
never ever be interested in a boy.

> but also the underlying ultimate good versus evil theme, by
> having them be tired, cynical 20 somethings who must cope with
> ongoing evil in the world, and an ultimate battle that never
> came.

Well, that might be subversive.  I don't know which fic you're
talking about, but Rowling doesn't do ultimate good versus evil
very well, because her ultimate good is pretty unpleasant and her
ultimate evil is stupid and cartoony.

H/D writers tend to fall into a couple of camps.  There's the H/D
writer who wants to "redeem" Draco, usually has him suffering
abuse at the hands of Lucius, and when he and Harry fall in love
he starts to swallow Dumbledore's line.  I never read that stuff,
I hate it.  It's like someone decided to write slash for the
Sugar Quillers.  There are the Slytherin-oriented H/D writers who
let Harry develop his Slytherin side and who view canon as a very
good story about a bunch of kids who are stuck in a world that
tells them there's a battle of good and evil going on but who are
really stuck between a greater evil (Voldemort) and a lesser one
(Dumbledore and the fascist ministry) which was the camp I
belonged to.  There were also people who liked "Darkfic" who
wrote abusive H/D or H/D where Harry became evil or a tool of the
dark side.

The first group of H/D writers is not in my opinion subversive at
all.  The second one would be subversive now, but if they were
writing in 2002, not so much, because then Rowling hadn't
discovered the wonders of the internet and wasn't in her bully
pulpit telling us we were actually supposed to like everything
Dumbledore did and that it wasn't up to us to make up our minds
whether it was ultimate good and evil or manipulation vs outright
fascism.

The third one may be subversive, but might also be the universal
phenomenon in almost every fandom of "people who like to write
dark, unpleasant stuff about the villains because it turns their
crank, and who really don't think very much about this."

~malfoy :)


****************************************************************
Azalais Aranxta (~malfoy)
ataniell93 on LiveJournal and Vox
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/malfoymadness

"I know the true world, and you know I do. But we needn't let it
think we all bow down." --Christopher Morley