fanon vs. canon. canon is the word used to refer to the works of a writer. this collection of characters and details is regarded to be the authentic vision of the fiction. fanon is something created by one or more members of the fan community. as such, it is not "authentic" in the sense that it is not written by the author. some fanon characters, for example, behave in ways so different from the canon characters that the author would be hard-pressed to recognize his or her creations. the issue, then, comes down to complaining about the fanon character because he, she, or it is no longer what the author originally wrote or intended. but isn't this complaint, to a degree (maybe just a little), moot?
yes, the character is the intellectual property of the author. yes, the author holds the copyright. yes, the author developed the original story, setting, and universe. and yes, the fan only participates in this. but, if the fan does not participate, the author has no reason to create. it's well and good if the author creates an epic vision and gets it published, but if the author does not have a reader, or, just as bad, if the author fails to connect with any reader, then the whole exercise of writing would have been a failure.
the author has some kind of legal ownership and has original (i.e., first) ownership. the author, however, ought not have hegemony over memory, emotion, freedom, creativity, and other warm and fuzzy things. the author has delivered the characters to the fans, and if the enduring qualities that the author has given to the characters should compel some readers to turn them into icons of angsty gay love, well, they are, after all, only reading between the lines -- the very lines put there or not put there by the author.
there's something that scholars call hermeneutics. in hermeneutics, there is a difference between the original text, as intended and understood by the author, and the text as read and understood by the reader. the author has infused his or her own ideas, prejudices, culture, history, childhood traumas, and whatnot into the original text. now the reader has his or her own milieu, perspective, and thinking. at some points author and reader come to a sort of fusion, where understanding is possible because of a common context. but at other points, there must be a clash of perspectives.
for example, one popular use of hermeneutics today is in bible study. was jesus a naive goody-goody? was he an angry young activist? it depends on who you ask. supposing for a moment that we could still go and ask whoever it was who wrote the gospel of st. john, and supposing that the author clarified a few more things, there will still be a point where the fanon extension of jesus will diverge from the canon's intentions. and this is actually somewhat of a good thing -- a sign that the reader has claimed a relationship with the character, has invested some thought and emotion, has been changed and continues to be changed by the vision that he or she now takes away from the original script.
similarly, if we take, say, a harry potter character like draco malfoy, the author (j. k. rawling), has her own vision of malfoy. that's well and good, but if she demands that the only people who buy her books are those people who have the exact same vision of malfoy that she does, then she's not going to sell a whole lot of books. in fact, nobody but j.k.r. will have the vision of j.k.r. each fan will have his or her own understanding of malfoy, inventing his or her own back-story to malfoy, filling in the gaps that j.k.r. has not filled in. now some of the fanon malfoys will only be slightly different from the canon malfoy, but quite a few will be more than slightly different, if not slightly twisted or completely bent altogether. so when one reads the gospel of malfoy, will the sermon be about angsty!malfoy or leather!malfoy? will it be about evil!malfoy or yaoi!malfoy? in a sense, any of these takes are just as valid.
yes, there are "right" or "correct" fanonical perspectives and some really wrong ones. if a reader of the bible understands jesus to be a cannibal who wants to barbecue dead babies, then most of us are going to react and say, "no, that is not how he is written in the original text." similarly, in fanfiction, where draco malfoy has stopped being a git and is now all angsty and tries to join the side of the "good guys," several of us are going to make a fuss about it. but several of us are also not going to care too much because we understand the author-text-reader relationship. we understand that it's not only or simply a matter of asking "is that how malfoy is written?" or "is that what j.k.r. intended malfoy to be?" rather, we look at j.k.r., try to understand her perspective, and then we try to realize what the reader's perspective is. the real malfoy is, practically, some sort of magical brew between the two perspectives.
some things that a reader, author, and/or critic should keep in mind:
interpretation and reinterpretation are two things that any text has to tolerate (e.g., the various groups in the internet that mess around with works of arthur conan doyle). this is, after all, what keeps texts written in alien situations alive in new places and new eras (e.g., the great literary classics, religious texts, ancient epics).
if the critic becomes too obsessed with finding fault with a fanon character for acting o.o.c. (out-of-character) because this is not the original intent of the author, why not also insist that the fan write in the same style as the author? or in the same language? should we require the fan to have the same political beliefs, sexual fantasies, and deodorant as the author?
does an author (oh, just suppose, for example, anne mccaffrey), who has legal and intellectual rights over her publications, have the right to dictate how a reader should interpret her text (to the extent, hypothetically of course, of actually invading websites and webgroups to enforce her vision)? scriptural text in the context of religion dredges up issues of authority, revelation, and dogma. does a work of fiction entail the same things to the same extent, or should there be some semblance of moderation in moderating the fanfiction of her fans?
interpretation and reinterpretation of a text does not necessarily destroy the original intention or meaning of the text, but serves to broaden its scope of application. take for example the jewish midrashim. yes, there is the original text of the torah and other canonical scriptures. yes, the tradition of the midrashim sometimes places moses in one time and place doing one thing and in another time and place doing something absolutely contradictory. yet there is little need to explain the fanonical moses. rather, each interpretation is another anecdote, another story, another rekindling of memory and lessons... a different take, a fresh new twist, a way to keep the characters and the infinite possible messages that one can derive from the characters alive.
if a fan writes a story for the purpose of satisfying a sexual fantasy, take it as that and understand that the plot is only secondary. if a fan injects a sex scene into a story, do not immediately assume that the fan intended the sex scene to begin with and the plot was just added later (although this is probably the case most of the time).
fiction is, after all, the voluntary or involuntary projection of oneself onto the text (it cannot be anything else). the author has done that and published it. now it is the fan's turn.
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