Sleepy and incoherent

[swatkat]

Today's metafandom is full of discussions on March- whether or not it is fanfic, and why; whether it is somehow 'better' than what we understand as fanfic; what makes it 'better', if we assume it to be so, etc etc. My first instinct, of course, is to call March fanfic. And while I shouldn't comment on something I haven't actually read, I don't think it's even particularly interesting fanfic. Because in re-telling Mr. March's story, Brooke is telling us the story of an ordinary, sensitive man in times of war (who also happens to be Mr. March, the father of Jo March) – and how many times have we heard that story again? Little Women OTOH is about those left behind, about the *women* left behind, and that, to me, is a more interesting story than the same old Man vs. War story.

This is not to say I'm *against* re-telling stories. No, of course not. Would I be in fandom if I were? It's just that unless Brooke has managed to give us some new and interesting perspective on the old Man vs. War story, or on the Little Women universe (which I love dearly. someday I shall write a post on how this book changed my life. no, really – it did.) in her fic, I don't really care much about it.

*

And because I'm slightly (*cough*) obsessed with Wicked these days, I naturally started thinking whether you could call Wicked fanfiction. And I was quite astonished by my own answer to the question – I actually hesitated to call it fanfic, though it very clearly is a derivative work (a brilliant AU, if you like). Or 'just' fanfic. Which has a horribly derogatory ring to it, and that is so not what I meant to say. I think what I wanted to say is that fanfic – or to be more specific, shipfic, with its hyperfocus on romance and sex - often does not consider any other issue than romance (not that there's anything wrong with it), which maybe alright for the *fans* of that particular universe, but probably not so for everyone else. Does that at all make sense? *is hopelessly muddled*

P.S - GIP. Okay, so this is not a scene from the book. But Glinda sobbing over Elphaba's hat? There is no bad there. *sigh*

Comments

[jaybee65.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, OK, with the caveat that I haven't read this series, I'd say no, it's not a romance in my opinion of the term. While a romantic relationship may be a central plot element, the success or failure of the romance isn't *the* main point of the books. Rather, the romantic relationship causes something else important to happen. Thus, the romance serves the plot, not the other way around.

In a romance, the plot is important *only* because it adds tension/obstacles to (or, alternatively, advances the development of) the romantic relationship. That doesn't seem to be the case in what you're describing.

[nell65.livejournal.com]

But how do you decide what the central plot *is*? And which elements serve the plot, and which are the plot?

In Mary!Sunday Sue, to go back to that story - I thought the plot was "Mossad agent blows up Section."

You thought the plot was "Birkoff gets laid while Section burns."

In the Merlin Triology, I think the plot is "Merlin finally gets girl, loses Camelot" - but you could also call it "Merlin does everything, Arthur watches from the wings."

[jaybee65.livejournal.com]

Well, let's discuss the LFN story, since we both read that one! LOL.

I look at what the relationship of the plot elements are to each other. Birkoff and OFC#1 getting together didn't lead to Section being destroyed; rather, Section being destroyed enabled the two of them to live happily ever after together. *That* was the payoff and the ultimate goal of the story.

[nell65.livejournal.com]

Well - that's the thing. I thought the ultimate goal of the story was to see Section destroyed.

Birkoff and girl were just icing.

But, sadly, perhaps that's because I was not interested enough in Birkoff, or OFC #1, to pay attention to their plot line - or percieve it as central to the story, which I thought revolved all around OFC #2 being smarter than Paul and Madeline, and getting Michael as some sort of a reward for her wonderfulness.

[jaybee65.livejournal.com]

Ah. Well. The story was told entirely from OFC#1's point of view, and everything involved her and her experiences. OFC#2 didn't even show up until about halfway through.

The way I saw it, the whole point was to get OFC#1 together with Birkoff and then set them free to be happy ever after together -- the specific method (Section being blown up by Mossad, thanks to OFC#2's super-double-agent skillz) could have been changed to something else (say, a computer virus erases all evidence of their existence from Section's computers, so they can't be tracked), but the story wouldn't have felt much different.

Here's the story framework, as I saw it: Cute and snarky haxor grrll gets recruited. She clashes with Birky but because they're both so smrt! they fall in love. Something dramatic happens and woohoo, they escape Section! End story, as they walk hand in hand into the sunset. OFC#2 was simply the means for the "something dramatic happens" part. A very annoying and Mary Sueish means, but don't let the Mary Sueishness fool you: she wasn't the main self-insert, but rather the secondary one.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not sure where to go next.

That is certainly an accurate version of the story - I just didn't think it was the 'point' of the story, so to speak; the narrator, haxor grrll, didn't seem to me to serve any particular story purpose except to report on it - the story, I thought, was the end of section.

*shrugs helplessly*

[jaybee65.livejournal.com]

Hmm. This *is* a dead-end, but a kind of interesting one in that it really shows how subjective everything is!