DW/QAF crossover post: Is Fanfic Inherently a Bad Thing?
I'm indebted to larissa_j for kicking off this train of thought. She posted a rant about shipper wars in the Dr Who fandom which set me thinking about the role of fandom, and particularly fanfic, in relation to canon.
When I was in the QAF fandom I was always months behind the US in getting to see the series, at least until Season 4 when a kind person sent me DVDs by snailmail. As a result, the only way I could participate in fandom was to read everything, including all the discussions and as much of the fanfic as I could take (no B/M, though).
Since I crossed over with RTD from QAF to Dr Who, I've been able to see the episodes at the same time as everyone else, thanks to the miracle of technology, and I've participated very little in the fandom at large. I haven't read any spoiler discussions or any fanfic at all because really, I prefer to stick with canon.
Larissa's post got me thinking, and I'm coming to the conclusion that all fanfic, no matter how well written or conformant with the show, is ultimately bad for canon. There are two reasons:
1. Fanfic allows people who like a show to get really obsessive about it, by constantly feeding the obsession, either by reading it or by writing it as well. Canon, being expensive to produce, is rare, whereas fanfic is cheap and there's a virtually endless supply. Canon therefore has far less cumulative power.
2. Fanfic, even when it tries hard to conform with canon, must raise expectations that plot and/or character will go in certain directions which may or may not ever have been contemplated by the writers of canon. Even a gapfiller gives information the writers didn't give: whether it is the sort of information they would have given if they HAD written that scene has always to be a matter of conjecture.
Everyone who has read a lot of good quality fanfic knows that, after a while, you're not sure what details were in the fanfic and what was in the show/novel. (I mention novels because I think J.K. Rowling has suffered hugely from fanfic-burn.) Eventually, the combination of non-canon expectations (point 2) and high emotional investment (point 1) turns to shipper wars. These appear to be major events in the lives of those undertaking them, which in itself shows they've got way out of proportion, since canon was only ever written as entertainment in the first place.
Other elements come in for people who are deeply involved in a fandom - such as what the writers/producers say in interviews or at conventions, RPS rumours and theories and so on - but although none of these are canon either (since none is actually there on the screen/page) I don't think they have the power of fanfic to cultivate a reality so slightly alternative that you don't notice how far you're moving away from the starting point.
In the end, the keenest fans start rejecting canon for no other reason than because it has failed to meet expectations at which it may once have hinted, but which have become solid expectations only through fanfic. Thus, I conclude that fanfic is, in the end, always a bad thing for canon.
The other aspect that chills me a bit is that most fanfic leads to shipper wars because it revolves around romance, and often in relation to canon where romance is totally not the point. It's a very girly-girly approach to a show. It stands out a mile in Dr Who, which has always been the province of 12-year-old boys and geek boys (remember the joke in "Rose", when she goes to visit the DW expert and, when told here's a girl here asking about the Doctor, his wife/mother says, "A girl?"). The Doctor has always been desexualised (unless I'm misinformed) to conform to the needs of that audience.
No-one would deny that RTD has pushed the envelope on that, in both sexual directions, or that there was an unconsummated romance going on between the Doctor and Rose in those last episodes. But even so, that romance has never been either RTD's or the Doctor's main point. The things he's most consistently interested in are the potential for "magnificence" of human beings, and trying to explain how "magic" comes from the use of the rational mind and not, as with superstition, from outside it. (This week's episode was a classic of that genre.)
But I'm happy to hear arguments to the contrary.
When I was in the QAF fandom I was always months behind the US in getting to see the series, at least until Season 4 when a kind person sent me DVDs by snailmail. As a result, the only way I could participate in fandom was to read everything, including all the discussions and as much of the fanfic as I could take (no B/M, though).
Since I crossed over with RTD from QAF to Dr Who, I've been able to see the episodes at the same time as everyone else, thanks to the miracle of technology, and I've participated very little in the fandom at large. I haven't read any spoiler discussions or any fanfic at all because really, I prefer to stick with canon.
Larissa's post got me thinking, and I'm coming to the conclusion that all fanfic, no matter how well written or conformant with the show, is ultimately bad for canon. There are two reasons:
1. Fanfic allows people who like a show to get really obsessive about it, by constantly feeding the obsession, either by reading it or by writing it as well. Canon, being expensive to produce, is rare, whereas fanfic is cheap and there's a virtually endless supply. Canon therefore has far less cumulative power.
2. Fanfic, even when it tries hard to conform with canon, must raise expectations that plot and/or character will go in certain directions which may or may not ever have been contemplated by the writers of canon. Even a gapfiller gives information the writers didn't give: whether it is the sort of information they would have given if they HAD written that scene has always to be a matter of conjecture.
Everyone who has read a lot of good quality fanfic knows that, after a while, you're not sure what details were in the fanfic and what was in the show/novel. (I mention novels because I think J.K. Rowling has suffered hugely from fanfic-burn.) Eventually, the combination of non-canon expectations (point 2) and high emotional investment (point 1) turns to shipper wars. These appear to be major events in the lives of those undertaking them, which in itself shows they've got way out of proportion, since canon was only ever written as entertainment in the first place.
Other elements come in for people who are deeply involved in a fandom - such as what the writers/producers say in interviews or at conventions, RPS rumours and theories and so on - but although none of these are canon either (since none is actually there on the screen/page) I don't think they have the power of fanfic to cultivate a reality so slightly alternative that you don't notice how far you're moving away from the starting point.
In the end, the keenest fans start rejecting canon for no other reason than because it has failed to meet expectations at which it may once have hinted, but which have become solid expectations only through fanfic. Thus, I conclude that fanfic is, in the end, always a bad thing for canon.
The other aspect that chills me a bit is that most fanfic leads to shipper wars because it revolves around romance, and often in relation to canon where romance is totally not the point. It's a very girly-girly approach to a show. It stands out a mile in Dr Who, which has always been the province of 12-year-old boys and geek boys (remember the joke in "Rose", when she goes to visit the DW expert and, when told here's a girl here asking about the Doctor, his wife/mother says, "A girl?"). The Doctor has always been desexualised (unless I'm misinformed) to conform to the needs of that audience.
No-one would deny that RTD has pushed the envelope on that, in both sexual directions, or that there was an unconsummated romance going on between the Doctor and Rose in those last episodes. But even so, that romance has never been either RTD's or the Doctor's main point. The things he's most consistently interested in are the potential for "magnificence" of human beings, and trying to explain how "magic" comes from the use of the rational mind and not, as with superstition, from outside it. (This week's episode was a classic of that genre.)
But I'm happy to hear arguments to the contrary.