InsaneJournal

Current mood:	contemplative
Current music:	Let There Be Light - Mike Oldfield

The green light at the end of the dock...
What with the s_d debacle, I've been thinking about how integral fandom communities are to their chosen worlds.

From personal experience, I can say that fandom has enriched my viewing of Transformers. It's great fun and all, but to be honest, if it wasn't for the wide circle of fandom friends I've made, I probably would have moved on a long time ago. The best part of fandom, to me, is people developing the world of Transformers beyond anything the original writers could have imagined.* We're so loyal to these dreams we've built up; even when it causes conflict, it's an amazing thing to me.

That's why I take it so personally when the 'intellectual property owners' screw around with their fans and even attack them with copyright infringement claims and other forms of censorship. They go after things like fan videos on YouTube, and scans_daily, and even that thing with Transformerotica a few years ago. The people who contribute those things aren't hurting those companies by doing what they do, they're not making a profit - hell, they're doing half of any comic/cartoon/whatever producers' jobs for them, creating and maintaining a stable, loyal customer base, all for zero compensation. They're doing it because they enjoy it, and they get spat in the eye for it.

Even when it's not my fandom, when I see that sort of thing happening it makes me want to avoid that company. I know that they're within their rights to act that way and I'm not even saying they're going to hell for it, it just - still hurts.

Let me give you a more universal example: Han Solo. In the first release of Star Wars, Han shot first. That told us something crucial about his character: that he wasn't a Good Guy, that he had a treacherous streak and had no problems taking a life. Seeing this, and then following his growth into an honorable man over the course of the trilogy (example: "When he [Luke] comes back, I won't get in the way.") became how we related to Han, and why he was and still is an iconic character in his own right.

And then Mr. Lucas retconned it so that Greedo shot first. Which he had every right to do - Han's his character, he can do what he wants, it's a free country. But oh my Lord, did his fan base want to strangle him. They did not accept this new, kinder, gentler Han. He wasn't their Han. If you look at it a certain way, it's kind of ridiculous - they didn't write Han, they never got a say in his characterization. Why did they react like they'd been betrayed?

Well, they had. By neutering his own character, for whatever reason, George Lucas stepped on the Han Solo that belonged to everyone that ever took a liking to the character. You see, once you put a character or a world out there, it's not quite all yours anymore. Anyone who reads or sees it might take away a piece of it in her heart. Those pieces become worlds of their own, perhaps not quite the same as the original source, but having a life and a truth all its own. And perhaps these worlds are ephemeral, and profitless, but they have value, and these little dreams are ours to share as we wish.

Mr. Lucas eventually un-retconned things. No one ever accused him of being dumb. ;)

(Admittedly, once I get my book published, I'm probably going to have to make my peace with all this from another angle entirely. I just know somebody's going to write some awful Mary Sue into my pretty rose garden - or, Primus forbid, Briar/Laramie noncon.)

*This is doubly true in the case of the Movie.