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anghraineThis is both subjective and wanky, but ... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’ve found it difficult to articulate for a long time, but I’ve realized that I am just … really not keen on correcting serious issues in canons through fic/fanwank/headcanons/resistant readings/whatever. It’s not problematic or whatever to do it, but I vastly prefer emphasizing those issues, or at least poking at them, rather than trying to get rid of them in some way or another.
This is probably part of the reason I dislike EUs for pretty much everything. I see this stuff in weird ways with period-based canons, too—here’s why the historical mistake could actually be
No, it’s inaccurate. It’s fine! What can we do with the mistake? What does it say about the character as-is? Say, The Borgias cutting out the existence of the eldest Borgia son changes Cesare’s assignment to the priesthood from “you’re the second son, them’s the shakes” to “you’re the firstborn but fuck you.” Okay but maybe that son was actually there and—uhh no, the show is emphatic that Cesare is the firstborn, it’s enormously important to how his relationship with his father is constructed. And it’s interesting. Rodrigo’s hints to Juan that people think Cesare should be the heir, that he could make Cesare the heir if the mood happens to strike him? All the more powerful if Juan knows that he’s been arbitrarily given Cesare’s inheritance. There are plenty of places to go with Cesare as the actual firstborn screwed over from childhood, whereas “let’s pretend he isn’t”—eh.
Or! I saw a post the other day trying to fanwank the inconsistency between Darcy’s income and property—he has about 7x more land than Mr Rushworth, but a slightly smaller income.
person: maybe his park is like half his estate instead of ~1/10, so he doesn’t actually have that much land?
me: why do u want to be boring
Also, that would be very improbable, but the real problem is that there are so many interesting things to do with that—is he charging next to nothing? did his famously generous father leave him with a ton of debt? why did Austen kick him so far up the social ladder between 1796 and 1812? ‘Nah, let’s ignore it’ is not interesting!
Oddly enough, it’s academia that actually brings this home. There’s so much actually satire!!!! when—sure, some things that sound appalling are definitely satire. But a lot isn’t.
Awhile back, my professor kept trying to argue that, say, Samuel Johnson is really being criticial of European superiority when his Imlac goes on about how the northwest Europeans are wiser and happier than other people because God ordained them to be Just Better, which is why they’ve taken over much of the known world … but they’re still unhappy because lo it is the human condition.
And … no? There is no evidence for that, at all? Europeans never personally appear in the story, there is no subversion or further development of the idea, it’s just this bit of racist, ethnocentric white noise in the background. And rather than going BUT SATIRE, wouldn’t it be more productive to actually consider what it suggests? For one, you’d think it was written at the height of imperial Britain, but it’s actually 100 years before. There are a lot of places to go other than lalalala not listening.
OTOH, in adaptations, I’m all for correcting. Leave out those uncomfortable lines! Cast overwhelmingly white male casts race- and gender-blind! History: now with fewer atrocities is an A-OK choice! And I get incredibly annoyed by Now Let’s Look at the Problematic Qualities In This Text Before Returning to the Story (Andrew Davies’ Emma omfg).
I don’t know what makes the difference, really. But as far as fandom or fandom-type stuff goes, I pretty much always want more exploration of problems and inconsistencies.
I’ve found it difficult to articulate for a long time, but I’ve realized that I am just … really not keen on correcting serious issues in canons through fic/fanwank/headcanons/resistant readings/whatever. It’s not problematic or whatever to do it, but I vastly prefer emphasizing those issues, or at least poking at them, rather than trying to get rid of them in some way or another.
This is probably part of the reason I dislike EUs for pretty much everything. I see this stuff in weird ways with period-based canons, too—here’s why the historical mistake could actually be
No, it’s inaccurate. It’s fine! What can we do with the mistake? What does it say about the character as-is? Say, The Borgias cutting out the existence of the eldest Borgia son changes Cesare’s assignment to the priesthood from “you’re the second son, them’s the shakes” to “you’re the firstborn but fuck you.” Okay but maybe that son was actually there and—uhh no, the show is emphatic that Cesare is the firstborn, it’s enormously important to how his relationship with his father is constructed. And it’s interesting. Rodrigo’s hints to Juan that people think Cesare should be the heir, that he could make Cesare the heir if the mood happens to strike him? All the more powerful if Juan knows that he’s been arbitrarily given Cesare’s inheritance. There are plenty of places to go with Cesare as the actual firstborn screwed over from childhood, whereas “let’s pretend he isn’t”—eh.
Or! I saw a post the other day trying to fanwank the inconsistency between Darcy’s income and property—he has about 7x more land than Mr Rushworth, but a slightly smaller income.
person: maybe his park is like half his estate instead of ~1/10, so he doesn’t actually have that much land?
me: why do u want to be boring
Also, that would be very improbable, but the real problem is that there are so many interesting things to do with that—is he charging next to nothing? did his famously generous father leave him with a ton of debt? why did Austen kick him so far up the social ladder between 1796 and 1812? ‘Nah, let’s ignore it’ is not interesting!
Oddly enough, it’s academia that actually brings this home. There’s so much actually satire!!!! when—sure, some things that sound appalling are definitely satire. But a lot isn’t.
Awhile back, my professor kept trying to argue that, say, Samuel Johnson is really being criticial of European superiority when his Imlac goes on about how the northwest Europeans are wiser and happier than other people because God ordained them to be Just Better, which is why they’ve taken over much of the known world … but they’re still unhappy because lo it is the human condition.
And … no? There is no evidence for that, at all? Europeans never personally appear in the story, there is no subversion or further development of the idea, it’s just this bit of racist, ethnocentric white noise in the background. And rather than going BUT SATIRE, wouldn’t it be more productive to actually consider what it suggests? For one, you’d think it was written at the height of imperial Britain, but it’s actually 100 years before. There are a lot of places to go other than lalalala not listening.
OTOH, in adaptations, I’m all for correcting. Leave out those uncomfortable lines! Cast overwhelmingly white male casts race- and gender-blind! History: now with fewer atrocities is an A-OK choice! And I get incredibly annoyed by Now Let’s Look at the Problematic Qualities In This Text Before Returning to the Story (Andrew Davies’ Emma omfg).
I don’t know what makes the difference, really. But as far as fandom or fandom-type stuff goes, I pretty much always want more exploration of problems and inconsistencies.
no subject
on 2018-12-13 02:01 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2018-12-13 05:38 pm (UTC)We do have to guesstimate for Pemberley. But Rushworth actually gives the acreage of Sotherton's park grounds (because of course he does). It's 700 acres. Ten miles round, meanwhile, is ~5000 acres if actually round, ~4000 if square, and ... less than that if irregular, but it'd have to have a pretty strange shape to get down to Sotherton's size (and I don't think any particular irregularity is suggested).
There are various ways to fanwank it away, but they seem pretty improbable to me. And boring, lol.
no subject
on 2018-12-13 07:11 pm (UTC)I got into a minor Tumblr squabble a while ago, when I was trying to learn what being the best landlord, beloved of tenants, would actually entail. Part of it is being reasonable about rents, but he'd also be responsible for much of the building and land maintenance on his properties, advise his less educated tenants on what to plant, where to sell and how to price it, and stay abreast of new techniques and technologies as well as the market, not to mention his duties as a magistrate and so forth. He'd have a home farm, too, certainly, and probably sheep and a cider press and maybe he sells coppice timber, idk. Who knows how much of this he deals with himself vs. delegates to his steward -- and I'm sure his steward is a very busy man, and Darcy has a vast deal of V. Important Networking and Socializing to do for much of the year -- but it also pleases me to imagine that he hasn't earned his local rep entirely by merely signing off on the requisition lists of a generous steward. He's such a control freak. A bit of an egghead. Likes to assess things for himself, as much as he can, before opening his hand. It's a little hard to picture him dirtying his boots like Mr. Knightley, but I bet his horse knows the turf pretty well.
So I was happily imagining all that, when somebody pushed back by claiming there's no evidence in the book that Pemberley has any farmland at all.
Erm...true? But kind of like me writing a short description of my apartment and not mentioning the plumbing.
no subject
on 2018-12-13 02:07 pm (UTC)On the other hand people want to explore all kinds of AU. And an AU fic where Cesare's the second son could lead to Cesare pre-canon deciding, "O Rly? What if Juan Happens To Fall On My Dagger leaving me as the eldest?" could be a fun one-off. It's all in the execution :) (pun kind of intended)
no subject
on 2018-12-13 05:48 pm (UTC)I know other people like doing it/reading it. I just ... don't.
no subject
on 2018-12-13 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2018-12-13 07:54 pm (UTC)But I also think there are the people who take the total opposite direction with this, a la many of the Rogue One antis, who insist that the text should be otherwise and since the text is not Specifically The Thing They Came Up With, it's evil and should be burned at the stake. Which is...a strange take on fandom! By all means, let's not brush the issues with the characters or the movie under the carpet, but...that's different from insisting that flaws by definition make a text worthless (er, so, welcome to like, all media ever?) Especially when many of those ~flaws (e.g. Bodhi should have been the central character) are subjective preference versus canonical inconsistencies or challenges within the text itself.