the shadow the original content creator casts

[rthstewart]

So, I was going to post something exploring raykel's discussion earlier about adults playing with toys that are really intended for children. But before we do that, knitress wrote the following:

As someone who just stumbled into this, the whole ur doing it wrong thing seems very parallel to some of the debates in Lewis scholarship/'scholarship'/worship. Joy Gresham, Mrs. Moore, Lewis' lifelong friend Arthur Greeves.
I mean, if you're going to go on at huge length about what the original author would have wanted, shouldn't you, y'know, learn something about his actual life?

lady_songsmith and andi_horton have both said, oh yes, please share your reading list!

And so knitress has said she will post her reading list. This is an interesting exercise in a couple of respects.

• There are a lot of people in the Narnia fandom who assert that adhering to Lewis' intent is very important, so illuminating what Lewis did intend and separating that from what others think he intended is interesting. I know some of you know far more about Lewis' life and art than I do, so do share, if you are so inclined.
• Stepping back a few meters, some folks really like this sort of exercise at the more philosophical level -- who if anyone has the right to interpret something once it is freed into the wilds. Assuming we do understand the author and what he or she intended, what modicum of respect is owed the original creator? Or his or her designee or progeny? Gresham named Ramandu's Daughter Liliandil for the DT film. Rowling asked once that people not include underage sexual content in HP fic? Does any of that mean anything? Should it?
• Last, there is the frustration all authors feel when the reader doesn't get what you intended. Sometimes it's a flaw in the writing; sometimes though it probably doesn't matter how clear you are, right? The reader is going to take what the reader is going to take.

In response to the above, divining authorial intent isn't something I usually worry about. I take a plain language view to borrow from a canon of statutory construction -- if it's there on the page, literally or thematically, it's fair game.  I'm more interested in exploring what I and others think about their work, and the community that develops around that exploration then I am in understanding more of what the author thought about his or her work. People pull more than I intended out of my work all the time and frequently I have no greater intent than "Shiny! let's try that!" and "Gosh I love that line. Let me build 10,000 words to include it." Or, "fandom poke. poke. poke."

Admittedly, TSG Peter and I both share extreme ineptitude in the areas of philosophy, theology, and languages. Being a shallow sort, I do not usually ask the big questions. (Though when I told Clio that, she said that I may assert the absence of a rear view mirror and claim inability to think big thoughts but that's because I pour my philosophical musings into fic.)  I decline to speculate as that would call for introspection.

Comments

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Wow. thanks so much. I have just plowed through yet MORE of the "I don't write or read slash/homosexuality/incest." [the three are always equated] followed by "I don't think Lewis would be at all pleased or Lewis would be rolling in his grave" which is then followed by "Lewis was a Christian and these are Christian children's books," etc. The smug certitude of a segment of this fandom is really breathtaking when one considers that Lewis knew of the conduct, knew men who engaged in it, corresponded and wrote on the subject and that his very dearest friend was gay. He was obviously a very complex man.

The fact of his relationship with Greeves is so .. well, very much in keeping with the spirit that I see in the books I almost want to weep. While in some parts, Aslan is Not A Nice Deity, in other places there is such enormous compassion and tolerance. And now google fu leads me to this, Lewis and Homosexuality.

Thanks so much for the contribution!

[raykel.livejournal.com]

I don't get it. You don't read slash/homosexuality/incest, fine. I myself stay away from incest and pedophilia. I'm also not crazy about AUs. That's my choice.

But I don't go seeking out stories with these things so I can write reviews telling them how bad they are. OY! What's the point? If I were reading your story and disagreed with elements of it, I'd either stop reading, or I'd be so captured by the writing that I'd read it despite those reservations.

That might have been my reaction to a certain story of yours back in the day, as a matter of fact. I may have even written a review like that, saying what I liked, saying what I had issues with, but I think even back then, when I was more uptight than I am now, I think/hope I had enough sense to phrase it AS my own issues that don't really say anything whatsoever about YOUR story. Just my own baggage that I bring to it, not the ONLY way it MUST be.

Similar to what you're running across with the Lewis fandom, I write for a cartoon fandom called Danny Phantom. The creator of the show, Butch Hartman, has gone on record as supporting fanfic and fan art, but being opposed to slash. Pretty vehemently opposed, as a matter of fact. Fandom divided into the people who support him on this and those who don't and do what they want.

I find a walk a middle ground here. On first reading of his anti-slash statement, I thought it was over the top (he said something about it shouldn't exist anywhere on the internet), but when I read it again, I could really see where he was coming from. For one thing, he was using "slash" not to just refer to gay pairings themselves, but the really graphic pornographic stuff. And there have been actual police cases of pedophiles using DP porn (art more than fanfic) to lure in kids. What do they call it? Grooming?

So when he says he's against that stuff existing anywhere on the internet and if you're involved in it, you're not welcome on his boards, that's what he's talking about, and I find I can't really fault him for that. He's not actually going after this stuff where it exists, he's just saying how he feels about how his creations are used and that if you disagree, you can, but go play elsewhere, not on his boards. And this is coming direct from him, not fans' interpretations of his intent.

I've written stories in his universe that involve sex between non-married adults (canon characters later when they're grown up) and I've made one of his canon side characters gay. But my stories aren't very graphic and don't involve kids having sex and certainly don't involve adults having sex with kids (the "slash" that seems to get his goat the most is the adult villain with the teenage title character which actually says nothing about consenting adult gay relationships and everything about adult control. In canon, the villain is actually non-sexually obsessed with the teen hero, so going to some sort of mutual love sexual relationship definitely pushes many of my own squick buttons).

Does what I write fit with the author's vision and intent? Probably not. But there is nothing in what I write that contradicts canon, either. And I do try to respect his stated preference that if people play in his universe, they don't write graphic porn, especially involving minors (and honestly, I don't really anyway), because I can see where he's coming from.

Don't know how closely that correlates to your situation where fans are projecting their OWN views onto the creator, who is no longer around to state for himself what he thinks, but the war over what "true fans" will write really sets my teeth on edge, and in my fandom, I can see both sides of it. But I still think in the end it comes down to: stay away from the stuff that isn't your cup of tea rather than trying to recruit people to doing it YOUR way.

[raykel.livejournal.com]

While in some parts, Aslan is Not A Nice Deity, in other places there is such enormous compassion and tolerance.

Interesting that you say this. I actually had an epiphany while watching -- shoot... the Dawn Treader, I think? -- that the reason I've never really gotten, er, focused on the Narnia stories is that I find I really dislike Aslan. He's kind of an arrogant douche. Enormous compassion, yeah, I see that, too, but it doesn't override his douchiness, not for me, anyway.

But again, that's my own baggage and where my view on Christ may (or may not) differ from Lewis' and other Christians', and I don't think that gives me license to tell you how you should write Aslan.

[lady_songsmith]

Dawn Treader is probbly the douchiest Aslan of the three, having been taken over by the more "Narnia = Christian!" side of thinking.

But there's quite a few of us in fandom who write a more... capricious? Aslan, for exactly those reasons.

TAG! You're it! Aslan as a really bad deity

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Oh raykel you are absolutely right. I'm not one who has really delved into the peculiar capriciousness of Aslan but plenty of writers have. It's one reason why I've come to see the books as less Christian than many make them out to be, precisely because he's so far from the God I know. He rips four children from war and sends them off to another war, lets them grow up there and then sends them back with no explanation at all, lets his people suffer for over 100 years with the Witch and then hundreds of years under a brutal dictatorship that nearly wipes them out, he attacks and mauls a girl who is trying to escape a terrible familial situation, etc. etc. And then his solution, EVERYBODY DIES.

I've preferred dealing with him in a different way, but yep, there are plenty of folks who see many, many shortcomings there. One writer, Anastigmat, operates on an assumption that he's more like the capricious Greek and Roman gods. I sort of assume that since he says "I am true Beast" that he's not human, really doesn't relate especially well to humans, and just doesn't "get them."