Interesting debate

[gategrrl]

There's an interesting debate happening on John Scalzi's blog called What Authors Know About Their Characters. It was sparked off by JK Rowling's answer to a question about one of her characters, the now famous "Dumbledore is gay" answer. The main point in contention  seems to be, who is in control of the characters in a book - the author, or the readers? Who dictates the characters' realities? And what role does the reader play in the writer/reader collaboration?

I admit I tend toward Scalzi's point-of-view. I think the writer, whether the answer is there explicitly in the text or not, has the final say as to what a character is, or is not: what the character will be, or will not be. (I'm not including television in this - TV/movies are more of a collaborative effort in production) 

Letter number 2 takes a POV that I only semi agree with. Sure, when I read a book (any book) the mythos and characters and settings and wonderment of being in that author's mind become my own while I am reading; and even if I write fanfic, or read fanfic, or imagine my own adventures for those characters, they still aren't *mine*. They're the author's. The one who imagined it all up is the one who gets to say definitively what those characters are like. And a reader may change them however to suit them in their own imagination - but it's not going to ever be the way the original author/creator considered and "grew" them. 

Anyhow, opinions, anyone?

Comments

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

I'm going to have to go and click on this.

My opinion with fanfic is that it's when we take canon characters and create various possibilities for them. it's taking interpretations of the characters. At the end of the day, they aren't the real deal, though. Some possibilities are closer than others, for sure, but it's just another way of creating an avenue for a creation not ours. Since it's not ours, it's still an interpretation.

I think I'm in the minority with this view, though. And I tend to write as closely to canon as possible.

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

I may be quite on my own LJ, but writer talk makes me come out.

I started reading this blog and the bit with Edward Rothstein misses an important point: this is about whether JKR succeeded in portraying Dumbledore as gay in the text. This about the nature of her characters. If in her mind Dumbledore was gay, then he's gay. It's part of his persona and his backstory. Not everything about a character will come into play. That is why it is called backstory. The nature of his sexuality wasn't a naecessary plot point to propel the story forward.

(Though I argue she could have cut a ton of other stuff, but that's a different rant.)

[justalurkr.livejournal.com]

I agree that the author knows what's going on with the characters s/he writes better than anyone else.

I also think that a gay person in a position of mentorship over young people is such an explosive topic that if it wasn't important enough to mention in the context of the story, there is no good reason to bring it up after the series is over and her place in kidlit history is already assured. It comes across as smirking about putting one over on the homophobic portion of the readership and/or the sort of attention-grabbing shit-kicking that doesn't do the position of "gay is okay in positions of mentorship" any good at all.

I think JK Rowling should have had the balls to put it in the story, or the class to shut up about it afterward.

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

I'm looking for a link to see if there's a transcription to that entire conversation/interview. Personally, I don't care one way or the other if it was self-aggrandizing or just innocently answering a question.

For me, while I read book 7, I had to wonder at he many descriptions of how close D and his friend Grindelwald *were*. Nothing was said directly - but I didn't think it needed to be said directly in the context of the book. It was pretty much out there. (to me)

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

To me, it's more the way she keeps going around and saying stuff like, "This one and this one are married. No wait, it's this one and this other one instead. No, wait, she has this job. No, she has that job." And blah blah blah blah blah. As I said, it comes across to me as the author trying to control what people think instead of that she's trying to express her own views or give readers any insight into the text. I probably would have seen the Dumbledore comment differently if not for that.

I also agree with justalurkr, pretty much.

[justalurkr.livejournal.com]

My ego-at-the-center-of-the-universe is all purring and happy now. Thanks! :D

I wasn't aware that JKR had been commenting and then reconning her own comments on the series beyond Dumbledore's secret youthful passions. That actually puts a different spin on it for me, as it appears she's either lost or never had a perspective on the weight fans give her words. I'm willing to bet that, even with the amount of skullsweat she put into building the Potterverse, she never overthought some of this stuff to the extent some fans do. The barely-there tag scene at the end of Book 7 leads me to believe she seriously isn't thinking about these characters much beyond the final showdown with Voldemort, and doesn't come close to caring who got to be an Auror and who wound up scrubbing toilets.

There seems to be a pretty reasonable crowd gathered here, but there are some fans out there who put a lot more on what JKR says than maybe she meant.

[justalurkr.livejournal.com]

I really need to re-read Book 7, which I more or less devoured to see how it would come out, and catch more of the nuances. I was focused more on figuring out what custody of Dumbledore's wand had to do with anything (scenes involving his wand and who had it seemed to stand out) that some of the other plot threads didn't really register. I blush to disclose that I'm unlikely to have remembered Grindelwald's name, or much beyond "big bad before Voldemort" had I been pressed.

Anyway, the series never really was about what the grownups got up to in their spare time. Dumbledore's preferences would only have mattered if the book had an agenda with respect to 'gay people can be good people,' and it didn't that I saw.

Of all the authorial intent-type things to drop after the fact, though, the queer mentor of young people was...interesting, no matter what the context.

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

I am fully prepared to hear that her background notes include a lesbian background for McGonagle. I'm not sure what the British "coding" for lesbians is these days in fiction, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least.

[whisper99.livejournal.com]

If I read a book wherein I really like the characters, by the second or third reading, they become mine. If the writer continues to write stories with the same characters, I'll continue to read them, however, if they should write the characters 'out of character' then I will be pissed and more than likely consider whatever happened in the story to be not canon. Fortunately this doesn't happen often :)

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

Then it's YOUR canon. Not the creator's canon.

Just like for Stargate, my "canon" stops at the end of the sixth season - the rest of the show just ain't there, except as a weird abberation. However, that doesn't mean that what Bridge has done isn't true - as you would agree. And so I parted ways.

I never feel that I *own* someone else's characters. They aren't *mine* to *own*, except in my own personal revisionism, if I care to tailor it to my own viewpoint of where characters/story should go.

Let's say I didn't like that Gandalf went across to the West at the end of Lord of the Rings. Well, he still bloody well did, no matter what my personal preference for the story was. I don't like Aragorn's background story, as stated in The Silmarillion? Too bad, Tolkein wrote it down, he had Aragorn's history clearly in mind when he wrote the main book, and that is his story. Tolkien's vision of who Aragorn was directly fed into his portrayal of the character, his morals, his motivations and his nobility (and his stiffness, but let's not talk about that!).

In other words, just because Rowling (or Tolkien) have a backstory that isn't fully uncovered, doesn't mean it's not there.

[whisper99.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that you should say 'they aren't *mine* to *own* because for me, in a way they are. They are mine in that, if I don't like the way the characters are being treated, I can stop reading the book and stop buying future books. I don't *buy* into the canon presented to me by the writer, both literally and figuratively. :)

But something to keep in mind for me is that, for canon to be established, I have to have at the VERY minimum enjoyed the first book to the point I want to read it a few times. There are some books that I read every year, at least once a year and have done so for many years :) Elfquest comes to mind, as an example. This is wholy and truly the work of Wendy & Richard Pini - and the characters are their children, as it were. EQ is my first fandom, before I even knew what the heck fandom was :) And anything and everything Wendy says about the characters I will take as fanon. *However* if she should so decide to, oh, I dunno...say kill off Leetah and pair Cutter up with a human that's her right to do so. *BUT* I also have the right to think she's lost her mind and not spend my time or money on future books :)

Think of it this way, that I won't tell a writer what to do, but I have expectations and the only way I can voice my 'opinion' is by not spending my time and $$ on whatever new stuff comes out if it doesn't meet those expecations. I did not read the Simarillion simply based on the fact that folks had reported that it was a bit 'out there' and seemed to retcon stuff that happened in the original books.

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

I think we're agreeing on the commercial aspect of "owning", as a fan.

Let me further define what I mean by "own" - the difference between the writer owning and a fan owning the characters the writer creates.

A writer truly *owns* the characters. They make up what the reader processes into their imagination. They *create* the characters, the situations, the opponents, the plot, the setting, and make it work so that the reader/fan is enchanted with it.

A reader/fan "owns" the characters, setting and situations much like a football or baseball fan feels they "own" their favorite sports team. The reader/fan might have *some* influence over the writer/creator, (yes, it does happen, see Rowling's responses to fandom in her last two books) but the fan generally has no influence on the creation of the characters beyond what they are given to read by the writer.

The fan may respond as you and I and countless others have, by not buying DVD sets, or books further along the series, or whatever, when the writer/creator disappoints with our vision of what should be done with their characters: but in the end, it's the Official version (usually) that wins out. That's what draws others to the same fandom.

Sorry, I'd love to continue, but I have to get to a Halloween Parade at my son's school - I can continue this later on! Bye! :::waves and runs:::

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

OOoh, I haven't read the article, but I kind of disagree. Any art is subject to interpretation, and it becomes whatever each individual reader sees--whether it's a painting or a song or a story or any type.

I don't think either "dictates" the characters' realities, though. The writer does as he or she is writing, but beyond that, the characters are whoever you, the reader, think they are. Just like two people observing a car accident and seeing completely different things, I might read a story and get something completely different out of it than someone else. That's the way it goes.

I have to admit that I rather disliked JRK coming out and saying Dumbledore is gay--not because I didn't like that idea, because I love it--but because it seemed to me to be a sort of a desire to control what people think of her work--to try to make everyone interpret things in her way--in a sort of Boys at Bridge kind of way, if you will.

Most of the time, though, I love hearing the artist's interpretation of his or her work--what was originally intended. I love it when a songwriter says, "The song means whatever you think it means," but I equally love shows like Storytellers where the songwriters tell how or why they wrote songs. Some tell only the external circumstances, but some explain what the song meant to them as they wrote it or even what it was about. Whatever an artist (writer, musician, actor, whoever) wants to share about their work is interesting to me.

But yeah... I do see what JKR did in the way I said above. It's not that I don't think she can say whatever she wants, but she keeps retconning her stories--the ships, the jobs, whatever--after the fact, and sorry--it's too late. The books are written and people think what they want. If she were sharing *her* interpretation or her thoughts as she was writing it or anything even remotely interesting like that, I'd love to hear about it, but it's more the way she's been going about this that sort of rubs me the wrong way. *g*

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

story or any type

story *of* any type