Reflection and Analysis

Fake Fans - Caring About the Canon and Lore (6/30/24)

If you don't care about the lore, you are not a fan; if you don't care about the canon, you're not a fan.

Yes. I'm writing this in response to a video made recently by a group of so-called Star Wars fans claiming Star Wars is for everyone despite the fact everyone watching the video knowing what they mean is actually everyone unless you disagree with us.

Am I saying here that liking the Twilight version of Star Wars means someone is a fan? Certainly not, but I chose to word things the way I did as someone who does, in fact, like Twilight and who does, in fact, like The Force Awakens. 

The Twilight series, I think, is a great example of how people can be fans of something that isn't well-made while also highlighting the difference between those of us who say write fixit stories for Twilight and what the writers who are currently writing commercialized Star Wars fanfic are doing. We're fans, and we respect the lore and accept the canon as canon, whereas they reject the lore and feel they get to decide what is or isn't canon.

True. Fixit is about fixing things the original creator got wrong, though not always.

One of the fundamental problems, why what they're doing isn't fixit comes down to the fact you don't fix what isn't broken, and they're trying to fix something that isn't broken. There is also this fundamental belief that they are superior and--

Okay. Okay.

I can admit here that most people who write Twilight Fixit are better writers than Stephanie Meyer. In fact, I'd argue that most fanfic writers, if their Twilight and similar works aren't their only experience when it comes to reading, write better than Stephanie Meyer. That's, for one thing, an exception to the rule, and the majority of us don't brag about being better than her, nor do we titter in gleeful joy over how we're owning her.

As for the ones who are the exception, let's just say you don't want to read their fixit, as it's a lot like what's been coming out of Hollywood recently.

I remember a time back when Fellowship of the Rings came out. Back then, the polite thing to do when someone told you something you wrote based on just Fellowship of the Rings wasn't to blast the people taking the time to help you out, because we all, that person who'd only seen Fellowship of the Rings and those of us who read everything were still fans of the lore and canon.

This doesn't mean there weren't individuals who didn't react negatively, such as the Borimer fangirls who wrote Borimer Lives stories decrying how wrong Tolkien was for killing off Borimer while we informed them without spoilers that Borimer's death wasn't something trivial that Tolkien did, that it actually held a great impact on the narrative later on which was also one of the wonderful things about Tolkien.

Of course, stories where characters live is actually a kind of fixit, but the goal isn't to actually fix the canon, but explore how things would change, exception being those notorious deaths that were certainly not handled well to which the fix isn't necessarily the character living, as them living does in fact change how the story would progress, but could be something along the lines of writing a story where the death was handled better. And sometimes a character lives story is written in response to everything one can find being where said character is dead and wanting something different.

The Acolyte though--

I caught a recent glimpse of an interview with one of the actor/actresses where they were excited by the fact their character dies -- spoiler -- where it was all about the drama of the death, which feels like a stark contrast to back in the day when a bunch of newbie Borimer fangirls mistakenly thought Borimer's death was just for drama only to learn otherwise.