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I was poking around on Elizabeth Bear's journal ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
matociquala yesterday, and reading some of her meta. It got me thinking. Not just about how cool it is that she keeps a journal, which it is, but about what she wrote about her own characters.
It occurred to me that I have four (five, if you count the PWP) different versions of a certain character in my in-progress stuff. So I started to wonder about how they're different and why they're different.
Malek is a Tok'ra from SG-1, played by the delectable Peter Stebbings. He has two canonical appearances, in Allegiance and Cure, back-to-back in S.6. We have zero further canon on him, even a mention. The interesting (and yes, annoying) part of late-season SG-1 Tok'ra is that, with the singular exception of Jacob, the hosts never speak. So unlike, say, Martouf or Aldwin or even Ren'al, we have no idea who or what Malek's host is like. This leaves a blank slate, on which a writer (i.e. me) can draw whatever I want. It's as if I have half a canon character, and half an OC. Even that though is somewhat untrue, because considering the Malek half we have precious few points to hang a character on.
It's comparable to writers in the vast array of secondary characters in Harry Potter, all of whom will no doubt tell you very sincerely that their Hannah Abbot (Parvati, Ernie MacMillan, heck, even their Draco Malfoy) is totally canon, even when the character barely appears and even then through the notoriously self-centered perspective of Harry. There was a whole corner devoted to Girl!Blaise Zambini, which just shows how un-canon, or fanon, a group of writers may end up, when they flail around in the dark with characters who are not defined in the source.
But I understand why the the 'blank slate' aspect is appealing. It gives me room to adapt the character to various circumstances and to create him for myself. Nobody's going to tell me he's OOC, because, well, he doesn't have one. His character depends entirely on how well or poorly I create it. That's the fun of it for me. (and yes, it helps that he's not canonically dead and hotter than my sidewalk right this minute).
But four (five)? All different? WTF?
Here they are: Two of them are technically the same person, since they are AU reflections. But even there they aren't the same: one lost his parents young, suffered through armageddon as a teenager, and doesn't become a host until much later in life. He's confident, a leader, knows what he wants, and becomes the dominant partner. The other grew up in peace and relatively sheltered, until the NID betrayed him and destroyed his life. He's more pararnoid, suspicious, and very much the non-speaking partner. The third is Asheron, who was the king of his small kingdom until it got overrun by a Goa'uld bitch and he got enslaved (if you're going to have a character fall, you might as well have him fall from a great height.) He's the speaking partner (except when upset), a natural leader, and very controlled, to cover up various cracks in his psyche. The fourth is a new creation, much older than the others and a host for much longer. I won't be too specific here, since he's my answer to the summer challenge, but he has issues, too.
They're all different, but yet, they all share one very significant sameness, I realized. They are all messed up. I think that's something people tend to discount in "Tok'ra Allegiance" and "Going Home"; Asheron is one messed up dude (which is part of Sam's attraction to him, I should note. It's not for nothing that Asheron and Jack parallel each other.) Nobody's read the others yet, but they're the same, if not to the same extent and not in the same way.
So, why? Do I like my characters tortured? Well, duh. But also because something has to explain why Malek's host doesn't speak in canon. It's a problem. We don't know much about Malek's host, but we do know he doesn't speak, at all, over the course of two episodes. For example, in "Tok'ra Allegiance" it's because Asheron is pretty much traumatized by the attack, remembering the attack on his home world, and the Jaffa piss him off. That's one reason I wrote Asheron as I did -- as bad as things get between him and the Jaffa, when it would've been far more logical for the human to talk, he doesn't. There has to be an explanation.
It may be a blank slate, but the slate isn't exactly infinite in size, is it? There's at least one boundary, or one line across it that any Malek needs to touch. This is opposite to a character like Sam, who has developed over the course of nine years and almost two hundred hours of seeing her on our screens. We all know her. We may not all agree on how we see her, but there is at least a baseline, which we can all recognize. If I do my job, the Sam you read is the same Sam you see on screen. But any one of my Maleks will never be the same as anyone else's, or even each other. Which is great for me, but not so great for the reader, I think, when there are so many different versions available.
It's one reason why our little Tok'ra corner of SG fandom will always be small -- I believe most frequent readers of fanfic read for the characters they know (the main cast, not the guest cast; the protagonists, not the secondary supporting characters). They're not looking for the character to change in each story. (Well, then there's the problem that the Tok'ra aren't even in the damn show anymore. grr. The bulk of any fandom is all about the New and Shiny, and anyone coming in with S.9 or 10, isn't going to know them at all.)
In the end, I write for myself, because a character or two interests me, or because I have an idea. I'm not an original fic writer, because I like exploring the canon, but sometimes I think I'm not totally a fan writer either, because writing only purely canon characters is never what grabs me. It's always the act of creation, of putting my stamp on it, that lures me: whether it's familiar characters into an AU, or AU characters, or quasi-OC's.
Which I guess, is all a very long-winded way of saying that I like playing in someone else's sandbox, but I bring my own toys.
(If you got this far, I hope it was interesting. (g) )
matociquala yesterday, and reading some of her meta. It got me thinking. Not just about how cool it is that she keeps a journal, which it is, but about what she wrote about her own characters. It occurred to me that I have four (five, if you count the PWP) different versions of a certain character in my in-progress stuff. So I started to wonder about how they're different and why they're different.
Malek is a Tok'ra from SG-1, played by the
It's comparable to writers in the vast array of secondary characters in Harry Potter, all of whom will no doubt tell you very sincerely that their Hannah Abbot (Parvati, Ernie MacMillan, heck, even their Draco Malfoy) is totally canon, even when the character barely appears and even then through the notoriously self-centered perspective of Harry. There was a whole corner devoted to Girl!Blaise Zambini, which just shows how un-canon, or fanon, a group of writers may end up, when they flail around in the dark with characters who are not defined in the source.
But I understand why the the 'blank slate' aspect is appealing. It gives me room to adapt the character to various circumstances and to create him for myself. Nobody's going to tell me he's OOC, because, well, he doesn't have one. His character depends entirely on how well or poorly I create it. That's the fun of it for me. (and yes, it helps that he's not canonically dead and hotter than my sidewalk right this minute).
But four (five)? All different? WTF?
Here they are: Two of them are technically the same person, since they are AU reflections. But even there they aren't the same: one lost his parents young, suffered through armageddon as a teenager, and doesn't become a host until much later in life. He's confident, a leader, knows what he wants, and becomes the dominant partner. The other grew up in peace and relatively sheltered, until the NID betrayed him and destroyed his life. He's more pararnoid, suspicious, and very much the non-speaking partner. The third is Asheron, who was the king of his small kingdom until it got overrun by a Goa'uld bitch and he got enslaved (if you're going to have a character fall, you might as well have him fall from a great height.) He's the speaking partner (except when upset), a natural leader, and very controlled, to cover up various cracks in his psyche. The fourth is a new creation, much older than the others and a host for much longer. I won't be too specific here, since he's my answer to the summer challenge, but he has issues, too.
They're all different, but yet, they all share one very significant sameness, I realized. They are all messed up. I think that's something people tend to discount in "Tok'ra Allegiance" and "Going Home"; Asheron is one messed up dude (which is part of Sam's attraction to him, I should note. It's not for nothing that Asheron and Jack parallel each other.) Nobody's read the others yet, but they're the same, if not to the same extent and not in the same way.
So, why? Do I like my characters tortured? Well, duh. But also because something has to explain why Malek's host doesn't speak in canon. It's a problem. We don't know much about Malek's host, but we do know he doesn't speak, at all, over the course of two episodes. For example, in "Tok'ra Allegiance" it's because Asheron is pretty much traumatized by the attack, remembering the attack on his home world, and the Jaffa piss him off. That's one reason I wrote Asheron as I did -- as bad as things get between him and the Jaffa, when it would've been far more logical for the human to talk, he doesn't. There has to be an explanation.
It may be a blank slate, but the slate isn't exactly infinite in size, is it? There's at least one boundary, or one line across it that any Malek needs to touch. This is opposite to a character like Sam, who has developed over the course of nine years and almost two hundred hours of seeing her on our screens. We all know her. We may not all agree on how we see her, but there is at least a baseline, which we can all recognize. If I do my job, the Sam you read is the same Sam you see on screen. But any one of my Maleks will never be the same as anyone else's, or even each other. Which is great for me, but not so great for the reader, I think, when there are so many different versions available.
It's one reason why our little Tok'ra corner of SG fandom will always be small -- I believe most frequent readers of fanfic read for the characters they know (the main cast, not the guest cast; the protagonists, not the secondary supporting characters). They're not looking for the character to change in each story. (Well, then there's the problem that the Tok'ra aren't even in the damn show anymore. grr. The bulk of any fandom is all about the New and Shiny, and anyone coming in with S.9 or 10, isn't going to know them at all.)
In the end, I write for myself, because a character or two interests me, or because I have an idea. I'm not an original fic writer, because I like exploring the canon, but sometimes I think I'm not totally a fan writer either, because writing only purely canon characters is never what grabs me. It's always the act of creation, of putting my stamp on it, that lures me: whether it's familiar characters into an AU, or AU characters, or quasi-OC's.
Which I guess, is all a very long-winded way of saying that I like playing in someone else's sandbox, but I bring my own toys.
(If you got this far, I hope it was interesting. (g) )
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and how is the PWP coming anyway? lol. Mine kind of found a plot and its with my beta now.
From:
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Can I borrow Cade again? The problem with PWP is that it doesn't know where to end! You'd think, that would be easy, but no...
now off to bed, 'tis late here by the Pacific.
From:
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Sure you can borrow Cade. Just send him back... i need him for my many little fics ;)
From:
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*head desk*
(which has nothing to do with this, but something... else)
From:
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:D
It seemed like such a good idea at the time...
From:
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