Poll: New Fics Using Old Canon

[kennahijja]

I've been thinking about the advantages/disadvantages of writing stories with 'old canon' lately. With that, I mean stories that ignore either whole books (like HBP) or certain events in canon (the death of Sirius, for example), not older stories written before said new canon came out.

I see them occasionally, and don't mind reading them, but have the impression that they are rather frowned upon in fandom. Which, in a way, is understandable, since new canon means tons of new details to incorporate, new situations to explore, and writing in an 'old' context smacks of laziness or resentment against new canon developments. Or does it? Since I'm sitting on an *old* plot right this moment and am tempted to forget that the strange animal called HBP ever showed up in its context, I'd be curious about what 'public opinion' is on this. Hence, poll :).

That said, I really want honest opinions, not reassurance - my decision on said plot will be totally uninfluenced by the outcome of this. If I was going for what's popular, I'd not try to carry the candle for Ron/Lucius ;).


[Poll #785133]

Comments

[mad_maudlin]

I think that using the term "old canon" is very interesting: after all, it's not like OotP or HBP negated previous books, did they? PS-GoF are still canon; they haven't changed. I wouldn't necessarily call HP canon after these books "new," but "enlarged."

So if someone decides to use a point in an earlier book as the jumping-off point of a fic, well, that's AU. Just like writing a fic where Peter didn't escape, or Harry's name didn't come out of the Goblet, or Quirrell was not evil and actually stayed on to teach DADA forever, is an AU. And therefore, I hold the fic to the same standards an AU: that it's still recognizably the Potter universe and Potter characters, and the divergence serves some purpose in the story.

I think it can be very, very dangerous to worry about authorial intent, unless there is a big glaring A/N that says "I HATE YOU JKR AND WISH YOU WOULD CHOKE ON YOUR OWN SPIT!!!!" When the situation is represented as "ignoring new canon," of course, that implies the author finds the new canon objectionable in some way, compared to when the story is simply presented as "AU." It's a loaded phrase.

That said...I think that, if you were to write today and AU/ignoring canon fic, you would have to mark it as such somehow, whereas older fic can simply be marked "pre-[Book]". Why? Because you're writing from a different canon, even if you're, um, not. Let me see if I can explain this properly. When I was in the middle of writing one of my long fics, OotP came out. When I had started it, it was canon-compliant as far as I could make it. After the new novel, my entire plot, characterization and scenario was borked, with the story only 2/3 done. I carried on writing as if the new book had never happened, because retcon was simply not possible...but my story changed. I incorperated elements of OotP canon without even realizing I'd done it until after the new chapters were posted. It wasn't that I was writing the story in ignorance of what would come in book 5 anymore, I was consciously contravening that canon, and I think it's visible in the end result. If I'd been writing the whole story after reading OotP and simply using GoF as my jumping-off point*, then it would've been a very different story from the start.

(*Okay, that technically would work since it was set in sixth year, but this is all hypothetical anyway.)

I guess this is a long-winded way of saying that, in my mind, anything that deliberately contravenes the novels published by JKR is an AU and should be held to the standards of such. I've read some really kickass ones, in particular mad_martha's, so my standards are kinda high. Stories written before the release of a novel are a different beast, because they're not deliberately contravening known canon--they're speculation into what used to be the shapeless void.

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

I think that using the term "old canon" is very interesting: after all, it's not like OotP or HBP negated previous books, did they? PS-GoF are still canon; they haven't changed. I wouldn't necessarily call HP canon after these books "new," but "enlarged."

I just wanted to say - I think that's a very good point!

I have an idea for a Lupin/Snape fic. I thought about writing it post-HBP, but then I would have to deal with the whole killing Dumbledore thing, and that would distract too much from what I want to focus on. So then I felt it made more sense to take place during GoF, but it would mean the characters would go off in a different direction than they do in canon. But so what?

It all depends on what are the needs of your fic. I see no problem with people jumping off at an earlier point in the series. Since when was there a law that all fanfic needs to be canon compliant? Canon is just the playdough for my fanfic, to use or not as I see fit.

[kennahijja.livejournal.com]

I think that using the term "old canon" is very interesting: after all, it's not like OotP or HBP negated previous books, did they?

Not at all - what I meant is that they negated older *fanfic*. New as in 'more recent canon', although I'd say it *is* new, not just enlarged, as it's a progress in time, too.

I think you've nailed down the two reasons why 'old canon' fics are still written - either because the writers dislike the developments in the current book(s), or because someone started a fic a long time ago and still wants to write/finish it (*whistles innocently*). Or - I did wonder about that because it seems to happen a lot in slash/smut - in order to pull off a pairing which has run into canonical trouble. I guess it's possible to write, for example, Sirius alive after OotP not so much as a protest against canon, but to write Sirius. On second thought, that might not just apply to shipfic...