I think this is a great example of fandom and how well crafted stories can influence our collective imagination. To sum up without spoiling too much: something huge happened at the end of second season of Sherlock and it caused an online and real life meme of fans declaring their support for Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. The Tor.com article I posted explains it more in detail and I have even seen the posters they mention in downtown Mountain View.
Even if this is a marketing scheme by the BBC, I still think this is absolutely brilliant. I honestly believe stories influence people and touch us. I cannot imagine a where where there isn’t some kind of imaginative storytelling happening. Stories connect us and there’s something intensively fun about going over a book, movie, or TV show with another fan. In a way, I believe storytelling makes the world a better place.
The topic of the Mary Sue as a staple of fan fiction has been explored by other writers. I agree with the writers who argue that much of the criticism of Mary Sues are sexist. After all most Mary Sue characters are female and I suspect many of them are written by young women and girls. Also, how come no one ever calls out James Bond as being a Mary Sue? Any fictional male action character fulfills most of the tropes. Here’s a definition of Mary Sue if anyone is unclear.
All the pop culture I enjoyed were mostly “boy” shows, meaning they were action-adventure oriented. At that time most female characters existed to be rescued, annoying or a ditz. If any of these shows did have an action girl character, her moments in the sun were all too brief. So of course I created these girl adventurers who sometimes outpaced all the boys in the original stories. I couldn’t find any ideal representations of myself on screen so I made several up. I could tell when a show was really good when I didn’t have to make up a new character or adventure to improve for my personal preference.
I don’t think I ever stopped composing fan fictions in my head as I got older. Mostly whenever I watched a show or movie that I thought had potential but felt it was missing something, I would daydream some storyline that made more sense to me. However I was reading a lot more and literature offered a wider variety of characters with whom I could relate. The genre of children and young adult books seems to be improving a great deal in this regard.
The fact that Mary Sue fan fiction still goes on, however shows us that pop culture has a long way to in go in representing all manner of fictional characters girls can relate to. Maybe these young fan fiction writers will grow up to write future movies, novels, and shows future viewers can admire and root for.
The Little Mermaid was one of those movies that glued to me to the TV when I was a child. I would watch it all the time, relentlessly. I loved everything about it, except for the ending. I kept thinking throughout the movie, “Why does she want to be human? Humans are boring. Ariel can breath under water and on land.” I would hope, everything the ending neared, that the movie would magically change and Eric would turn into a Merman instead. Alas it was never to be. Also, if her father has the ability to change someone’s species at will, why doesn’t she just stick around to learn some of that powerful magic?
Now that I am older, I recognize that Ariel giving up everything she knows just to marry the man with whom she maybe spoke five words probably isn’t the best role model.
But now I wonder if we got things all wrong…
Now the story at the beginning establishes that Ariel is the youngest princess of five or six daughters. Ariel has a very small chance of ascending to the throne if the Undersea Kingdom is similar to European kingdoms. All of her sisters would have to be taken out and this would be impossible for Ariel because her only allies are a small, nagging crab and a neurotic fish. It also appears that the kingdom is relatively peaceful, so a coup d’etat would make her very unpopular with the subjects.
Ariel’s fate is to stick around the castle singing and entertaining her father and generally just sitting there pretty. So she turns her gaze towards the surface and collects artifacts from humans. Ariel plays this off as a whimsical dream to visit the surface, but she is really studying human culture and their forms of government. An amateur anthropologist if you will.
It seems like a very unlikely coincidence that Ariel just happened to find the ship that carried Prince Eric, future king (of Denmark I believe). She’s been plotting this meeting for a while. Although I do believe it is a lucky coincidence that Ariel got to save Eric’s life. A chance to study him up close!
Eric nearly drowned, and Ariel realized that day how fragile humans really are.
All she has to do is find a way to seduce Eric, take over his kingdom and perhaps dominated her home world as well. She eventually manages to do just that even if it meant involving Ursula all while playing the part of a silly lovestruck girl. Ariel even gets Eric to kill Ursula for her (RIP Ursula).
I like this Machiavellian princess I created in my head better than the existing one.
There was a little girl hidden away in an alley. She would have been ignored had she been standing in the public square, for it was bitterly cold and the snow smothered the city with its frigid beautiful blanket. No one would buy matches for the rest of the night. Plus, it was Christmas Eve with families and strangers alike making merry in their warm, glowing houses.
The little girl could not go home. Her father would surely beat her for not selling enough matches. The little girl much preferred the bitter cold to her father’s company. But she was cold and desperate, so she lit a match to absorb its meager warmth. The little girl stared at the tiny flame. It was alive and seductive, arching and writhing as it danced on the stick.
The little girl saw another warm glow, softer than the flame. She saw her beloved grandmother who had passed not long before.
“Grandmother,” the little girl whispered. Her grandmother beckoned to the little girl. “Let go of your worries,” Grandmother said, “you can come home tonight.”
It would be easy, the little girl could lie down and simply wait. She would never worry about her father again. The people of the city would find her the next morning. They would shake their head and say what a shame it was. Some would make noise and demand action. The clergy would urge the parishioners to remember and pity the poor. Soon, too soon, all but a few would forget. The few who still remembered would be ignored or laughed at. They would forget just as they had conveniently forgotten this body belonged to the little girl they ignored the night before.
The little girl gave a little cry. The flame slid down to her fingers. She threw the used match away and looked at it. It lay black, shriveled, and dry on the snow. More snowflakes arrived to cover the burnt matchstick.
“No,” said the little girl, “I will not come with you just yet, Grandmother.” She still had more matches yet.
The city burned that night, but the little matchstick girl kept warm.
I was always a rather calm and quiet kid and an only child. I was used to being myself and living in my head before I started school. One of my favorite daydreams is my flying couch. My parents visited friends often and they usually never had children my age. So when I didn’t feel like whining on how bored I was, I just imagined the couch I was sitting on could fly. It would fly out through the balcony, into the sky. I would stir the couch to fly low over the ocean so that I can stick my hand in the water and watch the dolphins play. I would even do loop-de-loops.
The use of my imagination is still with me and it has gotten me through many bouts of boredom. I hope to write this blog on the magic ability of imagination to make life not so bad. Here’s to navel gazing!
