The legitimacy of fanfiction.

First, an article by the AI specialist Eliezer Yudkowsky. Actually, no; I can't seem to find the article in the bowels of the Internet, so I'll instead try to summarize. Aside from his rationality and AI work, Yudkowsy is well known for writing fanfiction, in particular, the hugely massive Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, a sprawling what-if now over 100 chapters and 500 thousand words. In his article, Yudkowsky described his affection for iconoclasm in the literary sense, id est, a critic of the severest level, who overturns idols of the mind. And he sees fanfiction as one such genre of art that is consistently reviled as trash. So, being the iconoclast he is, he writes fanfiction. Some bloody good fanfiction, in many people's opinions. Methods of Rationality has more reviews on Fanfiction.net than any other story.

It's interesting how fanfiction is very much like that other artform, Let's Plays, which is what I planned this blog to be about (and promptly forgot it). They're both partial derivative works, they both tend to violate copyright law, if even in a small way. And they both are universally rejected as art or artistic media.

Now, I'm not going to quote authors on the value of fanfic in their artistic development. Nor am I going to do more than mention 50 Shades of Grey, which famously started out as Twilight fanfiction. Both of these things are much like the presence of women in Congress while the patriarchy still reigns. And, frankly, all of those examples do not show the legitimacy of fanfiction because fundamentally fanfiction is not legitimate under the old order of publishing. The success of modern fanfiction is due to the no-man's land of the Internet, since derivative stories provide free of charge tend to be ignored by lawyers as long as the standard disclaimer is there. Legitimacy of a work of literature isn't based on whether it can be distributed in print. This isn't science, it doesn't need to pass peer review to be read.

What is fanfiction? Defined by me: a derivative work of literature that borrows the characters, settings, and/or situations of previous authors to produce new content (i.e., stories). This is not a new idea, in fact, it's the oldest idea in literature. Take the Greek classics, especially the playwrights. How many versions of Orestia were written, or the Oedipus Cycle? How about Virgil's Aeneid? And, if we're going there, how about Virgil in Dante's Inferno? Shakespeare certainly liked to borrow; is the Bard then suspect, sullied somehow? Of course not.

Yet, and probably with the onset of copyright, derivative works are seen as lesser. This is often of course due to copy-edit quality, but I can think of many books published hastily and full of mistakes. At least on the Internet an author can make instantaneous corrections. My appreciation of a piece of literature stems on punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and grammar insofar as it is distracting. Otherwise, other story elements rule, like plot and themes.

It may be copyright itself, that stories, including their characters, are intellectual property of the original authors, not only legally, but in some metaphysical way. They are not to be handled by other, unskilled fingers, nor shall canon be usurped, lest they be tarnished. Or, the "unoriginality" puts its value in question. Nevermind all tens of thousands of Harlequin pulps about exactly the same thing with the names changed and the situations ever-so-slightly different.

The third reason is that they are free, that no one makes money from them. Which is a pretty stupid way of determining legitimacy of art. It stems from the capitalist mindset, that to be of worth, something must have monetary value.

With copyright, taste, and capitalism against them, fanfictions are ignored in the art world. Well, who needs those smug bastards anyway? Something something Shakespeare something rose something sweetness.

In fact, fanfiction tends to do a few things better than printed works. In particular, fanfiction authors are free of "what is publishable" constraints and can play with themes to their heart's content. It doesn't matter that a story idea would never sell if thousands of people will read it on the Internet.
Another reason fanfiction authors have so much room for theme play is they are not forced to generate characters and backgrounds from scratch. Have a particular theme or situation you want to try out? Plop down the premade personalities and go at it! In terms of their themes, several fanfictions are among the most remarkable stories I've ever read. Fanfiction authors can also generate these stories rapidly and get equally rapid feedback, which means the author and reviewers often end up almost in collaborating, developing the ideas together as the story progresses.

Derivative works are legitimate, when you get past opinions, money, and laws. Indeed, the whole concept of legitimacy is vague and tied more to individual feelings than some unifying notion. And when you get down to the bottom, it's all derivative in some shape or form. To paraphrase a popular claim, everything is a fanfiction; works only differ in that respect by degree.