Shock Value in Fiction (Or, Why I got Angry at Game of Thrones Last Night)

So, did anyone see Game of Thrones last night? Even if you didn't, I'll keep spoilers for the show to a minimum, mostly because I want everyone, not just Game of Thrones fans, to read this. Even people who don't watch the show are aware of the complicated, incestuous relationship between Lannister twins, Jaime and Cersei.

Yep. These two. Well, last night there was a little scene that happened that I was not at all comfortable with. After returning from the war, Cersei has been cold to Jaime and it seems very clear that she does not love him like he loves her. And of course, most of the audience is on Jaime's side about this because he has been loyal to her while she has deceived him and slept with plenty of other men to achieve her own ends. He has never been with another woman, unlike most every other man in the show. He is an uncomfortable twist on chivalric love. And though he has done LOT'S of terrible things (attempted child murder for instance) he has also done a lot of good things and seems to have undergone a character transformation over the past few seasons, becoming a hero in the eyes of the fans. Cersei, of course, has remained one of the primary antagonists because she is a pretty horrible person.

So I might have felt just a LITTLE uncomfortable when, on last night's episode, Jaime kind of raped Cersei. No, not kind of. He did. She was protesting all the way through and he did not listen to her (the timing and location was also HIGHLY inappropriate but that's kind of a spoiler. People who watched the episode know what I'm talking about). Jaime raped Cersei. It doesn't matter how deceptive and evil Cersei is, she did not deserve that. And it seemed highly out of character for Jaime to do this because he A) acknowledged his distaste for rape and how, if he was a woman, he'd rather die than be raped in the last season, and B) saved Brienne from being raped.

I have not read the books but, on this occasion, I did a little check to see if this had happened in the book. It did not. While Cersei did initially protest to this sexual encounter and it does kind of toe the line as far as enthusiastic consent goes, she does beg him to keep going halfway through. Its still an uncomfortable scene but it makes more sense for the characters. It is a complicated sexual relationship and they are constantly warring with their morals and emotions. It is portrayed as such. It is not straight up rape.

But, the show has changed things like this before. And if I thought they were going to do something worthwhile with this plot point, I would be game. But I don't think that's what is going to happen. I think the scene was done for shock value. So that brings me to my main point of writing this. How does this apply to us as writers?

Rape for shock value, used only to make something edgy, is not okay. When rape is forgotten in the next scene or the trauma is easily solved, it is not okay. Victims of sexual abuse live with the after effects and trauma for years after it occurs, sometimes their whole lives. It is not just 'a thing' that happens to get you more views and more buzz. If a rape scene is not necessary to the plot or character development, then what is it? Its cheap drama.

I was a bit pissed when I found out that in Game of Thrones season 1 the show turned a scene between Dany and Drogo into a rape scene instead of a scene where consent was given. It made Dany's falling in love with Drogo a bit more sketchy. But it did set up the role of women in that society and how this was a common thing so it was kind of necessary for the tone of the show. This? We KNOW how women are treated in Westeros at this point. We've been with this show for four seasons for crying out loud. It sucks to be a woman in this world. And usually Game of Thrones does interesting stuff with this dilemma. But this scene? It adds nothing new. It is cheap drama. Why Game of Thrones NEEDS any more drama is beyond me.

So, since this scene is not canon and was changed from the books, I am going to pretend that the show makers were faithful to the original scene. I am going to pretend that Jaime did not go completely out of character unless they choose to do something with this change. I still love Game of Thrones. I'm not going to stop watching it. I am simply going to pretend they didn't completely screw up and use the book's scene as canon.

But I am not going to pretend this isn't a problem that needs to be addressed. Rape is not a tool in your show or book for you to get more buzz or cause a heart stopping moment. It as an issue that must be examined and not glossed over. If you can't handle this, then do not write about rape.

An Open Letter to College Proffessors

Dear Anonymous Professors in Creative Writing,

I know perfectly well that you don't read my blog, and technically speaking, I'm not just writing this to you. I'm writing this to all other people who exercise the same attitude toward 'genre fiction' as you do and toward mainstream fair in general. It has come to my attention that you don't think very highly of popular fiction. This is of course, all a matter of opinion. There are a number of popular books that I do not enjoy and I would never tell a person what they should and should not like. But then again... neither should you.

Each year you welcome new, hopeful writers, dreaming one day of a publishing career. Some of these writers are inexperienced. Many of them have been reading the likes of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and various Stephen King novels for their whole lives and they treasure the worlds their favorite authors have created. They hope to someday write stories as amazing as the ones that touched their hearts as children.

Except for you don't want them to write 'genre fiction'. Genre fiction is beneath real writing. The only real writing is high brow literary fiction. And not just any literary fiction. Cynical, hard to understand literary fiction that puts up a wall of pretense so high, climbing its slippery side would be like scaling the Wall of Westeros with only one ice pick. But you wouldn't get that reference, would you? Because 'you don't read sword and sorcery fantasy'. Because its all just dribble.

You don't seem to understand the effort that goes into creating a world different from our own, do you? We can't rely on what already exists, we must create from scratch. We take from the real world but we must twist it into a different shape. Biology, politics, religion, history, economics: we must create systems for all of those things. But no... Fantasy is genre fiction. Its EASY fiction.

Your preferred fiction is hard to surmount and the ordeal of reading it is empty and hopeless. And at the end of reading this cynical, high brow, extremely-deep-and-complex writing, I can use one word to describe it: soulless.

Shall I tell you why I read?

I read to feel something. To escape my world and fall in love with another. I read to see new perspectives and meet new people. I read to laugh and to cry and to be filled with such emotion that I chuck my book across the room, restraining a scream so that my friends don't think I am being murdered.

I read to feel.

Shall I tell you why I write?

I write to explore. To create a point of view that perhaps others will be interested in. I write to create a world that I control and I can love. I write to connect with other people.

I write to make them feel.

I don't want to make readers 'work hard' to understand what I'm saying. My writing should not be a homework assignment they loathe to read. I want it to be something they simply cannot put down and risk detention in math class as they read the book under their desk, hungry for more words with every page turn. That is why I write.

Why do you write? To be honest, I don't know. I guess you liked it at one point. But now its about money, isn't it? Its about churning one soulless short story after another. And yeah, the writing may be good. And maybe if I spend an hour reading it I will grasp your deep message. But it will never make me feel.

Harry Potter might be for children but I will keep my copies for my whole life and read them to my children. My copy of Inkheart is falling apart but when the pages fall from the binding, I will get a NEW copy because I adore that book so much. And hey, I may not like Twilight, but at least millions of people do. At least millions of people around the world feel hope when they read those books. And that is more than your fiction gives me.

I write genre fiction. I write emotional fiction. I write because I see hope in the world as much as I do despair. I write to balance those things and help people make sense of this crazy world.

So I will keep writing genre fiction. And I will love what I do. And in the end, you will simply be a bump in the road saying 'not good enough'.

With the highest respect,
Aimee

Let's talk Fanfiction: A Strongly Worded Response

Today I read two blog posts, on by Sarah Rees Brennan and one by Cassandra Claire, and these posts made me very angry.

Not at the authors of course. I love both of them and their work and I'm so glad that they decided to speak out about the accusations and bullying they have endured because of their hobbies. I am mad at the very people who gave them cause to write such an article and I wish with all my heart that they never had to endure this. If you haven't read the articles, read them here, I reccomend it. They're both long but I think its important.

Sarah Rees Brennan's Post: http://sarahreesbrennan.tumblr.com/post/77926940735/ok-dont-get-me-wrong-because-its-just-curiosity-but

Response from Cassandra Claire: http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/86064084.html

I've read Demon's Lexicon and the Mortal Instruments series and I did not, at the time, know that either of these two authors wrote fanfiction. I was actually quite excited when I found out. I thought, "Really? These two published and super awesome authors used to write fanfiction just like me? That's so cool!" And when I found out Cassandra Claire's books were loosely based off of her Harry Potter fanfiction, I applauded her because I had no idea while reading the books. I didn't make any connections between the characters or the magic system until someone told me about it, and even then they had to outline the similarities for me. (Them: Clary has red hair and Ginny has red hair so they're the SAME. Me:...Kay?)

Apparently, however, I seem to be one of the few people in this camp of "fanfiction is cool and good writers can write fanfiction and still become successful authors". Because the cyberbullying and accusations these two authors have gone through is not only bad but absolutely, unacceptably, nasty. It makes me want to flip tables. So in this post, I'm going to flip all the metaphorical tables as I defend fanfiction writers, what they do and why the righteous fandom members should back off. I apologize in advance if I seem a bit angry because I am and I will not attempt to restrict that. This is a rant by numbers, so you know I'm pissed.

1. The Merits of Fanfiction

People write fanfiction because they like a book/movie/show/other form of media and they want to expand upon it. They want to make up an alternate ending or add a scene or put two characters in a situation and see what happens. The write fanfiction because, in most cases, they respect and enjoy the original property. I've read a lot of fanfiction and there are a lot of very good writers there. They further develop characters and make me reconsider relationships the way I've never seen them before. They also offer a chance to see something you love through another perspective. Writers can also add other characters into the mix to create an entirely new story line.

Fanfiction also offers writers a chance to practice. Because when anyone first starts writing, they aren't very good at it. A teenager doesn't put their pen to paper one day and start writing sonnets. Skills have to be built up over time and fanfiction offers a great place to practice this and receive feedback from readers.

So perhaps it is mine boggling to me that people look down their nose at fanfiction writers. What they want to expand and explore something they love. They consider non-canon possibilities? How UNORIGINAL of them. If they REALLY wanted to be writers they would start writing REAL books. Oh wait, you've switched to REAL books? CLEARLY this is influenced by your fanfiction. You wrote fanfiction once and that means you are incapable of thinking for yourself or writing a single decent word. Fanfiction as ruined you. Throw your computer in the garbage and give up.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Fanfiction is not a weird hobby. One of the reasons I loved 'Fangirl' by Rainbow Rowell so much was because the main character wrote fanfiction and that was cool. I'd never read a book where the main character wrote fanfiction. But to most people it seems fanfiction is the cess pool of writers who will never be. Teenage girls shouldn't be writing fanfiction. They should be writing Faulkner and Fitzgerald by the time they hit puberty. But not exactly, because paying homage to them would be plagiarism. Anything that seems derivative of anything at all should be locked up in a box and never let out into the world. Seriously, you thought you got to practice writing for something you love in an online community when you were young? You should be shunned.

This is what stuns me about all the flack Sarah has gotten. So she wrote fanfiction when she was 17? And she should be ridiculed for it? She improved herself as a writer and published a really good book. I'm happy for her. Its not like we'd ridicule her for lying to her parents that one time when she was eight or cheating on a test or something. Why is fanfiction, a harmless hobby, something to be ridiculed for?

The answer is, its not.

2. Completely Original Ideas... Aren't a Thing Anymore

Its not the ideas that are original. Its the combinations of ideas and situations that give a piece of media a fresh new look. We don't call ET a rip off of The Day the Earth Stood Still because they both involve a friendly alien, do we? No, we call it a fresh new take on it. We don't call Disney Movies rips offs of their original fairy tails. They just change the story around and present it in a new way. We don't call Harry a ripoff of Aragorn because they both have brown hair. Jack Sparrow isn't a ripoff of Jack Dawson because they have the same first name. These are the stupidest little details. Why is this a thing? There are a limited number of relationships, appearances, plot devices and characters in this world. Heck, according to Vladamir Propp in 'Morphology of the Folktale' all stories are inherently made up of different combinations of the SAME 32 mythemes.

What does this mean, critics? It means you don't get to call "plagiarism" every time you see a slightly similar sentence or character trait in a book that you saw in another book. You especially don't get to do that solely because the author once wrote fanfiction and must therefore be a plagiarist. If I see that happen again, I might have to start flipping the metaphorical beds as well. Don't make me flip the metaphorical beds.

3. Fanfiction and gender.

The majority of fanfiction writers are female. The majority of authors accused of plagiarism are female. In fact usually, whenever someone accuses a male author of 'ripping off' another book, they call it 'derivative'. Funny enough, I'm not the biggest fan of the Inheritance Cycle because I found its world way too similar to that of Middle Earth and other previously written fantasy novels (certainly more derivative of Middle Earth than I think the Mortal Instruments universe is derivative of Harry Potter's universe). But most people seem to accept this as homage to old fantasy stories. Which is fine. I dislike the books because find them a bit boring and cliche but that's my personal opinion.

I wonder if Christopher Paolini would have met with quite the same reaction if he was a teenage girl (a demographic which gets a bad rep by virtue of their age and gender). It does seem that Stephen King and Neil Gaiman can get away with making references and paying tribute to their favorite books whereas several female authors cannot. This is nothing against Mr. King or Mr. Gaiman as I like their work. I just wish female authors received the same treatment.

4. Regardless... This Treatment is not Okay

Even if all the claims were true and these authors were plagiarists who never had an original thought, even if all these horrible accusations had evidence and grounding, the treatment of these authors is still not okay. It is not okay to call names. It is not okay to 'kick people out of a fandom' (You know... as if it belongs to you or something). It is not okay to make threats on their lives or the lives of their families. Cyber-bullying is NEVER okay, especially when it makes someone genuinely afraid for their lives. And in the end, why do you do it? Is it because you take pride and upsetting people? Is it because you want a reaction out of them to heighten your sense of self worth? Every time I try to analyze these types of people, my heart hurts for humanity. What part of basic human morality makes ANYONE think these threats are okay?

These authors are human beings who are published and whether you like their books or not they do not OWE you a PERSONAL apology because maybe their characters have the same hair color as a character in your favorite book.

The thing is, I am a fanfiction writer. I'm also hoping to be a published writer one day. Guess what? I'm not ashamed of either. I do not regret writing fanfiction and I will defend its merits to the grave. And for all the metaphorical tables and beds I've flipped, in the end I'm not just angry. I'm sad. I'm sad that authors have to go through this kind of abuse. I'm sad that there are people out there who feel the need to enrich themselves by breaking down others. It is not right. It should not be considered right. It should not be allowed.

This is not just an issue of fanfiction or misogyny. Its an issue of human dignity. Grow up, realize that, and respect your fellow writers no matter what they've written in the past.

And if you can't do that, keep your mouth shut.