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This is related to a discussion in another lj, but I realized it was really a tangent, so I thought I'd put it here. The discussion was about all-human AUs, where fanfic authors take non-human characters and make them human due to the setting. For instance, if you have everybody from Star Trek in high school, Spock might be an exchange student from some other country, but he's not half Vulcan. Likewise, Castiel isn't an angel, Spike isn't a vampire, Frodo isn't a hobbit, Zuko isn't a fire bender, etc. It's taking fantasy or sci-fi characters and putting them in a real world settings. Many people don't really see the point in that--which I can understand, even if I like those stories. If a character has an alien mindset, the logical question is, how can s/he be the same character without that alien mindset?
Which led me to an answer that's not really relevent to that discussion, which is
...that they're actually human to begin with. In the context of the original discussion, of course they aren't. Castiel's foreign-ness as an angel is a huge part of his character and you really do go down the wrong path if you try to understand him as one of the human characters so, for instance, his devotion to God's orders is something he should have gotten over. Same goes for all those other characters.
But at the same time, these are all characters that come out of the head of a human, and humans really don't have the ability to conceive of a completely foreign mindset. We can do pretty well with our imaginations because human imagination is pretty impressive, but it's still limited by our own perceptions. I remember reading once, for instance, about this as applied to animals. Animals are other beings with which humans actually live, yet they're so foreign we can't conceive of what their perception is like. We can't help but often talk about them in human terms. Even if you know intellectually that your dog or cat isn't experiencing the world the way you are, it's hard to not understand many of his/her actions in somewhat human terms. The real pov of a cat is beyond human conception, period. Even books that are praised for the way they create a unique animal pov are anthropomorphizing them. At the very least, we give them language, even if its not a spoken language, and that alone is a bigger change than human to vampire right there.
Angels, demons, vampires, aliens, do have language which solves that problem. Their brains aren't foreign the way an animals are. Yet they do in the same way start with a human pov. The pov, for instance, of being immortal and defining good as "following God's orders" is alien to the way humans live, but it still has a human starting point. It's asking you to imagine what it would be like to be a person who has lived for millions of years etc. Which is why Castiel's actions, even if he's an angel, can be argued on human terms. If "but he's an angel" *only* meant that his actions were completely foreign the character would have no interest to us whatsoever because we couldn't relate to him at all. The interest is generated (if it's generated for you) in the combination of the familiar and unfamiliar. We can't truly understand what his pov is like because we could never live for millions of years, but we can safely relate to his feelings of conflict as what we understand to be "feelings of conflict" if that makes sense. Iow, when Castiel looks like he's intrigued by Dean's ability to think for himself, he actually is intrigued by that. We can use our experience of life as humans to understand the angels' actions as long as we have the right information.
So if you took Castiel and plunked him into a high school AU, he would not be the same character. You would lose the exaggerated quality of his isolation, for instance. For many people he would, understandably, cease to be Castiel. But to another person it would be enough that he had the human version of that conflict just by being a person who has trouble thinking for himself.
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jlh just wrote a Star Trek AU where Kirk, McCoy, Scotty and Spock are roommates together at Harvard in 1959 (hee!). Spock isn't half-alien (at least not the extra terrestrial kind; McCoy's mother from Georgia might say he might as well be), but in the decades that follow his most important decision still comes down to feelings vs. logic, with Spock defaulting to logic and Bones arguing for emotion. There's enough there to make him completely recognizable as Spock even if you believe he can't truly be Spock without being half-Vulcan. You'd probably still find him more IC than a half-Vulcan Spock who behaved like Bones because he'd rejected the Vulcan way.
I guess this is why for me seeing a fantasy character turned into a human one doesn't always seem like they're a different character, because there are no characters anywhere that don't have a human lurking somewhere inside them. This is not to say I don't appreciate the idea of a character given an alien pov--I do, and often wind up arguing when I feel like it's being dismissed. It's just that I think when we say a character has an alien pov we must mean "imagine if your human pov was artificially distorted along these lines" rather than "this character is completely foreign from the ground up."
Basically, the topic just interests me because it's one of those brain breaking things to try to imagine a perspective completely different to the human perspective when we have no point of reference to be able to do that.
Which led me to an answer that's not really relevent to that discussion, which is
...that they're actually human to begin with. In the context of the original discussion, of course they aren't. Castiel's foreign-ness as an angel is a huge part of his character and you really do go down the wrong path if you try to understand him as one of the human characters so, for instance, his devotion to God's orders is something he should have gotten over. Same goes for all those other characters.
But at the same time, these are all characters that come out of the head of a human, and humans really don't have the ability to conceive of a completely foreign mindset. We can do pretty well with our imaginations because human imagination is pretty impressive, but it's still limited by our own perceptions. I remember reading once, for instance, about this as applied to animals. Animals are other beings with which humans actually live, yet they're so foreign we can't conceive of what their perception is like. We can't help but often talk about them in human terms. Even if you know intellectually that your dog or cat isn't experiencing the world the way you are, it's hard to not understand many of his/her actions in somewhat human terms. The real pov of a cat is beyond human conception, period. Even books that are praised for the way they create a unique animal pov are anthropomorphizing them. At the very least, we give them language, even if its not a spoken language, and that alone is a bigger change than human to vampire right there.
Angels, demons, vampires, aliens, do have language which solves that problem. Their brains aren't foreign the way an animals are. Yet they do in the same way start with a human pov. The pov, for instance, of being immortal and defining good as "following God's orders" is alien to the way humans live, but it still has a human starting point. It's asking you to imagine what it would be like to be a person who has lived for millions of years etc. Which is why Castiel's actions, even if he's an angel, can be argued on human terms. If "but he's an angel" *only* meant that his actions were completely foreign the character would have no interest to us whatsoever because we couldn't relate to him at all. The interest is generated (if it's generated for you) in the combination of the familiar and unfamiliar. We can't truly understand what his pov is like because we could never live for millions of years, but we can safely relate to his feelings of conflict as what we understand to be "feelings of conflict" if that makes sense. Iow, when Castiel looks like he's intrigued by Dean's ability to think for himself, he actually is intrigued by that. We can use our experience of life as humans to understand the angels' actions as long as we have the right information.
So if you took Castiel and plunked him into a high school AU, he would not be the same character. You would lose the exaggerated quality of his isolation, for instance. For many people he would, understandably, cease to be Castiel. But to another person it would be enough that he had the human version of that conflict just by being a person who has trouble thinking for himself.
Likewise,
jlh just wrote a Star Trek AU where Kirk, McCoy, Scotty and Spock are roommates together at Harvard in 1959 (hee!). Spock isn't half-alien (at least not the extra terrestrial kind; McCoy's mother from Georgia might say he might as well be), but in the decades that follow his most important decision still comes down to feelings vs. logic, with Spock defaulting to logic and Bones arguing for emotion. There's enough there to make him completely recognizable as Spock even if you believe he can't truly be Spock without being half-Vulcan. You'd probably still find him more IC than a half-Vulcan Spock who behaved like Bones because he'd rejected the Vulcan way.I guess this is why for me seeing a fantasy character turned into a human one doesn't always seem like they're a different character, because there are no characters anywhere that don't have a human lurking somewhere inside them. This is not to say I don't appreciate the idea of a character given an alien pov--I do, and often wind up arguing when I feel like it's being dismissed. It's just that I think when we say a character has an alien pov we must mean "imagine if your human pov was artificially distorted along these lines" rather than "this character is completely foreign from the ground up."
Basically, the topic just interests me because it's one of those brain breaking things to try to imagine a perspective completely different to the human perspective when we have no point of reference to be able to do that.
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See, I think that's it in a nutshell. It always seems to me that 'alien' characters -- angels, demons, vampires, Vulcans, Klingons, even human characters from other nations or other time periods -- are characterized by an alienness that is essentially a normal human condition taken to extremes. Piousness, or rigidness, or bloodlust or hedonism, or logic, or hot-headedness, sense of honor, or sense of compassion or whatever: take that human trait, exaggerate it, and you have an Instant Alien.
But that makes sense to me, because things that are familiar to us are our only frame of reference. Even though someone like Spock seems so alien because of his insistence on logic and his occasional bewilderment at human emotionalism, it's only alien because we encountering someone who is all one thing is rare and weird and an aberration.
Though at the same time, these conceptualizations of 'alienness' are so dependent on our personal and social context. Something that seems hugely alien to one person due to its exaggerated quality might seem just like an oddity to someone else, depending on what they're familiar with in their lives and their culture.
...which is just something I find interesting, hence my kinda OT ramble...
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And also so much word on how ordinary people can easily be just as alien. What's that quote about even the past being a foreign country? It's scarily easy for two groups to have conflicting povs that make them seem practically alien.
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It makes me think, for instance, of the idea of somebody writing an AU about Harry Potter where he's not a wizard. They could certainly make a case for saying that they're looking at how different his life would have been in that case, but my main response to the idea would still be: why?
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I'm enjoying this discussion a lot, btw - it's making me realise more clearly just how many things are bound up in a character for me, including thematic aspects.
I don't think I'd have much of a problem with a non-magical HP AU, but then I'd need to think about it some more, I guess, since Harry himself isn't generally at the front of my mind when I think of HP. How essential is the magic to his character, really? Hm. (I'd be interested in your view, if you don't mind explaining - what is it about him being a wizard that's so fundamental for you?)
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But as I talk about it, I can think of ways around that easily. It would be interesting, for instance, to read an AU short story where he's not a wizard but it's still commenting on the canon story. In fact, I think of stuff like that with Bat-characters all the time where, for instance, I can imagine an AU where the superhero Bats meet versions of themselves that didn't become superheroes because they never met Bruce, for instance. And an HP AU could also come up with some reason that Muggle!Harry did meet the wizard characters--or human versions of the wizard characters.
So I've now pretty much even talked myself out of my original position--for reasons I think go back to your original point. Harry's view of himself as "wizard" isn't really fundamental to his character because it's not a pov so much as a power and the reason he knows the people he knows.
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(Btw, I ended up rereading your Castiel meta from the other day last night and didn't manage to comment before I fell asleep. I've actually watched SPN now, partially thanks to your post, and what you say rings completely true to me.)
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I'm really not sure how you can say "far cry from how this trope is mostly approached". Sturgeon Law applies to everything equally, Tropes are not Bad, etc.
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I didn't mean that in a quality sense, just that the approach to the AU is different from most.
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But then again, this is probably what some fans would find objectionable or problematic about my approach to any of these characters—I'm always searching for their very ordinariness, which was something I loved about Harry Potter. Yes, he's a wizard, but also, he has crushes on girls and has to go to school and get reasonable grades and make the sports team.
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As for the ordinariness, for me that works best when it's juxtaposed with something very not ordinary. I wouldn't be interested in HP's mundane problems if they weren't filtered through a magical world. Different preferences, I suppose.)
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Expending considerable energy on reconstructing something that already exists in canon is, to me, the entire point of writing an AU. I think that when you swap Terran ethnicities for alien you ARE othering, on purpose, and the point is to find a place and a time where that othering is built into the culture. As Meg implies, of course the original writing of the alien is to explore the othering that happens in our own culture in a supposedly safe way (although that never actually works). So yes, the idea that Spock is half-Native American in the wild west story I read is a moment of othering, but one that is inherent to the time and place.
But at the same time I reject, fundamentally, that one's culture and experiences ARE who one is rather than SHAPE who one is. I do feel there is a me, inside, that reacts to what is going on but there is a kernel of self that remains. Heck, ST:XI itself plays with that idea rather freely, showing that even if Kirk grew up without a dad and very rebellious, he still inherently has qualities that make him a good leader, a good captain.
And I say that othering of the alien as nonoffensive never actually works because when you go back and watch or read SFF from the past you can see how completely soaked in the problems and attitudes of its time it is, has to be. One reason the AU I wrote works is that it picks up on things inherent to TOS—the mixed optimism and pessimism of the mid-cold war, and the transparent, unproblematic enthusiasm for the American imperial project. I expect the Reboot to have rather a different attitude about the ultimate benevolence of Starfleet, but we'll see. At the same time you can't extricate LotR, with all of its gender and race problems, from the British imperial project and the attitudes that fell out of that.
I find Spock's story ultimately to be one about assimilation, and how much one can or should resist it. In a way, and I don't mean to demean by the comparison because I think it's a great show, it's very like Samantha Stevens in Bewitched, which is also a tale of assimilation as well as passing.
In the end I think what I want to do is take the simplification that often happens in SFF—there is an unambiguous evil, all people from X planet are like Y—and recomplicate it into human terms.
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I see - I suppose that's just something that doesn't appeal to me, then.
But at the same time I reject, fundamentally, that one's culture and experiences ARE who one is rather than SHAPE who one is. I do feel there is a me, inside, that reacts to what is going on but there is a kernel of self that remains.
I do agree with you on that, but with fictional characters, I'm not sure how recognisable they still will be - mostly because different readers won't necessarily agree on which part exactly is at the core of that character's self.
Heck, ST:XI itself plays with that idea rather freely, showing that even if Kirk grew up without a dad and very rebellious, he still inherently has qualities that make him a good leader, a good captain.
Considering I loved TOS!Kirk but utterly loathe new!Kirk, I would respectfully disagree. *g*
I take your point about the othering of aliens, but on the other hand I generally find humanisation in the sense of "everyone is just like us at the core, and they should act more like us" no better, regardless who "us" happens to be. (I'd agree about Spock's story being a story of assimilation, but there are two different cultures trying to assimilate him, and I find both equally as problematic.)
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I think that ends up being the ultimate answer of anything that starts with "why do people do this thing that doesn't appeal to me." There's nothing wrong with that! I think of my father, who was of a generation before rock and roll, who once said about my choice of radio station, "why does every song have to have a beat?" Now, that betrays a fundamental disconnect with rock music. I could explain, "well, that's part of what rock is—even the slow songs have a beat" but really the answer is, "It's okay, Dad; you don't like rock music." You can find out why, but I don't think the answer makes the product any more appealing.
I do agree with you on that, but with fictional characters, I'm not sure how recognisable they still will be - mostly because different readers won't necessarily agree on which part exactly is at the core of that character's self.
Isn't that true of fanfiction full stop? We've all seen plenty of in-universe fic that seems wildly out of character. And we all have different things in our mind that are at the core of the character. Some people are fine with the universe changing, but not with a character's sexuality or even ultimate romantic choice changing—they feel all non-canon ships are OOC. One reason AUs are clearly marked is that some people feel that they change too much. Others don't; they feel that they put certain themes that are somewhat buried in the text and making them more overt. All of these points of view are valid! They are merely different.
I generally find humanisation in the sense of "everyone is just like us at the core, and they should act more like us" no better, regardless who "us" happens to be.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree about what the alien in the work is there for and how different they can possibly be. But also, how many varieties there are within humanity that can be encompassed and just as strange as anything that is nonhuman even if it's less PC to say that. In a larger sense I'm not sure that any other person is even knowable. I don't think you have to be an angel or a vampire or a Vulcan to be a stranger in a strange land. And certainly those characters are written sympathetically—they are othered but also not othered, in a sense.
I'm not consuming SF/F for the ways in which it is strange and remains strange; I'm consuming it for the things it can tell me about the place and time that I actually live in. I don't think that's wrong, or all that unusual, though it may be different than what you are going to it for. And again, I don't think there's anything better or worse about any of these approaches.
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Of course! And the more different aspects are recognisable from canon, including the outward trappings, the more people will find "their" core characteristic intact, right?
But also, how many varieties there are within humanity that can be encompassed and just as strange as anything that is nonhuman even if it's less PC to say that.
Well, yes, but that's back to what
I don't think that's wrong, or all that unusual, though it may be different than what you are going to it for.
Our preferences do seem to be very different! I certainly didn't mean to imply yours was wrong in any way; sorry if it came across that way.
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The problem is that we can't agree on what the outward trappings ARE. For me, the outward trappings of Spock is that he lives between two cultures, alternately embracing and rejecting them; that he has a weird relationship with his dad; that he's a scientist and a thinker, but still acts. For other people, the outward trappings of Spock are that he has green blood and is on a space ship, comes from a desert planet, never uses contractions, and thinks that many things are fascinating.
I don't care about whether he's on a spaceship; I think he can be Spock in the old west, editing a fashion magazine, or becoming a professor of the philosophy of physics. I don't think he can be Spock if he isn't trying to assimilate two different cultures, or dealing with feelings of disconnection, or keeping himself emotionally distant in many ways. I would rather see Spock acting like himself in a different environment, than not acting like himself on a spaceship.
So I think no, getting the outside right doesn't mean getting the character any more right.
I don't think it's less legitimate to focus on how people deal with differences rather than on finding an underlying sameness.
I agree. For me, the highlighting of human/non human really relies on a concept that there is something that is inherently human, that we all have in common. I'm really not sure that's true, actually, or at least isn't true in a way that we can really demonstrate in fiction. There are so many different ways to be human—one thing I dearly love about Trek is that it always allowed for not only all these different humans but also, when visiting other planets, that there was variety within their societies as well.
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Just as an aside: this. There are some canon stories I have no interest in translating to an AU, but for the ones I do, that is exactly the point. I want to take character traits and events from canon and go "what if that happened thousands of years in the future in space!" or "what if they were magical pirates!" -- and then make both the alternate universe fit with the characters/events as well as making the characters/events fit into the alternate universe without, hopefully, loosing the unique and recognizable qualities of both. It's a hugely fun challenge.
As for the overall topic, you make some really interesting points here. I tend to agree with you.
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And yet! We both love AUs, we both believe in that sort of project, we both write RPF AUs. The act is similar even if the outcomes are almost opposite. It's really, really cool. One of those things that makes me think, "oh my god I LOVE FANDOM!"
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In the end I think what I want to do is take the simplification that often happens in SFF—there is an unambiguous evil, all people from X planet are like Y—and recomplicate it into human terms.
And I thought, yes, that, except what I like to do is take the everyday complications of normal human life and transport them into a scenario where there are also SPACESHIPS or DRAGONS! *g*
And it is so cool, when I look around and see the kinds of stories people write. What do people like to explore with their AUs? History? Romance? The different stages of real life? SF/F? Even if it's a type of AU I'm not interested in as far as fiction, it's still so cool to me how there is such a range of interests and knowledge informing fandom, you know?
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Also, I really love
One last piece on the subject--the baby-eating aliens metaphysical story. Three Worlds Collide (http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/). Is a lot of metaphysical blah blah, but does some interesting work about the possibility of encountering world views so far outside one's own that they aren't understandable, and aren't conscionable by your own moral standards. Interesting stuff to think about.
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I don't think there's anything sacred about a character, anything you can't alter for the purpose of telling an interesting story, so saying that, because a character is conceived as "human" (oh, for a definition of human, given how polysemic and subject to questioning that term is...) that portraying them as "human" would be betraying the core identity. All alternate species/identities in most SFF function as metaphors for aspect of human identities in the first place, besides the fact they're written by humans in any case. And even humans can be pretty "alien" too in their mode of thoughts from what you would presume. Possibilities, they are endless.
So basically, yes, yes, yes.
I'm answering one of your post and that reminds me last time I did, I'm pretty sure I said I'd go back to you to say more and then I never did, gah. w_w
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I suspect I probably stole that title from the BBC show. It was probably in my head somewhere...
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I think you have to break down the natural function of an AU with the whole alien vs human thing into separate parts; say, I used to read lots of 'human' AUs of Gundam Wing, just 'cause they're totally commonplace in GW fandom. It got to the point where I didn't care if Heero & Duo were Gundam Pilots or not if it was written with their personalities intact, and I'd say Heero & Duo are very much defined by their histories as much as any character you could name. They sort of *exist* to be pilots, to the point where the plot of many post-series fics is 'omg, the war is over, how do they live as civilians at all?' So to me, the trick of enjoying an AU is enjoying the differences, playing around, rather than saying 'this is equivalent'; as long as the personality's there. And with Spike or Heero or the Avatar kids, the personality could definitely be there.
But with Star Trek... I'd say either Bones or Spock, it doesn't matter, it would take a *lot* out of the story if they're just college students. That's why to me, part of what makes an AU (esp. 'human' AU) work, at least in my experience with Gundam Wing, is that you create a situation that's equivalent. So instead of being mecha pilots, Heero & Duo are knights and assassins, say. With Buffy, it's easier 'cause a large part of her personality's being a regular girl-- but you have to be careful 'cause basically the only thing making her all that interesting is that she's not *just* a regular girl. If you left her in High School, just as if you left William pre-Spike, these are two way-boring characters; and if you tried to make William into Spike without a dramatic trauma (and there's a limited set of things that'd make sense, outside vampirism)-- it'd probably flop also. You need that driving conflict to match a certain level of intensity.
With Spock, it's not like he's totally alien; he's not Data or Castiel. Part of the whole point of Spock is that he's half-human, and has all these emotions he's gradually learning to deal with and such. I think the thing that really makes it not work for me is just dullness, not impossibility-- like, with Heero & Duo it works 'cause their extraordinariness is all about circumstance, not nature. So if you took away extraordinary circumstances, their essential qualities are unchanged. With Spock and Jim, they've got extraordinary natures (regardless of whether you say 'human' or not; with Jim, obviously human). I mean, unless he's the head of some small country or super-powerful corporation, unless he's the president or something-- unless Jim is extraordinary, is he really Jim? Weirdly, with all the stuff about 'Chosen One', etcetc in HP, Harry doesn't strike me the same way-- his greatness is definitely thrust upon him; he does need the whole Voldemort thing to bring out his best, but if you had a dramatic arc with him going to boarding school, chasing his parents' murderer & then becoming a good cop, not much would have to change. But then, ultimately, I think the magic was always just a thin cover for reality in JKR's world.
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I was definitely thinking the same thing with vampires--there part of the whole issue is that these are ex-humans. The combination of the familiar and the strange is right there. That combination's always a fascinating for people. It's like with robots studies show that people find robots cute, but if they become too human-looking they are disturbing. So, like Threepio is fine, we can appreciate the parts of him that look human, but if he looked like a human with machine eyes or whatever he would be disturbing. Anyway, characters like spot sort of exist in that same spot. Human, but extreme. Close enough to human to be one, but not. And for Spock, probably never really crossing over into the disturbing place the way another character would.
It's interesting you would say that you lose a lot of the story if Kirk and Spock are just college students--I think Clio actually mapped on the extraordinary really well in the story (I know you haven't read it so you might be imagining something a little different). It follows them throughout their lives, with Kirk being a superstar in Soviet relations, for instance, and Spock becoming famous for his work in scientific ethics. So I'd say that story does look at it the same way you do, that part of the fun is seeing them show their same personality in a different setting that offers different ways to be extraordinary.
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I think for some people the strangeness is inherent to the character. For me, the similarity is more interesting. And that's fine—if you're else, then don't read my story. As long as people aren't condescending or judgmental about what is ultimately personal preference (because hello, ALL FANFIC IS OOC).
I'll happily take the hits of being the typical AU to be dismissed—Spock as "just a college student"—because I think those sorts of cracks are facile and obnoxious anyway. That said, dude, next time link to the original post!
And now I'll give you the link to the wild west AU I was mentioning, because it's fucking amazing: All the Past We Leave Behind by
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Never mind that often the genderswap is just done for pwp, so that people can write about these two characters but still write het, and that doesn't make me all that happy either.
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Yup. The brain needs input from reality in order for the mind to get its secondary consciousness (thoughts, imagining, analyzing, reasoning, etc.) going. This is why we theoretically assume that if a developed brain (I don't know if you could say the same for an undeveloped brain) was placed in a vat, completely isolated and dark, it would start to hallucinate because of the lack of input. The mind forms thoughts and imagines because of the input it receives from reality and our senses. Because the reality dealing with this form of consciousness is basically taken from the human world, as you have said, it is impossible to break off from a human perspective because the brain has no input from a completely non-human (but fully intelligible on that level) point of reference in reality.
This also makes me think of innovation and what its place is in the mind. It's not so much that the innovator pulled something new out of nowhere, but that he took the varying points of references from reality and turned them into something different, which made it new. It's making something new out of something that was already there. T.S. Eliot had the right idea of it before neuroscience/neuropsychology/etc. came long to confirm it:
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Your example about the brain also reminds me of an article I was reading about solitary confinement and the bad effects it has on people. A lot of time spent in isolation ironically makes you less able to deal with people in reality, but that's in part because of the things you mention. People hallucinate--they hallucinate human contact.