1. Regarding social relations in SMJ society, Mr Ken Arromdee wrote:
"There's no reason to believe that there are no *fathers* in the society.
There's that man who stayed with his favorite marionette instead of
marrying (implying that men normally do marry other men) and there's
Hanagata's brother. Both of these suggest that families (and fathers) do
exist. Just not mothers."
Not quite. See, that's one of the interesting things about SMJ -- things
are not only not what they seem, they're not what they try to seem. Is a
clone a 'son'? Well, if a son is the male result of a fertilization
between a sperm and and ovum, then there are no sons in SMJ because there
are no ova. And where there are no sons, are there really fathers? Can
one argue that sharing genetic material with another person makes you
that person's father? Maybe; but I share genetic material with my mother
and she is not my son nor I her Pop. Do a xerox copy and its original
necessarily have a filial relationship?
I'm not trying to split hairs here. (And in fact, I realize the FFML is
not a cloning debates list -- criticisms of that nature ought to be
posted to me, not the list.) But I do think this has a bearing on
creating fanfiction -- which is something like cloning itself, in a way.
See, SMJ interests me because its society has a lot of strange and
important (and dramatic) implications -- we are after all entering the
age of clones and AI's, like it or not. Johann Chua correctly points out
that one SMJ to X episode we meet Hanagata's father. Well, of course it
can't be Hanagata's 'natural' father, so what does that mean? Another
episode seems to explain it: children on the clone society of Terratoo
are conceived in state institutions, kept under guard, and in time
(presumably) sent out and adopted. Is an adoption parent a father and
and adopted child a son and a 'near'-clone a brother? In important ways,
yes, but it isn't *exactly* the same thing -- which is why you get these
dramatic stories in the press about court cases where the kids seek out
the natural parents, and so on. What you have in SMJ are pretended
social relations -- and that's interesting.
A world which an authoritarian government literally creates its own
citizens, determines who can be born and what they're going to be like
and how they're going to be raised and by whom -- well, this may be the
world we're heading toward, but heading toward it or not, it is a world
of inherent drama. There must be revolutionaries in such a world; there
must be tragedies and conflict and uneasy soul-searching and
self-deception and social pretense. An original, his clone, and a
mannequin housekeeper are not a father, son, and mother, and a entire
society built up out of such units pretending that they are would --
well, must contain a lot of memorable stories!
The point is: we can debate whether or not a clone is a 'son', but
that's not fanfiction. Thinking about it does imply fiction, though. I
can imagine a SMJ tale where one clone insists to another that they're
family and another insists that they're not -- Face in SMR actually kills
his 'father' as a practical demonstation of who is the superior clone.
Indeed, take the great Ayanami Rei, whose sense of self-sacrifice and
depression seemed to stem directly from her awareness of being a clone --
replacable, disposable. The subtle collision of social role and interior
face is -- well, one of the things about SMJ that make it worth watching.
And writing about.
2. Speaking of Rei: a Mr. (Ms.?) Motoko wrote an opening bit to a fic,
in which fragment you have Hanagata wake up after an accident in a female
android body. (Gendo and Fuyutsuki from Evangelion going the surgical
honors, overseen by a black monolith -- Seele? 2001?) and asked for some
comments. So (to keep this post from being totally irrelevant to the
craft of fanfiction), let me tell you how I usually start out doing one.
If I were starting from Motoko's fragment, I'd have the seed for a
story...but not yet a story. After all -- so Hana's an android, so what?
Does he go over to Otaru's and sit around the house? Who would care?
Nothing's happening But more important -- the reader wouldn't have a
sense of anything *about* to happen, good or bad.
To me, the main thing to ask when starting a fic is: what do the
characters *want*, and what are they doing to get it? Answer that, and
the story tends to write itself. To draw on my own truly infinite
experience as the seasoned author of 2 and 1/5 fics -- when I wrote
Koyuki I began with characters who all wanted things: Bloodberry wanted
to get a heart for Koyuki; Goddel wanted to make sure any such attempt
failed; Otaru wanted to get his sensei back; Soemon was tired of being
lonely and rejected and to be accepted by a society that he once
betrayed; and so on. When you get people with an active purpose, you
get interest (will they succeed? how?), you get suspense (as they face
the inevitable obstacles), you get drama (as they grapple with and
overcome the obstacles), and you get either success or failure in that
conflict (ie resolution, satisfying or tragic).
Now suppose Hanagata figures, well, I want Otaru, and Otaru wants
marionettes, so -- I'll pretend to be one! No sci-fi brain transplant
from visiting time-traveller NGE characters is needed for that: Hanagata
just puts on a wig and marks his arms android-style and goes out and
pretends. This is a story. Hanagata is trying to do something: dupe
Otaru and his marionettes. Either he will, or (at some point) he'll give
up. Now I can see some comic possibilities in this. Everyone assumes
the new marionette is as tough as the old ones, and so they strain and
mash poor Hana into various forms of pulp as he tries to do things he
can't, at which point he gives up and realizes it's better to be true to
thine own self and ditches the wig. The End. But what is it The End of?
The end of an attempt to achieve a particular personal goal by
particular means.
There's another good (and potentially horrible) story there too. Gendo
trying to surgically stick someone into a robot body. I can easily
imagine Ikari Gendo, for a military experiment, taking a clone of Rei or
even Shinji and trying to produce a kind of mini-Eva: a small Evangelion
that isn't dependent on an operator getting inside because it *is* the
operator, or (being smaller scale) dependent on needing as much energy to
operate. This is a potential story: because Gendo might very well
conceive such a goal and try to put it into effect; because the victim of
his experiment might very well try to rebel and frustrate his goal;
because the 'real' Shinji, or Rei or Misato, or Seele, might try to
uncover or block the attempt. It's a story: this person wants A, he's
frustrated by B (another person, usually), he tries to get around it (the
middle), and either does so or doesn't -- The End.
I don't suggest anyone go out and write these particular stories, mind
you. I'm just explaining where I usually start -- thinking about the
characters and trying to figure out what they want, and how they'd go
about getting it, and what keeps them from getting it. That's why SMJ
interests me -- I have the impression that what most all the characters
in it want is to be human. An interesting goal.
David Pascal
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"The best way to criticize a story is to write a better one."
-- DP