kcecka

No, you’re absolutely right. I wrote this originally focusing exclusively on British war-poets because they have the largest body of poetic work from the war, but there’s also French, German, and American soldiers writing as well – and doubtless more. The British poets tended to be the “voice” for the war-poets, but they were hardly the only experience that war-poets lived.

For anyone just getting into fanfiction, I would highly HIGHLY suggest doing archiveofourown.net instead of fanfiction.net. A lot of authors have transferred their fics over to ao3 instead and it has a easier interface and search engine to use in order to wade through the fics more easily.

But as you’ve said – fanfiction is an invaluable tool for beginning (and continuing) authors. While some of it is poorly written (often because the people writing it are young or new writers) there’s a vast majority that’s exceptionally written – equal to or better than many formal, published works.

It’s really interesting to me that the sublime is a key characteristic of science fiction as well – and that gothic fiction works as a foreground for science fiction in many ways, notably through Mary Shelley. I tend to think of Shelley as a primary science fiction novelist precisely because Frankenstein is so concerned with the sublime and rationality and how those two intertwine. That grasping for rationality amidst the terror of the sublime is a very gothic experience, though – something I believe has survived to today’s literature primarily through science fiction. (Although horror definitely has some aspects as well.) Very interesting article!

Honestly, if Rey does end up being a Skywalker (and most of her story throughout TFA seems to be leading up to that point – notably the use of Luke’s Theme during the lightsaber incident at the end of the movie), then her story resonates so much more after seeing both Luke’s and Anakin’s stories. There’s still depth there if we only consider the originals, but I do think we’re missing something if we fail to take the prequels into account as well. Kylo Ren’s focus on Darth Vader – and his inability to grasp that Vader always had Anakin in him, that Anakin is a part of Vader – seems to be central to what the new movies are working with, and ignoring Anakin’s history before he became Vader makes that less meaningful.

I don’t know. I personally don’t have that many bad feelings about the prequels – I think they could’ve been handled better, but they’re hardly the shitstorm that fans tend to paint them as. And, as you’ve pointed out so thoroughly, they’re absolutely essential to understanding the journey our new batch of characters is going on, just as they added depth to the originals when they first came out.