From: Betty Ragan ragan@sdc.org

Oh, dear. I *swore* I wasn't going to post any more on this topic, or anything relating to it, because, overall, I would very much like to just see it die a quiet, ignominious death.

<sigh> Me too.

But my name has come up several times here, and I feel like my own position is being very slightly mischaracterized,

Great, now I feel bad :(. You're right, I should have left you out of it-- but I did want to make the point that we were playing the game *together,* and it wasn't just one person talking about interpretation and the other about canon.

(This is entirely about interpretation-of-canon, though, not about slash, so that'll be my excuse.)

See my change of subject heading :).

Responding to snippets from a couple of different posts by Fiona here:

...

This comment was made in regard to Betty's and my argument-from-canon postings. Now, both of us, as I said, were keeping our interpretations

as

...

much out of the picture as possible, and neither of us were particularly making any claims to our own interpretations being the One True Way. We were, however, taking the premise that there is a "reality," i.e. the

canon,

...

and I think we're both agreed that as far as canon is concerned the situation is *not* anything-goes; one can't see what's not on the

screen.

...

And that as far as interpretations of characters are concerned, there

are

...

some that are closer to what's on the screen than others. So to say that

all

...

interpretations are equally valid (which is what the phrase "....no

single

...

one of which is the One True Way" does suggest) is actually not true

within

...

the context of arguing from the canon.

Actually... To begin with, I feel the need to point out that the main reason why I was keeping my own interpretations out of the picture and restricting myself to canon were a) that that seemed to be the sort of discussion Fiona wanted, and the kind that many other people on the Lyst (though by no means all!) were primarily interested in,

Yes, as I said my impression was that that was what other people wanted too. As for my own wishes....

and 2) that

canon was really the only main point of intersection that we had in common *to* discuss.

...this was why I wanted to keep it as canon. As we've all been saying, interpretation is a very subjective thing, and I think Neil was more than a bit right when he said that we all have "versions" of the programme in our heads, some of which get very personal. My feeling was that if we'd included intepretation, before long we'd've come down to the point where we were upsetting each other-- perhaps I was wrong, but it wasn't a risk I wanted to take, especially given the volatile tone of the lyst (which was moreso then than now).

On a side but related point: Neil spoke about how some people (himself apparently included) do exclude certain episodes they don't like from their own "altercanon." I think there's truth in that, but I think there's something more subtle to it, in that in my experience people tend to watch the episodes they like over and over and not watch the ones they don't like. So in a sense, while I would include, say, "Stardrive" in the canon, and if it came up in the context of a discussion on canon I would use it, I have in a sense excluded it from my "altercanon" in that I watch it so little that it would probably be my *last* choice as an example in a discussion. Basically, I think Neil's right but that the same process is often subconscious.

I certainly could have started going on about my

own interpretations of things, but I image that Fiona (not unreasonably) would have dismissed those as irrelevant in the same way that I dismissed as irrelevant her points about the intentions of the show's creators. So, we discuss things based on canon because the simple facts of what's-on-the-screen are the one thing we have even a hope of agreeing on (and even there, I think it was obvious that agreement didn't always happen).

Agreed, which is why I personally thought that a good way to handle the discussion without bloodshed. And also, in the case of disagreement about what's onscreen, we did actually have something there at which we could go back and look. Thing is, too, interpretations change, which is a fine thing-- but what's on the screen is on the screen, mistakes and all.

However, I must admit that, although I can find such discussions interesting (the Blake-and-Inga argument was certainly a fun intellectual game), I *do* also find them limited and generallty not terribly fruitful, precisely because what's-on-the-screen is so limited.

Again true, but I still think that the subject matter was too volatile to go any further. In fact, I'm surprised we got as much mileage out of it as we did :).

Most of the really interesting stuff, like character motivations, isn't explicit on the screen at all. IMHO, the show *requires* active, creative participation fromt the viewer to really come to life, and I personally regard that as a very positive thing.

Likewise, or I wouldn't read fanfic, or have those many-drinks-down conversations with mates over whether Egrorian did fancy Servalan, was cynically trying to get a hold over her, or both. If we limited *every* discussion to canon, it would be a very boring lyst, and I do like speculating over things like what happened to Marriott's family (or I did until I heard "The Mark of Kane"--brr). But that was an entirely different sort of discussion, and I do think that arguing from canon can be interesting in the same way that (to use the example I gave Harriet) sifting through historical evidence to try and come up with a picture of what *did* actually happen in a disputed case can be absolutely fascinating.

...

When Betty convincingly pointed out, from onscreen evidence alone, that Blake and Inga could not have been having a sexual

relationship,

...

I didn't say "That's your opinion" or "Well, *I* sense sexual tension between them," I admitted that the onscreen evidence was for Betty.

The thing is, though, if you *had* said that, I wouldn't have been in the slightest offended, or upset, or even taken aback (except by the fact that it would have seemed out of character for you :)).

Tee hee! Well, I'm glad to hear it--that you wouldn't have gotten offended, I mean :). These days it's hard to tell what would upset somebody.

Indeed, I would have been extremely interested, even delighted, as that would likely have taken us off into an entirely different -- and, to my tastes, more interesting -- type of discussion. It doesn't seem in the least ridiculous to me (no matter that I *totally* don't see it) to say "Well, yes, but I look at that kiss on the screen, and I see real passion and sexual chemistry there, and I can't escape the conviction that there *was* a romantic connection between them." If you'd said that, I wouldn't feel insulted or frustrated that you'd ignored all my careful mathematics. Instead, I would have wanted to hear your theory for explaining why those mathematics might *not* apply. How do you get around that argument? (And there are certainly ways of doing so -- I think it was Neil who pointed out that Inga might have lived on Earth most of her life and only come to stay with her father recently.)

One reason I didn't pursue the Inga thread, actually, was because so many other people--Neil, Dana, etc.-- were coming up with much more interesting explanations as to why they *could* have had a relationship that I felt any comment I could make would be pretty banal.

And if your explanation was particularly interesting, I would have enthusiastically given the standard FC response: write it!

Personally, I find that kind of speculation, of the opening up of canonical possibilities, to be *much* more interesting and fun than the kind of debate we were doing.

Agreed, and I didn't mean to imply in my response at all that you necessarily like arguing from canon as much as I do :)-- just that that *was* what we were doing, and for good reasons.

The kind of analysis we were doing

involves a certain amount of theoretical extrapolation from canon, true, but it seems to mainly consist of an attempt to find the simplest and most likely possible explanation for everything onscreen and declaring that the "canonical" explanation. Which is certainly worth doing, particularly if that's the sort of thing that interests you, but to me it *does* seem rather limited.

Agreed, and moderately agreed-- there's less room for flights of fancy in that game than in the speculative one, but I certainly don't think it's sterile-- or even limiting of fanfic, as witness the number of excellent stories that seemingly would fit seamlessly in with the canonical ones, if only one could go back in time and have them commissioned as scripts.

I'm more interested in interacting

*creatively* with the show, and with understanding how other fans interact creatively with the show, often in very different ways that I do. IMHO, then, there *is* no One True Way.

In that sense, yes-- but in the context of fitting or not fitting the canon, as I said, there's more and less plausible.

Sure, some interpretations

are closer to canon, and some seem to stretch it a bit. Some are less parsimonious than others. Some require a lot more creativity on the part of the viewer than others. But I would not say that some are more *right* than others, because that requires a blanket judgment that I'm totally unwilling to make.

No, I don't believe in moral (or literary) absolutes myself. However, I also don't believe, as I said, that all interpretations are necessarily equally valid *in the context of their being made.* As I said, in the context of an interpretation from the canon, some interpretations are more valid than others in the sense of fitting the canon better. However, to take a different example, in the context of publishing a zine in which all stories spin off from A:ATA (has anyone done this? Would they dare?), the Letts-type interpretation of the young Avon as a sadistic lecher would definitely not fit, and a story about Avon and Madame Gaskia at the Purple Nightingale would get put in the pile for a "Dear Contributor, thank you..." letter. So I'd still say there *is* a case to be made as to some interpretations being more valid than others, but in the sense that any genre of writing or type of essay is going to start from particular premises, which some interpretations of the series are going to fit better than others.

Fiona

The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Open to interpretation at http://nyder.r67.net

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