Subject: The Grand Editing Cabal
Author:
Posted on: 2013-08-13 13:41:00 UTC
Joining this is probably the best I can do for the time being. Some plot bunnies are nagging me, but since I trust my analytical skills much more than my story-telling skills, I may never dare to ask for Permission, or at least this will take a long time.
here is another shiny newbie to be showered with gifts.
Proactive answers to FAQs:
I found the PPC in early 2012, when I wondered why If I Am Ever Head of an Alien Monitoring Agency, I should keep good relations to the Protectors of the Plot Continuum as well as to the Men in Black and Torchwood.
How I found this derivative of The Evil Overlord’s List is a long story, starting with my daughter listening to a Harry Potter audio book thirteen years ago, and including my discovery of the Harry Potter Lexicon Forum in 2007, some persons on this forum (Freshwater and Potteraholic) pointing me to Mark Reads Harry Potter in 2010 and Mark or some commenter on Mark Reads ... or Mark Watches ... mentioning genre-savvyness and linking to tv tropes.
Yes, I read the Constitution – twice (it had changed meanwhile).
I also read the FAQs, TOS, OFUM, HFA, the Handbook, the Manual, everything linked on The Complete List of PPC Fiction and some other stuff more difficult to find.
So, my fandoms are essentially Harry Potter and – the PPC.
I also like Middle-earth, but since I read The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings only in translations which may not be accurate, I never read any of the stuff published later, I didn’t bother to learn Sindarin or Quenya, and my ancient German paperback-edition of Der Herr der Ringe doesn’t even have all the appendices, I cannot rightfully call myself a fan.
Funny fact: Before I found the PPC, I didn’t read fan fiction (making very few exceptions) because, “if it is bad, it’s a waste of time, and if it is good, it may damage my precious memories; it’s hard enough to remember what was only in the movies, I don’t need more contamination”. I changed my mind. Reading badfic to laugh about the atrocities may be entertaining, but watching agents struggling with the badfic is even more fun.
Why I shouldn’t join the PPC:
It is hard work to say something coherent in this foreign language, and I am never sure whether I really said what I intended to say.
Even reading in this language and looking up words to make sure that I understood everything consumes too much of my time.
I am far above the average age here. My wife already frowns on me when I engage in serious discussions of a “children’s book”, I don’t know what she will say if she finds me having too much fun with young women.
All of this probably means: Don’t expect to see much of me, don’t expect fast responses, and never expect to see me on the IRC, because I’m unable to communicate in real time.
Beta offer:
Calling out the agents for their lack of canon knowledge was the very first thing I ever did on this board, so I obviously have to do this now:
I’m willing to read any mission in the Potterverse to check for canon accuracy. Of course I will try to point out other problems as well, but I’m probably not very good at this.
Also, if you ever need a native krautpicker, here’s your man.
Some contact information will be up soon on my page on the Wiki. Or it may be not so soon (see above), but it’s the next thing I should do, right?
My random questions:
I see some links here on a grey background. Should this tell me something? Probably new comments, but I did read some of them yesterday, and it doesn’t happen when the whole thread is new?
Is Darkover a quarantined world or just forgotten?
On top of The Complete List of PPC Fiction, it says
The original list may be found here. If it is not up-to-date, please leave a comment on the LiveJournal List telling Araeph what needs to be changed.
Anyone with Permission may update a mission count, introduce a new spin-off, or make a note about a particular series.
I know, it's a late response. Sorry. Have this gold medal for being able to write English better than most Americans as a newbie gift!
-- Len
...But welcome anyways!
You say that English isn't your first language, but you do write pretty well in it, grammar being the only thing that could use a touch up as far as I can see.
Anyhoo, have a fluffy velociraptor, and please, stay around for a while!
Oh, I see, it’s a toy. Cuddly!
Spell check can do much, as well as using both parts of the dictionary, but grammar is tricky.
Greetings properly, newbie of the impressive intro post to be showered with gifts! Here is you own Infinite Notebook, lined, with urple covers and wilver binding. I find it necessary to warn to not to look at it.
-Aila
Thank you so much, Ailavyn. If I ever dare to ask for Permission, my agents will make good use of this. (I had already feared you had run out of stock.)
Nope, not out of stock, just out of touch with a proper keyboard. And call me Aila. it's shorter.
-Aila
Hi, I'm Autumn, it's nice to meet you. Not a native English speaker? Me too! *slaps you on the back* My native language's actually Chinese, but I just happen to be fluent in English. *shrugs* Anyway, here is a wilver knife! Use it only in times of...just use it anytime you like. Except to kill innocent people. All of your questions will be answered eventually. I hope to see you joining in our lively discussions often.
I’ll have to figure out how to use this wilver knife without looking at it.
Nice to be able to welcome you to the PPC! As someone else has already said, that is a quite substantial first post there; it's good to see that someone is willing to introduce themselves well.
As for your gift...
*rummages through bag of holding*
Here you go: Have a snowglobe of Hogsmeade!
And BTW, thanks for asking about updating the List of PPC Fiction. I have run across a few spinoffs that were not linked to the List (though were linked to their agents' profiles). If I run cross them again, now I know that I can fix the oversight!
--sonofheaven176, Esq., 25
I've seen you post comments from time to time, so it's nice to finally be able to give you a warm welcome.
Don't worry too much about age issues: the age range around here is pretty wide, and we all still get along rather splendidly, so you shouldn't be that badly off.
As a welcome gift, I'll go ahead and give you some Messiaen for the road: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PjyCpRKDrk
I am one of the few people who don’t have any musical preferences, because we don’t listen to music, but I listened to this one while I prepared my answers, and I liked it. Thanks for sharing.
Now I wonder how much this distracted me.
hS beat me to the punch, so I'll just fill in my two cents regarding the (In)Complete List:
Araeph is still around sometimes, but busy with Real Life type stuff. You could definitely ask her how she feels about striking that line from the wiki article.
As for adding other people's spin-offs to the wiki, in general I'd say go for it. The only caveat is that if they themselves don't have Permission (or if they shouldn't have Permission), their spin-off(s) probably shouldn't be added. I've noticed one or two dubious-looking spin-offs recently, while trawling through fanfiction.net looking for the history of the Department of Floaters. One guy, name of Who's Asking, claims that he got Permission, but has a line in his bio stating that "Yaoi is shit, 100 of the time" is an "undeniable truth," and some other unsavory things, so... ick. We might want to put up something to the effect that we don't condone that sort of thing, a la Gabriella and her cohorts (see Out of Continuity), but beyond that, I think I speak for all of us when I say Do Not Want.
Maybe undocumented spin-offs should be brought up with the Board before they get added?
I think the line about Permission is just supposed to apply to adding/updating your own stuff. If you don't have Permission, you shouldn't be updating your mission count or adding a new spin-off, because you shouldn't have one in the first place.
Oh, and definitely make a page for yourself, especially if you plan to join the Grand Editing Cabal. ... Okay, there is no Grand Editing Cabal. But there could be. >.> Anyway, help is always appreciated, especially with an attentive eye like yours. {= )
~Neshomeh, who is 28 and married to fellow-Boarder Phobos, for what it's worth.
Joining this is probably the best I can do for the time being. Some plot bunnies are nagging me, but since I trust my analytical skills much more than my story-telling skills, I may never dare to ask for Permission, or at least this will take a long time.
Greetings, new friend! Have the One Spatula to Flip Them All!
As to the "Permission for editing the Complete List" thing, I'm pretty sure that sentence intended to say "Don't add your stories here unless you have permissions o have written them. Although I'm not 100% certain.
Personally, I would prefer for people to add missing spin-offs when they find them. Too many older stories have gone missing as it is!
How could you know that I marked “cooking” as Secondary Profession on my still imaginary OFUA Application Form?
Thank you. Unfortunately, my real cooking skills are limited to coffee, tea and canned soup. But I will try to find a use for this spatula. Perhaps I can learn to make pancakes.
Or, er, hello again! And Welcome Officially A'Board!
That is... one heck of an intro post. I'm seriously impressed. And since I'm here, I'll answer/respond to some of your points.
-Anyone who has even watched and enjoyed the Lord of the Rings movies can call themselves a fan. My wife has never read the Silmarillion, but try telling her she's not a fan! It's great fun to learn the languages and read the Histories (I've done both), but it's not required.
-Good fanfic is fun to read too! Good fanfic should expand on the original, not damage it. A good example for a Middle-earth fan is The Leithian Script, which is a dramatic telling of the story of Beren and Luthien. It's incredibly long, and it has shaped a lot of my perception of Valinor and Beleriand, in ways which Tolkien didn't give us a lot to go on.
-I hadn't actually realised that you were working in a foreign language. As far as I can tell, nothing you've said has given the wrong impression - so well done.
-I'm not actually sure what the average age is on the Board any more. It used to be around fourteen, but while there's still some people around that young (and occasionally younger!) a lot of us are up in our twenties now. I believe in the past we've had people on here who are grandparents - there's no age limits, believe me.
-While it used to be the case that most Boarders were female (I remember when there were... lessee, AW, Dann, Leto, Elcalion, me... about five males, total, in the PPC), I think the split is a lot more equal these days.
-The grey links: the way those work is that everything posted in the last day on a thread older than 24 hours will be grey. So a new thread will have no grey replies for a full day, but after that, each reply will stay grey for 24 hours. It's quite useful on a slowish Board like this one - you can skim the front page once a day and see exactly what's new.
-Araeph is still around sometimes. I'm not actually sure if she's updating the Complete List, though.
-The wiki version ought to be up to date at all times (even though it isn't). I think this is more a question for Unofficial Wiki Queen Neshomeh, but as far as I'm aware, if you find something that's not on there, you can add it. I don't know about it requiring Permission - it might be a quality control measure, or it might simply be a leftover bit of text from some earlier version.
-Your punishment question: this is really two questions, which I'll answer separately.
--How would this be written? Most of the time, it wouldn't be. If a PPC writer thinks something is 'canonical enough' that they don't write a charge for it, they probably won't write the Flowers telling their agents off. Equally, in cases where the agents specifically say 'well, it's a breach, but I prefer it', there won't be any consequences simply because the author doesn't create them.
--How would this in theory work? Well, assuming the Flowers became aware of it, I doubt they'd care. The charge list is a means to an end - it's a way of checking that the character being killed/story being sporked is actually bad. Leaving off a charge but still killing the story has no effect - and, as recently discussed, there's more to a Mary Sue than merely breaking canon. A well-written story which just disagrees with some aspects of canon is an AU.
But imagining a story which is clearly, say, the business of the Department of Implausible AUs, only the agent decides they prefer it that way and lets the story keep on existing - then, the Flowers might have something to say. What it is would depend on, as ever, what's funnier - a hardline Flower, or one who says Yes, agent, I actually agree with you on that score - but I still have to punish you.
-Elvish reincarnation: there's actually a fair number of sources for this one. Obviously Luthien is in the Silm, but so is Finrod (after his death scene, we read that he was restored to life and now lives with his father). I don't remember how much of the story of Finwe and Miriel ended up in the Silmarillion, but the reason Finwe was allowed to remarry is that Miriel declared that she would never return to life.
There is more on this subject - a lot more - in the Histories, which basically contain most of Tolkien's working notes and essays. He played around with two ideas: reincarnation along the Luthien lines, where the spirit is given a new body modelled after the old, and rebirth, where they are born to new parents, and eventually regain their memories. I think he eventually settled on the former.
Somewhere - I don't remember where - the idea comes along that the rebellious elves - that is, the Noldor who went into exile, and possibly the Sindar, Nandor, Avari and other elves who either gave up on the March or never joined it, and thus never reached Valinor - wouldn't be allowed to leave the Halls of Mandos for a very long time. Finrod is the canonical exception to this, but in general, the idea that they could just pop straight back out is a false one.
That said, the idea fits very well in Middle-earth. Men are mortal, and their spirits pass beyond the world when the die. Elves are immortal, but their spirits are bound to the world. They don't have an 'elsewhere' to go to - this world is all they get. But they are immortal in the lifetime of the world; why shouldn't they be reembodied so they can continue that life? Particularly in pre-Rebellion Valinor, when the only cause of death was accidents (it doesn't seem to have ever happened, but the possibility was always there).
-I believe Tolkien's final decision was that there was only one Glorfindel. That's in the Histories, too.
hS
I don’t remember Miriel declaring that she would never return to life in the Silmarillion, but then I didn’t remember Finrod being restored to life and living with his father (good reasons to re-read the Silmarillion). So I thought Luthien, being half Maia, was the big exception. It’s actually what made immortality undesirable for me: You may live “forever”, but when you are killed by force or by an accident, you neither seize to exist, nor are you allowed to pass on, you are just stick in the Halls of Mandos until the world ends.
When I read that all elves who “died” could, and actually did, return to life(*), this seemed to take away from the horrors of the ancient wars. It was terrible for the humans who fought on both sides, but for the elves, it was more like a video game: Bing, you are dead, return to last save place?
Making the fallen warriors stay in Mandos’ Halls for an age or two, before they can return to enjoy their eternal life in the rest of Valinor, seems to be a good solution. Not “worse than death”, but horrible enough.
(*) I vaguely remember to have seen similar claims in other places, but my actual reference was a comment to Don’t Panic, so you see, I started to read legendary goodfic. Yes, I also read the comments. I’m weird. Being weird is required for the PPC, isn’t it?
... the canonical reason death is 'the Gift of Men', and immortality has its downsides, is that the Eldar grow weary of life. They are stuck here for the lifetime of the world, whether they're in the Halls of Waiting or upstairs in Aman. Apparently, it starts to wear thin - they want to leave - but they can't. And they have to face the prospect of ages and ages to come in which it just gets worse.
Men, in contrast, get one short life - but then they go somewhere else. They aren't bound to the earth like the Eldar - and, given that Tolkien was Catholic, and since he never said what happens to Men, it's reasonable to suppose the 'somewhere else' is something like the Christian heaven. That is to say, they go to live with Iluvatar - which one assumes is a good thing. ;)
The big exception that was made with Luthien wasn't that she was allowed to return to life - it was that she (and her descendent Arwen) were given the chance to accept the Gift of Men. They were allowed to become mortal, to live out a mortal lifespan - and then to leave the world behind and go on to whatever awaits mankind afterwards. The Elves still mourn the second death of Luthien, not because she died - but because she, alone of the Elven people, left the world entirely. As far as they know*, her family, friends, everyone, will never see her again. She is out there in the Timeless Halls, and they are stuck on their little world, until both it and they die together.
*Well, Finrod has other ideas. But he's a funny one.
hS
Trying to retranslate from German, last paragraph of first chapter of Quenta Silmarillion:
... For the elves do not die, as long as the world does not die, unless they are slain or pine away in sorrow (by these two forms of apparent death they are consumed); ... and to perish they gather in Mandos’ Halls in Valinor, from where, when time comes, they may return.It is also said (paraphrasing) that humans will play along in the Second Music of the Ainur, but even the Valar do not know what Ilúvatar intends to do with the elves after the world’s end.
Felagunds corpse they buried on the highest hill of his island, now pure again; and the green grave, where rests Finrod, Finarfin’s son, fairest of the elven princes, stayed untouched, until the land was turned and broken und sunk into crushing seas. But Finrod strolls with Finarfin, his father, under the trees of Endamar.It is such a casual reference. Obviously I never took this serious, or I thought it meant that Finrod lived on in his father’s memory and could not be forgotten, even if everybody who knew him in Middle-earth should die.
So thank you for giving me an opportunity...
Your re-translation seems to be pretty accurate to the Silmarillion. In your first quote, I can see how that could be read either way - I've always read it as a 'when they're allowed out'. It's 'may' as in 'will be permitted', not 'may' as in 'maybe'. As the book says, no-one but Ilúvatar knows what will happen to the Eldar at the end of the world - and since the Quenta Silmarillion is framed as an Elvish account of their history, they certainly wouldn't have put a 'maybe' in when they didn't know anything. So it's a 'when they're allowed'.
I learn so much from it. But – don’t try to comfort me.
You may already have noticed, or may see in the future, that I can be a really insufferable know-it-all when the Potterverse is concerned. Sharing my initials with Hermione Granger didn’t happen unintentionally.
I never had in-depth discussions about Tolkien’s work, like I had for Harry Potter, so I don’t want to give a wrong impression, but not calling me a Tolkien fan for my “embarrassing” lack of knowledge is meant to be a joke. Of course I am a fan.
Huh, I made it to the top ten? Didn’t I say that this consumes too much of my time? This has to be tuned down, but I definitely don’t intend to vanish within six months.
Just to speak on behalf of ardent Tolkien fans who haven't read much outside the "big three" of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion (though I've recently made a start on Unfinished Tales).
At first, I was a bit overawed by the people like hS who know more about Middle-earth than I do, since my knowledge at the time was ridiculously in-depth by most "normal" people's standards. For the purposes of PPC missions, though, you don't really need to know more than what you can reasonably expect the fic's author to know. If the fic is based solely on the movies, you only need to know the movies to know what's reasonable in the movieverse. If they're blending book and movie canon and clearly making references to things that come from The Silmarillion, then it's acceptable to use LotR and Silm knowledge in critiquing it.
It shouldn't be acceptable to expect the average fic writer to have read The Silmarillion and the Histories and the Tales and and and. We do sometimes get a little carried away when it comes to the things we're passionate about, though.
Anyway, the point is, you can be a fan in whatever scope works for you. It's not anyone's place to judge your fanhood based on what works have or haven't been available to you for whatever reason. If you're gonna write a fic centering on an Elven marriage, though, it does behoove you to learn exactly how Elven marriages work first. {= )
And, to say something about the actual conversation, I never got the impression from Silm that Elves could reincarnate willy-nilly. Luthien (and apparently Glorfindel? I thought that was one of those eternal debates, like Balrogs and wings) was the exception, and she only got to come back on the condition that she would now be mortal (although still very long-lived). For everyone else, their spirits continue to exist in Mandos, and they might get to have bodies again when the world is remade, but in 99% of cases, they only get one body, and if that's destroyed, it's game over and they're stuck on the sidelines until the end of the world.
I do definitely remember some talk about marrying people off to secure alliances, too. I don't recall if anything came of it, but it was certainly discussed, by Elves, as a thing that could happen.
~Neshomeh
I’m just careful to say this not too loud here (and that’s a joke further explained in my response to Huinesoron above this).
If I were a Gary Stu in Middle-earth, I would try to defend myself by shouting back “Canon is what the author published about this world, not everything he scribbled on a sheet of paper!” (Unfortunately for the ‘Stu this makes The Silmarillion non-canon, and – woosh – all the wonderful examples of elves whose behavior is at least questionable are gone.) So yes, he should be nailed on what he should have known from his sources.
From what I read in The Silmarillion, Luthien was given a choice. She could return to eternal life, but then Beren would have to pass on, or she and Beren could return to human life-spans together. But I wasn’t sure whether Luthien was “really dead” or, being half-maia, had found some other way to go to Mandos and bargain with Námo.
It would be interesting to see a dialogue like that between agents and Suvian. I'll keep it in mind in case I ever have a good opportunity to use it.
As for Lúthien, I think that's almost right. Here's what my copy of Silm says:
These were the choices that he [Manwë] gave to Lúthien. Because of her labors and her sorrow, she should be released from Mandos, and go to Valimar, there to dwell until the world's end among the Valar, forgetting all griefs that her life had known. Thither Beren could not come. For it was not permitted to the Valar to withhold Death from him, which is the gift of Ilúvatar to Men. But the other choice was this: that she might return to Middle-earth, and take with her Beren, there to dwell again, but without certitude of life or joy. Then she would become mortal, and subject to a second death, even as he; and ere long she would leave the world for ever, and her beauty become only a memory in song.
This doom she chose, forsaking the Blessed Realm, and putting aside all claim to kinship with those that dwell there; that thus whatever grief might lie in wait, the fates of Beren and Lúthien might be joined, and their paths lead together beyond the confines of the world.
So, Lúthien could never go back to Middle-earth as an immortal, but she could have a sort of life in the city of Valimar in Valinor—but without Beren, who must someday die and leave the world. Or, she could return to Middle-earth with Beren, but only as a mortal like him.
It's also important to note that Lúthien was only given her choice because she sang to Námo Mandos, and her song was so fair and sorrowful that "Mandos was moved to pity, who never before was so moved, nor has been since." No one but Lúthien could do this. So, Mandos went to Manwë for advice, and Manwë revealed the will of Ilúvatar, as above.
Lúthien does give some justification to singing Sues in Middle-earth, though. Music is of course the fabric of which Arda was woven, and songs have power—especially if you're the immortal child of Elf and Maia. Not so much if it's pop music and you have to wreck other people's stories to have yours, though...
~Neshomeh
Since I'm now at home and have access to Morgoth's Ring.
On death and reincarnation:
It was in Aman that they learned of Manwe that each fea [spirit] was imperishable within the life of Arda, and that its fate was to inhabit Arda to the end. Those fear, therefore, that in the marring of Arda suffered unnaturally a divorce from their hroar [bodies] remained still in Arda and in Time. But in this state they were open to the direct instruction and command of the Valar. As soon as they were disembodied they were summoned to leave the places of their life and death and go to the 'Halls of Waiting': Mandos, in the realm of the Valar.
If they obeyed this summons different opportunities lay before them. The length of time that they dwelt in Waiting was partly at the will of Namo the Judge, lord of Mandos, partly at their own will. The happiest fortune, they deemed, was after the Waiting to be re-born, for so the evil and grief that they had suffered in the curtailment of their natural course might be redressed.
I think the keystone of this idea is the opinion that death, among the Eldar, was never meant to happen. Unlike mortal folk, the forcible separation of Eldarin spirit from body is entirely a result of the Marring of Arda. Since the purpose of the Valar is to try and counteract the Marring and Morgoth, it follows that they'd want to get the dead back to life as soon as they were ready. The fact that the reembodiment comes both from the will of the Judge (therefore presumably punishment) and from their own will (therefore psychological readiness) is very interesting. Oh, here:
For there was, for all the fear of the Dead, a time of Waiting, in which, howsoever they had died, they were corrected, instructed, strengthened, or comforted, according to their needs or deserts. If they would consent to this. But the fea in its nakedness is obdurate, and remains long in the bondage of its memory and old purposes (especially if these were evil).
Those who were healed could be re-born, if they desired it: none are re-born or sent back into life unwilling. The others remained, by desire or command, fear unbodied, and they could only observe the unfolding of the Tale of Arda from afar, having no effect therein.
(Really, I love this book)
In the interests of full disclosure, I will note that in the text quoted, Tolkien says that being born to another set of parents is (virtually) the only option for reenbodiment. I think he went back and forth on that point a bit.