wingedflight (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wingedflight) wrote2013-03-30 06:29 am
wingedflight) wrote2013-03-30 06:29 am
Entry tags:
Justification Of A Character's Death | Fic Commentary: All Stories In The End
I don't know whether to classify this as Fic Commentary or Stupidly Long Essay About My Own Fic or Justification Of A Character's Death but I wrote it, so I'm posting it. I feel a little weird about this because it feels like I'm trying to be all self-important when I'm really not. I just realized I still have a ton of feels and it takes a lot of wordiness to get them in order.
The following essay (because yes I wrote a whole essay, kill me now) regards 'All Stories In The End,' my Artemis Fowl AU which was posted on the freudwithwings account two days ago.
From here on out there WILL be spoilers for the entire Artemis Fowl series, especially the end of the final book, as well as my fic 'All Stories In The End." Read at your own risk.
Oh, and Jay (freudiancascade ) is the Freud half of the Freudwithwings partnership, and as this fic was posted to that account, Freud is what I refer to her as for the remainder of the post.
----
This began as a reply to a message a reviewer sent me for 'All Stories In The End,' my Artemis Fowl AU, regarding the fact that even though it was disappointing that Arthur died in the end, they felt it wouldn't have worked so well had he made a miraculous recovery - that his death gave the story purpose. And as I attempted to type out a response, I realized I had WAY more feels on the topic than I would ever have expected.
After a lot of struggle to keep my reply short and succinct, I managed to cut down the wordiness to a single paragraph:
But I'm gonna go ahead and expand on these ideas a bit. So if you're interested, bear with me. If not, no obligation to continue reading!
First: It's been mentioned in a couple places now how this fic came about but here's a quick recap. Since reading the end of The Last Guardian, I'd been struck by the idea of how the books were really Holly's story to Artemis of their adventures. When I mentioned this to Freud a few months later, the ensuing discussion managed to blow both our minds. That was when we each started writing our respective pieces.
(Freud's piece, by the way, is 'And Every Map Is Blank.' I highly encourage you to read it if you have not already done so. It started in the same place as mine - with the idea of Holly writing the stories for Artemis - yet ended somewhere completely different. Besides that, it's just a super gorgeous story to read.)
We both began with the idea that Holly wrote the stories for Artemis, which almost directly led into the assumption that all names used in the series are pseudonyms. As Freud mentioned both in her author's note and in her story itself, it makes sense for two reasons:
1) The symbolic meanings behind the names of the main characters and
2) The often confidential nature of their adventures.
Freud's story then lays the case that while the adventures in the AF series did all happen as the situations were presented in the books (fairies, magic, and all), the details were much messier. That is, she claims that while stories have neat plot lines and leave no loose ends (usually), real life is much more complicated. Details, she says, were changed by "Holly" for the sake of the story as a whole - my favourite example being the fact that she had her version of "Holly" write Artemis with raven hair when her actual "Artemis" was ginger.
My version, on the other hand, makes the assumption that the real world of the adventures is no more magical than our own. Holly became Erin - a name chosen for its similarity to the first name of the AF series' actual author, Eoin Colfer (both names are Irish, and sound similar). Artemis was given the name Arthur because they can both shorten to Arty. Which not only made it a similar name, but also meant it was easier to back-engineer a reason why Erin would choose the pseudonym "Artemis" for Arthur. "Artemis meant hunter," Erin explains, "and it shortened to Arty - just like your name - and besides, it fit." It's rather funny how much thought I put into choosing the names, considering they were supposed to represent characters whose names had no more relation to their personality than any one of us.
Just as the names changed, so did the circumstances of their adventures. An "action-packed, fairy-tale hostage situation" became a mundane meeting at a coffee shop. A super computer became a rubik's cube. An arctic adventure to rescue Artemis's father became a single mention that Arthur's dad had moved out. Or, if you view Erin's world as the original, she turned the most ordinary events into something thrilling and magical. I also copied Freud's idea of Arthur's hair colour - not for any particularly meaningful reason, but because let's be honest, a ginger Artemis is hilarious.
Basically what happened was in saying Erin's world was real, that meant Holly's world - and therefore the entire AF series - was idealistic wish-fulfilment. Which led to an unfortunate yet inevitable conclusion. In the first book of the series, the plot largely revolves around Artemis's ability to cheat death; in the last chapters of this book, it is believed by characters and readers alike that there is no possible way for him to escape - and yet, he does. Similarly, in the final book, Artemis really does permanently die - and yet, the last chapter brings him back via fairy magic and cloning technology. If Erin were writing the series, and if the series represented her own wish-fulfilment, a simple backwards deduction means that Arthur did not actually manage to cheat death in the end.
I am not trying to deny the occurrence of miraculous recoveries in real life. Cancer can go into remission and teenagers can survive against all odds. Yet, if the purpose of this story is to contrast the worlds Erin and Holly occupy, then Arthur cannot narrowly escape his fate as Artemis so often does. Through his death comes the harsh blow of reality and the ultimate distinction between these two worlds - and yet, it is Arthur's death that creates the link between them. Erin bases her stories on her interactions with Arthur and, therefore, the events are all affected by his inability to cheat death.
I mentioned this to Freud, who added this insight:
Another interesting thing to note: One of the largest themes over the course of the AF series is Artemis's character development. In the first book, he plays the role of the villain; by the final book, he has fallen square into the role of the hero. Eoin Colfer has even joked that he had to end the series before Artemis went and won a Noble Peace Prize. Yet, in all the time that Erin knows him, Arthur's character remains much the same: Simply put, he's an asshole. As Erin gets to know him, he becomes a more sympathetic asshole - yet does not display any actual character growth. Arthur represents reality and yet his character remains flat; Artemis, while fictional, is the one who develops and grows.
This could seem at odds with the reality-ideality dichotomy previously established. However, the character growth (or lack of) can be tied once again to the fact that Erin is writing these books. Artemis's character growth in the early books of the series is subtle and shaped by circumstances and plot-lines; as the series goes on, this development becomes much more apparent. It is as though the further Erin gets into the series - and the longer it has been since Arthur's death - the more idealized the fictional version of her friend becomes. She begins by capturing her living friend in words but, once he is gone, her memories soften his personality over time.
Artemis is a villain-turned-hero and his death acts as the climax of his character's growth. He understands the risks of the situation and fully expects that he will not return. In one of the scenes leading up to his death, Artemis even makes mention of his development: "I was a broken boy, and you fixed me." His death is an act to save the world and the people he loves; his death is an ultimate sacrifice.
Arthur, on the other hand, dies of cancer for no reason at all - at least in the context of Erin's reality. His death holds no meaning except for what Erin ascribes to it. While Minnie dies in a hospital room filled with family, Arthur is presumably joined only by his mother - who is described as being "there but not really there" - and a nameless brother. Is it any wonder, then, that Erin makes family so important to Artemis? In this ideal world, Artemis manages to find his father, restore his mother's health, and save the lives of those he loves multiple times - including through his sacrifice.
And yet, even though a fictional Artemis in an ideal world manages to capture significance in death, he does not stay dead. Despite - or perhaps because of - his sacrifice, his friends are able to bring him back to life. Erin copes by attributing meaning to his death yet applies wish fulfilment to bring him back.
In the scene following Arthur's death, Erin mentions an exchange with her father:
The next and final scene then goes on to show Erin in the very act of moving on. She returns not only to the first book she wrote for Arthur, but to the cafe where they first met. And then, in the final paragraph, Erin begins to write again. "It wasn't the same on my own," she says. Yet, she goes on to write six more books because again, this is her method of coping. She takes the random facts of life and applies them to the rules of a fictional universe to find meaning.
And, oddly enough, that is exactly what I am doing as I write this. Just as Erin sits in the cafe to find meaning in the loss of her friend by lining up the puzzle pieces of their interactions, so too do I attempt to justify my choice to let Arthur die. If "All Stories In The End" is the tale of how Erin came to write the AF series, then this essay is my own tale of its creation. And perhaps I would attempt a further analysis of this meta situation but my head already begins to hurt for thinking about it, so perhaps it's better if I just leave it be and call this the end.
(And should anyone ever ask me in the future why I chose to kill off a character, I'll probably just point to this and save myself another couple thousand words.)
The following essay (because yes I wrote a whole essay, kill me now) regards 'All Stories In The End,' my Artemis Fowl AU which was posted on the freudwithwings account two days ago.
From here on out there WILL be spoilers for the entire Artemis Fowl series, especially the end of the final book, as well as my fic 'All Stories In The End." Read at your own risk.
Oh, and Jay (
freudiancascade ) is the Freud half of the Freudwithwings partnership, and as this fic was posted to that account, Freud is what I refer to her as for the remainder of the post. ----
This began as a reply to a message a reviewer sent me for 'All Stories In The End,' my Artemis Fowl AU, regarding the fact that even though it was disappointing that Arthur died in the end, they felt it wouldn't have worked so well had he made a miraculous recovery - that his death gave the story purpose. And as I attempted to type out a response, I realized I had WAY more feels on the topic than I would ever have expected.
After a lot of struggle to keep my reply short and succinct, I managed to cut down the wordiness to a single paragraph:
It was definitely hard to kill Arty off (obviously Freud and I both had a lot of feels just reading about the original ending in TLG, seeing as we launched straight into writing Schrodinger's Zombie and just DIDN'T STOP) but you're right - it wouldn't have felt quite right for him to miraculously pull through. Especially as the main point of this fic was to emphasize the differences between Erin and Holly's worlds - Erin's being the real world just as Holly's is the idealized version. If Erin's wish fulfilment leads to Artemis always managing to escape certain death, then - well, as you saw, I interpreted that to mean that Arthur died.
But I'm gonna go ahead and expand on these ideas a bit. So if you're interested, bear with me. If not, no obligation to continue reading!
First: It's been mentioned in a couple places now how this fic came about but here's a quick recap. Since reading the end of The Last Guardian, I'd been struck by the idea of how the books were really Holly's story to Artemis of their adventures. When I mentioned this to Freud a few months later, the ensuing discussion managed to blow both our minds. That was when we each started writing our respective pieces.
(Freud's piece, by the way, is 'And Every Map Is Blank.' I highly encourage you to read it if you have not already done so. It started in the same place as mine - with the idea of Holly writing the stories for Artemis - yet ended somewhere completely different. Besides that, it's just a super gorgeous story to read.)
We both began with the idea that Holly wrote the stories for Artemis, which almost directly led into the assumption that all names used in the series are pseudonyms. As Freud mentioned both in her author's note and in her story itself, it makes sense for two reasons:
1) The symbolic meanings behind the names of the main characters and
2) The often confidential nature of their adventures.
Freud's story then lays the case that while the adventures in the AF series did all happen as the situations were presented in the books (fairies, magic, and all), the details were much messier. That is, she claims that while stories have neat plot lines and leave no loose ends (usually), real life is much more complicated. Details, she says, were changed by "Holly" for the sake of the story as a whole - my favourite example being the fact that she had her version of "Holly" write Artemis with raven hair when her actual "Artemis" was ginger.
My version, on the other hand, makes the assumption that the real world of the adventures is no more magical than our own. Holly became Erin - a name chosen for its similarity to the first name of the AF series' actual author, Eoin Colfer (both names are Irish, and sound similar). Artemis was given the name Arthur because they can both shorten to Arty. Which not only made it a similar name, but also meant it was easier to back-engineer a reason why Erin would choose the pseudonym "Artemis" for Arthur. "Artemis meant hunter," Erin explains, "and it shortened to Arty - just like your name - and besides, it fit." It's rather funny how much thought I put into choosing the names, considering they were supposed to represent characters whose names had no more relation to their personality than any one of us.
Just as the names changed, so did the circumstances of their adventures. An "action-packed, fairy-tale hostage situation" became a mundane meeting at a coffee shop. A super computer became a rubik's cube. An arctic adventure to rescue Artemis's father became a single mention that Arthur's dad had moved out. Or, if you view Erin's world as the original, she turned the most ordinary events into something thrilling and magical. I also copied Freud's idea of Arthur's hair colour - not for any particularly meaningful reason, but because let's be honest, a ginger Artemis is hilarious.
Basically what happened was in saying Erin's world was real, that meant Holly's world - and therefore the entire AF series - was idealistic wish-fulfilment. Which led to an unfortunate yet inevitable conclusion. In the first book of the series, the plot largely revolves around Artemis's ability to cheat death; in the last chapters of this book, it is believed by characters and readers alike that there is no possible way for him to escape - and yet, he does. Similarly, in the final book, Artemis really does permanently die - and yet, the last chapter brings him back via fairy magic and cloning technology. If Erin were writing the series, and if the series represented her own wish-fulfilment, a simple backwards deduction means that Arthur did not actually manage to cheat death in the end.
I am not trying to deny the occurrence of miraculous recoveries in real life. Cancer can go into remission and teenagers can survive against all odds. Yet, if the purpose of this story is to contrast the worlds Erin and Holly occupy, then Arthur cannot narrowly escape his fate as Artemis so often does. Through his death comes the harsh blow of reality and the ultimate distinction between these two worlds - and yet, it is Arthur's death that creates the link between them. Erin bases her stories on her interactions with Arthur and, therefore, the events are all affected by his inability to cheat death.
I mentioned this to Freud, who added this insight:
In the first book, he cheated death because kids aren't supposed to die. In the last book, he could have died for real, because fairy tales are for children and real life doesn't manufacture happy endings for adults.
But Erin wouldn't accept that. Couldn't accept that. She had it all planned out, thematic arc and sacrifice and loss, and at the last moment she fixed it because the friend she knew, well, he always had a way of taking the building blocks and making them fall into perfect rows. She figured that one last moment of insight, one last genius move, one final bullet dodged - rather than the truth - would be the best way to remember him.
But Erin wouldn't accept that. Couldn't accept that. She had it all planned out, thematic arc and sacrifice and loss, and at the last moment she fixed it because the friend she knew, well, he always had a way of taking the building blocks and making them fall into perfect rows. She figured that one last moment of insight, one last genius move, one final bullet dodged - rather than the truth - would be the best way to remember him.
Another interesting thing to note: One of the largest themes over the course of the AF series is Artemis's character development. In the first book, he plays the role of the villain; by the final book, he has fallen square into the role of the hero. Eoin Colfer has even joked that he had to end the series before Artemis went and won a Noble Peace Prize. Yet, in all the time that Erin knows him, Arthur's character remains much the same: Simply put, he's an asshole. As Erin gets to know him, he becomes a more sympathetic asshole - yet does not display any actual character growth. Arthur represents reality and yet his character remains flat; Artemis, while fictional, is the one who develops and grows.
This could seem at odds with the reality-ideality dichotomy previously established. However, the character growth (or lack of) can be tied once again to the fact that Erin is writing these books. Artemis's character growth in the early books of the series is subtle and shaped by circumstances and plot-lines; as the series goes on, this development becomes much more apparent. It is as though the further Erin gets into the series - and the longer it has been since Arthur's death - the more idealized the fictional version of her friend becomes. She begins by capturing her living friend in words but, once he is gone, her memories soften his personality over time.
Artemis is a villain-turned-hero and his death acts as the climax of his character's growth. He understands the risks of the situation and fully expects that he will not return. In one of the scenes leading up to his death, Artemis even makes mention of his development: "I was a broken boy, and you fixed me." His death is an act to save the world and the people he loves; his death is an ultimate sacrifice.
Arthur, on the other hand, dies of cancer for no reason at all - at least in the context of Erin's reality. His death holds no meaning except for what Erin ascribes to it. While Minnie dies in a hospital room filled with family, Arthur is presumably joined only by his mother - who is described as being "there but not really there" - and a nameless brother. Is it any wonder, then, that Erin makes family so important to Artemis? In this ideal world, Artemis manages to find his father, restore his mother's health, and save the lives of those he loves multiple times - including through his sacrifice.
And yet, even though a fictional Artemis in an ideal world manages to capture significance in death, he does not stay dead. Despite - or perhaps because of - his sacrifice, his friends are able to bring him back to life. Erin copes by attributing meaning to his death yet applies wish fulfilment to bring him back.
In the scene following Arthur's death, Erin mentions an exchange with her father:
Some nights, Dad would say, "I know it hurts, but you have to move on."
I'd reply, "I still haven't moved on after Mom. What makes you think this is different?"
I'd reply, "I still haven't moved on after Mom. What makes you think this is different?"
The next and final scene then goes on to show Erin in the very act of moving on. She returns not only to the first book she wrote for Arthur, but to the cafe where they first met. And then, in the final paragraph, Erin begins to write again. "It wasn't the same on my own," she says. Yet, she goes on to write six more books because again, this is her method of coping. She takes the random facts of life and applies them to the rules of a fictional universe to find meaning.
And, oddly enough, that is exactly what I am doing as I write this. Just as Erin sits in the cafe to find meaning in the loss of her friend by lining up the puzzle pieces of their interactions, so too do I attempt to justify my choice to let Arthur die. If "All Stories In The End" is the tale of how Erin came to write the AF series, then this essay is my own tale of its creation. And perhaps I would attempt a further analysis of this meta situation but my head already begins to hurt for thinking about it, so perhaps it's better if I just leave it be and call this the end.
(And should anyone ever ask me in the future why I chose to kill off a character, I'll probably just point to this and save myself another couple thousand words.)