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Sunday, April 22nd, 2007
Fiction in Fictional Universes
Sunday, April 22nd, 2007 11:56 amAfter reading ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kphoebe's amusing post about the kind of novels superheroes would write, I thought that Judge Dredd would write a novel about an old, friendly neighborhood policemam called Dixon of Dock Green. But, as older, British readers will know, Dixon of Dock Green was a real TV series. Wouldn't someone in Megacity One with a penchant for old TV programmes stand up and denounce Dredd for plagiarism?
For that matter, why in Star Trek IV does no one say "Hey, there's Captain Kirk! And Spock! And Uhuru!" (Thanks torodneyorpheus for pointing that one out many years ago.) There's a sensible rule in fictional universes that no work of fiction relating to the characters can exist in that universe, though normally it doesn't need to be invoked except n cases like Star Trek, which can only exist in a univere where the Star Trek series never existed.
At one extreme, you have something like The Lord of the Rings, in which no actual work of fiction exists, but there are plenty of fictional works of fiction, or at least of legend (and interestingly, one of those is the story of the characters themselves, a device used in a more tongue-in-cheek way in Xena). At the other, we have the kind of novels about ordinary people doing ordinary things which win Booker prizes; here there's no need for the "no fiction" rule because no one would think about writing a book about such dull characters.
In between, you have various heroic universes: the Marvel Universe, the DC Universe, the Buffyverse and so on. Here you have to be careful because of crossover potential. If Bruce Wayne grew up reading Superman comics, then in later life, he can't meet Clark Kent. That, perhaps, is why the episode in Buffy the Vampire Slayer where they meet Dracula can only be played for laughs.
When I started this post, I was sure it was going to lead somewhere interesting, but I seem to have lost the thread. Feel free to continue the argument.
kphoebe's amusing post about the kind of novels superheroes would write, I thought that Judge Dredd would write a novel about an old, friendly neighborhood policemam called Dixon of Dock Green. But, as older, British readers will know, Dixon of Dock Green was a real TV series. Wouldn't someone in Megacity One with a penchant for old TV programmes stand up and denounce Dredd for plagiarism?For that matter, why in Star Trek IV does no one say "Hey, there's Captain Kirk! And Spock! And Uhuru!" (Thanks to
rodneyorpheus for pointing that one out many years ago.) There's a sensible rule in fictional universes that no work of fiction relating to the characters can exist in that universe, though normally it doesn't need to be invoked except n cases like Star Trek, which can only exist in a univere where the Star Trek series never existed. At one extreme, you have something like The Lord of the Rings, in which no actual work of fiction exists, but there are plenty of fictional works of fiction, or at least of legend (and interestingly, one of those is the story of the characters themselves, a device used in a more tongue-in-cheek way in Xena). At the other, we have the kind of novels about ordinary people doing ordinary things which win Booker prizes; here there's no need for the "no fiction" rule because no one would think about writing a book about such dull characters.
In between, you have various heroic universes: the Marvel Universe, the DC Universe, the Buffyverse and so on. Here you have to be careful because of crossover potential. If Bruce Wayne grew up reading Superman comics, then in later life, he can't meet Clark Kent. That, perhaps, is why the episode in Buffy the Vampire Slayer where they meet Dracula can only be played for laughs.
When I started this post, I was sure it was going to lead somewhere interesting, but I seem to have lost the thread. Feel free to continue the argument.