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crossovers
Feb. 6th, 2012 12:12 amLooking over Diane Duane's statement about fanfiction and crossovers reminded me of something that profoundly irritates me in 'historical fantasy'.
That is, I take a strong dislike to "Actually, Beethoven was an alien and this war was only started because vampire clans were squabbling and manipulating their human pawns" because I feel like it diminishes both human achievements and human failings.
People are complex and wonderful and terrible, and we've managed to build our whole histories by ourselves and muck the planet up by ourselves too.
Inserting magical explanations into genuine historical mysteries where nobody knows the answer anyway, okay. Inserting small magical sidelines into a world whose history is mostly as we know it, fine. But excusing both genius and villainy as the work of something else not only is a disservice to readers whose historical knowledge may not be firm, it's disrespectful.
(Of course, I mind this tendency slightly less in White Wolf because their setting is so over the top that it's hard to imagine any 'normal humans' exist anymore.)
That is, I take a strong dislike to "Actually, Beethoven was an alien and this war was only started because vampire clans were squabbling and manipulating their human pawns" because I feel like it diminishes both human achievements and human failings.
People are complex and wonderful and terrible, and we've managed to build our whole histories by ourselves and muck the planet up by ourselves too.
Inserting magical explanations into genuine historical mysteries where nobody knows the answer anyway, okay. Inserting small magical sidelines into a world whose history is mostly as we know it, fine. But excusing both genius and villainy as the work of something else not only is a disservice to readers whose historical knowledge may not be firm, it's disrespectful.
(Of course, I mind this tendency slightly less in White Wolf because their setting is so over the top that it's hard to imagine any 'normal humans' exist anymore.)
