BLAST
THE FANDOMS, I texted my best friend earlier today. BLAST THEM.
Here I sit at my desk in near-despair. In fandom hell, as it were. Spoiler-code forbids my revealing the
source of my woe. But what does it matter which event in what storyline is the
matter now; the point is that the show has wrapped and in the end the hero has broken my
heart in the very act of saving it. It’s not the first time this has happened,
and it most definitely won’t be the last.
Heartbreak: occupational hazard of
geekism. We’ve all been here.
But Doctor, she was The Girl Who
Waited…I don’t understand…
Hold on, Lady Sybil! Breathe!
Rue…not Rue...
DON’T DO IT, SHERLOCK!
One of the people I (and many others) hold in highest
esteem in the realm of storytelling, and specifically writing, is one Steven
Moffat, who writes shows that rhyme with, uh, Bloctor Who and Derlock.
Sometimes I think I should write him something. You know, fan mail or whatever.
But then I realize what it would look like:
Dear Mr. Moffat,
Thanks for ripping my heart out of
my chest and stomping on it in front of me before shoving it back in upside
down and dumping salt into the wound. Hope someday I can make people hate me as
much as I hate you.
Thanks,
A Fan.
It’s such a weird thing. It is such a weird thing. Because I keep
coming back for more. And the fact that he is able to write so enthrallingly
that I grow attached to his characters and physically grieve over them is the
very reason I respect his writing so much. And it’s why I never stop wanting
more.
I think George R. R. Martin, author
of the Game of Thrones books, caught
the essence of the matter when he said, “I try to make readers feel they’ve
lived the events of the book. Just as you grieve if a friend is killed, you
should grieve if a fictional character is killed. You should care. If somebody
dies and you just go get more popcorn, it’s a superficial experience, isn’t
it?”
And that’s the thing: these writers
that we love-hate so dearly are so excellent at their craft, and so cunning
with their storytelling, that they are able to draw us in past a superficial
fictional experience into a life-altering encounter with characters who might
as well be real. That’s dang good writing.
Of course, it’s not all sad; it’s
not all about the heroes dying or the traitors revealing themselves and shaking
our confidence in everything we love. There’s so much to love about these
parallel universes and other worlds, so much to laugh at and quote and remember
and treasure.
Is the fictional world worth the
heartbreak?
Psh.
Yes.
And hundreds of thousands of fans
all over the world are backing me on that, as they hungrily wait for the next
installment of their show or series or whatever to come out. Where does Katniss
go from here? Who will the eleventh Doctor regenerate into? I’m not even going
to bring up Thorin’s future. But the point is that I’m not the only one who’s
stuck here mourning at a transition. And I’m not the only one willing to pay
further for the experience with a broken heart.
So dear Mr. Moffat, please don’t
stop. I really do hope that someday I can create stories so powerful that when
something bad happens in the fictional world I’ve created, my readers will care enough to grieve too.
For now, I’ll limp through the pain
knowing that I’m not alone. I’ll rage at my fandoms, but I know I’d never want
to give them up just because they hurt. They do hurt.
But they’re worth it.
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