Monday DE: Who lives, who dies

[bjornwilde]

Been listening to a lot of “Hamilton” thanks to the Teen, which has me wondering:

Who tells/writes your pup’s story, in canon? Do they get it right?

Comments

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine's canon is actually written in a way that suggests it is Sunshine herself telling her story to the reader. First person past-tense, with references to the wider world that suggests the understanding that the listener doesn't already have context for what's going on.

Also, in some cases, she is quite the unreliable narrator.

[sdelmonte]

About a third to a half of the Poirot stories are narrated by Captain Hastings, and I think that he gets things right. He has a keen eye for detail, even if he can't actually put the pieces together right. And he has a fairly small ego, allowing him to let Poirot be the star. (I suspect that Poirot's mystery novelist friend Ariadne Oliver probably tried to write some accounts of their collaborations, but that is not canon).

Swamp Thing suffers from decades of inaccurate tabloid stories. I suspect that very few legit journalists have even tried to tell his story. And he doesn't actually cooperate with the media, anyway. (Would be an interesting challenge for Clark Kent.)

And while this is not canon, I continue to maintain that Teen Titans Go! was licensed by Beast Boy against the wishes of the rest of the team. They really don't like how many kids think they're all a pack of clods, but at the same time their popularity has skyrocketed. (Let's be honest: Cyborg is more well known because of TTG than he ever will be for the DCEU.)

[quick_clean_pure]

He does, kind of? Graverobber's the narrator, so he tells his own story as well as everyone else's, and the story ends with him summing up everything that happened. Which is what leads me to reuse my favorite Graverobber-Tumblr post mashup.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

Yamato's canon has a narrator (even if he only gets about a line per episode). For most of 01 and 02 there's some ambiguity about who it is, since Hiroaki Hirata, who plays them, also plays Gennai, Leomon, and Yamato and Takeru's father. The end of 02 reveals that the narrator is actually an older Takeru, who has since become a novelist. It's probably fair to assume that his retelling of the story is mostly accurate, given that he's present for most of it, and there isn't really a suggestion that he's an unreliable narrator.

Eden's canon has the framing device of Kairi's grandmother telling Kairi a fairytale, and its accuracy is somewhat dubious to say the least. Similarly, we get partial retellings of the events of Eden's canon from Xehanort, Triton, and Yen Sid, and the accuracy of their accounts is equally dubious. Within KHX itself, the Master of Master's, er, pretelling (?) of the story as a major plot element, and while its accuracy is theoretically above reproach, it's written in such a vague way as to be misleading.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

This guy. He's usually pretty accurate about what the Lone Wanderer does, assuming he doesn't hit a glitch (it isn't unusual in some installations of the game to have Three Dog talk about things that haven't happened yet). How he gets his information in-universe I don't know, because he'll sometimes broadcast news about your doings at the opposite end of the Capital Wasteland before you've had time to walk to the nearest available outpost of human civilization, but... Three Dog is generally accurate, if a little slanted in favor of making you an Example. Either an Example of the Good Fight, in which regular people stand up to oppression and bad circumstance, or an Example of How Not To Be, if you're the kind of Lone Wanderer who actively pursues the path of bad karma.

[cottoncandypink]

Whoever’s holding the camera. The Affair arc is the only part of Wilford’s canon that was shot cinematically. Everything else has an unseen extra person in the room - Wilford’s camera man. In the retcon, the camera itself became a character, but that still fits with the rest of it in that you’re experiencing what’s happening through a literal lens, leaving surprisingly little room for an unreliable narrator.

For the Affair arc, I’m pretty sure Ned’s telling the story. He’s the only survivor, and he’s the one who recaps the events so far in the second episode. These are the episodes which break physics and reality more than any other, while having no supernatural elements, which also suggests this part of canon is the only part that doesn’t happen in real time. Unlike the rest, the narration for this arc is highly unreliable, I feel like, especially since it ends on such a weird note.

[death_gone_mad]

The story told by Amascut's and Fairy Fixit's shared canon seem to be told by a omnipresent third person with a limited attention span. It focuses mostly on the player character, obviously, but the are occasional "meanwhile, in a tent deep in the desert/in a cave far below the surface/on a planet far, far away" asides as well as asides when other characters tell their stories. Of course, most of this is due to the canon being a third person MMORPG. Most backstory is only revealed via in game books and memories recounted by characters that lived back then, and sometimes a vision of the past from touching some magic doodad or other.

What a lot of other lore enthusiasts forget is that while the story told about "present" events is reliable, backstory is told by multiple unreliable narrators. I think it's neat, but there are periodic annoying howls of LOREFAIL!! and RETCON!! because of it.

Naturally, Amascut would prefer if the "narrator/observer" were less omnipresent. Fairy Fixit is annoyed that Zanaris is apperantly nothing but a series of sidequests, but maybe that's a blessing in disguise.

[death_gone_mad]

Oh, right, I forget that characters in canon write and sing stories about each other too which is doubly interesting. Amascut, as you might remember from previous DEs, has been erased (mostly) from history and religious texts to prevent her from ever gathering a following ever again. What has arisen is a lot of inaccuracy about Amascut's past passed around as folk tradition only and huge gaps in her backstory.

For example, here is Amascut's Tale as sung in the city of Menaphos. Very inaccurate based on recollections from more reliable narrators and it places the blame solely on her for everything bad that has ever happened in the Kharidian continent.

She's only responsible for some of it!

{The pun is probably intentional}

[ceitfianna]

I'll start with the easier ones.

Quentin's story is told by Toby who's an unreliable narrator and misses things. There is one novella Full of Briars where he becomes the first person narrator.

Miles tells the Vorkosigan story except Ivan does get his own book where his viewpoint alternates with Tej, his wife.

Charles' story is only one part of the X-men world and so each movie has a slightly different focus. In XMFC, we see meeting Raven and Erik more from his point of view before shifting. Days of Future Past has multiple ones as do the others. I think X-Men, the first movie is closest to one focus with Logan and Rogue's perceptions.

Moist mainly tells his own story though there's also a narrator, I think. I'd need to double check but his voice comes through fairly strongly. That's one reason I wanted to RP him. I read Going Postal and his voice was so strong.

William's is from a movie where the camera is mainly focused on Dan and Ben while also looking in on him at points.

Will S. is a third person narrator in the Creswick books.

Cassian's, hm, Rogue One was filmed to call back to WWII newsreels and older war films. In world, I've written at least three different fics wondering about how and who tells their story after their deaths and hope they created.

Sameth's story is told by him, Lirael and Nick Sayre in alternating viewpoints with their various biases.

Demeter's is always told by her worshipers at least in the various existing odes and hymns that we have.

Tumnus' is told by a third person narrator.

[inlovewithwords]

Eriond: lots and lots of terrible historians (I am including Belgarath and Polgara in that, because I have rage). Mostly people get things wrong. There are some prophets who get things right! Hypothetically the people at Kell might have it right but like they are kind of useless. Also the prophets who get things right may or may not be coherent or talking to thinks with language skills when they do. Herpaderp.

Lois: Well, canon itself is first person, and Lois is a writer, and also like she has this nasty habit of getting involved in her stories hilariously, so... Lois, mostly. Clark sometimes. Biographers eventually who likely get it more wrong unless Diana or Clark is around to correct things probably. Amusingly, Lois telling the story doesn't necessarily mean much for accuracy; she absolutely will hide details or giant red capes for the sake of someone (sometimes her or Clark's own) safety and/or privacy. But mostly spot on. She's probably got a Real Version of Things somewhere.

Evelyn: Varric. It's more accurate than one would think. Also other historians who get so much shit wrong. Like practically everything. Just read Varric's version, any inaccuracies are for good reasons.

Tavi: ahahahahahahaha um. Depends heavily on who the audience is, honestly. Tavi definitely takes the time at some point to leave his version of events, which is at many points more accurate/has more detail than some of the historians' versions (EG: No seriously, I was getting flowers for a girl and trying to bring in sheep, that's really how this started for me). (EDIT: Also there is the For Public Consumption version of events he leaves, and the private 'for my family/future First Lords' version of events he leaves. WHO THE AUDIENCE IS MATTERS.) Desiderius is going to get a version not unlike what we read in canon, by the time he is allowed command of a Legion of his own, and over the course of his childhood/young adulthood has a series of conversations with family (including the close friends who are family, like Ehren, Marcus, Varg, and Max), and will always get a fairly complete picture. However, even that version will leave out Alera herself, or why furycrafting changed, and there are going to be some deliberate inaccuracies along those lines. As for the rest? Lots and lots of historians, some Marat and some Canim and some Aleran and maybe Icemen too, debating reasons and ethics and outcomes and a lot of them get things very wrong and Tavi will be extremely grumpy about that and also will people stop calling him "Magnus," please? (Spoiler: they do not.) So yeah, who tells his story--and how true it it is--depends on who's listening.

R2-D2: . . . Nobody will hear/tell his story who isn't willing to get into a trashcan-shaped database of history. His specialty is keeping secrets. Oh, he figures as the support character in other peoples' histories--Anakin, Luke and Leia, Rey (see below)--but him? Nah.

Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader: a) see above, seriously, whole parts missing locked inside R2's memory storage; b) literally everyone has their version. Or versions. Multiple versions. Nearly all of them get nearly everything wrong, probably--"from a certain point of view," at least. God knows Luke has his version, Leia has hers, Snoke has one, Obi-wan and Yoda have theirs, Ahsoka has one... even Anakin has his version and boy is it warped. We don't know how this will play out in the galaxy beyond the first generation or two after him, yet, but. Long-term, no really, everyone has a version, everyone has their agenda, somehow no one seems to take good notes, and as a result almost everyone gets almost every word of it wrong.

i couldn't resist i am very sorry

[bjornwilde]

Ahsoka - Her canon's story is told third-person objective, and so it's pretty true to facts. It doesn't reveal everything though, so I guess it could be said to be limited or slightly flawed. The focal point character shifts per story arc, but she's one of the main characters, or is the sidekick to the focal character often enough, that she's there for most of it. (Shut up Ahsoka, you are the side kick.)

Once Rebels hits, she's the guest star and plot pusher for the main characters.

In canon, I would think she'd have lots of stories about her, like rumors or urban legends told by those within the Rebellion she recruited, or those out in the galaxy she helped. I'd guess Bail Organa made carefully encrypted notes about his dealings with her and his thoughts, which maybe Leia comes across. The Clones likely had their own stories of her as well. She's never mentioned in any of the movies, so I don't know that I can say she's part of the galaxy's larger history, though she left ripples everywhere. Are the details right? I would say, Force no, but the spirit is dead on.

Sabine - Another with the third-person objective and pretty clear in the details. I would say clearer than CW, but only because the focus is on a smaller cast. The focal character is Ezra, though as the seasons progress, Sabine gets a strong narrative push. I think they also do a great job as making the internal, emotional landscape of the characters pretty clear without showing their thoughts.

In canon, hard to say. I know there's a history of propaganda book that has her DNA all over it, but I haven't read it so I don't knwo if it's supposed to be written as an in universe book or not. I also haven't seen the series finale which is tonight, so I don't know her final canon fate. She is not mentioned or alluded to in R1.

I like to think her name is well know on Mandalore, at the least. I know her family will remember her. I like to think Stormtroopers still scare each other with tales of The Artist, and maybe Thrawn has some essays about her art?

Scrapper - Thor: Ragnarok starts as a first-person limited, imho, but quickly shifts to third-person objective. Scrapper is not the focal character so we don't get too much of her aside from what Thor and Loki manage to pull out of her. I'd say it's not too trustworthy, tbh. At the least, it's limited facts and one-sided.

In universe, I don't know that she'd get a history or story told about her. It depends on the fate of the Asgardians encounter with Thanos, which we won't see until Infinity War. Perhaps Thor and Loki compete with stories of her greatness?

Danny - Third-person limited. Danny is the focal character and while we don't get his thoughts, we do get flashback and glimpses from his mind's eye. The story is flawed in that we are seeing it from his POV and he isn't the most insightful person.

Of the people Danny knows, about the only person I could see writing his story or history would be Coleen. I think she'd gloss over awkward or less flattering details, but get most of the story right. I could also see Claire writing or telling Karen of her experiences with Danny and/or the Defenders in some exclusive expose.

Hank - Third-person limited. Hank is not the focal character, but close to them. In the first two, I would say it was Erik and Charles. In the third, I would say it's the new kids and Mystique. I don't think it's that flawed and because of Charles we get thoughts when they have bearing on the story.

In universe, I can imagine some future mutant kid doing a history of Hank McCoy as a school project and getting at least the general details right.

And I'm stopping here cause I need to get lunch and run to the post office. I'll see if my others want to speak up when I get back.

[bjornwilde]

John Proudstar - Any story or history would depend entirely on how whether mutants get any rights or not in his world. At present, he'd likely be written up as a terrorist who trained vulnerable youth to defy their government. This is entirely wrong as he's working to get mutants to a safe place and would prefer to avoid confrontations with normal humans, whether the police or Sentinel Services.

If any sort of peace happens for the mutants, he might end up as a sort of mutant Harriet Tubman figure and likely romanticized and not very factual.

[oldmancreed]

For Tess, Kylo and Creed, stories are told from a third person narrative. Smallville skews slightly from Clark's perspective, SW from the Resistance perspective and X-Men Origins: Wolverine from Logan's perspective, so they're all fairly accurate but not every little detail of their lives is included.

Rose's canon is told via her journal, Thorn's journal, official transcripts from Siamare Care Facility and through phone calls. The latter are pretty accurate. The journal's are obviously biased in her favour and cannot be considered completely accurate.

[configuration_birdwatcher]

Overwatch the game has only a tangential relation to any of the characters' stories, which are mostly told through the animated shorts and comics. The Last Bastion is a third-person cinematic with a couple of first-person bits. Bastion and Ganymede are the only characters present, but it's mostly in the mold of a camera crew invisibly following them around rather than being tightly bound to the characters' perspective. Binary, their comic, is mostly told from Torbjörn's perspective with a few short scenes he's not present for. Some of the other characters get to narrate their origin story videos, but Bastion is not among them. (Although, I mean, doing that as a voiceover would be... difficult.)

Fallen London is told in second person from the player character's perspective, so Thurlow is their own narrator, sometimes apparently on-the-fly and sometimes with parts where an important description was explicitly added in later because they didn't notice/know about it at the time. Usually the player is meant to understand what's going on, so the Delicious Friend isn't really in the habit of lying to themself enough to be a particularly unreliable narrator, at least not in a way that isn't sufficiently transparent that you can get the gist. However, their emotional reactions flavour the narrative, and there are times when either they're too incoherent or what's going on is too deeply weird for you to be able to get a clear idea of what's actually happening. It's possible to go on an archaeology dig and have the text for the treasure you find at the end just be "No...", for instance. And then you get two Night-Whispers.

Homestuck has a weird, complicated situation with regards to its narrators, as with many other aspects of Homestuck. Several times it's revealed that the camera providing the current perspective is a diegetic monitor-thingy, often being watched by a carapacian exile. Andrew Hussie's author avatar is the narrator for most of the story, but he only seems to have control over the captions of the panels (like when he uses the narration to insult Doc Scratch, among others) and where the camera is looking at the moment (at one point he uses a scene change to thumb his nose at Vriska), not the contents of the panels. At one point Caliborn gets ahold of the narration instead and provides a shitty retelling of the story. Sometimes, in-universe, Homestuck is portrayed as being located on a piece of physical media more suited to the video game it likes to pretend to be, like a CD or a game cartridge, and one of the characters breaks it and causes distortion throughout the Homestuck universe. And there's some cosmic retcons when John Egbert uses the Sburb-logo-shaped juju to change the timeline in ways that aren't accounted for by standard Time player powers.

This is mostly stuff to do with the story of Homestuck as it's presented to the audience. In-universe, at the end of the story, Aradia could presumably drop by Earth C whenever she wants, but she'd rather explore, so her story is instead told by the people who met her. Probably not very accurately.

[sticktothemission]

As Cameo said above, Overwatch is mostly told through shorts and comics and the occasional in universe blog post. Most of these have a character or characters they're focusing on, though other cast members may appear in passing. As such, Gabriel/Reaper have appeared in other people's stories (like Sombra's cinematic) but he has yet to receive a story all his own. This likely has a great deal to do with Overwatch lore purposefully being filled with unreliable narrators. The in universe blog posts are the worst offenders of this and directly implicate Gabriel as being the cause of Overwatch's fall due to jealousy and bitterness. It was only a few months ago that the devs said no, actually Gabriel was happy with his position there and there is much more to the story.

So basically all the why's and how's of Gabriel's history are still up in the air, though in universe he does seem to be the one who gets the blame for Overwatch's fall. Whether that's true or not remains to be seen (though I highly doubt it). Undertaking the mantle of Reaper he seems to be a straight bad guy. Yet his actions are...inconsistent depending on who he's been sent to kill. Overall it makes balancing Gabriel/Reaper's motivations an interesting puzzle.

Whew. Khadgar, for his part, is much more straightforward. His story is mostly seen through the player character's eyes and it happens right in front of you so that's about as accurate as it gets. He also has a few short stories and cinematics, but thankfully Blizzard tells most of Warcraft's lore straight. I think fandom would have a fit if they tried unreliable narrators there as the lore is definitely complicated enough all on its own. The closest we get is anything said by a Void corrupted character due to the nature of how the Void works. They're not lying, per se, but never take anything at face value with them.