I always cut AU versions of the characters more slack than in-canon ones, but they still have to be recognisable. I've likened it to the characters being on a string--they exist at a bit of a distance from their canon selves, but attached to those core beings. If the string is too long or thin or breaks in parts, I stop seeing stretched but acceptable versions and start seeing instead OCs with familiar names stamped on them.
The setting plays a part, too. Some AUs require greater distortion simply to make the characters "fit", which can lead to some interpretations of canonical traits that I simply don't or won't buy.
Such as, oh, Vin's illiteracy in canon being turned into dyslexia in a modern AU to explain his inability to read well when we have universal schooling now. Dyslexia and illeracy are too different for me to buy; they'd put entirely different psychological pressures on a child growing up--Vin's growing up illiterate in a frontier world where illiteracy was fairly common is entirely different from being a child with a disability that sets him apart and would subject him to (probably) bullying and derision and so on from his peer group, and possibly misunderstanding from some teachers who might interpret his inability to get it to stupidity or laziness.
That's the kind of character distortion I don't see as "stretched", but a complete changing of the character simply to slot him into a different world. In other words, it's a case of characterisation taking a back seat to the setting: it reads to me as more important to an author to make the character seem plausible within the very different world s/he wants to create rather than to retain a recognisable core of the character.
I won't even mention turning JD into a genius! (See what I did there?) LOL.
yeah, that's the thing - the universe and the concept is going to take them down some very different paths by its very nature. The question is 'how far'. But I am pretty sure that any deviations from canon will be - well, very deviant. *g*
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branchandroot
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Date: 2011-10-04 05:09 pm (UTC)The setting plays a part, too. Some AUs require greater distortion simply to make the characters "fit", which can lead to some interpretations of canonical traits that I simply don't or won't buy.
Such as, oh, Vin's illiteracy in canon being turned into dyslexia in a modern AU to explain his inability to read well when we have universal schooling now. Dyslexia and illeracy are too different for me to buy; they'd put entirely different psychological pressures on a child growing up--Vin's growing up illiterate in a frontier world where illiteracy was fairly common is entirely different from being a child with a disability that sets him apart and would subject him to (probably) bullying and derision and so on from his peer group, and possibly misunderstanding from some teachers who might interpret his inability to get it to stupidity or laziness.
That's the kind of character distortion I don't see as "stretched", but a complete changing of the character simply to slot him into a different world. In other words, it's a case of characterisation taking a back seat to the setting: it reads to me as more important to an author to make the character seem plausible within the very different world s/he wants to create rather than to retain a recognisable core of the character.
I won't even mention turning JD into a genius! (See what I did there?) LOL.
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Date: 2011-10-04 08:42 pm (UTC)