Fiction is a collection of archetypes being jumbled together in a scenario that can, at its core, be broken down into archetypes too. The fact that the fanfic shares names and some ideas with another piece of work doesn't make it lesser.
I pretty strongly disagree, here.
If two works are somehow identical in story-telling and theme and whatever, then the one that is entirely original is going to be superior to the one that cribs characters and ideas directly from another source.
Fiction is a collection of archetypes being jumbled together in a scenario that can, at its core, be broken down into archetypes too. The fact that the fanfic shares names and some ideas with another piece of work doesn't make it lesser.
I pretty strongly disagree, here.
If two works are somehow identical in story-telling and theme and whatever, then the one that is entirely original is going to be superior to the one that cribs characters and ideas directly from another source.
Fiction is a collection of archetypes being jumbled together in a scenario that can, at its core, be broken down into archetypes too. The fact that the fanfic shares names and some ideas with another piece of work doesn't make it lesser.
I pretty strongly disagree, here.
If two works are somehow identical in story-telling and theme and whatever, then the one that is entirely original is going to be superior to the one that cribs characters and ideas directly from another source.
What if the piece that is incorporating some other-sourced elements and ideas also has a greater number of original ideas than the wholly-original piece, aside from those which are lifted?
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INeedNoSaltwith blood on my teethRegistered Userregular
Fiction is a collection of archetypes being jumbled together in a scenario that can, at its core, be broken down into archetypes too. The fact that the fanfic shares names and some ideas with another piece of work doesn't make it lesser.
I pretty strongly disagree, here.
If two works are somehow identical in story-telling and theme and whatever, then the one that is entirely original is going to be superior to the one that cribs characters and ideas directly from another source.
What if the piece that is incorporating some other-sourced elements and ideas also has a greater number of original ideas than the wholly-original piece, aside from those which are lifted?
Are you suggesting that the piece of fan fiction is simply more packed with ideas, that that would make it superior?
No, given some completely unrealistic idea of 'equally worthwhile' pieces of writing, then the one that swipes characters/ideas directly from another writer is simply less valuable, even if it's jam packed with 'original' ideas that have nothing to do with the setting from which they are stolen (or borrowed, I guess, if it's one of those published sorts of fiction.)
@Quid: No idea what you're even trying to do, there. Battlestar Galactica as far as I'm aware (don't watch it) is a TV show and then a remake of the same TV show. King Kong is a movie with several remakes. Clone Wars is a TV show (and a movie) licensed by the people who handle Star Wars.
I think what you're trying to suggest is that remakes and spinoffs are the same as fan fiction but that's kind of a laughable idea.
No, given some completely unrealistic idea of 'equally worthwhile' pieces of writing, then the one that swipes characters/ideas directly from another writer is simply less valuable, even if it's jam packed with 'original' ideas that have nothing to do with the setting from which they are stolen (or borrowed, I guess, if it's one of those published sorts of fiction.)
@Quid: No idea what you're even trying to do, there. Battlestar Galactica as far as I'm aware (don't watch it) is a TV show and then a remake of the same TV show. King Kong is a movie with several remakes. Clone Wars is a TV show (and a movie) licensed by the people who handle Star Wars.
I think what you're trying to suggest is that remakes and spinoffs are the same as fan fiction but that's kind of a laughable idea.
Please demonstrate the difference other than funding and they're authorized by the original creators please. Because according to your bolded bit, BSG which took characters, changed them around, changed their gender, and brought in spectacularly better writing would not be considered as good if ABC hadn't sold off the rights.
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INeedNoSaltwith blood on my teethRegistered Userregular
No, given some completely unrealistic idea of 'equally worthwhile' pieces of writing, then the one that swipes characters/ideas directly from another writer is simply less valuable, even if it's jam packed with 'original' ideas that have nothing to do with the setting from which they are stolen (or borrowed, I guess, if it's one of those published sorts of fiction.)
@Quid: No idea what you're even trying to do, there. Battlestar Galactica as far as I'm aware (don't watch it) is a TV show and then a remake of the same TV show. King Kong is a movie with several remakes. Clone Wars is a TV show (and a movie) licensed by the people who handle Star Wars.
I think what you're trying to suggest is that remakes and spinoffs are the same as fan fiction but that's kind of a laughable idea.
Please demonstrate the difference other than funding and they're authorized by the original creators please. Because according to your bolded bit, BSG which took characters, changed them around, changed their gender, and brought in spectacularly better writing would not be considered as good if ABC hadn't sold off the rights.
Well see
To begin with we're talking about writing
And not television which generally speaking is written by groups of people and not a single author in the first place.
Okay, so an incredibly unique and otherwise fantastic piece that incorporates some elements of someone else's established canon is just immediately less valuable.
Again, I have no real idea why people are equivocating value = merit = quality, nor really what they're driving at with the meaning of those, but I'm 100% ready to 'agree to disagree' with you if your stance is that even the most fantastic piece of fiction in the world is crippled beyond rescue by the use of someone else's elements.
If you were still talking in the frame of "otherwise equal" pieces, I think that it's a dumb hypothetical to work with, since I can't make that argument there, really, without it getting confusing. If the two are measured equally in one final metric (merit), but the methods that they choose to get there differ, and the piece which is using some "stolen" elements is also using far more original ideas and creative solutions than the completely home-brewed piece,
would you still say that the piece is somehow of less merit, despite the fact that they are completely equal in merit, and ... the one with ... well, nevermind. As you can see, this hypothetical falls to shit. You need to name for the metric by which two pieces can be "equally worthwhile" while their content differs substantively in more than one quantity, then we can go back to that hypothetical, but ... eh.
There's nothing that says a piece of fiction which borrows one or more elements from another piece will not have a gross/net amount of original ideas lesser than any piece of homebrewed fiction. You can't make that generalization. It's ridiculous. It's patently, one-hundred-percent, completely ridiculous.
Does fanfiction have any sort of merit? Yes, some of it does in varying amounts across varying metrics. Does fiction have any sort of merit? Yes, some of it does in varying amounts across varying metrics.
No one has yet presented any fair argument to me about why fanfiction not only loses to original fiction, but is absolutely bereft of merit/value/quality/whatever interchangeable word you guys decide to use, in all cases.
And if the answer is, "Well, it's not in all cases," then that's it. The thread is over because a generalization is dispelled by one incongruent element of the set. That's not arguable.
No, given some completely unrealistic idea of 'equally worthwhile' pieces of writing, then the one that swipes characters/ideas directly from another writer is simply less valuable, even if it's jam packed with 'original' ideas that have nothing to do with the setting from which they are stolen (or borrowed, I guess, if it's one of those published sorts of fiction.)
@Quid: No idea what you're even trying to do, there. Battlestar Galactica as far as I'm aware (don't watch it) is a TV show and then a remake of the same TV show. King Kong is a movie with several remakes. Clone Wars is a TV show (and a movie) licensed by the people who handle Star Wars.
I think what you're trying to suggest is that remakes and spinoffs are the same as fan fiction but that's kind of a laughable idea.
Please demonstrate the difference other than funding and they're authorized by the original creators please. Because according to your bolded bit, BSG which took characters, changed them around, changed their gender, and brought in spectacularly better writing would not be considered as good if ABC hadn't sold off the rights.
Well see
To begin with we're talking about writing
And not television which generally speaking is written by groups of people and not a single author in the first place.
Fanfiction can be written by a group. And the writing for all of the series I mentioned is significantly better.
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INeedNoSaltwith blood on my teethRegistered Userregular
No one has yet presented any fair argument to me about why fanfiction not only loses to original fiction, but is absolutely bereft of merit/value/quality/whatever interchangeable word you guys decide to use, in all cases.
It's going to be a judgment call in any case, so I've got just as much leeway to say you can't really present a fair argument as to why fanfiction doesn't lose to original fiction.
I am sure fan fiction can be of incredibly high quality, but I tend to think that most fanfiction is pretty tasteless. This is also why I don't tend to really include licensed work or work based on public domain as fan fiction -- by that point, it's not really swiping ideas from people.
@Quid: You're still trying to prove your point by using examples taken from a completely different medium. Battlestar Galactica isn't fan fiction by definition because it is a television show and not a written piece.
@Quid: You're still trying to prove your point by using examples taken from a completely different medium. Battlestar Galactica isn't fan fiction by definition because it is a television show and not a written piece.
Pay attention: The scripts, the purely written parts, are better.
Edit: Or are you saying it's perfectly feasible for fan fic scripts to be better than the original?
So we return to the point of, "Well if it came from the public domain it's no longer someone else's idea! It's magical then, and not something you read somewhere else! It's magical!" "Non-written adaptations are a different medium! Go away!" "Well, if it gets licensed it's good, and I refuse to call fanfiction good, so that's not fanfiction! Hahaha!"
The term 'fanfiction' has just become a whipping-boy. People are scrambling to ensure its definition remains confined to everything terrible so that they can guiltlessly tear into it for ... whatever reasons. I don't know, I've never felt the need to have something like that in my life, so I can't really imagine.
Either way I'm technically satisfied, as you admitted fanfiction runs the same gamut as any other medium and therefore that a generalization that all fanction is without merit/* fails. Another useless stump of bigotry and stereotyping slain! \o/
/Oboro sheathes her shufflesword, mounts her lungfish, and rides into the distance.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
edited August 2008
Guys, fanfiction apparently nets you naughty space nuns. If that isn't merit, I don't know what is.
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INeedNoSaltwith blood on my teethRegistered Userregular
edited August 2008
Non-written adaptations are a different medium. Telling me how a reimagined television show is different from the original really doesn't have anything to do with fan fiction because, you know, completely different medium. If you want to talk about great literature I'm not going to start referencing Schindler's List (which to be fair is by Quid's awkward definition also fan fiction) at you.
If it came from public domain it is by definition not anyone's property. It's pretty hard to say I am taking something from someone when that something does not belong to that someone.
Licensing is pretty important because it means the people to whom the idea is original have said "I think you can be trusted to handle my ideas." This is true for a pretty tiny subset of fan fiction, though. (And I'd still read something original over a Star Wars novel.)
I guess I shrug. I can't really understand the need to feel justified in swiping ideas from other authors, either.
Yeah, you're not taking from someone if it's open-domain, but they're not your ideas. Isn't, uh, that the more important part? o_O
As for licensing, ... so what if the fucking person trusts you? You're still fucking using their ideas.
No one is speaking about "feeling justified in swiping ideas from other authors," also, we're merely defending a medium (and works from other mediums) from being painted entirely with the brush of "LOL UNIMPORTANT AND WORTHLESS."
It's impossible to read your points as anything but a defense of the creators and not the creators' ideas.
Non-written adaptations are a different medium. Telling me how a reimagined television show is different from the original really doesn't have anything to do with fan fiction because, you know, completely different medium. If you want to talk about great literature I'm not going to start referencing Schindler's List (which to be fair is by Quid's awkward definition also fan fiction) at you.
If it came from public domain it is by definition not anyone's property. It's pretty hard to say I am taking something from someone when that something does not belong to that someone.
Licensing is pretty important because it means the people to whom the idea is original have said "I think you can be trusted to handle my ideas." This is true for a pretty tiny subset of fan fiction, though. (And I'd still read something original over a Star Wars novel.)
I guess I shrug. I can't really understand the need to feel justified in swiping ideas from other authors, either.
No one's approving stealing ideas from authors. What we are saying is your insistence that a work of fiction heavily derivative of another one is somehow not as good as the original. You've still not demonstrated how or why. To say nothing of the fact that massive amounts of fan fiction revolve around television and movies so you can drop trying to pretend they're somehow separate.
You also haven't shown what makes a script different from a short story other than how it's structured. Licensing does not make something better. If the script for TDK had never been approved it still would have been better than anything written for the 1960s Batman series.
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INeedNoSaltwith blood on my teethRegistered Userregular
Another useless stump of bigotry and stereotyping slain! \o/
/Oboro sheathes her shufflesword, mounts her lungfish, and rides into the distance.
Bigotted against... bad literature?
You've yet to demonstrate why its being fan fiction automatically makes it bad literature. Ayn Rand wrote plenty of original crap.
It is almost entirely bad and when I am discussing an idea in general I am not going to ignore the 98% of it to focus on the 2% basically
I was just questioning the use of the word 'bigotted', here.
And just because I think unoriginal work isn't very tasteful generally doesn't somehow imply that I think anything that is original is tasteful (or good or worthwhile.)
It is almost entirely bad and when I am discussing an idea in general I am not going to ignore the 98% of it to focus on the 2% basically
No, you don't get to call the whole thing bad because most of it's bad. All and most are words that are both spelled differently and mean different things. Try again.
And please demonstrate how licensing TDK made its better than 1960s Batman.
Here, let's forget I made that tongue-in-cheek comment about slaying stumps and riding around on fish. The point is ceded. Stop talking about that and address the criticisms in that post, and in Quid's posts after it.
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INeedNoSaltwith blood on my teethRegistered Userregular
Non-written adaptations are a different medium. Telling me how a reimagined television show is different from the original really doesn't have anything to do with fan fiction because, you know, completely different medium. If you want to talk about great literature I'm not going to start referencing Schindler's List (which to be fair is by Quid's awkward definition also fan fiction) at you.
If it came from public domain it is by definition not anyone's property. It's pretty hard to say I am taking something from someone when that something does not belong to that someone.
Licensing is pretty important because it means the people to whom the idea is original have said "I think you can be trusted to handle my ideas." This is true for a pretty tiny subset of fan fiction, though. (And I'd still read something original over a Star Wars novel.)
I guess I shrug. I can't really understand the need to feel justified in swiping ideas from other authors, either.
No one's approving stealing ideas from authors. What we are saying is your insistence that a work of fiction heavily derivative of another one is somehow not as good as the original. You've still not demonstrated how or why.
I don't think I ever said (or probably didn't mean to say) that a derivative work is 'not as good as' the original. That would be patently false. I can enjoy derivative work. I love remakes. I fill my playlist with covers and remixes.
What I do mean to express is that there is a certain quality and value intrinsic to originality that you are just not going to find in fan fiction simply because it is not original. This is why earlier, I offered a comparison wherein two works which were mostly equal, on whatever accounts you so desire, except for one being entirely original and one being fan fiction. I'm not saying you can't take someone else's ideas and make them interesting (or even more interesting). I'm saying that it is (usually) a pretty tasteless thing to do and that fan fiction doesn't stand up to original fiction of otherwise similar artistic value.
Trying to force me to nearly all fan fiction (you know, the really terrible stuff?) and just argue on the grounds of the really superb stuff is pretty lame.
I'm not going to talk about scripts or film or television because fan fiction is a written medium and there's no reason to discuss this. You can (and did) say that fan fiction draws from these medias. That is fine. The fan fiction is written.
Edit: The OP mentions a movie being made based on like the Max Payne games? Well, I guess I'm wrong on that last point, then. Still, it holds true for the vast majority of fan fiction, and focussing on outliers is pretty meh.
The answer to the OP's question is not "No, fan fiction cannot have merit," but I think "Fan fiction only has merit in very rare cases" is much more accurate.
Okay, so let's go back to the piece of fanfiction which has some incorporated elements but also more net/gross original ideas than a piece of completely-original fiction.
Is this still less original, somehow, and lacking that certain quality and value intrinsic to originality, despite being ... you know ... more original?
EDIT: There's also gobs and gobs and gobs of terrible fiction. You're probably taking the tack of a previous poster in the thread, though, who admitted that he didn't consider unpublished fiction 'fiction' and so was only comparing published works against unpublished fanfiction, which is hardly fair.
I am aware of one genuinely great fan film (the silent Call of Cthulhu).
Fanfiction's a tricky one- after all, there's published stuff out there that falls within it. If you go far enough, then you start having to look at things like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
On the whole, I'd say fan work tends to be worse than original stuff, but that doesn't mean there can't be exceptions.
I don't think I ever said (or probably didn't mean to say) that a derivative work is 'not as good as' the original. That would be patently false. I can enjoy derivative work. I love remakes. I fill my playlist with covers and remixes.
If two works are somehow identical in story-telling and theme and whatever, then the one that is entirely original is going to be superior to the one that cribs characters and ideas directly from another source.
Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what you said.
What I do mean to express is that there is a certain quality and value intrinsic to originality that you are just not going to find in fan fiction simply because it is not original. This is why earlier, I offered a comparison wherein two works which were mostly equal, on whatever accounts you so desire, except for one being entirely original and one being fan fiction. I'm not saying you can't take someone else's ideas and make them interesting (or even more interesting). I'm saying that it is (usually) a pretty tasteless thing to do and that fan fiction doesn't stand up to original fiction of otherwise similar artistic value.
This entire paragraph is contradictory. If it's an improvement on the original how is it not more valuable?
Trying to force me to nearly all fan fiction (you know, the really terrible stuff?) and just argue on the grounds of the really superb stuff is pretty lame.
There is good fiction and bad fiction. There are good comics and bad comics. There are good movies and bad movies. In the case of all of them the vast majority are crap. What distinction does fan fiction hold that isn't some arbitrary distinction you're making?
I'm not going to talk about scripts or film or television because fan fiction is a written medium and there's no reason to discuss this. You can (and did) say that fan fiction draws from these medias. That is fine. The fan fiction is written.
Fiction can take the form of a script, short story, or video. But let's just keep it as a script. Why should a script be considered different? It's the same thing as any other piece of fiction, only structured differently.
Honestly, this thread is depressing. Coming down on any form of creativity and self-expression... just, wow. I really thought more of the PA community than this.
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INeedNoSaltwith blood on my teethRegistered Userregular
Okay, so let's go back to the piece of fanfiction which has some incorporated elements but also more net/gross original ideas than a piece of completely-original fiction.
Is this still less original, somehow, and lacking that certain quality and value intrinsic to originality, despite being ... you know ... more original?
EDIT: There's also gobs and gobs and gobs of terrible fiction. You're probably taking the tack of a previous poster in the thread, though, who admitted that he didn't consider unpublished fiction 'fiction' and so was only comparing published works against unpublished fanfiction, which is hardly fair.
Yeah there is definitely terrible fiction, can't really argue against that.
Your hypothetical here is kind of confusing to me. If I have a cast of original characters, and an original setting, and you have a cast of existing characters in an existing setting, then are we looking at the events of the story for originality? If you deviate too terribly far from the canon of the fiction, after all, then it becomes bad fan fiction for not being true to the original work.
I mean, what's the quality of the works in question? Is one a better read than the other? I think the presence of unoriginal characters and ideas is harder to make up for than a dearth of completely unique ideas, if I can word that correctly.
How is incorporating one or more elements "a dearth of completely unique ideas?" You know, there's more to stories than setting and characters? o_O
Yes, we are looking at the other elements of the work for originality. Originality in delivery, originality in premise, originality in the fields endemic to fanfiction (creative manipulation of and within the canon while not deviating from it).
Sometimes fanfiction is only slightly worse for deviating from the canon. Another prolific Earthbound fanfic focused on the fact that all enemy NPCs that would attack you (those under the 'influence' of The Big Bad) had sprites hued blue, and wove a tale of out-of-control discrimination and how the world was not ready to deal with a black-and-white morality system that people wore on their sleeves. This deviates from the canon in that the player of the video game never encounters these situations, but the deviation is excused by the fact the adventures of the players never incorporate social interactions on this scope. If anything, the story adds a layer of perception to the canon by giving the reader a new perspective from which to view some events of the game, without having technically changed anything.
This is probably one of those fanfictions that, with a few changes, could have 'stood on its own.' However, the person received the inspiration for the idea from the work in question and chose to first write this work using elements of that source material. It's still a highly-original piece borrowing very few concepts from the original work -- however, it is borrowing one or more concepts and doing so shamelessly so it is fanfiction. Why is it inherently unoriginal for those few lifted concepts and chosen audience?
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INeedNoSaltwith blood on my teethRegistered Userregular
I don't think I ever said (or probably didn't mean to say) that a derivative work is 'not as good as' the original. That would be patently false. I can enjoy derivative work. I love remakes. I fill my playlist with covers and remixes.
If two works are somehow identical in story-telling and theme and whatever, then the one that is entirely original is going to be superior to the one that cribs characters and ideas directly from another source.
Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what you said.
Let's not take things out of context. (I could have made 'and whatever' more specific, though.)
What I do mean to express is that there is a certain quality and value intrinsic to originality that you are just not going to find in fan fiction simply because it is not original. This is why earlier, I offered a comparison wherein two works which were mostly equal, on whatever accounts you so desire, except for one being entirely original and one being fan fiction. I'm not saying you can't take someone else's ideas and make them interesting (or even more interesting). I'm saying that it is (usually) a pretty tasteless thing to do and that fan fiction doesn't stand up to original fiction of otherwise similar artistic value.
This entire paragraph is contradictory. If it's an improvement on the original how is it not more valuable?
Trying to force me to nearly all fan fiction (you know, the really terrible stuff?) and just argue on the grounds of the really superb stuff is pretty lame.
There is good fiction and bad fiction. There are good comics and bad comics. There are good movies and bad movies. In the case of all of them the vast majority are crap. What distinction does fan fiction hold that isn't some arbitrary distinction you're making?
Probably degree. It's pretty difficult to find fan fiction that isn't fans just wanking all over the place.
I'm not going to talk about scripts or film or television because fan fiction is a written medium and there's no reason to discuss this. You can (and did) say that fan fiction draws from these medias. That is fine. The fan fiction is written.
Fiction can take the form of a script, short story, or video. But let's just keep it as a script. Why should a script be considered different? It's the same thing as any other piece of fiction, only structured differently.[/QUOTE]
A script is a script and isn't meant to be read as a piece of literature so much as it's meant to be a baseline from which to make a film. Do you think The Dark Knight would've been nearly as awesome if we had
JOKER
Why so serious?
and not Ledger's fantastic portrayal?
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INeedNoSaltwith blood on my teethRegistered Userregular
How is incorporating one or more elements "a dearth of completely unique ideas?" You know, there's more to stories than setting and characters? o_O
Yes, we are looking at the other elements of the work for originality. Originality in delivery, originality in premise, originality in the fields endemic to fanfiction (creative manipulation of and within the canon while not deviating from it).
Sometimes fanfiction is only slightly worse for deviating from the canon. Another prolific Earthbound fanfic focused on the fact that all enemy NPCs that would attack you (those under the 'influence' of The Big Bad) had sprites hued blue, and wove a tale of out-of-control discrimination and how the world was not ready to deal with a black-and-white morality system that people wore on their sleeves.
This is probably one of those fanfictions that, with a few changes, could have 'stood on its own.' However, the person received the inspiration for the idea from the work in question and chose to first write this work using elements of that source material. It's still a highly-original piece borrowing very few concepts from the original work -- however, it is borrowing one or more concepts and doing so shamelessly so it is fanfiction.
I used 'a complete dearth of unique' ideas to describe a piece of original writing that, like most writing, is still influenced (more or less heavily) by other sources, but never outright implements foreign ideas directly.
I think, even with that sort of writing, a piece of work is still on better grounds than a work which takes directly from another source, all things being equal otherwise.
The 'all things being equal otherwise' is important. If a piece of fan fiction is fantastic and a piece of original fiction is shit then the piece of fan fiction is better. I am not saying otherwise, here.
Honestly, I don't even really feel like going back to that. I feel as if it's comparing apples and oranges. If you want to hold to your "all things being equal otherwise" hypothetical, I really have nothing to say.
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INeedNoSaltwith blood on my teethRegistered Userregular
Honestly, I don't even really feel like going back to that. I feel as if it's comparing apples and oranges. If you want to hold to your "all things being equal otherwise" hypothetical, I really have nothing to say.
I think if your hypothetical requires things to not be equal, then it's not really worth discussing at all.
Yeah, a superior work is going to be superior. Whee.
I wasn't proposing a "hypothetical," I was using hypotheticals to attack your idea that fanfiction was uniformly terrible. Of course, you've been consistently moving your position to the left, and now if all you want to say is "I consider a work of fiction equal in all respects to a work of fanfiction to be more valuable," it's just an issue of genre valuation that you haven't been able to factually defend with any sort of coherency.
A work of fanfiction, according to you, is inherently worse than an original work because it uses someone else's ideas in some non-zero fashion. However!, if those ideas came from the public domain, or if the author received a slip of paper allowing he or she to use those ideas, the fanfiction no longer suffers that penalty.
What?
I mean, give it a try, no?
All things being equal otherwise, is a licensed piece of fiction in someone else's universe worse than a completely original piece of fiction?
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INeedNoSaltwith blood on my teethRegistered Userregular
All things being equal otherwise, is a licensed piece of fiction in someone else's universe worse than a completely original piece of fiction?
I did say I make a habit of not reading licensed work, too, didn't I?
Tried to read Wicked, couldn't finish it. Just can't bring myself to pick up Star Wars or Star Trek novels.
I guess I just have a soft spot for old stuff in public domain being reworked. You're right, though -- if I want to be fair, I need to recognize that the author is relying on someone else's ideas to tell his story (which is less cool.)
But why is using someone else's ideas to tell a more nuanced and interesting story bad? Take, I dunno, Jane Yolen's awardwinning Briar Rose, which uses the Sleeping Beauty story (not made by any identifiable creator, but still not original to Yolen) to tell a harrowing narrative about the Holocaust. The use of unoriginal content doesn't diminish the story but expands it, both by giving new aspects to an already-known story and by using the pre-existing aspects of that story to cast a different light on the parts original to Yolen.
Basically, I suspect you've got some sort of issue with fanfiction, possibly that "it's icky" or "I have a weird hardon for originality that doesn't stand up to comparisons with non-fanfiction stories." Which is okay for you, but it's a silly position to try to support.
Whereas you're all up in arms to defend it. Do you honestly not see how writing original fiction is better than writing fanfiction?
No, I don't, because you haven't explained why originality is the be-all, end-all of literature anyway. Shakespeare wasn't original, for christsakes.
Yes, pre-existing works are popular. No one is disputing that. I don't see how that makes fanfiction intrinsicaly exploitational, though. Some of it is, and some of it isn't. That's all there is to it.
No, you're not seeing the important part. When people put their writings online, I think it is reasonable to assume that they do so because they are looking for readers. It's pretty hard to convince a person to read your original unpublished fantasy novel; they don't know if it's any good, and they don't know if it's worth their time. With fanfic though, you don't have to work at convincing a lot people to start reading, or even to keep reading in a lot of cases. You're piggybacking on the efforts of the person who created the source works, and that is exploitative.
Some fanfic writers might do that, yes. But not all of them choose to base their writing on a pre-existing setting just to get a boost in readership. There are many who simply enjoy a particular pre-existing fictional setting and like writing stories within it, even if they have few readers, or no readers at all. Which means that there is nothing inherently exploitational to fanfic.
There's nothing fans like better than trying to figure out where the magic came from or why the story worked so well, and writing fanfic is a way of exploring that.
Then why do they do such a terrible job of it? Karenn Traviss writes Star Wars novels that people like; she used to be a big-time foreign correspondent who really couldn't be bothered about Star Wars. Before he cashed in on some Halo novels, Eric Nylund wrote fairly well-regarded hard sf. In the comics field, two of the most important writers - Alan Moore and Grant Morrison - list writers like Burroughs and Carlos Casteneda as influences above and beyond Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. It's hard not to notice that in field after field the most innovative takes on pre-existing IPs come from people who started with some measure of critical distance from the subject.
I still don't see why you have this hard-on for original work.
Put very simply, I think that mass-marketed, focus-tested IPs are taking up people's precious brainspace and stunting the artists of tomorrow, as people keep trying to pound the square peg of their unique perspective on the world into the round hole of "The A-Team Meets Matlock."
Ah, so you're of the Sherlock Holmes "The mind is like an attic" persuasion. I disagree. There are many original writers who start out writing fanfiction, and there are many fanfiction writers who prefer to stick to their own medium and don't want to write original fiction. You're assuming that without fanfic, all of these people would be putting their efforts into writing original fiction, and that's simply not the case.
Why would wanting to improve upon a story necessarily lead to telling your own story?
Well, I should think it's axiomatic. As soon as you replace the original author's plot and dialogue and ideas and concerns and style with your own, you're telling your own story; all that remains is to tear off your brother's cast-off karate gi, quit pretending to be Luke Skywalker, and have the courage to announce to the world "Hey, world! I am no longer writing Star Wars fanfiction! I am writing SPACE WAR LESBIANS, tm and (c) me!"
Axiomatic = I pulled this out of my ass.
And SPACE WAR LESBIANS would not be the same story without the weight of the Star Wars story behind it. For many writers, that's the point; having the source material allows you to do more interesting, even artistic things while using a cultural shorthand, much like fairy tale imaginings. For example, I once read a very interesting Star Wars story (licensed, but still fanfiction) about Boba Fett's experience inside the Sarlacc. Now, if this was going to be original, with the serial numbers filed off, the author would have had to establish who Boba Fett is, who Han Solo is, who Jabba the Hutt is, what the Sarlacc is, what a Jedi is, the environment of Tattoine, the politics of the Empire, etc., and this short, affecting little story would have been a bloated behemoth without any of the traditional plot structure of a long novel. It would have been boring. Using preexisting elements lets the writer be more creative within that framework, not less. Or do you hate sonnets for having more limits than free verse, too?
And why couldn't you do both, writing fanfiction to enjoy playing with a story you already enjoyed and writing an original story to play with a story you're just starting with?
Nobody said you couldn't do both, but I am suggesting that one may stand to profit you more.
Profit, now there's a funny word. By profit, do you mean "make you money"? Fanfiction mostly won't do that unless you're writing for a canon that accepts fan-submissions, but then you're limited even further by the license-holder's wishes. Not everyone wants to write for money, either, and I'm not about to say that someone fueled only by mercenary desires is a better person than someone who writes for the fun of it. Do you mean "improves your writing skills"? Fanfiction as a writing exercise is pretty great, as you can focus just on the areas you need to improve (say, writing dialogue or somesuch). I've written plenty of fanfiction as an assignment for class, and this was in college. Profit meaning "for enjoyment"? Obviously people enjoy writing fanfiction, and this is subjective, anyway. If you want to say "Well, they'd enjoy writing original fiction more," who gave you the mind-reading device? People have different motivations than you do for their writing. Deal with it.
Not all fanfiction tries to continue the original story. Lots and lots of it tries to explore alternate possibilities or fill in the gaps, as I previously mentioned. How about "What was Chewbacca really thinking when Han Solo turned back to help Luke blow up the Death Star?" or "What would have happened in Luke turned to the Dark Side and helped Vader overthrow the Emporer?". Neither of those are seeking to duplicate the original, they're exploring it.
the reasons are probably as endless as the writers
but I am mistrustful of the fannish need for completism. Why not write about George and Lenny's adventures from before Of Mice and Men, eh? That might be a story worth telling, but I don't see anyone racing to beat each other to the punch. Could it be that in something we don't smear fannish love over, we instinctively recognize that art is as much about what is left out as what is put in?
As a matter of fact, I've read Of Mice and Men fanfic. It's not as prevalent as, say, Harry Potter, but that's probably because fewer people have read and liked Of Mice and Men that are inclined to write fanfic.
Besides, you don't get to use "instinctively" unless you can cite evidence. There's no "instinct" for "this work of art is not to be messed with." You just get squicked by it and want to project your squick onto other people.
Again, what about people who do both? Diane Duane wrote Star Trek fanfiction and the exceedingly popular Young Wizards series?
What about them? Diane Duane gotta eat, as the man says. She's okay for a midlist paperback writer. She might have been better if she'd written less Star Trek and more of her own stuff.
Now we're arguing tastes. Plus, you have no idea if she'd be better if she wrote less Star Trek. She might be worse.
And I don't think she needs to worry about coming up with original ideas. Have you ever read the Young Wizards books? Excellent, imaginative YA fiction with vivid characters and a well-fleshed-out world.
And what do you think about people who re-tell fairy tales? Are they just "rearranging mass-cultural artifacts into something that might vaguely resemble what they were trying to say."
They can be! One hopes they're retelling those tales because they honestly think that's the best vehicle for what they're saying than because it's their sole avenue for relating to the world.
And sometimes fanfiction writers honestly think that fanfiction is the best vehicle for what they're trying to say. I haven't met any who use it as their "sole avenue for relating to the world;" far from it.
... originality is the be-all, end-all of literature ...
I understand that that is an easy position to argue against, but it's not one anyone (with the possible exception of INeedNoSalt) is putting forward.
Having said that, originality is important. Unless the point is just cheap thrills--which is okay, I guess, but I'm quite happy to say that anything (fanfic or otherwise) written for cheap thrills has very little merit--any written work ought to be carefully crafted in every respect. The words need to be chosen properly, the setting needs to be established thoughtfully, the characters need to be developed with specific and considered intentions. Crafting an original work lets you do all of these things. Using an existing work means that in most cases something gets shoehorned in that doesn't belong*. It might be a plot element incongruent with the setting, it might be a character trait that defies established conventions in the source work, it might be something else. Because the source work already told the story the author was trying to tell, everything about it fits (or should fit, if it's good) with that story, not the one some fans might wish it had told or would tell.
That does not mean that any work that uses the framework of an existing work is doomed to run into those problems. I don't know the first thing about Earthbound, but it seems like Oboro's piece that won that award might not have committed any errors. Also, someone might flout all of the conventions of an existing work in an attempt to subvert it and make a particular point. Once you start going that route though, I think you're leaving the realm of fanfiction and getting into parody, satire or other forms of commentary.
Originality is not the most important thing when creating a written work, but it does lend itself well to superior craft.
Some fanfic writers might do that, yes. But not all of them choose to base their writing on a pre-existing setting just to get a boost in readership. There are many who simply enjoy a particular pre-existing fictional setting and like writing stories within it, even if they have few readers, or no readers at all. Which means that there is nothing inherently exploitational to fanfic.
It doesn't matter if the fanfiction writer means to be exploitative or not, they're still getting all the benefits from someone else's hard work.
_____________
*Licensed fiction, because I know that's going to come up, runs into these sorts of problems as well, but the hope is usually that the owners of the license will ensure that the derivative work works within the established universe. That said, I think a majority of licensed fiction leans pretty heavily towards the "cheap thrills" side of things anyway, so comparing that to fanfiction isn't all that helpful if you're looking to show merit.
Probably degree. It's pretty difficult to find fan fiction that isn't fans just wanking all over the place.
This is just you, again, painting all fan fiction as crap. This is true for every fictional media. Drop it. It's a stupid argument that isn't helping you any because you've completely failed to explain why it doesn't apply to all of those other medias.
A script is a script and isn't meant to be read as a piece of literature so much as it's meant to be a baseline from which to make a film. Do you think The Dark Knight would've been nearly as awesome if we had
JOKER
Why so serious?
and not Ledger's fantastic portrayal?
Don't try to sidestep the question. Acting has fuck all to do with the quality of the scripts. Would the script for TDK, had it not been approved by Warner Brothers, been automatically worth less than any of the tripe scripts created for the 1960s Batman, the more "original" of the two?
Some fanfic writers might do that, yes. But not all of them choose to base their writing on a pre-existing setting just to get a boost in readership. There are many who simply enjoy a particular pre-existing fictional setting and like writing stories within it, even if they have few readers, or no readers at all. Which means that there is nothing inherently exploitational to fanfic.
It doesn't matter if the fanfiction writer means to be exploitative or not, they're still getting all the benefits from someone else's hard work.
Intention does matter. If a fanficer writes a story in order to directly profit from it, then that would be exploitation. But if they write a story just for the joy of writing it, and maybe to share it with fellow fans, then no, that isn't exploitation.
Posts
I pretty strongly disagree, here.
If two works are somehow identical in story-telling and theme and whatever, then the one that is entirely original is going to be superior to the one that cribs characters and ideas directly from another source.
Edit: Clone Wars cartoon too.
Are you suggesting that the piece of fan fiction is simply more packed with ideas, that that would make it superior?
No, given some completely unrealistic idea of 'equally worthwhile' pieces of writing, then the one that swipes characters/ideas directly from another writer is simply less valuable, even if it's jam packed with 'original' ideas that have nothing to do with the setting from which they are stolen (or borrowed, I guess, if it's one of those published sorts of fiction.)
@Quid: No idea what you're even trying to do, there. Battlestar Galactica as far as I'm aware (don't watch it) is a TV show and then a remake of the same TV show. King Kong is a movie with several remakes. Clone Wars is a TV show (and a movie) licensed by the people who handle Star Wars.
I think what you're trying to suggest is that remakes and spinoffs are the same as fan fiction but that's kind of a laughable idea.
Well see
To begin with we're talking about writing
And not television which generally speaking is written by groups of people and not a single author in the first place.
Again, I have no real idea why people are equivocating value = merit = quality, nor really what they're driving at with the meaning of those, but I'm 100% ready to 'agree to disagree' with you if your stance is that even the most fantastic piece of fiction in the world is crippled beyond rescue by the use of someone else's elements.
If you were still talking in the frame of "otherwise equal" pieces, I think that it's a dumb hypothetical to work with, since I can't make that argument there, really, without it getting confusing. If the two are measured equally in one final metric (merit), but the methods that they choose to get there differ, and the piece which is using some "stolen" elements is also using far more original ideas and creative solutions than the completely home-brewed piece,
would you still say that the piece is somehow of less merit, despite the fact that they are completely equal in merit, and ... the one with ... well, nevermind. As you can see, this hypothetical falls to shit. You need to name for the metric by which two pieces can be "equally worthwhile" while their content differs substantively in more than one quantity, then we can go back to that hypothetical, but ... eh.
There's nothing that says a piece of fiction which borrows one or more elements from another piece will not have a gross/net amount of original ideas lesser than any piece of homebrewed fiction. You can't make that generalization. It's ridiculous. It's patently, one-hundred-percent, completely ridiculous.
Does fanfiction have any sort of merit? Yes, some of it does in varying amounts across varying metrics. Does fiction have any sort of merit? Yes, some of it does in varying amounts across varying metrics.
No one has yet presented any fair argument to me about why fanfiction not only loses to original fiction, but is absolutely bereft of merit/value/quality/whatever interchangeable word you guys decide to use, in all cases.
And if the answer is, "Well, it's not in all cases," then that's it. The thread is over because a generalization is dispelled by one incongruent element of the set. That's not arguable.
It's going to be a judgment call in any case, so I've got just as much leeway to say you can't really present a fair argument as to why fanfiction doesn't lose to original fiction.
I am sure fan fiction can be of incredibly high quality, but I tend to think that most fanfiction is pretty tasteless. This is also why I don't tend to really include licensed work or work based on public domain as fan fiction -- by that point, it's not really swiping ideas from people.
@Quid: You're still trying to prove your point by using examples taken from a completely different medium. Battlestar Galactica isn't fan fiction by definition because it is a television show and not a written piece.
Edit: Or are you saying it's perfectly feasible for fan fic scripts to be better than the original?
The term 'fanfiction' has just become a whipping-boy. People are scrambling to ensure its definition remains confined to everything terrible so that they can guiltlessly tear into it for ... whatever reasons. I don't know, I've never felt the need to have something like that in my life, so I can't really imagine.
Either way I'm technically satisfied, as you admitted fanfiction runs the same gamut as any other medium and therefore that a generalization that all fanction is without merit/* fails. Another useless stump of bigotry and stereotyping slain! \o/
/Oboro sheathes her shufflesword, mounts her lungfish, and rides into the distance.
If it came from public domain it is by definition not anyone's property. It's pretty hard to say I am taking something from someone when that something does not belong to that someone.
Licensing is pretty important because it means the people to whom the idea is original have said "I think you can be trusted to handle my ideas." This is true for a pretty tiny subset of fan fiction, though. (And I'd still read something original over a Star Wars novel.)
I guess I shrug. I can't really understand the need to feel justified in swiping ideas from other authors, either.
As for licensing, ... so what if the fucking person trusts you? You're still fucking using their ideas.
No one is speaking about "feeling justified in swiping ideas from other authors," also, we're merely defending a medium (and works from other mediums) from being painted entirely with the brush of "LOL UNIMPORTANT AND WORTHLESS."
It's impossible to read your points as anything but a defense of the creators and not the creators' ideas.
You also haven't shown what makes a script different from a short story other than how it's structured. Licensing does not make something better. If the script for TDK had never been approved it still would have been better than anything written for the 1960s Batman series.
Bigotted against... bad literature?
It is almost entirely bad and when I am discussing an idea in general I am not going to ignore the 98% of it to focus on the 2% basically
I was just questioning the use of the word 'bigotted', here.
And just because I think unoriginal work isn't very tasteful generally doesn't somehow imply that I think anything that is original is tasteful (or good or worthwhile.)
And please demonstrate how licensing TDK made its better than 1960s Batman.
I don't think I ever said (or probably didn't mean to say) that a derivative work is 'not as good as' the original. That would be patently false. I can enjoy derivative work. I love remakes. I fill my playlist with covers and remixes.
What I do mean to express is that there is a certain quality and value intrinsic to originality that you are just not going to find in fan fiction simply because it is not original. This is why earlier, I offered a comparison wherein two works which were mostly equal, on whatever accounts you so desire, except for one being entirely original and one being fan fiction. I'm not saying you can't take someone else's ideas and make them interesting (or even more interesting). I'm saying that it is (usually) a pretty tasteless thing to do and that fan fiction doesn't stand up to original fiction of otherwise similar artistic value.
Trying to force me to nearly all fan fiction (you know, the really terrible stuff?) and just argue on the grounds of the really superb stuff is pretty lame.
I'm not going to talk about scripts or film or television because fan fiction is a written medium and there's no reason to discuss this. You can (and did) say that fan fiction draws from these medias. That is fine. The fan fiction is written.
Edit: The OP mentions a movie being made based on like the Max Payne games? Well, I guess I'm wrong on that last point, then. Still, it holds true for the vast majority of fan fiction, and focussing on outliers is pretty meh.
The answer to the OP's question is not "No, fan fiction cannot have merit," but I think "Fan fiction only has merit in very rare cases" is much more accurate.
Is this still less original, somehow, and lacking that certain quality and value intrinsic to originality, despite being ... you know ... more original?
EDIT: There's also gobs and gobs and gobs of terrible fiction. You're probably taking the tack of a previous poster in the thread, though, who admitted that he didn't consider unpublished fiction 'fiction' and so was only comparing published works against unpublished fanfiction, which is hardly fair.
Fanfiction's a tricky one- after all, there's published stuff out there that falls within it. If you go far enough, then you start having to look at things like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
On the whole, I'd say fan work tends to be worse than original stuff, but that doesn't mean there can't be exceptions.
This entire paragraph is contradictory. If it's an improvement on the original how is it not more valuable?
There is good fiction and bad fiction. There are good comics and bad comics. There are good movies and bad movies. In the case of all of them the vast majority are crap. What distinction does fan fiction hold that isn't some arbitrary distinction you're making?
Fiction can take the form of a script, short story, or video. But let's just keep it as a script. Why should a script be considered different? It's the same thing as any other piece of fiction, only structured differently.
Yeah there is definitely terrible fiction, can't really argue against that.
Your hypothetical here is kind of confusing to me. If I have a cast of original characters, and an original setting, and you have a cast of existing characters in an existing setting, then are we looking at the events of the story for originality? If you deviate too terribly far from the canon of the fiction, after all, then it becomes bad fan fiction for not being true to the original work.
I mean, what's the quality of the works in question? Is one a better read than the other? I think the presence of unoriginal characters and ideas is harder to make up for than a dearth of completely unique ideas, if I can word that correctly.
Yes, we are looking at the other elements of the work for originality. Originality in delivery, originality in premise, originality in the fields endemic to fanfiction (creative manipulation of and within the canon while not deviating from it).
Sometimes fanfiction is only slightly worse for deviating from the canon. Another prolific Earthbound fanfic focused on the fact that all enemy NPCs that would attack you (those under the 'influence' of The Big Bad) had sprites hued blue, and wove a tale of out-of-control discrimination and how the world was not ready to deal with a black-and-white morality system that people wore on their sleeves. This deviates from the canon in that the player of the video game never encounters these situations, but the deviation is excused by the fact the adventures of the players never incorporate social interactions on this scope. If anything, the story adds a layer of perception to the canon by giving the reader a new perspective from which to view some events of the game, without having technically changed anything.
This is probably one of those fanfictions that, with a few changes, could have 'stood on its own.' However, the person received the inspiration for the idea from the work in question and chose to first write this work using elements of that source material. It's still a highly-original piece borrowing very few concepts from the original work -- however, it is borrowing one or more concepts and doing so shamelessly so it is fanfiction. Why is it inherently unoriginal for those few lifted concepts and chosen audience?
Let's not take things out of context. (I could have made 'and whatever' more specific, though.)
Probably degree. It's pretty difficult to find fan fiction that isn't fans just wanking all over the place.
Fiction can take the form of a script, short story, or video. But let's just keep it as a script. Why should a script be considered different? It's the same thing as any other piece of fiction, only structured differently.[/QUOTE]
A script is a script and isn't meant to be read as a piece of literature so much as it's meant to be a baseline from which to make a film. Do you think The Dark Knight would've been nearly as awesome if we had
Why so serious?
I used 'a complete dearth of unique' ideas to describe a piece of original writing that, like most writing, is still influenced (more or less heavily) by other sources, but never outright implements foreign ideas directly.
I think, even with that sort of writing, a piece of work is still on better grounds than a work which takes directly from another source, all things being equal otherwise.
The 'all things being equal otherwise' is important. If a piece of fan fiction is fantastic and a piece of original fiction is shit then the piece of fan fiction is better. I am not saying otherwise, here.
I think if your hypothetical requires things to not be equal, then it's not really worth discussing at all.
Yeah, a superior work is going to be superior. Whee.
A work of fanfiction, according to you, is inherently worse than an original work because it uses someone else's ideas in some non-zero fashion. However!, if those ideas came from the public domain, or if the author received a slip of paper allowing he or she to use those ideas, the fanfiction no longer suffers that penalty.
What?
I mean, give it a try, no?
All things being equal otherwise, is a licensed piece of fiction in someone else's universe worse than a completely original piece of fiction?
I did say I make a habit of not reading licensed work, too, didn't I?
Tried to read Wicked, couldn't finish it. Just can't bring myself to pick up Star Wars or Star Trek novels.
I guess I just have a soft spot for old stuff in public domain being reworked. You're right, though -- if I want to be fair, I need to recognize that the author is relying on someone else's ideas to tell his story (which is less cool.)
No, I don't, because you haven't explained why originality is the be-all, end-all of literature anyway. Shakespeare wasn't original, for christsakes.
Some fanfic writers might do that, yes. But not all of them choose to base their writing on a pre-existing setting just to get a boost in readership. There are many who simply enjoy a particular pre-existing fictional setting and like writing stories within it, even if they have few readers, or no readers at all. Which means that there is nothing inherently exploitational to fanfic.
Ah, so you're of the Sherlock Holmes "The mind is like an attic" persuasion. I disagree. There are many original writers who start out writing fanfiction, and there are many fanfiction writers who prefer to stick to their own medium and don't want to write original fiction. You're assuming that without fanfic, all of these people would be putting their efforts into writing original fiction, and that's simply not the case.
Axiomatic = I pulled this out of my ass.
And SPACE WAR LESBIANS would not be the same story without the weight of the Star Wars story behind it. For many writers, that's the point; having the source material allows you to do more interesting, even artistic things while using a cultural shorthand, much like fairy tale imaginings. For example, I once read a very interesting Star Wars story (licensed, but still fanfiction) about Boba Fett's experience inside the Sarlacc. Now, if this was going to be original, with the serial numbers filed off, the author would have had to establish who Boba Fett is, who Han Solo is, who Jabba the Hutt is, what the Sarlacc is, what a Jedi is, the environment of Tattoine, the politics of the Empire, etc., and this short, affecting little story would have been a bloated behemoth without any of the traditional plot structure of a long novel. It would have been boring. Using preexisting elements lets the writer be more creative within that framework, not less. Or do you hate sonnets for having more limits than free verse, too?
Profit, now there's a funny word. By profit, do you mean "make you money"? Fanfiction mostly won't do that unless you're writing for a canon that accepts fan-submissions, but then you're limited even further by the license-holder's wishes. Not everyone wants to write for money, either, and I'm not about to say that someone fueled only by mercenary desires is a better person than someone who writes for the fun of it. Do you mean "improves your writing skills"? Fanfiction as a writing exercise is pretty great, as you can focus just on the areas you need to improve (say, writing dialogue or somesuch). I've written plenty of fanfiction as an assignment for class, and this was in college. Profit meaning "for enjoyment"? Obviously people enjoy writing fanfiction, and this is subjective, anyway. If you want to say "Well, they'd enjoy writing original fiction more," who gave you the mind-reading device? People have different motivations than you do for their writing. Deal with it.
As a matter of fact, I've read Of Mice and Men fanfic. It's not as prevalent as, say, Harry Potter, but that's probably because fewer people have read and liked Of Mice and Men that are inclined to write fanfic.
Besides, you don't get to use "instinctively" unless you can cite evidence. There's no "instinct" for "this work of art is not to be messed with." You just get squicked by it and want to project your squick onto other people.
Now we're arguing tastes. Plus, you have no idea if she'd be better if she wrote less Star Trek. She might be worse.
And I don't think she needs to worry about coming up with original ideas. Have you ever read the Young Wizards books? Excellent, imaginative YA fiction with vivid characters and a well-fleshed-out world.
And sometimes fanfiction writers honestly think that fanfiction is the best vehicle for what they're trying to say. I haven't met any who use it as their "sole avenue for relating to the world;" far from it.
Having said that, originality is important. Unless the point is just cheap thrills--which is okay, I guess, but I'm quite happy to say that anything (fanfic or otherwise) written for cheap thrills has very little merit--any written work ought to be carefully crafted in every respect. The words need to be chosen properly, the setting needs to be established thoughtfully, the characters need to be developed with specific and considered intentions. Crafting an original work lets you do all of these things. Using an existing work means that in most cases something gets shoehorned in that doesn't belong*. It might be a plot element incongruent with the setting, it might be a character trait that defies established conventions in the source work, it might be something else. Because the source work already told the story the author was trying to tell, everything about it fits (or should fit, if it's good) with that story, not the one some fans might wish it had told or would tell.
That does not mean that any work that uses the framework of an existing work is doomed to run into those problems. I don't know the first thing about Earthbound, but it seems like Oboro's piece that won that award might not have committed any errors. Also, someone might flout all of the conventions of an existing work in an attempt to subvert it and make a particular point. Once you start going that route though, I think you're leaving the realm of fanfiction and getting into parody, satire or other forms of commentary.
Originality is not the most important thing when creating a written work, but it does lend itself well to superior craft.
It doesn't matter if the fanfiction writer means to be exploitative or not, they're still getting all the benefits from someone else's hard work.
_____________
*Licensed fiction, because I know that's going to come up, runs into these sorts of problems as well, but the hope is usually that the owners of the license will ensure that the derivative work works within the established universe. That said, I think a majority of licensed fiction leans pretty heavily towards the "cheap thrills" side of things anyway, so comparing that to fanfiction isn't all that helpful if you're looking to show merit.
Don't try to sidestep the question. Acting has fuck all to do with the quality of the scripts. Would the script for TDK, had it not been approved by Warner Brothers, been automatically worth less than any of the tripe scripts created for the 1960s Batman, the more "original" of the two?
Intention does matter. If a fanficer writes a story in order to directly profit from it, then that would be exploitation. But if they write a story just for the joy of writing it, and maybe to share it with fellow fans, then no, that isn't exploitation.