Expressing Love of Fiction Through Subversion

Have you ever heard of the old adage that there are no new ideas in media? Movies, books, cartoons, television shows, comic books, manga, anime; All of them are riddled with examples of borrowed ideas and overused tropes and cliches. It is too a point where you can sit down and watch a movie or a show and figure out exactly what direction it’s going to take just by reading the patterns that are being laid out. The characters and settings may change but the plot itself is relatively the same. The same ground is being retread. The same template of patterns are being followed. The same recipe is being used. The only differences are the little nuances and particular creative choices that the creator chooses to use within that framework, that template, that recipe.

Most consumers of these products are entirely fine with this, and that’s entirely fine. There is nothing inherently wrong about enjoying the status quo and indulging in familiar patterns you find to your liking. Such people tend not to enjoy the musings of head canons or speculations as to possible directions of a given pattern in their media because they simply want to enjoy it at face value. You can find such sentiments almost anywhere on the internet.

However, I find my enjoyment in something else entirely.

I don’t throw out the tropes. I don’t disregard the pattern. I don’t get rid of the recipe.

I question everything about it, right down to why it exists in the first place. I like to break it down until I reach its barest components. I challenge every single message and expectation those familiar patterns have to offer until something new can be gleaned from it.

In this way I can say with great confidence that I am a subversive thinker when it comes to fiction.

Subversion is such a fascinating tool. It accepts the patterns that are established, but it questions the conclusion that those patterns want you to come too. It asks questions of fiction that it never intended you to ask of it. It takes the plot holes and the surrounding information and it uses cold and calculating logic to fill up those literary gaps.

The importance of subversive writing is to remain true to the patterns that the original already established, but flip the expectations of those patterns in an entirely new and more realistic direction.

One rather popular example of subversive fiction recently was Puella Magi Madoka Magicka. In it, they took the typical tropes of a magical girl anime and they questioned why those patterns where there.

In a typical magical girl anime, a small creature shows up in front of a girl and offers her powers so she can fight the forces of evil. The motives of why this girl accepts this power may differ, as does the reasons behind the small creature offering it, but all in all this is the standard fare for this type of show.

Puella Magi interrogated these tropes.
-Who are these small creatures? Why are they giving out powers to little girls? Why little girls? What are their motives? What are they getting out of this deal? Doesn’t this seem like a Faustian bargain?

-What are these girls giving up in exchange for this power? Why do they accept the power in the first place? What is in it for them to take on the forces of evil?

-What are the forces of evil in this context? Where do they come from? How do they relate to the small creatures? How do they relate to the little girls? Why is it that this situation requires these evil entities be fought by these girls in the first place?

Suddenly this cute premise for a light hearted anime becomes something much more unsettling, especially as these questions get answered one after another.

The following is spoilers for Puella Magi Madoka Magicka
Who are the small creatures and what do they get out of the deal? Well they are an emotionless collective whom are trying to combat the entropy of the universe. In order to combat entropy they need to replace the energy that is lost over time. That is where the magical girls come in. These creatures are able to convert emotions into raw power, however as they are unable to feel on their own they had to seek out creatures that could feel a wide variety of emotions. Human girls that are in their second stage of development offer enough power with their emotional spectrum that they entirely circumvent the laws of thermodynamics. They create far more energy than they consume.

In order to utilize this power, they offer these girls a “wish” in exchange for their souls. This wish utilizes their raw magical potential to make the wish a reality, and the energy that is dispersed by them from that wish and from that point forward replenishes the universe.

However the girls eventually succumb to despair due to the nature of their wishes. They are made to suffer for an equivalent to the amount of pain they caused. The greater the wish, the greater the despair. In this despair the magical girl then becomes a Witch, the main enemy the magical girls are tasked to fight when they are given their wish in the first place. These girls who believed they were doing good for their families or themselves end up becoming the very monsters they fight, and the universe benefits by all the new energy being introduced into it, combating entropy in the process. They are sacrificed for the greater good of the universe.

See how interesting that premise is? Even though the same tropes from a happy magical girl anime are being used, they take it in this darker and more nuanced direction that is not as clearly black and white as the original recipe would like you to believe.

The same can be done with any form of trope heavy media. Even MLP has questions that are left unanswered that can be taken to a more logical and ambiguous place, changing the tone of the entire show entirely.

What is the Tree of Harmony? Where does it come from? Why did it hand out the elements of harmony to the ponies? What does it get out of this agreement with them? What is its end game?

What are cutie marks? Why do only ponies and one zebra we know about have them? How do the equal sign cutie marks relate to them? Why were the mane six’s memories swapped when their cutie marks were swapped? What are their purpose? Why are the cutie marks utilized by the Tree of Harmony? Why do they show ponies what their purpose and special talent is? Is it related to the deal they made with the Tree of Harmony? Why did the mane six get their cutie marks at the same time? Was it planned to happen that way? If it was planned why did the alternate realities happen?

What are the elements of harmony? Why does the Tree create them for ponies? Why are they so powerful? Why does it choose those specific ponies to use them? What is its end game giving this weapon to ponies? Why was it taken away from the two princesses?

Where does Spike come from? Where did Celestia get his egg? Why does he grow whenever he succumbs to greed? Why is his fire breath connected to Celestia’s magic? When did that connection happen? Why were they using his egg in that test? Who were his parents? Is his egg related to the Tree of Harmony’s plan? If so how?

Why does Applejack keep pigs and sheep and cows on her farm even though they are sapient? What are their social status among pony kind? Why does AJ refer to them as critters? Why were they corralled and escorted during an alternate timeline when the ponies were at war? Are they owned by the ponies? If so why?

I could go on and on. It’s more than just nitpicking; It’s questioning things that the piece of fiction wants you to accept at face value and then building answers that both work with the existing tropes but take it in a realistic and even dark/ambiguous direction. I’ve used all of those aforementioned questions in fanfictions before and I have many more besides. It is a way of fleshing out the world of the fiction and showing it in a new and compelling light.

It really is its own art form to take the established tropes and expectations and burrowing into them until you can make a whole new story based on the questions they choose not to answer. As fiction grows ever more homogeneous, and more and more patterns become even more familiar to the general audience, it is vital to the health of fiction as a whole to constantly challenge and break down these preconceived ideas and glean new pathways and story concepts from them. By delving into the building blocks of the things that have been created by others, you can grow and branch out entirely new concepts and patterns that will lead to their own growth of new stories and familiar tropes to come.

People see what I write and they question whether or not I love the story that is being portrayed. They do not understand why breaking down and questioning a given work of fiction in such a subversive way is actually a love letter to the original in my eyes. These stories captivated people's attentions with the tropes they established and the characters they created. All subversive writing does is take those things that people love and cherish and digs into them until their subtle or even unintentional undertones are brought to the surface and presented to the world to see.

Subversion in this way, is a vital component to the future of the creative process. It is the method that will breathe new life into the tired tropes and stories of old, and even bring in the new ideas that people seem to believe have been lost as of late. New concepts and takes on stories are there. All you have to do is dig hard enough to spot them.