Browsing by Author "Haasio, Armi"

This thesis focuses on Supernatural, an American TV show, and the fan texts surrounding it. My main focus will be on fanworks concentrating on the series, especially fan fiction of the series and how these fan texts alter, add, fix and defy the series. Using Gerald Prince’s concept of the disnarrated (1988), I will explore the hypothetical worlds, what could have happened but did not, what goals were not reached, and how these are presented in fan fiction. I will also apply Marie-Laure Ryan’s theory of possible worlds (1991), and look at what kind of relationships these alternate worlds produce in relation to Supernatural’s canon, as well as what kind of different alternate worlds Supernatural produces inside its canon. When we look at the fanworks of Supernatural, it seems that several patterns emerge. Fan fiction can be divided into several genres, sub-genres, and/or categories that overlap, but in general, some structural choices and narratives can be named. Certain plot points appear more popular than others, and certain things are almost unwritten of. Fan fiction has its own popular conventions and tropes that are repeated, much like genre conventions of romance, for example. I introduce a sliding scale of fan fiction in relation to its canon. Canon-based fic, timeline alteration/canon divergent fic, canon-based alternate universes, and independent alternate universes each use the framework of canon, but draw from different textual alternate potential worlds. However, it is evident that not all possible worlds are equal, or equally promoted due to hierarchy of fandom. Each of these fic types establishes a different relationship to canon, and speculates and/or reacts to it differently. When we look at fan fiction, it becomes clear that different authors seek to explore different things about canon: add storylines that they think should be in canon but are not, fix things that they think went wrong in canon, speculate about the characters dreams/hopes/wishes/regrets and grant the characters some emotional fulfillment in this regard, or even alter the characters’ world in order to explore how the change of the universe affects the characters.