Responding to me, Fiona wrote:

...

My personal opinion is that both h/c and slash are *valid* ways of exploring the characters

This is a genuine and serious question, I am *not* taking the mick-- how is it valid to the character to read in a relationship which most people seem to agree isn't there-- including the people who write those stories? I mean, I personally can see it as a fun thing to do for a bit of fantasy, but I don't see the character-exploration bit.

OK. I think this is a perfectly reasonable question, but it's one that I see as having a rather complicated answer, so I'm afraid this is going to be kind of a long post.

WARNING: I am going to talk about slash here. (I assume that it's slash you're referring to above, Fiona, not h/c, which, as several people have said, isn't at all the same thing.) I am going to do so *only* because I was asked a serious and reasonable question about it by someone who (as far as I know) is not on the Other List. I am going to try to be as neutral and non-inflammatory as I possibly can; believe me, I have *no* desire to offend anybody. For anyone who dislikes reading about this topic at all, I urge you to please hit "delete" or scroll down your digest to the next post now.

I'd also like to make it very clear that all of the below is *very* much IMHO, that I am aware that others (including people who read and/or write slash) have different opinions, and different interpretations of the B7 canon. (For instance, there certainly are people who *do* see a slash relationship between Avon and Blake in what's on the screen, certainly much more than I do. I don't claim to speak for them or for anybody but myself.)

I also should amend my wording from the previous post, I should have said that I think slash *can be* a valid way of exploring the characters. Sometimes it is simply "a fun thing to do for a bit of fantasy," and sometimes it's done badly and thus isn't a valid example of anything much besides bad fanfic. :) Also, I'm going to pretty much confine myself to talking about A/B slash, mainly because that's what I'm most familiar with.

Right. All that having been said, here's my take on why slash *can* be a valid mechanism for exploring the characters, IMHO:

To begin with, I, personally, do not think that the canon actually points to there being a homosexual relationship between the characters. I *also* think, however, that there's nothing in the canon to rule out the possibility. And there are certain things that, if one is so inclined (and your friend's "gaydar" notwithstanding), can be read as suggestive, at the very least, of a certain degree of sexual tension (particularly on Avon's part). Again, while I don't think canon actively supports the possibility, I don't think it rules it out, either. I don't even think it's terribly implausible. Which makes it, IMO, as reasonable a thing to speculate on as any other possibility which is left open by the canon. A good comparison, actually, would be the one you brought up about "The Mark of Kane"'s take on Gan. There's nothing in canon that actually indicates that Gan was a serial killer before he got the implant, but there's nothing (in my interpretation) that rules it out, either, and there *are* things you can point to as possibly being suggestive of it, if you're inclined to see them that way. It's a possibility that some people (including me) are bound to find disturbing, but IMO it's a valid speculation that can open up some interesting new perspectives on the character. I see slash very much the same way.

Assuming, for the sake of the story, that there *is* a sexual element to the relationship can allow the writer (and the reader) to explore character possibilities that wouldn't necessarily come up in a gen story, or to explore them in different ways than a gen story might. For example, a slash writer might be interested in issues of control and dominance in the Avon-Blake relationship, and choose to explore this by looking at who is in control in the bedroom. Depending on what approach the author takes, the sex might serve as a metaphor for their larger relationship, it might serve as a deliberate contrast to their behavior on the flight deck (possibly exploring *why* they behave the way they do there), or it might be the means by which they resolve the control issues they have with each other. That's just one example. Other writers might choose to explore other aspects of the relationship (and frequently do). Personally, while I generally regard slash stories as AU, I think they can be *very* interesting and (please excuse the pun!) fruitful "what if" exercises. There have certainly been slash stories which made me think very hard about my own take on the characters and on their relationship.

Does that make sense to you, Fiona? I could go on, but I don't want to belabor the issue too much if I've already managed to make my own POV clear.

-- Betty Ragan ** bragan@nrao.edu ** http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~bragan Not speaking for my employers, officially or otherwise. "Seeing a rotten picture for the special effects is like eating a tough steak for the smothered onions..." -- Isaac Asimov