Retrospective

RETRO FANFIC RETROSPECTIVE PODCAST

2 Jan 2020

In December 2019 I stumbled upon a podcast series called Retro Fanfic Retrospective. The premise is simple: "Three friends read old fanfiction that they think might be good. Sometimes they are right. Sometimes they are not."

And to my surprise, ANATEXIS was featured in Episode 22, where they discussed Gundam Wing (posted Feb 2019).

RFR on ANATEXIS

Before I go into what the RFR verdict was, I should say I've been incredibly lucky with ANATEXIS. Over the years, reader feedback has been generous and sometimes deeply moving. But if I'm honest with myself, readers who make the effort to comment are a self-selecting group. They don't dwell on what was mediocre, and we miss an opportunity to learn from that.

So I really enjoyed RFR getting into the fic's flaws. I think the criticisms were fair and came from a mix of viewpoints - 2 of the panellists loved GW from when it was broadcast on Cartoon Network (2000); the other 2 had little prior knowledge of GW specifically, but were au fait with mecha series. None had read GW fics before and they approached the review with objective distance. Just to sum up:

The bad (in terms of structure, setup)

• Overly complex - certain threads don't go anywhere, confusing chronology

• New characters are introduced, then disappear, then reappear, hard to keep track

• No clear distinction between the 2 epilogues

The ugly (in terms of character treatment)

• A few key players regress from canon characterisation, e.g. Wufei and Une

• A few seem completely out-of-character, notably Quatre and Noin

The good

• Writing serves the narrative, no purple prose

• Captures the overall 'Gundam feel', some memorable callbacks to GW & Endless Waltz

My Thoughts

On the plot

ANATEXIS does get convoluted, with numerous plot threads. Part of it was down to the serial format, with me discovering the plot as I went along. Part of it was thematic: that best-laid plans go awry for everyone, government and rebels alike. I don't think I've mentioned this before, but a major influence was Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. What's fascinating about Crichton novels is that chance events snowball into unprecedented crises. In Jurassic Park, an outwardly robust system descends into chaos, while the heroes (and the dinosaurs!) must continually adapt for survival. Failures similarly manifest in ANATEXIS and drive the narrative, and Chapter 11 pays special homage to the idea of 'entropy'.

Still, events which confound the characters can also confound the reader. I recently pieced together ANATEXIS's full chronology; the confusion arises less from the timeline and more from the large cast (also something RFR picked up on). Even though mostly told in order, the story has to jump between groups of characters and locations. I agree it's easy to get lost.

On the characterisations

Given that so many things spin out of control in ANATEXIS, an accompanying theme is how people respond to intense stress. For Une, her dual personalities are a survival mechanism. Certainly she has combined them before in GW and does so again at the end of the fic, but she adopts one or the other to endure the terrible conditions in Stonebridge.

Noin's defining trait is her loyalty to people rather than to ideologies. This is what makes her so protective of her Lake Victoria students, and what binds her to Zechs and later Relena, even though Cinq is clearly a sinking ship (pun intended by GW creators). These same instincts play out on the mining colony PK-23. I feel Noin is still within-character, but understand the disappointment for fans who want to see more of her skill in the cockpit.

I'll come clean: Quatre owes more to Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean's epic film and the historical T.E. Lawrence) than the GW anime. So his characterisation deviated most from the canon. Lawrence was not a pacifist. But like Quatre he was conflicted about his identity and his role in the war. Brutal groundfighting in the Arab Revolt and political machinations between Britain/France soon disabused his romantic view of warfare. Following the Tafas massacre in which the Ottoman army slaughtered civilians, Lawrence told his men for the first time to take no Turkish prisoners. In this significant event, he ceased to be an objective British officer. In the film retelling, Peter O'Toole brilliantly portrays Lawrence giving in to vengeance and wrestling with his own bloodlust. It's a crazed ZERO moment, really, and this scene was my totem for writing Quatre as 'The Leader' of the Desert Corps.

As for Wufei, much hinges on whether readers/viewers were convinced by his Endless Waltz battle dialogue with Heero. Could that short exchange really have resolved the anger and insecurity that trailed Wufei throughout the series? Perhaps... But perhaps not, and ANATEXIS plays out some of the possibilities.

The writing landscape, 2000

The RFR podcast surfaced some long-buried memories about writing ANATEXIS in 2000. I just wanted to touch on two things.

1) The fic's "alienated and cold" feel

I was a university student back in 2000 and travelled several times a year for field study. In hindsight, much of that travel (in the middle of nowhere, often alone, sometimes in the dark) contributed to the sense of desolation in ANATEXIS. During one spell of especially grim weather in Scotland, I had my first experience of fever dreaming. Probably left a mark *wry chuckle*.

2) What is a 'representative' GW fic?

GW fandom is strongly rooted in shounen ai / yaoi. And ANATEXIS is not. I don't want to be reductive; the best shounen ai fics are never just about romance, they are action-adventures, social dramas, fantasy epics... In a very crowded space, I wonder if ANATEXIS stood out largely for being a medium-length thriller with more violence than intimacy :D

ANATEXIS was also an oddity for prominently featuring Wufei. Whether you consider him protagonist or antagonist, we must remember that Wufei was fic poison for a long time, ignored by most and actively hated by some. It's both surprising and satisfying to see him better appreciated these days. Rather a similar situation to Relena, I might add.

In sum, perhaps ANATEXIS's weirdness has made it more memorable to readers, and I'm grateful for that. I don't think it was representative of the era. But it was the fic I wanted to read and which noone else wanted to write, and I plunged in. 20 years on, I'm glad I did.