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luna-mistrunner · 3 years

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@ultranos and @raksha-the-demon said they’d be interested in this so here you go: an extended review of chapter 1 that I’d be embarrassed to put anywhere except my personal blog

It's time for It's Not That Deep with me, Luna, who graduated with an BFA in English (Creative Writing) and no authority on the subject! We’re going to be analyzing the sun don’t shine underground, chapter 1 I guess bc I wrote like 4 whole pages and decided that was too much.

Mostly, I’m going to be looking at what I think is effective in this fic because I don’t really feel like getting into things that I don’t think are satisfying in stories. If I wanted to do that, I’d just read something I don’t like, which isn’t this fic. I actually like it a lot. But just because I like something doesn’t mean I’ll structure anything well, so take my opinions with a grain of salt here.

The main draw of the fic, for me, was in fact the characterization choices they made. This is probably a given as the fic’s premise is a “roleswap AU,” which implies a focus on characterization from the outset. It’s useful to point out the author’s chosen narrative style in this case, because the way the narrative is structured is a part of the author’s effectiveness as well as what makes the fic stand out to me.

I graduated several months ago, but in the past 6 or so months, my brains have left through my nose I think, so forgive my lack of intellectual terms in this analysis. No one is paying me and I’m not getting a grade, so I’m doing this for the love of the game. So you get casual analysis, not analysis that I’d put in my graduating thesis.

This story is told in third person limited using present tense, making it a very modern style of narration. This style of narration is very well equipped for carrying the reader along the point of view (POV) character’s emotional journey, experiences, and thoughts. It also makes it easy to add character voice to the narration because the reader is placed in their thoughts and actions moment to moment. The author takes advantage of this often throughout the story (all chapters) and makes good use of each POV break. As a character study, each section of the story is effective because the characters are described both in explicit narrative terms and in the way sentences are structured to create that content. You know when it’s Toph’s turn, even before she’s named on the page, for instance.

This choice, or instinct, perhaps, is helpful in establishing original characters and recontextualizing preexisting characters who experience a dramatic change in their role. You are allowed into the character’s mind and follow their thought process as they experience their world, so you are forced to make room for this person’s voice and learn it.

This is helpful, for instance, with establishing this story’s Azula and Iroh –– both of whom certainly have their own strong characterizations in the original story, but who may not have been as deeply explored in canon as, say, Aang, who has an entire spiritual arc over the course of the series. Ursa, the featured character in chapter 1, will be the example I’ll be using for now.

The reader, presumably a fan of the original Avatar: the Last Airbender series, already knows Ursa and knows Azula and doesn’t need an introduction to them. Except, they do here, because they’re simultaneously very different and very much the same as in canon. Changing aspects of a character’s context should change their reactions, actions, thought processes, internal rules if done right. Some may criticize this kind of fanfiction as taking a character, keeping the name, and making a new character –– thereby overwriting or reducing the original character and their value. However, I’d argue that this isn’t true –– context is everything when it comes to the creation and writing of a story, a setting, a character. Being able to rewrite a character well within a new context is the mark of really understanding the character and being able to know what they’d do if things are different.

That’s probably a side note, though.

Chapter 1 of the sun don’t shine underground requires your understanding of these characters as a fan of the series. It’s not just because the narration doesn’t waste time on unnecessary detail that most published original fiction often diverts to, disrupting narrative flow. (You could argue that TSDSU does this as well as higher quality published fiction does, because world details are rewritten to authorial taste –– I could write on that too). It’s also because this initial understanding of the characters’ roles creates the expectation that the fic eventually subverts to establish its premise.

I will take this moment to establish a philosophical argument on fiction vs fanfiction. At the time of writing, subverting expectations and tropes has become popular for some reason in published media. However, media that goes out of its way to subvert tropes as an edgy statement against what was previously established usually doesn’t make for a good story because, in writing original fiction, it is not your job to subvert anything yet. You are supposed to create something that stands on its own –– you create the canon yourself. Creating something meant entirely to be subversive makes the thing inherently derivative. This is somewhat problematic in original works that aren’t satire, but not when it comes to fanfiction, and especially not when it comes to Alternative Universe and Canon Divergent fanfiction.

the sun don’t shine underground subverts expectations of characters’ motives and interpretations of events that we know happen in canon. It does this well because of the things that are established about the characters in canon. The author has identified details and extrapolated from them, expanding on implications that are interesting within the context of the original narrative and carrying them to their logical conclusion.

Let’s take a specific example from chapter 1. Let’s talk about Ursa and Azula.

Most ATLA fans remember Azula’s quote, “My own mother thought I was a monster. She was right of course, but it still hurt.” It’s probably one of the first times we see how vulnerable Azula really is, and it shows that Ursa was a good mother to Zuko, perhaps, but wasn’t necessarily a good one to Azula. These are implications that are never really taken further in the original canon (I can’t speak for the comics).

Chapter 1 takes that quote and runs with it, probably a couple miles at least. It’s great. I love it. Let’s take Ursa out of this context of being a phantom mother and make her a little more real. Let’s give her some more substance, let’s discuss what it takes to give a girl that impression –– “I’m a monster, it’s true, it hurts, and it’s fine.”

It doesn’t take a lot, it turns out! And we get to see her perspective change, too. I think that’s a good sign here. There are no character assassinations in this story. In fact, all characters here are trying their best in some way. That much is very clear. You could make the very firm claim that all people here are unreliable narrators because, at the heart of this story, no one has the full picture so they’re all a little unreliable. This is also shown through the narrative, where Ursa, as the POV character, describes only what she can see and hear –– things she knows, things she wants, things she interprets through the lens of her own feelings, things that the reader is allowed to know.

Structurally, the author chooses to break flow with (parenthetical statements of truth). For instance, the following:

“Well then,” she hears Ozai say softly. Ursa turns and sees the look on his face. He’s looking at the child with more interest than he ever has. “That is a development. We’ll have to hone that talent, Azula.”

Ozai is looking at his daughter with a look Ursa has never seen before. (That’s a lie.) It’s like he’s seeing her for the very first time. There’s something in his gaze, a calculating hunger, a viper that has found an unattended nest. He smiles at the girl and does not show his teeth.

(Some day, Ursa will remember he looked at the Fire Nation war machines, shining in the sunlight, lined up in perfect rows in the factory, with the same look. The look that weighed lives and costs and blood and potential and gain in some cold equation that only he knew.)

(Today is not that day. Today, Ursa’s attention is on her son, and the way he laughs in delight and swings his sister around in his arms. Today, Ursa only sees the future she wants to see.)

In much of the series, we see Ursa as a supportive, loving mother to Zuko. Zuko is our POV character. Here is our first subversion, made possible by the fact Ursa is our POV character uninterrupted –– Ursa lies. She lies to herself to make herself comfortable, as anyone does and any mother might to make her situation a little more livable. She sees what she wants to see, obliges things that are easier to oblige than the truth. “The girl is only four. What kind of training is she doing that she’s tired out by dinner?” Surely, she thinks, Ozai would tell her if something was wrong. But also, she knows he wouldn’t if it didn’t suit his purposes. The paragraph is interesting, because you read it and you watch her go from asking a question, knowing by instinct that something is wrong, and then watch her justify it all to herself in a few sentences.

Earlier, it’s implied that Ozai does use people for things, is cunning, is ruthless, is harsh, and Ursa has no doubt experienced that firsthand. She is not happy in her marriage, and finds solace in the fact her boy is kinder than her husband. Her daughter, from the outside, seems like her father. Automatically, Ursa clamps onto a certain understanding of Azula –– that she is like Ozai, and that is her nature. Azula stares with some intensity –– that’s a glare, that implies something eerie; there’s something wrong with her. That interpretation is inherently flawed because it does not end with the question, “Why? Because of whom?” She answers it herself, in saying that it’s Azula, it’s Azula’s fault. It’s a pretty common pattern that enables abuse in various real world situations, which is what makes this story rather tragic.

It also implies a certain understanding of Ozai, but not of Azula. It shows that there are things about Ozai that Ursa does not want to know, and she is willing to turn away from Azula to focus on something else that simply is not Ozai. I say that because even the love Ozai shows for his children is not necessarily Ozai, or the Ozai that she knows. Perhaps it’s a side to him, but he’s a man of calculation and purpose. This love is there for a reason; it is not unconditional. Neither is Ursa’s, for that matter, but hers is at least easier to earn and built on more familiar principles.

So, in chapter 1, sections 1-4, we establish Ursa as a well-meaning but flawed mother in a difficult relationship with both her husband and her daughter. There aren’t value judgements placed entirely on the characters throughout the course of the narrative, and there shouldn’t be. Placing them in some sanctimonious way would create a sort of hard edge that the narrative doesn’t need. Instead, the narrative conducts a thorough exploration of these characters’ emotional journeys. Eventually, Ursa does realize that she’s interpreted her daughter’s silences, looks, fire, and behavior in a way that is inaccurate and, you could say, neglectful. Harmful. She feels regret, and she does something as penance –– very Fire Nation of her, really. It’s more characterization than we’ve gotten out of her in anything else, and I enjoy it, but it also characterizes everyone around her.

The fans can read Ursa’s interpretation of her daughter and understand it, because in canon, Azula is cutting, is dangerous, is ruthless. Then we have to ask ourselves why, around the same time she does.

Numbering these sections is such a task but I do it because I have nothing better to do and also, I got so into this story.

Anyway, section 12 goes hard as hell and it’s because the use of the narrative and parentheticals finally shows Ursa coming to a realization not just in some compartmentalized place but on the acceptable surface.

We go from

Azula remains still, just staring at her mother. Her eyes are hunter-cold. (There is something wrong, this is not a child, there are monsters lurking here)

Ursa hears the monster in the center of this maze. She hears it breathing.

“What? Why do you think...?”

She knows what this monster looks like. She thinks she’s known for a very long time.

YOU BET YOUR ASS YOU KNOW URSA GOD DAMMIT that’s what I wanted to say, anyway. As a structure, it’s very pleasing, and because it discards the parentheticals, it allows the thoughts Ursa is having to continue to build up to her revelation without any disruptions. It gives the statement more impact than it would otherwise, so I appreciated this choice. While the use of parenthetical statements to this extent is uncommon in most published fiction from big houses, it works very well because of the stylistic consistency. This is technically a rule in poetry, which regularly breaks standard narrative conventions.

(I stopped writing here because I got tired. If you actually make it to the end of this post, I guess tell me how you feel about the analysis so far.)

#luna.txt #long post #you can really tell i got tired by the end smh #s&a #salt and ashes

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