The Perils of Pedantry

[Galadriel55]

First, I have to apologize, because I am making this post without having fully caught up to the thread, and what I have read was in bits and pieces. But a couple thoughts occurred to me which I will try to put down before they all buzz away out the other ear.

It occurs to me that sometimes what appears as pedantry may just be an attempt to express dissatisfaction with something much greater, but something that is perhaps difficult to articulate or put into words. You know this feels wrong, but you can't quite articulate why. And then you start listing all the reasons that are easier to define and therefore express, but are not themselves at the core of your dissatisfaction (i.e. had you seen this exact thing in a different adaptation which actually fulfilled your overall vision, you may be more inclined to forgive it rather than denounce it). I know I am guilty of this, because I struggle to express what it is that drives the feeling of wrongness - because it is not one scene, or one character, or one costume design. However, it's hard to even identify those emotions more concretely, much less express the emotion and the cause for it. So instead I end up ranting about specific examples of the wrongness, which individually could all be forgiven if there is a wholesome core, and which therefore appear as somewhat pedantic critiques or mini-tantrums. Which I suppose they are - it's a bit like a hungry child won't tell you he's hungry but will start tantruming at every excuse because of the discomfort he can't quite attribute yet and cannot yet express. While some pedantry can be toxic and disheartening, some of it stems from feeling hurt but perhaps not being able to quite say where or why.

(This thought was inspired by William's post here. And I feel like these blooming debates and discussions have been very good and very healthy, and if nothing else then they've helped me better define what I feel and why - a number of times recently, finding myself at loss to express a vague sense, I see a post by another Downer who puts it into words which make me go "That's it!")


The other thought I had was in reaction to someone bringing up Austen forums and pedantically criticizing Darcy's tailcoats (). And I thought it was so interesting that this should be brought up, because just last month I have finally found a film version of Pride and Prejudice which I liked. And it had nothing to do with the costumes, or the dialogue (most of them quote from the book for the majority of it), but the acting and the sense you got of the characters as you watch them. My favourite scene is Elizabeth vs Catherine (who knows the story will know what I mean). And if I see a rattled Elizabeth close to tears, or a plainly rude Elizabeth, I feel disappointed - because that's not Elizabeth. And last month I finally found one where Elizabeth was actually Elizabeth - smouldering anger but so very controlled, and smiling and not losing her composure but clearly holding her own and making her meaning show. And that's interesting because like I said, most versions of this scene quote from the book, so on the script it's all "canonical" throughout! I couldn't care less what colour her dress was or what hairstyle Catherine wore - this was an Elizabeth and a Catherine I recognized by the air of the scene, the emotions they radiated. It made me so happy. But what happens when a character is not someone you recognize? I get disappointed, hurt, angry, upset, dissatisfied, conflicted. And sometimes I can say what makes me unhappy. Sometimes it's just wrong, but the wrongness is harder to define. Sometimes it's not one character but something bigger, and the bigger it is the harder it gets. Am I a pedant for wanting the characters' temperaments in P&P to be just so, and visibly so too? Perhaps. But it's clearly possible to achieve. It's possible to achieve with Tolkien too - there are multiple fanfics and adaptations of sorts which I enjoy despite even outright deviations, because the heart is there, the core is wholesome. It's clearly possible to achieve, it's not an impossible standard. But when you ask the question of why something fails to meet that standard and you don't quite know, it's easier to blame it on the lace on Elizabeth's dress than to put into words the deeper undercurrents that are the true reason for your emotions. And sometimes the impulse is to try and "fix" the problem - pretend that if something was done differently, the show would be so much better. But when it comes to it, sometimes you can put all the lace you want on Elizabeth's dress, it still won't make her Elizabeth. In the same way, even if a bunch of trivial details in RoP were made "more true to canon", it would not necessarily make the show a better Tolkien adaptation - but we can't help but try to make it more like the version we would wish to see, and change the things that are again easy to change but are alas only lace when it comes down to it.