Yes, I actually agree with you on both platforms. Where you and the creator differ is an interesting interstice, because often (if you too are creative) it's the sparking-off point for something new, even potentially equally valid, in which you can address these issues. There's a case to be made for fanfiction as critique, so long as you don't expect the creator to A) accept your revisions and copy them back into their text or B) adjust themselves accordingly, next time 'round. I would've liked to have seen what C.S. Lewis thought of that Gaiman story, for example--or some of Mary Borsellino's more wrenching what-if-Jadis-won stuff--but that's not possible; I'd like to see what Gaiman thought of some of the revisionings of his own work I've come across. Phillip Pullman probably doesn't care, not least because every piece of fic I've seen set in his world tends to agree with him rather than disagree.
And yeah, I think it's valid to feel betrayed by canon if you genuinely think you could argue it point by point with the author: What about this dangling thread? Why does this characterization suddenly seem to change in order to bring about a plot-point which could have been done another, less annoying way? Where we get into trouble, though, is when the sense of "betrayal" becomes toxic. I've literally seen people accuse an author of intentionally fishing them in and playing them along just so they can kick them in the figurative crotch, and...um, no. While I think we all have our little ways, I don't believe anybody does that pre-meditatively; by accident, possibly. By not thinking out all the potential combinations of people who might be reading and how they might react (ie, What do you mean, ladies who've been raped might not want to read about rape? What do you mean, non-default people might not want a non-default villain to be their only representation?). And even if they do, they sure as hell aren't thinking of you, in particular, when they do it!
For me, it always comes back to a fellow reviewer I knew who objected to a scene in Con Air that seemed to put a cild in jeopardy, not because she found it gross and manipulative per se, but because it reminded her of the fact that her own daughter had died of leukemia. How is anyone writing a screenplay (especially an action-movie screenplay) supposed to do that math, exactly? They aren't, any more than the author of Hope Floats knew I, personally, was a child of divorce and would find a particular scene in which a girl runs screaming after her father's car triggery. At points like these, you need to step away from the material, re-group, slap on filters, and just do what you came here to do: Assess the material for what it is, no more, no less. Not what you want it to be. Not what it evokes in you. Not what it was never meant to be.
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And yeah, I think it's valid to feel betrayed by canon if you genuinely think you could argue it point by point with the author: What about this dangling thread? Why does this characterization suddenly seem to change in order to bring about a plot-point which could have been done another, less annoying way? Where we get into trouble, though, is when the sense of "betrayal" becomes toxic. I've literally seen people accuse an author of intentionally fishing them in and playing them along just so they can kick them in the figurative crotch, and...um, no. While I think we all have our little ways, I don't believe anybody does that pre-meditatively; by accident, possibly. By not thinking out all the potential combinations of people who might be reading and how they might react (ie, What do you mean, ladies who've been raped might not want to read about rape? What do you mean, non-default people might not want a non-default villain to be their only representation?). And even if they do, they sure as hell aren't thinking of you, in particular, when they do it!
For me, it always comes back to a fellow reviewer I knew who objected to a scene in Con Air that seemed to put a cild in jeopardy, not because she found it gross and manipulative per se, but because it reminded her of the fact that her own daughter had died of leukemia. How is anyone writing a screenplay (especially an action-movie screenplay) supposed to do that math, exactly? They aren't, any more than the author of Hope Floats knew I, personally, was a child of divorce and would find a particular scene in which a girl runs screaming after her father's car triggery. At points like these, you need to step away from the material, re-group, slap on filters, and just do what you came here to do: Assess the material for what it is, no more, no less. Not what you want it to be. Not what it evokes in you. Not what it was never meant to be.