Apologies for butting in to what seems to be a mostly private discussion here, but I ended up at this post via whitecollarfan's post about it, which I found on the lj friends feed for whitecollarfic. Did that make sense? Anyway, I found this to be some really interesting meta discussion, which I really enjoyed reading, and I had some, I don't know, "very meta?" thoughts on it. Hope you don't mind. :-)
With that in mind, I just wanted to add that I think a lot of the problems some of us (viewers and/or readers & writers of fanfic) are having related to anything to do with what Neal experienced in prison, or what threats to send him back might really mean, *do* come down to what seems to be almost a throwaway line in the Pilot (and the absence of any follow-up on it, because that's not what the show is "about," so to speak, as one of you noted). It's the whole, "Still, it only took you a month and a half to escape a supermax...impressive" line. I honestly have the feeling that Jeff Eastin wrote that line to make what Neal had done (in terms of his escape) more impressive (as opposed to having some idea in his head that Neal really *should* have been in a supermax). And if you read his original Pilot script, in which the show is set in San Diego (which, btw, I can't even imagine at this point ::grin::), the prison actually has a name, and it's an actual, real Federal prison, though it's "just" a standard high security facility and not actually a "supermax" (which is really another whole animal, so to speak).
I think he (JE) also has it in his head that Neal's experience there was not, in fact, what one might expect, what we might read into things based on that supermax line. He alludes to this in a bit of dialogue from the Pilot script that didn't end up in the episode. Peter has gone to the prison to help figure out what Neal is up to, in terms of his unexpected escape. The Marshals are interviewing other inmates while Peter is going through Neal's mail. The lead guy from the Marshals asks Peter how it's going. Peter informs him that Neal may have won a cruise, then asks the marshal how it's going on his side, might Neal have been scared into an escape, to which the reply is, "No, they loved the guy." So, realistic or not, I think in JE's mind (and so presumably the minds of the writing staff) Neal did just fine in prison, managing to charm people there just like he does everywhere else, and so issues related to that are just not part of the canon.
Now how does any of that affect the reading and writing of fanfic? That's probably another question altogether. I mean, does it even "count" since it never made it to the screen? How much weight should one give to authorial intent in this sort of thing? Do we just say, "Uh, Jeff, that doesn't really make sense to us" and carry on with what we think makes more sense? I don't necessarily have an answer to this at the moment, though my inclination would be to go with the fact that since we don't actually have on-screen canon about Neal's time in prison, we can more or less interpret it how we will. Regardless, I thought it was at least interesting to have some insight into what the writers might be working with in their own minds. Mileage, obviously, may vary. :-)
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momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2010-03-20 03:23 pm (UTC)With that in mind, I just wanted to add that I think a lot of the problems some of us (viewers and/or readers & writers of fanfic) are having related to anything to do with what Neal experienced in prison, or what threats to send him back might really mean, *do* come down to what seems to be almost a throwaway line in the Pilot (and the absence of any follow-up on it, because that's not what the show is "about," so to speak, as one of you noted). It's the whole, "Still, it only took you a month and a half to escape a supermax...impressive" line. I honestly have the feeling that Jeff Eastin wrote that line to make what Neal had done (in terms of his escape) more impressive (as opposed to having some idea in his head that Neal really *should* have been in a supermax). And if you read his original Pilot script, in which the show is set in San Diego (which, btw, I can't even imagine at this point ::grin::), the prison actually has a name, and it's an actual, real Federal prison, though it's "just" a standard high security facility and not actually a "supermax" (which is really another whole animal, so to speak).
I think he (JE) also has it in his head that Neal's experience there was not, in fact, what one might expect, what we might read into things based on that supermax line. He alludes to this in a bit of dialogue from the Pilot script that didn't end up in the episode. Peter has gone to the prison to help figure out what Neal is up to, in terms of his unexpected escape. The Marshals are interviewing other inmates while Peter is going through Neal's mail. The lead guy from the Marshals asks Peter how it's going. Peter informs him that Neal may have won a cruise, then asks the marshal how it's going on his side, might Neal have been scared into an escape, to which the reply is, "No, they loved the guy." So, realistic or not, I think in JE's mind (and so presumably the minds of the writing staff) Neal did just fine in prison, managing to charm people there just like he does everywhere else, and so issues related to that are just not part of the canon.
Now how does any of that affect the reading and writing of fanfic? That's probably another question altogether. I mean, does it even "count" since it never made it to the screen? How much weight should one give to authorial intent in this sort of thing? Do we just say, "Uh, Jeff, that doesn't really make sense to us" and carry on with what we think makes more sense? I don't necessarily have an answer to this at the moment, though my inclination would be to go with the fact that since we don't actually have on-screen canon about Neal's time in prison, we can more or less interpret it how we will. Regardless, I thought it was at least interesting to have some insight into what the writers might be working with in their own minds. Mileage, obviously, may vary. :-)