Game 22

Fanfiction
Title:	Game 22
Author(s):	JMS
Date(s):	2004
Length:
Genre:	slash
Fandom:	M*A*S*H*
External Links:
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Game 22 is a slash M*A*S*H* story by JMS.

In 2004, it was voted "Outstanding Characterization of Frank Burns" at M*A*S*H* Slash Awards.

Fan Comments

Game 22 was recommended as "best characterisation of Frank Burns" on the M*A*S*H slash awards, and it's certainly good Frank Burns, but more than that (if Ferretface doesn't particularly interest you) it's excellent characterisation of Hawkeye and Trapper, seen without the usual blurring of romance. Hawkeye and Trapper are both shockingly cruel to Frank, who eventually has a mental breakdown.

If you look at M*A*S*H one way, it's effectively a morality play where people are redeemed through good work. Charles and Margaret are neither of them pleasant people, but they're both very good at what they do: their characters are redeemable. Henry Blake is a pleasant person who isn't especially good at what he does: and he's the only one who gets killed. Trapper and Hawkeye and BJ are likeable to us, but would all three of them of been hell to live with in the confines of the 4077th - BJ's liking for humiliating practical jokes must have been almost as excruciating as Hawkeye's verbal take-downs, if you didn't happen to be on the right side of the screen. What redeems them within the context of the series is the excellence of their work. Frank Burns is neither likable nor redeemable. But another way to look at Frank Burns is that the war dropped a mentally fragile man into an environment where you had to be mentally robust to survive. And he didn't. This story is the only one I've ever read that deals with that, and it's almost unbearable to read.

I was in part inspired by Game 22 when I wrote the Typewriter drabble.