The Life, Death, and Life of Qui-Gon Jinn, or Why the Dead Should Stay Dead
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| Title: | The Life, Death, and Life of Qui-Gon Jinn, or Why the Dead Should Stay Dead |
| Creator: | Lucy Gillam |
| Date(s): | September 21, 1999 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | The Phantom Menace |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | The Life, Death, and Life of Qui-Gon Jinn, or Why the Dead Should Stay Dead/WebCite |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Life, Death, and Life of Qui-Gon Jinn, or Why the Dead Should Stay Dead is a 1999 meta essay by Lucy Gillam.
The topic: Star Wars: TPM, deathfic, and happy endings.
It as part of a series at Fanfic Symposium.
Excerpts
Everyone in fandom who knows me knows I am Happy Ending Girl. I may go down into the deep, dark angst trenches (hi, Em!), but I do want to come up again eventually.Most people in fandom who know me also know that, overall, I don't read death stories. I'm sure there are many, many well-written ones, and maybe it's wimpy of me not to give them a chance, but I just don't wanna go there. There are lots of reasons for this, and I know it's very hard to reconcile with my admitted worship of Stephen King and Neil Gaiman, but the basic fact remains: don't like ‘em.
So why would I write a whole column protesting the abundance of SW:TPM stories that change the ending to allow Qui-Gon to live?
I mean, it's not like I don't adore Liam Neeson. It's not like I didn't love the character of Qui-Gon. And, oddly enough, it's not like I particularly protest when fanfic writers bring back (or "it never happened") other characters (the example that springs most readily to mind is Richie Ryan, although as far as I'm concerned, Highlander ended the episode before Archangel anyway).
So what's different about Qui-Gon?
Context. Context and something called "pregeneric mythoi."
The problem with many of these "fixit" stories, tho’, is that either their sole purpose is to provide a happy ending, to revive a character the author clearly loves, or to keep Qui-Gon around for post-TPM stories. Many of them, even the very well-written ones, remind me of fantasies I devised as a 10-year-old to deal with the ending of "Empire." They're sweet, but in their need to provide a happy ending, they rob both the story and the character of depth and dignity.I suppose that my own bottom line is that some characters should just stay dead. I can deal with Richie revivals because I found his death pointless. If, however, someone were to revive Marcus Cole, one of my favorite Babylon 5 characters, I'd run screaming, because Marcus in so many ways was defined by his death. He made a heroic, romantic, sacrifice, finally finding the noble death he'd been seeking for so long. To have him come back to life would cheapen his sacrifice, and to simply erase it would leave the character without definition.
I love Qui-Gon Jinn. But for him to be the character I love, he has to die at the end of TPM. Some miracles shouldn't happen. Some fates shouldn't be avoided. And sometimes the dead need to stay dead.