Jedi Harris

Fanfiction
Title:	Jedi Harris
Author(s):	The Dark Scribbler (a.k.a. scribbler)
Date(s):	May 4, 2004 - Sept 1, 2005
Length:	239,128 words; 28 chapters
Genre(s):	Gen, Crossover, Canon Divergence
Fandom(s):	Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Wars
Relationship(s):
External Links:	Jedi Harris (series) on Twisting the Hellmouth Jedi Harris on Fanfiction.net
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Jedi Harris is an epic-length BtVS and Star Wars crossover fanfiction, authored by The Dark Scribbler. The work is the first in a series, The World of Jedi Harris, that spans over 600,000 words.

Recs & Reviews

"in an early episode, the characters rent Halloween costumes from a magic costume shop and, while trick-or-treating, turn into the people they're dressed as. There are a lot of fic about what might have happened if one of the characters had chosen a different costume, some of them crossovers; this is my favorite. Xander dresses as Obi-Wan Kenobi, and after it's over, he's left with the knowledge of a Jedi. And uses that knowledge to bootstrap himself into being a Jedi. And has a lot of adventures and meets a lot of people along the way. And grows into a much more mature person than in canon. It's really long, but the best kind of longfic, one that sucks you in and keeps you reading to see what happens next."

"For a while there, the Jedi Harris fic was recced all over the place. I like wish fulfillment as much as the next person, but that is a highly id-specific rec, people."

It's Cliché Week, and for Buffy crossover fans that can mean only one thing: YAHF. Yet Another Halloween Fic. That season 2 episode has launched more fanfics than any other single episode, in part because it's so easy to base a crossover from it. Just have your favourite characters pick up a costume of the show you want to use, and when Ethan Rayne's spell begins you have an instant crossover.

Needless to say, Sturgeon's Law applies in spades. Far too many stories use the idea as a cheap power-up for their favourite character, usually Xander, and let him keep his powers at the end with not the slightest hint as to why no one else gets to keep more than fuzzy memories. At first sight, Jedi Harris looks like it falls into that category; Xander dresses as a Jedi, becomes a slightly confused version of Obi-Wan, and still has Force powers at the end.

Fortunately, that's barely the beginning. Scribbler does have an explanation that the characters toss around; the Force is real, isn't the same thing as magic, and Star Wars gives the right metaphors to approach it despite being fiction in this world. It's a deliberately incomplete explanation, and it doesn't explain how Xander can remember large chunks of Obi-Wan's life that were never in any of the films (and aren't part of the Obi-Wan he dressed as, for that matter), but it does explain why Xander and (eventually) others can learn to manipulate the Force. It even comes with a built in balancing mechanism, not falling to the Dark Side, that stops Xander taking primacy from Buffy.

It's really cleverly done, in my opinion. The characters feel true to themselves throughout, though Jedi do tend to end up calmer and more self-assured, as you might hope. The plot moves on logically, taking into account both canon and where it would logically be changed by events. Many characters move in and out of events in ways you might not have expected, but which fit perfectly well when you think about it. There are even little cameos by other crossover characters, such as Don Camillo (give yourself a pat on the back and feel smug if that made sense to you).

Jedi Harris has turned into a whole sequence of stories of varying lengths, all equally well written, as more and more Jedi are found and trained. I thoroughly commend the lot of them, complete or not.