The Story of Finn

Fanfiction
Title:	The Story of Finn
Author(s):	LullabyKnell
Date(s):	December 31, 2015 - January 19, 2016
Length:	26,000 words
Genre(s):	Gen
Fandom(s):	Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Relationship(s):
External Links:	http://archiveofourown.org/works/5594782
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

The Story of Finn is a gen fic by LullabyKnell which began posting about 2 weeks after Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released. It centers not on Finn but on original stormtroopers. There is a sequel titled "The Roar of Mice". The Story of Finn inspired many other fanworks and is widely considered to be the first example of a fanwork employing the Stormtrooper Rebellion trope. The story was highlighted in the published work The Fanfiction Reader: Folk Tales for the Digital Age.

Premise

In The Force Awakens, it was shown that stormtroopers are typically taken from their families and conditioned to obedience from a young age. "The Story of Finn" posits that Finn's escape from the First Order would inspire other stormtroopers to consider rebellion, but not in the same way as the original rebellion due to their severely curtailed psychological and social freedoms.

The story follows an adolescent stormtrooper as she joins a new barracks, where for the first time she is exposed to spoken stories. The stories become the impetus for her to take the slowly spreading rumors of Finn's escape and write them into a manifesto disguised as stormtrooper propaganda, but which actually contains messages coded in stormtrooper double-speak. Elements of the work that became common themes in other works inspired by this one include:

• Stormtrooper daily life and social structure
• The development of a coded language and rumor as outlets to express political views
• The subversion of First Order propaganda machines for Resistance use
• The reaction of low-level stormtroopers to the news of Finn's escape
• Naming freed stormtroopers as a symbolic step toward beginning a new life
• Groups of defectors, as units (the stormtrooper equivalent of families)

Similar themes can be found in unrelated works, such as the Three series by whiteraven1606 or Cautionary tale by Aviss. The character of Finn inspired many works to humanize stormtroopers or even encourage them to defect.

Reception

"The Story of Finn" created immediate strong reactions among fans. In addition to a large number of strongly favorable comments (many focused on the worldbuilding), the story inspired many creators to use the same premise, including:

• Tomorrow (there'll be more of us) by dimircharmer
  

Stormtrooper defectors begin appearing at supposedly secret Resistance bases, asking for shelter and an opportunity to fight the First Order. They treat Finn as a legend and are named by him. Written from the point of view of Finn and Resistence members.

• One Was All It Took by Miz636
  

Companion piece to "Tomorrow (there'll be more of us)", from the point of view of the stormtroopers themselves. Also extends beyond the ending of the original to show not only the underground information network that stormtroopers built to assist each other in escaping to the Resistance, but also how they set up a Resistance network within the First Order itself. Proceeds all the way through the final battle.

• have you heard by peradi
  

Inspired by the use of rumor and coded language in earlier works, this one is expressed mostly in short scenes and explores the ways in which totalitarian regimes are weak to rumors, double-speak, and mixed messages in their propaganda. It describes Finn as "Finn, the patron saint of revolution, who tripped and fell into glory" then goes on to describe the bloody and difficult reality of a civil war.

• Sanitation by GemmaRose
  

Inspired by Finn's rescue of Poe, another stormtrooper rescues a different prisoner.

Some of these works added common themes to the lexicon, including:

• Captain Phasma converting to the Resistance
• Stormtrooper cadets (aka children)
• Stormtroopers integrating into the Resistance (or failing to)
• The final battle with the First Order
• Multiple facets of revolution, both intended and unintended

Extract from The Fanfiction Reader: Folk Tales for the Digital Age on how the work reflects fandom

Finn also gives hope to the characters in the story that follows, LullabyKnell’s “The Story of Finn.” The story of how I discovered this story is, in a way, the theme of the story itself. Upon asking for Star Wars fanfiction recommendations, I was recommended a story called “Have You Heard” by peradi, whose summary is “Finn sparks a revolution.” In her story notes, peradi says that her story was inspired by “Tomorrow (There’ll Be More of Us)” by dimircharmr, a story about how the Resistance is starting to get stormtroopers defecting to them en masse. This story then points back to LullabyKnell’s story, “The Story of Finn,” which itself points back to a long Tumblr post by sunshinetrooper, which begins:

no but like
imagine finn as the stormtrooper messiah, patron saint of rebellion

and continues:

finn must be the single most high profile former stormtrooper in the galaxy, and i mean, no matter how hard the first order will try to keep word of him from reaching the ears of their troopers, they will fail
just imagine all these stormtroopers, people with no names, living lives they’ve been taught don’t belong to them, hearing the stories of finn the traitor, the defector, the rebel, the person
imagine all these people hearing about finn, the things he did, the things he chose, and realizing that they don’t need to be what they’ve been taught, they don’t need to be nameless, they don’t need to be choiceless, they don’t need to be less in any way at all
imagine all these people picking their own names, making their plans, making their choices, rebelling, defecting

Sunshinetrooper ultimately concludes, in all-caps:

imagine finn and his defector trooper buddies organizing underground railroad type systems for freeing people still enslaved, doing raids on training camps and freeing child troopers and crippling the order’s personnel pipeline

This is what we mean when we say that fanfiction is written communally, collaboratively, in a network; this idea of Finn becoming a legendary figure whose story, spread from person to person, sparks a revolution was taken up by LullabyKnell and others and has since inspired a whole universe of stories, all of which are concerned with the impact of—not Finn, but the story of Finn. In that way, “The Story of Finn” is classic fanfiction, fleshing out the part of Star Wars: The Force Awakens that we know least about (the subculture of stormtroopers, who we learn are nameless: taken from their families and raised to military service from birth without choice). But it is also a story about race: Finn is overtly framed as a figure of liberation, the founder of an underground railroad, with fandom collectively emphasizing the degree to which FN-2187 is an escaped slave, his number-not-name evoking the numbers given to those who worked in forced labor camps.

In the larger genre of stormtrooper stories, names are an important theme, as you can see from Sunshinetrooper’s post (imagine all these people picking their own names) and tags like LullabyKnell’s “Names” and dimiricharmer’s “Identity Issues.” Some escaped stormtroopers take Finn’s name; others choose names of their own: nonslave names. Across these stormtrooper stories, fans draw on their knowledge of history to tell tales of the stormtroopers’ postcolonial culture. So in the end, Finn’s story is not just his own. Finn’s story—having Finn be at the center of a story—has galaxy-shaping impact and leads directly to the fall of empires.

Last but not least, “The Story of Finn” is also a meta story, a story of fandom itself; the story of our stories and the liberatory impact hearing and telling stories have had on our own lives. At the end of this first chapter of “The Story of Finn,” “BeeKay’s Bunkroom” (the homey BeeKay being derived from her slave name, BK-1245), the stormtroopers wonder how FN-2187 could do what he did: how he was able to break his programming, break free. “What makes him different?” they wonder. “Why him and not . . . just for example . . . me?” This is the impact that fanfiction has had among so many of us; having read it, we now think about writing it. She did it; why not me?