wherein Liz whines about The Dark Knight fanfiction

[edenfalling]

Apropos of nothing in particular, I have the oddest feeling that most people writing fanfic for The Dark Knight were not watching the same movie I saw. At all.

I came out wanting to read Rachel/Harvey and Rachel/Bruce triangle fics; Bruce/Rachel/Harvey threesome fics; police procedurals; Ramirez post-movie or pre-movie genfic; Harvey pre-movie genfic; stories in which Gordon's personal life falls apart while he copes with his new job and his 'betrayal' of his friends; stories that tie up various loose ends (like Coleman Reese, who must certainly have been hauled in for questioning now that Batman is wanted for murder); and stuff like that.

I don't think that's an unreasonable list.

But.

About 90% of the fic I have seen -- leaving aside the generally awful Bruce/OC sagas -- is Batman/Joker (wtf?), Joker/Rachel (seriously, wtf? that is not romantic; he was going to kill her and forget her within ten seconds), Joker/Harley (watch me not give a damn; Harley is only interesting with Ivy anyway), and Joker/OC (even more wtf than Joker/Rachel).

...

Heath Ledger's performance was amazing. But the Joker is not much of a character. He is a cipher. As they say, he just wants to watch the world burn. And what can you do with a character like that? They used him brilliantly in the film, and by his nature he cannot grow or change, so where do you go from there? Nowhere.

Which is why I have little interest in reading about him. Especially not in porn (ick) or romance (so massively OOC that I am not even going to bother discussing it).

...

I managed to stave off my initial impulse to write Iron Man fanfiction, but I have a sinking feeling that I may not be so successful with The Dark Knight. This time, you see, I have genuine plot bunnies. *sigh*

Comments

[chaos-harmony.livejournal.com]

Agreed, so hard.

And yes, I could really go for some pre-movie Harvey genfic. I wonder about his background. I'd also like to see more on the development of his relationship with Rachel (also pre-movie).

[edenfalling]

The novelization (while otherwise useless and... not exactly badly written, but... glancing, perhaps?) gives some interesting backstory on Harvey. I don't know how much was planned by the Nolans vs. how much was stuff Dennis O'Neil cribbed from Harvey's current backstory in the comics, but it was interesting to see somebody's take on his first date with Rachel. :-)