Canon vs. Fanon, part 1: Daniel and Coffee

[fignewton]

I've been considering doing this for quite a while, and the hiatus in episodes seems like a decent enough time for it. So here we go: canon vs. fanon. Canon is defined as anything directly shown during Stargate: The Movie or episodes of the show; show supersedes movie when there's a contradiction. Fanon is defined as widely-accepted concepts that appear in fanfic, but do not have any real basis in canon. Most of these discussions will be Daniel-centered, but I'll touch upon other subjects on occasion.

Interpretation of a character is obviously in the eyes of the beholder. I fell in love with Daniel just by reading the transcripts at Gatenoise, sometime shortly after the eighth season finale aired. I started watching eps when I couldn't resist any longer, and then I fell in love with the rest of the team. Then I started reading fanfic, and I met lots and lots and lots of other Daniels and Sams and Jacks and Teal'cs – some easily recognizable, a few remarkably like the ones that I saw on the screen and that lived in my head, and many that I didn't know at all.

I'm not going to insist, or even suggest, that every fanfic author out there write their characters to fit my specifications (even if the thought of several thousand new gen teamy goodness stories is immensely attractive). I don't think even the Goa'uld are quite that arrogant! On the other hand, fanfic writers would be doing themselves a great service by making sure that the characters they write about are actually the characters that their readers want to read about – if nothing else, they'll have a lot more readers that way. 

There's nothing wrong with fanon, as a concept. For the most part, most common fanon assumptions about Daniel are based on canon, or extrapolated from canon, or at least don't contradict canon. Others… aren't. And if the writer airily asserts, "Well, this is an AU/my personal universe/not really important to the story, so just go with the flow, okay?" – then I will wish the writer well, and go find an author who is actually writing about the Daniel Jackson I know and love.

Some fanon amuses me; some confuses me; and some really, really gets on my nerves. I'll tackle one per post, or possibly a few related ones at once, starting with a real fan-favorite. 

Daniel and Coffee

 "Coffee" can be subdivided into two common fanon assertions:

 Daniel is addicted to coffee and Daniel is a coffee snob.

The first assertion might be exaggerated from canon, but if so, not by much. The movie shows Daniel plodding out of his office to refill his coffee cup right before the symbols-as-constellations inspiration hits; when he's about to present his findings to General West and others, he's juggling several rolled-up papers and a coffee mug, from which he takes a final gulp before casually leaving it on a ledge in the hallway. On the show, we often see Daniel with coffee mug in hand. In Season One alone, Daniel has a paper coffee cup with him during the meeting when he talks Hammond into letting him join SG-1 in CotG; drinks coffee to try and avoid sleep in The Enemy Within, and has a cup next to him while he watches Kawalsky's operation; parks a coffee cup on a coffee maker, or possibly some computer peripheral, before Jack attacks him in The Broca Divide; has a coffee cup with him when he's observing Sam and Janet experimenting on Pelops' nanocytes in Brief Candle; is drinking coffee when he meets Sam in the gateroom with the UAV, her "new toy," has another coffee when the UAV goes out of the Gate, and has a third coffee during the briefing with Hammond in Enigma (apparently Tollans make him thirsty); drinks coffee to keep awake while they're trying to find Jack and Sam in Solitudes; and has a coffee cup with him while he's observing the attempt to operate on Cassandra in Singularity (Daniel seems convinced that those ledges by the observation windows were specifically designed for coffee).

That's seven out of twenty-one episodes. Of the remainder, six are spent entirely off-world; four have little or no time on-world, mostly spent in formal briefings where coffee doesn't seem to be appropriate or available; one features the poor boy when he isn't human, so presumably can't drink coffee; and one involves Daniel spending the entire episode in a drugged pink stupor. That leaves two of twenty-one episodes – Cold Lazarus and Torment of Tantalus – when we could have reasonably expected Daniel to drink coffee and he didn't. (Besides, Katherine insisted on pouring him tea.) 

Yeah. I'd call that an addiction, or something close to it. 

As an aside, I will cheerfully confess that I skimmed bits and pieces of the entire first season to make sure I got all that right, which was not exactly a hardship. I almost forgot the whole essay thing to simply watch and enjoy. Happy sigh. Love, love, love the early seasons.

So our first bit of fanon is actually canon: Yes, Daniel Jackson really does constantly drink coffee. The common fanfic bit about Jack/Sam/Teal'c/Janet/some secret admirer bringing him coffee doesn't have any canon basis, but it's hardly an unreasonable extrapolation (although bringing Daniel food and drink is another bit of fanon I will discuss in a future post). On the other hand, there's not much canon proof for the other fanon assertion on the subject of caffeine: that Daniel is a coffee snob.

The first real canon suggestion that Daniel is picky about coffee doesn't show up until Season Nine, when Mitchell, the ultimate fanboy, interviews one of the Daniels in Ripple Effect and gives him "Sumatra Mandheling, one cream, two sugars," as his regular preference. The problem with accepting this as proof is two-fold. First, one might theorize that the writers have picked up on the "Daniel as coffee snob" thing from the fans and incorporated it, since it shows up so late in the show's history; and second, while I'm not a real coffee drinker myself, I always thought coffee snobs drank their coffee black and considered milk and sugar to be sacrilege. I also understand that flavored coffees are considered to be anathema by coffee snobs; but an Urgo-influenced Daniel is very appreciative of cinnamon, or possibly chicory, flavored coffee. If I'm wrong about either of those assumptions, please let me know.

(Daniel moodily pours a steady stream of sugar into his coffee when he's in the Waffle House at the End of the Universe in Threads, but I wouldn't use that as proof either way, as it's pretty obvious that he has no actual intention of drinking it.) 

We can add to the "not a coffee snob" side of the argument when we note that in the movie, Daniel was using water from a regular water fountain to fill his coffee pot, which means that he didn't much care if the water tasted metallic. Also, if we consider what we know about Daniel as a whole, he probably didn't have the chance to become a coffee snob until the actual Stargate years. The fellow we met in the movie, who lugs around his entire life in two battered suitcases, is hardly likely to be able to splurge on specialty coffee, is he? Nor is it likely that the coffee he drank on digs was brewed in anything other than a small metal pot, rather than a proper coffee-maker. I very much doubt he was drinking specialty coffee when he was working on his degrees, either, and for the same reasons: too expensive, and too impractical, to manage on a student's budget.

Conclusion: Daniel-the-caffeine-addict is canon, but Daniel-the-coffee-snob is fanon with little basis in canon.

ETA: put it under a cut because it's a lot longer than I realized. Sorry 'bout that.

My personal fanon opinion? Daniel loves coffee and drinks it whenever he can; he certainly enjoys specialty coffees, but he's perfectly capable of getting along with Air Force-issue sludge if that's the only thing available.

"Anyway, I'm sorry, but that just happens to be how I feel about it. What do you think?"

Comments

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

You've touched upon something I wanted to address in the future: the candy/chocolate bars thing. Which don't appear on the show at all. You'd never know that from reading fanfic, though.

Yeah. Daniel as caffeine addict does it for me, too. And yes, they all do drink coffee. Goes with the job: you need a pick-me-up, and it needs to be non-alcoholic. Coffee is just about the only thing available.

When does Teal'c drink coffee, outside of Urgo?

I have to say, though, that fanon doesn't bother me as much as it bothers you. (How dangerous is it to make Kerri angry...?) Fanon extrapolated from canon, that is. Or fanon that's true to an individual author's personal universe. As an example, take Redbyrd's trio of astronauts who end up joining the SGC, then have an entertaining cameo in her wonderful Rearranging Fate. That's her fanon, but it's entertaining and I enjoyed the cameo quite a bit!

Now, fanon that takes away from canon... I'll agree with you on that one. Which is why I wanted to start this series of posts in the first place. :)

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

No candy and chocolate bars do not appear in the show at all, but they appear in the movie and fit nicely with the sugar/caffeine theme. So it's part of the continuity as far as I am concerned. And in FiaD, even though it's in his head, Sam brought him chocolate cookies that he likes. It all just fits. If I read Daniel eating a candy bar in a fic, it won't bother me. If the writer makes a big deal out of it, say, Daniel cannot live without his chocolate or some comment is made about candy or powerbars or anything, then I will start getting testy because it is fanon. It's a fine line to walk. Some people do it well and others don't.

It makes sense to me that Daniel as a schoalr would have a bit of a junk food and coffee issue. Those are bad habits one develops in collge, continues to develop in grad school, and then just stay with you as an established scholar. Those who do not ride the caffeine train (like myself) do feel the pinch. I know that I will find myself drinking some soda if I need a burst and if I am desperate. So it really isn't far off the mark. And hey, it's realistic. I had an archaeology professor who was never without his tea or coffee. It cracked me up every day.

I'm definign fanon differently than you, I think. I hate fanon. Hate hate hate. But for me fanon is something that is so cliche and widely used that people start to take it as fact and there is no basis for it. It's a valid idea that just took off running. Like the coffee bit. You can assume quite rationally based on canon that Daniel is an addict. It turns into a fanon problem when it spirals out of control. There is the difference for me. If someone writes a fic and in every other scene it is shown that Daniel is drinking coffee, then it's fine. But if there is this heavy empahsis on Daniel drinking coffee...well they don't do that on the show. That would irk me.

I have simialr issues with aniel born in Egypt. He could have been born there. It's possible. But it is not fact. Yet every other fic I pick up insists he is born in Egypt. That annoys me. People are entitled to take whatever spin they want, but some ideas catch on and then become pseudofact. Does that makes sense?

Heh. And these days, it doesn't take much to make Kerri angry. The character assasination I see in fic makes baby Jesus cry.

But I've ranted and ranted and ranted about that in the past on my LJ. It never seems to get old, though.

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

I have simialr issues with Daniel born in Egypt.

Of course not, he was born in Olympia, Greece...or Oregon, but I *know* it's canonically one of the two. ;-) I'm starting a revolution! And going off topic, LOL

And to respond to fig, I'm not sure when Teal'c drinks coffee outside of Urgo. He's drank juice, and accepted tea, and though refuses bovine lactose at any temperature, seems to make an exception for Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

That's a different fanon/canon thing. Teal'c in canon refrains from anything alcoholic, but I don't recall that he's had an opinion one way or the other on caffeine. I would guess if he was that opposed to it, even Urgo's prompting wouldn't have let him try it. Like no one else but him tried the defib paddles because they all knew it could hurt a healthy person. But that's JMHO and it could go either way.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Heh. In Rheanna's truly wonderful Roses in December, Janet is trying to discover if anyone else besides Jack is suffering from memory loss:

"What about the rest of you? Any memory troubles?"

Daniel shrugged. "I don't think so."

"Where were you born?"

"On a ferry going between Terverya and Kinneret." Five pairs of eyes gazed at Daniel curiously. "It's a long story."

Fifty points for originality, I'd say. :)

LOL about to Teal'c's concession to bovine lactose when it comes in the form of Ben and Jerry's! Regarding alcohol, I always assumed - and there's the fanon aspect again! - that Teal'c didn't bother with alcohol because his symbiote wouldn't let him get drunk.

So, drink the coffee when Urgo is upping his taste buds, but possibly not otherwise? And that's quite an interesting slant to take regarding Urgo's manipulations. Are you suggesting that Teal'c wouldn't have been harmed, or that he had less experience with it?

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

True that is original. But the Olympia thing I propose is canon. (And Moonshayde knows it because I've converted her).

In S6 Disclosure, Daniel's personnel stats are up on the screen behind Major Davis. You can read his birth location as Olympia, and something that's either OR or GR (focus is not sharp enough to distinguish O/G/Q/C, but it is definitely a round letter, but I'm positive about the rest). There's no such place as Olympia Oregon, but that is where his grandfather was in the mental institution. And then again, there IS an Olympia Greece.

Regarding alcohol, I always assumed - and there's the fanon aspect again! - that Teal'c didn't bother with alcohol because his symbiote wouldn't let him get drunk.

That's complete fanon. He refuses to partake in alcohol in canon...if his symbiote processed it, he wouldn't have insulted some alien cultures by refusing to drink it (toast in "Other Side"). No explanation is ever given, it's just something that makes Teal'c different.

I've also seen fanon get the symbiote thing and have Teal'c be able to drink others under the table...which is completely CONTRARY to canon. LOL.

So, drink the coffee when Urgo is upping his taste buds, but possibly not otherwise? And that's quite an interesting slant to take regarding Urgo's manipulations. Are you suggesting that Teal'c wouldn't have been harmed, or that he had less experience with it?

No, I'm not sure we've seen Teal'c refuse or accept coffee. Wait, he had coffee in 200 post-Oz sequence! (Well, how much we can count any of 200 as canon is questionable). So I've never thought it was way out for Teal'c to drink Urgo's coffee.

Am I saying what? With the defibrillator? I think Teal'c would have been hurt, but he did not have enough knowledge/experience with the machine himself to realize it, and so he followed Urgo's prompting while the others resisted "I don't think so." But that's just my interpretation.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Huh. Expecting me to know something that took place in S6 outside of Abyss, Changeling, and Full Circle is just plain silly. :) But if you could possibly post a screencap, I would love that, so I can include it in a future post. Because Daniel's childhood is definitely on my to-do list, and I had no idea there was an actual canon location for his birth!

And you're right, of course, about Teal'c and alcohol in The Other Side. I'm so focused on Daniel in that ep that I tend to lose sight of everything else. :) But I absolutely, utterly adore the completely deadpan delivery of, "I do not know. He is concealing it."

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

You're one of the three episodes in Season Six fans, huh? LOL.

Yes, I was anal enough to actually zoom in my dvd image to look cross-eyed and decipher. I can't seem to transfer the image to my photobucket (because I suck at this stuff, but I know hotlinking is bad, heh), but if you go: here (http://www.stargatesg1971.com) and image 2034 in disclosure Stargate screencaps shows it...but it's rough to read, I'll warn you!

From what I could decipher, this is what it reads:

ENLISTMENT RECORD NO: 00-404-226
ENLISTMENT RECORD: ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE


NAME: JACKSON, DANIEL DATE OF BIRTH: [ILLEGIBLE]
PLACE OF BIRTH: OLYMPIA, OR/GR (?)
SEX: MALE RACE: CAU
COLOR OF EYES: BLUE COLOR OF HAIR: BROWN
HEIGHT: 6'00"
WEIGHT: 175 LBS.

HOME ADDRESS: 4?00 [ILLEGIBLE STREET]
MARITAL STATUS: SINGLE

EDUCATION
HIGH SCHOOL: GRADUATED
FIRST SECONDARY: GRADUATED
FINAL DEGREE: PHD
DEGREE OF STUDY: ARCH ANTH

MAIN CIVILIAN OCCUPATION:
ACADEMIC - ARCHEOLOGICAL TRANSLATOR
DATE [ILLEGIBLE]: 11901-E

SERVICE NO: N/A : CIVILIAN
PHYSICAL CATEGORY: A-2
ENLISTMENT LOC: COLORADO

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

Here, I think I did it. link (http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m118/auroranovarum/image2034.jpg)

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

D'oh. I ended up putting it in my lj. Hope I didn't steal your thunder though.

I'm loving your canon/fanon essays. When's the next one when's the next one (see you beg for fic, I can pester for this stuff. *eg*)

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Oooh, you sweetheart!

Wonderful stuff. Thank you!

May I have your permission to use this when I do Daniel's childhood? I'll credit you, of course.

So glad you're enjoying this! Next one coming up tomorrow, actually. Does this mean I get a fic in return? *veg*

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

Sure, you can use it. :-)

[fic? Did you ask for fic? what? I can't hear you! hee hee]

Seriously, I'm working through my WIP list (between poking moonshayde for hers).

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Oh, I wholly agree with you that a Daniel that loves chocolate and junk food makes complete sense. As you say, it's absolute canon from the movie, and fits well with the profile of his past. But, also as you say, there's a vast difference between writing a casual reference to Daniel pulling a chocolate bar out of his stash to tide him over and making it an absolute obsession, like too many fanfic writers do.

I think we are defining fanon as the same thing: a fanfic presumption that is so widespread that a new fan, who might have read more fic than actually seen eps, will be unable to tell the difference. It's irksome. Some aspects are infuriating. Some aspects... well, I can live with it. Like Daniel the coffee snob, which doesn't bother me even a fraction as much as my next topic, to be posted later this week. :)

Deep breaths, Kerri. Go watch The Fifth Race and don't let those irritating fanon fanfics get you down. ;)