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

[redbyrd-sgfic.livejournal.com]

*Squee*! Dissecting canon in excrutiating detail- my favorite!!

Has it occurred to you that the whistling teakettle has another explanation- that Daniel was *out* of coffee? (With his schedule, I bet running out of things happens a fair amount.) And *gasp* he might even have been reduced to *instant*? (I can't recall, is there actually a teabag visible in The Light, or is it just water heating?)

As you may or may not recall- I used the 'who cares,it's caffeine' in a story, because it didn't make sense to me either that he'd be snobby about good coffee.

As for snobs- I think they come in all flavors. The Purist wants coffee and nothing but. The Hedonist wants something that tastes good- good quality coffee and cream and sugar may or may not be desired. Personally, I see Daniel and myself as kindred spirits. I *like* flavored coffee, prefer milk and usually have sugar too, and enjoy good coffee when I have the chance. But at oh-dark-hundred when I'm stumbling around in a fog of caffeine deprived misery getting ready for work? I drink instant. Black if I'm out of milk. It's faster than brewing, easily makes a single cup, and I can fill my thermos with tea at the same time. (And I drink tea at work because if I drank a quart of coffee a day, my stomach lining would dissolve instead of just, er, tanning....)

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

Has it occurred to you that the whistling teakettle has another explanation- that Daniel was *out* of coffee?

Only after reading this *excellent* story about the Light that made that fanwank...oh wait, that was your story. ;-) Hah, imagining me not remembering my second favorite missing-scene story. :-D

Although not a coffee drinker myself, I come from a family of them (hell, my dad was in the business). and they never kept instant stocked in their larder because they go with the true blue percolator/machine ground stuff. I presume when out of coffee, go with tea.

I share the caffeine addiction, but range to soda/cola/pop rather than coffee...then chocolate, then tea to get my fix. Got me through two degrees and some long working nights many a time. :-D

Of course, a fandom friend of mine is in denial Daniel is that much of a coffee drinker. I have to say I never noticed Daniel's affinity for coffee as much as it appears in canon, but there's definitely ample evidence for it (I particularly like the look on his face when in search of it in "Chimera", heh).

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

I have to say I never noticed Daniel's affinity for coffee as much as it appears in canon

Er, that would be as it appears in *fanon*.

D'oh!

[redbyrd-sgfic.livejournal.com]

Hey, Chimera is the ep where we *know* The Trust is evil because *omg*, they shot the *coffee*!

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

Er, actually, that was S8 "Affinity". But...Daniel did quickly fall into line there.

Totally OT, but have you ever listened to the commentary for that ep? It's so hilarious. PdL is having a fit about how they used Timmy Ho's in that scene, not just regular crappy coffee. [Tim Horton's is a Canadian coffee chain named/formerly owned by a hockey player and now owned by Dave Thomas's company (Wendy's)...I relate it to a cross between Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts, and the Canadians I've met are quite, er, obsessive about it. LOL]

I said I was going to stop spamming fig's journal didn't I? Oops.

[redbyrd-sgfic.livejournal.com]

Yes, of course you're right. Brain cramp. I knew which one I *meant*!

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Well, if it had been Daniel's cup of coffee that the sniper shot, then they would truly be eeevil. But the coffee belonged to one of their minions, so it was only vaguely wicked.

[(Anonymous)]

Shooting a man's coffee would be low, even for ex-NID. Besides, they have a dossier on Daniel- they'd know how much danger they'd be in if they did something that heinous.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Dissecting canon in excrutiating detail- my favorite!!

Mmmm, yes. :)

No, no teabag visible in The Light. Just the kettle whistling. (I love the creepiness of that scene!) I've never even been able to tell exactly what that item was that Jack sent tumbling with a flick of his finger. Half-eaten apple? Half-eaten bread roll? I've seen fics use either one.

I'm glad to hear the opinion of a true coffee snob, because I don't think I've drunk "real" coffee more than once or twice. And yeah, your suggested scenario makes a lot more sense to me than a Daniel who needs... what have I seen? A French press or some such to brew his coffee, which can only be a specific brand of imported coffee beans. I don't mind the coffee snobbery in fanfics, but it amuses me that it's so widespread and almost universally accepted. But it's incredibly easy to picture Daniel stumbling around, as you say, in a fog of sleep-deprived, caffeine-deprived misery and practically eating the instant coffee straight from the jar with a spoon. :)

[redbyrd-sgfic.livejournal.com]

I can't consider myself a coffee snob. I'll drink anything that doesn't have grounds in it, as a rule...

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

Oh, and the tea kettle thing seemed a response to me rather than to fignewton...and I just jumped in. Whoops.

Sorry for the journal spam, fig!

[slinks off now]

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

No problem. :) Maybe someday LJ will allow us to edit comments.

And feel free to jump in. The more, the merrier!