Musings on fanfic

This came to mind because Daughter had another Sleepless Episode last night, and since Dad had told her in disgruntled fashion that she was getting too old to come up and sleep with us because it meant he didn't get a good nights' rest; she came up and stood by the door and sobbed instead, refusing flat out to come in and lie down; I ended up going back downstairs with her . She comes by her stubbornness honestly, I will say. At these times she really just needs talking down on any of a variety of subjects; and last night (via a complicated route) I explained that social icons don't mean the same thing to everyone. I told her of a talented writer I knew who had written a novel and was asking as many people at work as possible to read it, and many did. Darth Vader features significantly in this novel; I mean that literally. Every time he shows up for a heart-to-heart, you know the character is having a Significant Moment. Also possibly risking his friends and family staging an intervention. Anyway, the point is, my team leader at the time achieved the near-impossible feat of silencing me totally by asking me, rather irritably, who Darth Vader was.
Yes. I worked for the only man in the Western World who had not see any of the Star Wars movies.
I was still getting over the gobsmackitiness of that moment in hindsight when Daughter asked seriously, "Why do people use other peoples' characters?"
I told her that I think they sometimes do it to allow themselves to focus less on character development and more on story. I mean, when Dracula shows up in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, we all know what it means. There's no point in elegant and detailed word pictures of how he got to be what he is, or any need to invest him with some redeeming qualities because let's face it, you don't build a snowman for cuddling purposes. Once he's in the story, he's the emblem of ultimate evil and strength, potentially the final nemesis of the Slaying One, and we can all concentrate on how many shades of agony Angel can faceflash per scene, how many foot-changes Zander can fit in his mouth and whether Willow is finally going to prove that it is in fact possible to die of empathy. All the budget can go into the action scenes., and there's even going to be time for a few Flashbacks Of Rich Costumery.
An extreme example of this is The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  The characters are so well embedded in the collective social psyche there's no need to spend time in backstories explaining how they got to be as extraordinary as they are; you just know that Quartermain will be resourceful most extraordinaire; Captain Nemo will overcome plot-holes with flair and technology and Mina Harker will go batshit in the literal sense and rematerialise fanged up and feisty. It all aids in the willing suspension of belief and allows the film the luxury of covering a lot of action.
So perhaps, in a sense, using other people's characters in this way is just a way of using symbols and icons, and I do not mean that in a Hollywood sense.
Writers - and filmmakers - don't just use other peoples' characters though - they use stories. Many of Shakespeares' stories reappear as something 'rich and strange' - and he was not always the first one to write those stories. Some fairy stories have many retellings and reinterpretations - some lighthearted, some less so.
Russian literature and early African literature have in common that they employ leitmotifs - symbols that mean something to their hearers and provide shortcuts. In any African story, if the protagonist is fighting his way back to see his family and lightning splits the sky while he's on his journey, you can bet he's in for at least one funeral.
I think it's the way of all literature to evolve to the use of leitmotifs, and the age and sophistication of those leitmotifs reflects the age and sophistication of the civilisation behind it; if the novel was the bark of the tree, the leitmotifs would be the rings you could count cutting through it.
So, literature evolves, that's not really headline news. And the process seems organic and harmless.
Then there's fanfic.
You can't stop it; and the Internet has fuelled its growth along mutant lines. You can't stop it because you can't police it - for one thing it would be physically impossible and for another fanfic sites - with originators of any sense - carry disclaimers everywhere; on the site, on every page and in most cases at the top of each story. Authors can't trademark characters - and, in any case, which character do you trademark, J.K Rowling Snape , or Alan Snape Rickman? I can guarantee you that if you so desired you could sit down and scribble the story of Helen Potter, girl magician, who spends seven years of her life fleeing from supernatural creatures, and until you actually tried to flog that manuscript to some agent (who presumably lives in a hole under a rock in Kazakhstan, or else you've found my old team leader)  nobody could get you for a thing; but after that you'd be hunting lawyers faster than you can pronounce plagiarism.
Authors are divided on the subject of fanfic, and I think the dividing line is this one, what harm can it do?
Can it do harm at all?
I would guess that 90% of the time that answer is no. It may even keep a few TwiMoms behind their computers instead of stalking Robert Pattinson, and that's a good thing; the boy looks haunted enough already.
Here's my take though. As with everything else, it's OK when the fanficcers have their feet firmly on the ground, and no trouble distinguishing between fantasy and reality. And remembering that standard disclaimer regarding fanfics : "These characters belong to The Real Author and We Are Only Borrowing Them" .
I've been trying to find an interview I read years ago, with a well-known author, who I think MIGHT have been Diana Gabaldon. But I could be wrong; and if I am I apologise. She said she had two problems with fanfic/fan letters containing fanfic (ie suggestions - because, people, if you're writing to an author and telling them what you think their characters should do, then its fanfic)
-What if she read something that contained a plot twist/direction she had already written but not published? Aside from the legal worries - and despite the fact that she would likely win it is not fun to spend years of your life tied up in legal proceedings I KNOW THIS WELL! - it would be difficult to go on writing with the mental changes someone else had suddenly thrown at you. Kind of like choosing the style of your wedding dress and telling you to go ahead and pick any colour you wanted.
-What if she read something that contained a plot twist/direction she wanted to write - but now really didn't want to any more BECAUSE of the fanfic?
To me both of the above cases showcase the whose-character-is-it-anyway? danger of fanfic; and apply to the minority.
My only remaining argument is that I proofread - a lot - and have proofread some fanfic; and there are talented authors out there who need to take the last step - letting go of other peoples' characters and creating their own. Whether that's a danger or a regret, I can't tell.
Anyway, the good thing is that by this time, Daughter was snoring.