#but I at least want to somewhat believe if Athena was in her right mind. she wouldn't have been so awful to Annabeth in HOO

[creative-hanyou-girl]

In the 1st book series I can have at least a little bit of respect and hope for Athena being a caring mother (as caring as the gods can be anyway).

But TV Athena? I wanna march straight up to Olympus and have a little....chat, with the Goddess of Wisdom about being a somewhat decent parent, possibility of being smited be damned.

I like both of these interpretations of Athena btw, even if TV Athena makes me want to commit a crime (preferably against her).

[shootingstars-or-airplanes]

Alright it's time for a rant! Let's talk about canon vs. fanon. This is gonna be a long one folks, so buckle up!

I see a lot of people complaining about fan interpretations of characters in art or fan works or even headcanons not lining up with the canon depictions of the characters and this always sort of bugs me a bit. I think we need to reframe how we approach the idea of canon vs. fanon.

I want to start off by saying I'm a writer. I have a degree in creative writing and have had at least one publication at the time of posting. I know what it's like to pour your heart and soul into a project and into creating these characters and the world they live in. So I can somewhat see where people are coming from when they talk about the importance of sticking to the author's vision. The author put a lot of love into that character and their interpretation is, of course, paramount. But I don't think that this necessarily means that contrary fanon interpretations can't exist.

I'd like to draw a comparison to mythology, if I may. Ancient mythology is one of my special interests and I took multiple classes on different mythologies during my time in undergrad. The professor for those classes was amazing and one thing that he said that will always stick with me is something he'd teach on the first day of any of his mythology classes: "Myth is multiform".

Ok so what does "myth is multiform" mean? Well in simple terms it means that when it comes to mythology, there is no one "correct" telling of the story. Mythology at its root was an oral tradition. It didn't have an author. These stories were built and shaped by the dozens or hundreds of people who told them. And with each telling, the new storyteller would add a little bit of their own unique flair to the story. They might change a detail they never liked or couldn't remember correctly or they might add in details where there weren't any the first time they heard it. And as this keeps happening, the story changes a lot between people and cities and villages and even time. So if you hear one story where Aphrodite's hair was blonde and another where it was red, which detail is correct? Both. Because myth is multiform. The story is changed and affected by those who interact with it.

This can even be seen in modern interpretations of classic myth. The way we tell the stories now is drastically different from how they were told back then. For example, a lot of people who are really into Greek mythology see Athena as somewhat of a feminist icon. A lot of modern depictions of her show her as a strong and independent woman. But the Athena of ancient Greece, while strong, was a model goddess for upholding the patriarchal system of society at the time. She was known for following laws and customs to the letter, including and sometimes especially misogynistic ones. To put it bluntly, she was not a girl's girl.

But today we emphasize the parts of her that feel strong and empowering. We see the goddess of justice and war who fights for herself and stands up for what she believes is right. So which Athena is real? I mean, one is directly from the time period, so that one must be the true one, right? Wrong. They are both the real Athena. Because myth is multiform.

"Yeah, ok," you say, "but modern media isn't mythology. It's not an oral tradition. It has authors and we can identify exactly what the original story was." And that's true. But once a story exists, once it is shared with others, it becomes more than itself. Even on the most basic level, an author isn't capable of conveying literally every detail and meaning they had in mind while creating it into the actual piece. Some things--many things, really--are left to interpretation. That's why we have high school literature teachers asking why you think the curtains are blue in some random scene of a book.

And every person is going to bring their own prior knowledge and life experiences to that story which will impact how they interpret it. So as soon as one person has heard your story, there are already two versions of the story in existence--the one you wrote and the one they read. The words on the page might be the same but all the little gaps are filled in differently depending on the person. There are things an author can do to steer their audience in the direction they want them to interpret things in, but your reader/listener/viewer is never going to get 100% of the meaning you put into it.

All this to say, when a story reaches fandom, it essentially becomes myth. All the slightly different little versions of these worlds and characters are floating around in people's heads and as they talk to one another about it and share their ideas and interpretations, those versions grow and evolve beyond the original work.

Fanon versions of characters don't come out of nowhere; they're slowly molded and shaped by the community surrounding them using the basis of the source material and then combining collective experiences and attitudes of fans. They grow with the community, just as a myth grows with its culture.

So my point here isn't to say that all interpretations of a character are equally true to source and should be treated as such, but rather to say that characters evolve when touched by the hearts of people who love them and enjoy their stories and while the canon character is valid and beloved in their stagnancy, fanon versions can exist at the same time without threatening the canon character's status.

Just because an interpretation of a character that you see a lot might be wildly different from the character's existence in canon, that doesn't inherently make it bad. It shows the impact of human experience and community on art and the two characters can coexist separately without one needing to wipe the other out.