On effective crossovers

[scarfman]

I've never seen any fanfiction fandom take to another like BVS did to Harry Potter. And today I think I figured out why.

When the typical stereotypical fan is contemplating crossovers, he'll think for example (here's one I've seen), "Wouldn't it be cool to team up Buffy with Ace from Doctor Who?" When I was a child I spoke as a child too, but nowadays my reaction to that is, "Why? So you put together two teenage girls prone to kill things and blow things up - how does that serve the story?" And the answer, pretty much, is, "But wouldn't it be cool?"

When Harry Potter started picking up steam, and the go-to place for fanfiction online was still Usenet, crossovers began popping up on alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer.creative; because fans were saying, "Wouldn't it be cool if Buffy met Harry Potter?" And this time they were right, though still without realizing the fundmental flaw in combining characters who merely duplicate each other. Because this time it wasn't just another case of these-two-things-are-just-like-the-other. Fandom wanted to see them crossed over because they were mistaken for just alike; they're both about adolescence and magic, aren't they? But actually the two bodies of work have hardly anything else in common; to start with, they're from two different genres with different conventions, horror and fantasy. And that difference provides just enough inherent conflict in the very concept of a crossover for even the most fanboyly conceived crossover to get over, or rather miss entirely, the duplication-of-effect hump.

Comments

[alienfish.livejournal.com]

I feel like there should be more in this post to read. But boy, do I agree.

There is no such thing as a Muggle in the Buffy-verse. The closest you get is Xander, and he can accidently set books on fire over the Hellmouth.

[scarfman]

I feel like there should be more in this post to read.

That's just because there ought to be conclusion paragraph or sentence on it. I tried to think of one and couldn't so I just stopped typing.