All Fiction Based on Previous Fiction is Fanfiction

All around the world, people read news articles, watch television, read advertisements that are posted around them, and read funny sayings printed on t-shirts and their ideas and opinions are influenced by them as a result. Books as a result of being written by people are no different regarding being influenced by external sources. Expanding upon this concept we can argue that fiction books that use characters or settings from previous books written by different authors can be considered fanfiction.

The books that I am going to be analyzing as evidence of this idea is the “Percy Jackson and The Olympians” series. This series uses characters and settings from Greek mythology and puts them into a modern world setting. The series is from the perspective of Percy Jackson, a kid in the modern world who discovers that the Greek gods are real and that he is a demigod, before proceeding to go on a series of quests to save the world. During these quests he has run ins with the gods and other characters from Greek mythology who at times provide tools and information to aid him or threaten to kill him. In Greek mythology, characters such as Hercules and Medusa had similar run ins with the gods during their own lives, like Hera causing Hercules to temporary go insane and murder his own family or Medusa being cursed by Athena and later killed by Perseus who had been given tools by the gods to aid him in the task.

In the first book, “The Lighting Thief,” he is introduced to this world, the camp where the demigods are trained, and sets off on a quest to find the master bolt and return it to Zeus by the summer solstice. Before he sets off on this quest, he receives training and advice from Chiron who in the myths trained multiple heroes.

In the second book, “The Sea of Monsters,” he and his friends go on a quest to retrieve the golden fleece to save the camp. During this quest, he fights a hydra and defeats it with outside help just as Hercules did for his second labor.

In the third book, “The Titan’s Curse,” he and his friends go on a quest to save the goddess Artemis by the winter solstice, during which they slay the Nemean lion just as Hercules did for his first labor.

In the fourth book, “The Battle of the Labyrinth,” he and his friends discover a secret passage into the camp that bypasses its defenses, leading to them going on a quest to find Daedalus in an attempt prevent the Titans and their forces from using the Labyrinth to destroy the camp. During this quest, he washes up on Calypso’s island and spends time there before leaving just as Odysseus did in “The Odyssey.”

In the final book, “The Last Olympian,” he leads his fellow demigods in a final battle to save Olympus from the Titans. During this quest, he went through a similar process to what Achilles had been put through as a baby to become almost completely invincible.

In this essay “fanfiction” will be defined as a work of literature that makes use of characters and settings from previous works of literature and changes them to fit a new story while keeping their essence of them as recognizable. This means that the specific character or setting must be recognizable as that specific one instead of being someone or something that just happens to share a name. For example, in chapter 14 on page 213 of the second book, the cave that Polyphemus the cyclops lives in, on the island where the golden fleece is located is described as:

I pushed through the crowd of sheep and goats toward the back of the cave.

Even though I’d dreamed about this place, I had a hard time finding my way through the maze. I ran down corri-dors littered with bones, past rooms full of sheepskin rugs and life-size cement sheep that I recognized as the work of Medusa. There were collections of sheep T-shirts; large tubs of lanolin cream; and wooly coats, socks, and hats with ram’s horns.

Whereas in book 9 of the “The Odyssey,” the cave that Polyphemus lives in is described as:

His cheese-racks were loaded with cheeses, and he had more lambs and kids than his pens could hold. They were kept in separate flocks; first there were the hoggets, then the oldest of the younger lambs and lastly the very young ones^[80] all kept apart from one another; as for his dairy, all the vessels, bowls, and milk pails into which he milked, were swimming with whey. When they saw all this, my men begged me to let them first steal some cheeses, and make off with them to the ship; they would then return, drive down the lambs and kids, put them on board and sail away with them.

Both passages describe the cave as being filled with sheep and sheep byproducts.

A difference between them is in the kind of sheep byproducts being described is probably due to the fact that Odysseus and his men are looking for things of value to them as shown in the part of the quote that comes after the description of what is inside the cave, so that’s all that is described for them, whereas Percy is looking in the cave for his imprisoned companions and is just describing the stuff that sticks out to him along the way. Another difference is that Percy used the sheep to get into the cave without Polyphemus seeing him while guiding the sheep in for the night by clinging to one of their underbellies, whereas for Odysseus and his men they didn’t have to sneak because Polyphemus did not seal the cave. A third difference is that Percy upon freeing his companions had left with them the cave as quickly as possible, whereas Odysseus and his men choose to wait in it for Polyphemus to show up.

These similarities and differences show that these settings in the books are in the same place while still telling a new story that is not just a retelling of the original one.

On the other hand, not all works that use the same characters and settings from the works that preceded them are fanfiction. Adaptations of previous works are an example of this. This is because they are basically the same story just changed for a different audience. For example, the version of “The Odyssey” that the quote above is from is an adaptation of the original version of it because the original is written in ancient Greek whereas the version the quote is from is in English and has had its grammar changed so that it makes sense in English. Also, the translation does not add new characters or circumstances into the story. Another example of this is sequels that are written by the author of the original work whose story they are continuing and adding additional lore to it. This is by virtue of being written by the same person means they cannot be fanfiction.

The series is not a simple retelling of ancient Greek mythology. An example of this is how the characters and settings have been relocated to North America where the series is happening when in the myths they were in Greece and the surrounding area. Another example is that while many characters in the series are from Greek mythology, the overarching story itself is focused on the original characters that were created for it.

Overall, the “Percy Jackson and The Olympians” series is an example of how fiction books that use characters or settings from previous books written by different authors can be considered fanfiction. This is through its reuse of characters, settings, and plot points from Greek mythology and putting them into a new story. This reuse of material also provides a degree of convenience for authors writing new stories.

References

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2024, August 16). Labours of Hercules. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Labours-of-Hercules

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2024, July 30). Achilles. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Achilles-Greek-mythology

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2024, October 18). Chiron. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chiron-Greek-mythology

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2024, September 21). Hydra. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hydra-Greek-mythology

Homer. (2024, October 1). The Odyssey rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original. The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Odyssey, by Homer. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1727/pg1727-images.html

“Medusa.” Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender: Culture Society History. . Retrieved November 16, 2024 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/medusa

Riordan, R. (2005). The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson & the Olympians #1) (1st ed.). Disney/Hyperion.

Riordan, R. (2006). The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson & the Olympians #2) (1st ed.). Disney /Hyperion.

Riordan, R. (2007). The Titan’s Curse (Percy Jackson & the Olympians #3) (1st ed.). Hyperion Books for Children.

Riordan, R. (2008). The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson & the Olympians #4) (1st ed.). Hyperion Books for Children.

Riordan, R. (2009). The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson & the Olympians #5) (1st ed.). Disney/Hyperion Books.