anyone out there deeply in Skyfall fandom?

[healingmirth]

Or this might be a more general James Bond question...




I've spent large bits of he past two days reading some of Kryptaria & BootsnBlossoms Bond/Q fic, and I am completely baffled by Alec Trevelyan's presence as an ally. I tried to poke around for some reasoning beyond hey, sure, Sean Bean, but I've been mostly thwarted by Tumblr, I think.


Because Alec is a bad guy, right? And a bad guy opposite a previous Bond. Does he exist in a book with a more detailed history of their friendship? Is there a generally taken-as-read fixit where he and Bond aren't estranged and they both stay with MI6? I don't actually know what fandom does about multiple Bonds anyway, so I'm sure there are endless possibilities.


Argh, I hate not being able to figure things out by three minutes of Googling.

Comments

[bluemeridian]

As far as I have been able to tell, everyone (as in fandom) kind of collectively retconned GoldenEye. I'm not sure whether it was deliberate, or whether the fandom as it sprang up around Skyfall was actively unaware of the earlier movie plot and once someone introduced the idea, everyone ran with it. I've been enjoying the tweak, but continue to be amused by how often it appears. :D

[healingmirth]

Okay! Good to have the data points :)

I realized after the first fic that through some brain fart I'd replaced him with Krycek from X-Files, so I don't think I'm in any position to throw stones about faithfulness to canon.

[elspethdixon]

Does he exist in a book with a more detailed history of their friendship?

No, he's original to the Brosnan!Bond movies, and doesn't exist in the books. Bond's book BFF is Felix Leiter (the American CIA guy played by Jeffrey Wright - I continue to hope in vain that some Skyfall fan will pick up a copy of Sharks Ate My Boyfriend Live and Let Die or James and Felix's Vegas Road Trip Adventure Diamonds are Forever and Wright!Leiter will suddenly start being slashed with Craig!Bond all over the place).

My theory, like bluemeridian, is that a lot of 00Q fans haven't necessarily seen any of the pre-Craig Bond movies (and if they have seen one, I bet it's more likely to be one of the classic Sean Connery movies then Goldeneye), know Alec Trevelyan exists and was another 00 agent and is Sean Bean and something angsty happened with him, but don't know much else, and are sort of retconning up a past for him and Bond out of collectively devised fanon.

[healingmirth]

Oh, I remember that guy! Yeah, that would awesome.

When Skyfall came out, I asked some RL folks who'd seen Quantum of Solace and Skyfall whether I needed to bother catching up, since I totally skipped QoS, and they said "no" and I was short on time and of course had no inkling from them that Bond fandom was likely to mushroom, so... yeah.

Which reminds me, I still have no freaking clue what the plot of QoS is, so I shall just continue my trend of watching some but not all of each Bond. I've seen Die Another Day and the one where Denise Richards is supposed to be a scientist, but clearly not Goldeneye or... that other one.

[elspethdixon]

I still have no freaking clue what the plot of QoS

To be fair, I watched it in the theater and have only a vague idea, other than that it's got nothing to do with the plot of the Ian Flemming short story of the same name, which is about some ambassador's wife having an affair because her husband is a jerk.

There's a bad guy in a South American country something something water resources something something explosions, Bond is seeking vengeance for Vesper's death in the first movie and has gone off on his own without permission which makes M mad, the female lead is seeking vengeance for the bad guy's murder of her family, things blow up, they get said vengeance, more things blow up, Felix appears for about three minutes (just long enough for me to squee about his existence) and some random girl Bond flirts with at a party gets covered in oil and murdered as a call-back to Goldfinger spraypainting his murder victims gold.