Race!Fail or not?
Jun. 22nd, 2011 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltdI have three men in a tri-bond. Commander Cliff Cody, Lt. Commander Frank Stett and Lt. Commander Jake Maggert. Jake has brown hair and blue eyes. Cliff has wavy blond hair and hazel eyes. I am considering making Frank black.
My problem: In the established canon, Cliff and Jake are maimed in an accident that takes Frank's life. Have I yet again killed the black guy in the third reel, so my handsome white heroes can have their happy ending without him? (It takes a lot of work to come to any accommodation, to the point that Cliff asks Jake if it was only Frank he loved)
This takes place before the accident. Although Cliff is in charge by virtue of rank, it's clear the men regard each other as beloved equals.
I don't want to write a future that is all white corn-fed farmboys being heroes in space. I'm subverting the genre and worried about the fact that all my readers know of Frank, at the beginning, is that I killed him before the last story started.
Am i making sense?
My problem: In the established canon, Cliff and Jake are maimed in an accident that takes Frank's life. Have I yet again killed the black guy in the third reel, so my handsome white heroes can have their happy ending without him? (It takes a lot of work to come to any accommodation, to the point that Cliff asks Jake if it was only Frank he loved)
This takes place before the accident. Although Cliff is in charge by virtue of rank, it's clear the men regard each other as beloved equals.
I don't want to write a future that is all white corn-fed farmboys being heroes in space. I'm subverting the genre and worried about the fact that all my readers know of Frank, at the beginning, is that I killed him before the last story started.
Am i making sense?
no subject
Date: 2011-06-23 03:13 am (UTC)(Obviously do not want to know the answers, just food for thought.)
no subject
Date: 2011-06-23 07:06 am (UTC)He dies before Plumbing the Depths starts and his death drives most of the interpersonal conflict between his surviving husbands.
He must die at some point in the future because he has already died. The story which is already published in this 'verse has him dead (and says nothing about his color). The story I am writing now comes before that on the timeline.
I was thinking of making Frank black because Cliff is already established as very white and Jake's blue eyes kind of (but don't necessarily) disqualify him. (Mainly because Cliff is the Errol Flynn muse, and Jake is a sane Nick muse) It doesn't change the plot at all if he is white or black. But by making him black I avoid the All-White future.