The Franchise Fiction to Slop Pipeline

We're not going to save our fandoms

Part I — I Just Wanted to Play Video Games

Lately, I have been getting into the history and philosophy of art, its production, and different theories around how art should be critiqued. The Romantic Revolution: A History by Timothy Blanning has really altered my brain chemistry. But in understanding art and cultural movements since the Renaissance, I feel like I am beginning to learn how to navigate modernity in a better way. This study of application is still a work in progress and I can’t claim to have found they “key,” but something I’ve been trying to figure out for a long time is how to approach contemporary art — especially TV shows, animated shows, Hollywood films, video games, comics, and so on (I haven’t really looked too much into music, that’s not really my forte¹). These works are an important part of the popular culture of modernity and I know I need a “theory” of it that is coherent with how I see the world — how many people on X are looking at the mass deportations of President Trump’s second term and the cutting of funding to institutions like the United States Agency for International Development and are saying “you shouldn’t have touched our video games,” connecting the events of our times to the GamerGate phenomenon from 2014? The culture war is a real, socio-political conflict that will be analyzed by historians in the future, enveloped in the context of the managerial hegemony that I believe is the defining element of the post-Cold War world order.²

I run a YouTube channel centered around the Hasbro Transformers franchise. I myself, as a product of the late 20th and 21st centuries, am a “fan³” of Transformers, Star Wars, Batman, the Elder Scrolls, and much more. "Franchise fiction" is a definitive part of the artistic output of the late 20th and 21st centuries that for the most part are completely alien to the cultural landscape of mankind before that time.⁴ The Industrial Revolution, development of technology like animation and the television, and the post-war economic boom of the United States has completely transformed art in a way not seen since... well, perhaps since the invention of writing itself.

With the advent of the post-war world, art began⁵ to diverge in two directions, into so-called "high art" and "low art." Low art took advantage of the market economy and the expansion of leisure time to develop entertainment products. What differentiated high art and low art was motive — high art continued to follow traditional philosophies of art, whether that be to go through a process of introspection into one's own soul and put it on display interpretively or to extract the beauty of nature into higher concentrations on the canvas through paint and brush or to reveal something about the nature of mankind through words. It was art for art's sake or art for the sake of the transcendental, patroned or otherwise. On the other hand, low art took the direction of art as a product — art for profit.

Do not mistake these terms, "high" and "low," as comments on quality. Rather, these terms differentiate between motive as well as method. It is completely possible for high art to be low in quality (Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain) just as it is possible for low art to be high in quality (1986’s Transformers: The Movie).

However, there is an undeniable trend in low art, particularly noticeable in what I will call long-running franchise fiction⁶, to eventually become low in quality. When I think about my favorite franchises — Transformers, Star Wars, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and other long-running franchise fiction like comics in general — there is a tendency for these franchises to become low in quality over time. I think understanding this phenomenon and its causes is very important to understanding popular culture and its role in society in the 21st century.

Franchise Fiction and Slop

Long-running franchise fiction made for profit will tend towards slop. This is true even if it produces quality work from time to time. There are inherent qualities of long-running franchise fiction that create a pull towards becoming slop such that quality works of fiction under this category thrive despite being franchise fiction rather than simply being exceptions to the rule. Let’s analyze why: There are three elements at play in the creation of franchise fiction that pull it in such a direction.

First, we can speak of franchise fiction’s goal of appealing to the public — Art made for profit tends towards being easier understood to appeal to a wider potential customer base. This means that the work will typically be conventionally well-formed in aesthetics. In story, easier-understood concepts will be used. This means that clichés and tropes will be frequently used and re-used so that the widest possible audience will understand what the story is about to maximize profits.

Secondly, we can speak of the franchise’s need to to make sure new installments maintain artistic cohesion within the franchise; Long-running franchise fiction must be fundamentally derivative, not only using mass-market-appealing tropes and clichés as we mentioned in the point above, but also demanding that the fiction repackages old ideas and archetypes from previous iterations. If a work tries to be too innovative, its connection to the franchise as a whole becomes more tenuous. It must maintain a certain degree of “same-ness” with previous works to maintain its connection to the franchise. This is also connected to the corporation’s concept of the customer base; The fiction must maintain some degree of similarity to previous work to keep that portion of the target customer base (assuming the fandom is large enough that it is financially worth appealing to).

Thirdly, there is the factor of the globalized market. The goal of any company is to reach a wider market and this is the impetus behind globalization unlocked by technology. Mass-market fiction must find a way to be relevant and appealing to cultures and people all around the world without distinction, meaning the fiction is even further limited to the lowest common denominator elements (tropes, clichés, derivations, a lack of intertextuality or context, a hindering of the ability to say anything of particular worth when speaking to an undefined audience). This leads to a sort of “smoothing down” of the fiction.

These three factors (and indeed, there are more) all ensure that long-running franchise fiction will tend towards slop. Understand that these things — conventional aesthetics, stories told through tropes and clichés, same-ness with previous iterations, and trying to appeal to a globalized market — are not necessarily bad things by themselves. I know I certainly enjoy conventional aesthetic realism that commercialized fiction tends to rely upon rather than overly abstract art, for example. But these things also pull art towards the direction of slop; There is an avoidance of risk taking, of diverging too far from the base form of the franchise.⁷ When folktales enter the hands of Disney to be adapted, they are smoothed down to meet the ideas of the international market.⁸ Tropes and clichés can be done well but, as we see with BookTok, the customer can be lured to tropes in and of themselves and fiction is produced to specifically cater to that audience, turning fiction into the apotheosis of a single cliché or trope to the detriment of fiction in general.

In short, don’t misunderstand these things as “reasons all low art sucks.” Rather, understand that these things inherent to the category will pull franchise fiction into slop territory if special care and attention are not made by the creators and companies they work for. These are indeed constraints, but constraints can actually aid in creativity. However, we should also know that franchise fiction usually serves the role of entertainment and we tend to be less picky and choosy about our entertainment by default. This is something companies take advantage of and eventually we discover that everything we liked has turned into slop. These factors do not exclude the possibility of innovation or creativity occasionally, but this shows a tendency, a sort of gravity that pulls franchise fiction (driven by top-down corporate structures who are focused on profit) of this kind to be the lowest-common denominator derivative works which are, by definition, slop.

Waking Up — It’s Not Just “Woke”

The time period in which fans of various fandoms realized just how slop their interests had become seems to have been the time period around roughly 2014 up to the 2020s, particular in reaction to so-called “Social Justice Warriors” or "Wokeness,” terminology I hate to use due to the fact that they are neologisms therefore ambiguous. For the purposes of this essay, I will begrudgingly use them.⁹ Events from GamerGate to Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi appears to have woken up many people to the sloppiness of their hobbies and interests, mainly through things like progressive propaganda. Thus, in reaction, many turned to the right wing which had been framed as an enemy to this progressive propaganda. And here we are: "Why did you force me to do this? I just wanted to play video games."

There seems to be this idea that, with this right-wing revolution seen with the second term of President Trump, we will be able to purge wokeness from our hobbies and bring about a golden age of entertainment.

I agree that managerial and intersectionalist progressivism was indeed a civilizational crisis, of course, and I am very happy to see it on the back leg. But this is very important to understand: Eliminating wokeness alone will not save our fandoms. While nothing compared to the damage brought about by managerial progressivism, our fandoms have certainly gone through dark times before; It comes with being franchise fiction in the first place. The Unicron Trilogy before the release of the 2007 Transformers film was not a particularly great era for the Transformers franchise when compared to Beast Wars or Transformers: Prime. The prequel trilogy of Star Wars certainly wasn’t well-received by many and it is only when compared to the sequel trilogy that we realize how good we had it. I guarantee that, in any of your fandoms, there were dark times before now. Franchise fiction, if not taken care of properly, will become slop.

This is why, while I love The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim with all my heart, I am not that interested in Elder Scrolls VI like others seem to be. I have seen Fallout 76 and Starfield and I see Bethesda slipping into slop like all companies slip into when they forget what actually made their games quality.

There’s another factor to keep in mind as well which is the “kiddie-fiction” of fiction: Children are a demographic that can be marketed to easily even with low-quality slop. If a franchise, especially a franchise built around toys, can simply dumb itself down for a younger audience and gain a large customer base, it will do it even if it means throwing older fans away. This is how Disney handles folktales, this is how Bethesda has been handling game design, this is how Transformers has been handling its plots since Transformers: Prime. And even Transformers: Prime’s plot pales in comparison to Beast Wars’ willingness to take risk and developing multilayered story telling. Interestingly enough, there’s also an opposite direction that works complementary to the kiddie-fication phenomenon, and that is the “not just for kids” model — I always frown when I see a post of someone clipping a children’s show and saying “this show is not for kids!” or sarcastically “And they say this is a kid’s show!” yet when I watch the clip in question it is never something out of place in a kid’s show, at least not by the standards of the 1980s or 1990s. Really, this is something that could be looked at in-depth in its own essay.

As a final note on kid’s fiction, I would say that it would be a good idea to not raise children on franchise fiction slop at all. Back in the day, kids used to read fairy tales (Yes, even the Grimm ones), folktales, even epic poetry. Kids understand more than you think and don’t need stories dumbed down the way franchise fiction slop approaches them. Rather, it is more meaningful to read things to them and talk to them to help them understand what’s happening. Hans Christian Andersens’ collected short stories are particularly important stories in the Western world to develop the culture of children and I hope to read Yei Theodora Ozaki’s collection of Japanese fairy tales to my children in the future, as well as stories from Edith Hamilton’s Mythology and Bible stories. Children’s fiction should not be dumbed down stories — They should be stories that inspire morals and virtue. We forget that the word “culture” did not originally mean what we think it means today — Culture refers to the cultivation of a virtuous life and childhood is the most important time to cultivate virtue. A lot of modern franchise fiction, especially those aimed at children, do not propagate actual virtue (indeed, the virtues are often looked down upon in the modern world and the spirit of the age naturally effects consumerist fiction!). Instead, in order to get your attention (and therefore your money), corporations give you sensation. As it was alluded to the The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis, in order for children to understand how to slay dragons, they must learn through fiction how to slay dragons. Modern children’s fiction does not show children how to meaningfully slay dragons, but it does tell them to follow the managerial values of being generally polite and nice and easily controllable. But either way, even children’s fiction is giving way to Tik-Tok and the iPad brain rot. In the cultivation of virtue in children, there must be a return to literature!

Shakespeare and Sherlock — Crossing the Great Divide

It would be a mistake to say that consumerist fiction can’t help the cultivation of the virtues or that even entertainment itself cannot be deep and worth contemplating. In order to illustrate this, I’d like to talk about Shakespeare and Sherlock Holmes and how they point to how low art can be just as helpful as high art in cultivating virtue despite being inherently consumerist.

The Bard of Avon

William Shakespeare’s work was, at the time, something we could anachronistically call low art though there would be those who would point out the lack of a capitalist superstructure in Shakespeare’s context excludes it from the category of consumerist fiction which we have been talking about. Perhaps that’s fair enough, but it can’t be overlooked how important it is for us today in trying to learn how to enjoy our fandoms in a cultivated way to see that the playwright’s works were enjoyed by the masses (including several fart jokes, no less), and ended up being part of the canon of English literature.

Shakespeare’s pseudo-consumerist works were enjoyed by the masses, yes. But to put his works on a shelf besides the likes of Dante, Chaucer, and Homer would seem as strange to an early modern Englishman as it would to us if we put Batman: The Long Halloween beside them.

Seven years after his death, John Heminges and Henry Condell, Shakespeare’s fellow actors, compiled 36 of Shakespeare’s plays into something called the First Folio, a prestige collected volume similar to how a beloved comic run of a certain writer might be collected in a high quality omnibus. This allowed Shakespeare’s plays to gain more legitimacy as an authentic piece of literature and open up the possibility for critical analysis of the plays. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, Englishmen would collect Shakespeare’s plays and analyze them, publishing annotations and critical editions, and the playwright gradually became a national icon that symbolized the English cultural heritage and tradition. Indeed, Shakespeare’s plays had real merit and through the Romantic Revolution of the late 18th century into the 19th century, he became a part of the English literary canon.

From widespread love of the masses into a prestigious collected volume to a higher cultural analysis of his works, Shakespeare went from low art to high art. He crossed the Great Divide.

The Great Detective

Arthur Conan Doyle is another such author whose more explicitly consumerist work of fiction changed English literature forever. Doyle invented the character Sherlock Holmes as a protagonist in a short story which eventually turned into a serial which he published for money. Indeed, the Romantic generation before Doyle had looked down upon serials and the way they were produced for profit. The words, they argued, became less meaningful when one was paid for each. But Victorian-era serials were heavily enjoyed even by elitists like T.S. Eliot. What makes the Sherlock situation so interesting is that Doyle had initially hated his creation¹⁰ and had even played with the idea of killing him off or raising the price for his work to such a value that he thought no one in their right mind would pay for it (they did). Doyle wrote a total of 56 short stories and four novels centered around the character. Guinness World Records lists him as the most portrayed human literary character in film and television history and the character has a large fandom even today (in fact, some say the Sherlock Holmes fandom was the first modern fandom). The Holmes character has left a lasting impact on how mystery writing is conducted and on popular culture in general in the same way the old classics of high art fame have impacted the literary canon. Even despite the motivations and thoughts of the artist, Sherlock Holmes has become high art.¹¹

So, do I think franchise fiction tends towards becoming slop naturally? Yes. Do I think franchise fiction can become just as high in quality as some of the great works of classical literature? Also yes.

Part II — So What are We to Do?

So what are we to do with this information? “Radix, you say that even if the so-called woke problem was resolved, fandoms would still tend towards slop! Is there no hope?”

Well, friends, the fact of the matter is that there is no hope for fandom qua fandom. Your favorite franchise fiction will always tend towards slop. There is no possible outcome in which the franchise fiction in question starts putting out gold and always consistently puts out gold, and I think we know this. What I propose isn’t an effort to save franchise fiction in and of itself, what I propose is to change how we¹² engage with franchise fiction and to what extent we engage with franchise fiction.¹³

Cultivate, Not Consoom

We were not made to be consoomers! And we were not meant to consume content mindlessly! Remember the original purpose of literature: To cultivate. To develop culture, that is to say virtue. We must remember that art is made to help us develop in some way. First and foremost, we need to be engaging with the classics, art that existed before the Industrial Revolution and were widely influential on civilization as a whole. Enjoy good works of visual art as well as poetry, literature, philosophy, history, and so on.¹⁴ This includes civilizational classics like the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, the Greek tragedies, and so on.¹⁵ It also includes folklore — Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, fairy tales, and so on. As a Christian, I would be amiss to leave out Holy Scripture, the Lives and Writings of the Saints, and other important spiritual works from the tradition of the Church. These should be the main focus of your cultivation.

But, of course, franchise fiction isn’t all bad and some can be very inspiring and cultivating in their own right. Besides proportionality, how should we engage with franchise fiction? Can we call ourselves fans of a thing we might recognize as 50% or more slop?

Dispelling the Myth of Franchise Fiction Canon

Of all the points discussed in this essay, this may be the most obvious. But it is also a way of thinking that took time to develop in myself.

Ever since I was a child, I was very much a completionist with the Transformers franchise. I wanted to know all the lore and continuity. And I did. For a time in 2015 and 2016, you could ask me any question about Transformers lore and I would probably have a lot to say on the topic (hence the YouTube channel). But was it worth it? 2015 saw the beginning of the Shroud and Transformers lore all began to fall apart, making way for the production of new content that hated me. No. It was not worth it.

We (and, by “we,” I mean all fans who autistically consume as much content as possible from a franchise and obsessing over continuity and knowledge of fictional worlds) must dispel the myth of the continuity and canon of a franchise-fictional universe.

Franchise Attitudes Towards Canon

The fact of the matter is that franchises make changes to their fictional worlds all the time in an effort to get more customers, even if such decisions alienate the old consumer base. Sometimes, these changes will be very blatant like the hard reboots of DC’s New 52, Transformers’ Shroud, or Star Wars abandoning the Expanded Universe. Other times, these changes will be more subtle and leave the old customers confused. Examples of this phenomena can be found in the Elder Scrolls’ subtle retcons in each game or Marvel Comics quietly pushing their timeline forward so that characters who fought in World War II now actually fought in Vietnam now actually fought in Afghanistan, a concept that only works in the abstract. Franchises will, in the name of business and profit, throw away old customers at any time for their benefit. Fans like me must understand that canon is a social contract and if the franchise company can break it at any time, so can we. We can ignore installments of the franchise.

Franchise fiction often takes the form of a “shared universe” or “expanded universe” or “cinematic universe.” These gimmicks are inherently a marketing campaign in which media is created in multiple formats or under multiple titles and the consumer is expected to consume multiple media forms and purchase multiple products along the way to get the perception that they are getting the entire story, as if such a thing existed. When continuity, canon, and quality can vary quite dramatically at any time, the fan must wake up and realize that he has been played.

There are times when expanded universes and sequels aren’t the worst things in the world; There are no complaints when an expanded universe shares in the creative vision of the original creative director, respects the original idea and direction of the franchise, and makes strong, quality connections between installments. When it comes to franchises that operate on an iteration-by-iteration basis (like Transformers today), a certain amount of reverence towards the source material is required to resonate with fans and not come off as a cynical cash grab.

Art Versus Product — Hard and Soft Canon

But it is also important to understand the origin of the creative spirit and how that creative spirit interacts with the expanded work. Many franchises originate from one creative spirit; Let’s take Star Wars and George Lucas for example. In the Star Wars Expanded Universe (Legends), many artists created high-quality releases that expanded the world of Star Wars. However, while George Lucas took an active interest in LucasArts projects, he did not always agree with what was happening in the EU. That being said, he did not reject their status as stories and he did not reject the existence of the stories but he also understood that they were not part of his creation, his creative vision, his Star Wars. The EU ensured that there was always fun and exciting Star Wars content on the shelves while the films were between releases for the sake of the franchise, but Lucas did not consider the EU to be canon. As a result, his later work on the prequel trilogy and the Clone Wars cartoon contradicted much of the EU canon.

Star Wars Legends worked on a soft canon model where there was a core franchise and an expanded franchise but the core franchise had the liberty to take from the expanded franchise when it wanted to do so, but also completely over-write the expanded universe if it wanted to. This was good for Lucas’ artistic integrity. However, soft canon does not work well for a business. If a future move can just retcon it, why consume EU products?

Because of this, we can compare how Lucas ran Star Wars and how Disney has been running Star Wars — As a hard canon. Disney has been operating on a much more defined hard canon where works are interconnected in a shared universe. This fuels the desire of the consumer to try to get the “whole story” by purchasing more products and therefore helping Disney’s sales. While Lucas wanted the EU to be fun and exciting, Disney is making a product.

But we have a similar question to ask of Disney’s Star Wars that we asked in regards to the EU canon — If hard canon can be retconned at any time by the company (rather than by any one main artistic vision), why bother with trying to keep up with hard canon at all?

Canon as a Social Contract

I have noticed this attitude has been prominent in American comics fandom for a while, especially in the 2010s and 2020s. It is an open secret now that comic book writers, while working in a shared and expanded universe, do their own work on the characters they write, choosing as they see fit to reference or not reference the work of earlier artists in the continuity or events happening in other books set in the same universe. If you try to take American comic continuity seriously, you will go insane. It is an illusion. It is not real. Canon is not real, it is a social contract between the creator and the audience and if creators create something of low quality or disrespects the source material, the audience has the privilege to ignore the work.

Rather than worrying about hard canon, we must understand that every piece of work has its own soft canon which it may choose to reference or not reference at different times. Consider the Sherlock franchise. Yes, Sherlock became a pop culture phenomenon but it also spun off into a wide range of re-imaginings and adaptations of a wide variety of quality. When one looks at the Sherlock franchise, one realizes that adaptations and re-imaginings do not have the ability to actually ruin source material and that a healthy fan compartmentalizes these works into their own separate categories.

We are hardwired in our approach to art to confuse one story as the work of one mind, one creator with one direction and as such, we confuse the revolving door of creators on a franchise fiction as being an actual, living story. We subconsciously think about it as a story directed by an author whose direction and thoughts are carried forward by the next writer to pick up the pen and so on. But understand that when fiction starts passing between creatives, it stops being a living story with one creative vision. Rather, each new entry in the series by a new creator is inherently a different work of creative genius. Two products are created by two separate minds which may contradict each other.

There is this strange view we hold that an institution with legal custodial rights over an intellectual property have the ability to over-write or otherwise change the artistic vision of the previous holders of the intellectual property. This is simply not how art works — Both works exist concurrently as testaments to the vision of each creator. Rings of Power does not “ruin” the Lord of the Rings films just as the films do not “ruin” the original books. They are separate pieces of fiction created by different minds. One may accept two or more works created by different minds set in what marketing teams call the “same universe” so long as it meets your criteria (such as reverence) but you are by no means forced to like or even watch Rings of Power just because you are a Lord of the Rings fan.

So, some tips:

• Understand that so-called canon as declared by a company in charge of a franchise-fictional world is not like the Church pulling together the books of the Holy Bible. Companies do not dictate the destination of your immortal soul if you are faithful to them. Brands should not be your religion. The companies are merely legal custodians to an intellectual property as a legal concept.

• It is okay to give preference to some pieces of work of a franchise over others. You are not required to follow the “rules” created by marketing teams and obnoxious fandoms. Compartmentalize the works you like and the works you don’t like — Bad installments only ruin the art if you let it.

• Focus particularly on classic, iconic works of franchise fiction. For Batman, for example, focus on the books that define the character — Year One, The Long Halloween, Death in the Family, and build your canon from books that meet your standards from there.

• When it comes to the appreciation of franchise fiction art, frankly, your headcanon is just as good and valid as officially produced works by the company. Your creative spirit has just as much bearing on other works as other hired writers do on works that are not their own.¹⁶

• Understand that you don’t actually like the works of a franchise, you like works of certain creators. Try to identify creators behind the works you like as that is the human mind that is driving the art. Perhaps they have made other pieces that you would enjoy? If you really like Simon Furman’s Transformers books, you are more likely to enjoy another series written by Simon Furman than you are to enjoy the next piece of Transformers media written by who knows who.

• Fan fiction can be, and often is, actually good. But this could be something to explore with more nuance in another essay.

Support Creators Outside of Franchises

There is another thing we should think about — If franchise fiction tends towards slop, we should work to create an environment so that a creative with legitimate talent does not feel the need to work for franchises that stifle his creative spirit. Consider supporting indie creators if you can. A project that comes to mind is Jonathan Pageau’s Tales for Once & Ever project or his GodsDog project as he seeks to create quality re-tellings of fairy tales and traditions steeped in meaning as a sort of opposite version of Disney.

In Summary

• Franchise fiction will always tend towards being slop due to its consumerist nature.

• The managerial leveling force of “woke,” while not a minor problem, is not the only problem with franchise fiction.

• Despite tendencies towards slop, low art pieces have the capacity of being great works of art.

• The purpose of art is to cultivate us, not to be consumed.

• In a well-ordered life, franchise fiction is experienced in proper proportionality with civilizational classics, folk art, and Holy Tradition.

• Canon in franchise fiction can be disregarded. Do not feel tied down by marketing strategies, but instead enjoy franchise fiction works that are high quality and iconic.

• Support modern creators with true artistic spirit.

These are the thoughts I am having at this stage. It's fascinating to think about how much my philosophy and attitudes towards art have changed in the past five years. Especially from 2021-2024, I spent much of my time reading through classics and philosophy rather than enjoying the old pieces of fiction I used to enjoy. Events surrounding those franchises had soured me. But this march through philosophy has led me back where I started, albeit with a better appreciation and more discerning eye towards the works I enjoy and deciding which works I will spend my time enjoying rather than being a completionist consuming all of the corporate slop. I hope these thoughts and feelings are understandable or sympathetic to some of you out there and if any of my words have helped you with anything regarding your own attitudes towards franchise fiction, I am overjoyed. Perhaps with this new framework, I can enjoy consumerist fiction again, but especially the works that have actual merit.

1. Hehehehe

2. Historian James T. Patterson wrote an over-400 page entry in the Oxford History of the United States covering the 1990s and the events leading up to it in Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush V. Gore. The book includes a massive chapter on the “culture war.” It already is a significant topic in the study of American socio-cultural history.

3. This term is a neologism. I tend to be hesitant to use neologisms, hence the quotation marks.

4. Despite Redditors soyjaking about the Aeneid or the Divine Comedy as “fanfic,” I agree with the many art historians who regard “fandom” as a phenomenon beginning after the Industrial Revolution was in full swing. Fandom in regards to a creator could be seen in the public reaction to Rousseau and the later Romantics like Beethoven. Fandom in regards to franchise can be seen with the Victorian obsession over Sherlock Holmes which will be discussed later.

5. It may be more accurate to say that it exacerbated the divergence which was always there, though I agree with art historians I’ve seen who argue that there is a qualitative difference between low art and “folk art.” Low art necessarily comes after the commercialization of culture which grew after World War II. I disagree with the idea of distinguishing between low art and high art on the basis of low art being for the masses and high art being for the elites. In our world today, in fact, I find the best connoisseurs of high art in the working class while the elite adorn their desktops and homes with commercialized slop.

6. Long-running franchise fiction — Works of fiction created as a product under the brand of a franchise produced indefinitely. These works can be in the form of shared or expanded universes or different versions of the same plot or characters that go through many different iterations. The creative direction of these works are ultimately under the jurisdiction of the franchise’s corporate owners. Very often, long-running franchise fiction will be in the hands of many creatives rather than being the passion project of one writer.

7. I would add that franchise fiction might simply not be the place to try experimenting too much; While experimentation can be used to help improve the quality of art, franchise fiction hinders the creative’s capability to experiment so that even trying experimentation could cause problems. The trends of “deconstruction” and “subverting expectations” we saw, especially in the late 2010s and early 2020s, gave plenty of examples how experimentation in franchise fiction can fail. Star Wars: The Last Jedi comes to mind.

8. And sadly, end up becoming the definitive versions of those folktales. When you think about Snow White, I bet that the one that comes to mind is the Disney version, a version that made several alterations to the original material both to appeal to global audiences as well as to appeal to children who were not necessarily the original audience of the folktale.

9. If I had to provide a definition of “woke,” I would describe it as the application of progressivism as a Kierkegaardian leveling force in such a managerial order as described by James Burnham and Samuel Francis. Now, there’s a lot to unpack there. And that is not what this essay is about. Which is why I’m begrudgingly using the term.

10. It reminds me of how Bob Budiansky, who I consider to be the real father of Transformers, was largely ambivalent towards his work until its worth became prevalent.

11. And, after all, to what extent should we care about the artist or their intent when appraising a piece of work? While the Romantics might say that the artist is essential to understanding the work, I would argue a larger, cosmic understanding of the logos spermatikos and the patterns of creation means that there is indeed a degree of separation between the artist and his work. T.S. Eliot and New Criticism also hold that there needs to be a separation between the artist’s intent and the work itself when analyzing a work. While I am not well-versed on literary analysis theory, I know many philosophers and thinkers I respect hold to New Criticism. Standing on the shoulders of giants, I shall defer to their judgement.

12. I am conscious of the fact that the “we” here is doing a lot of lifting. Of course I only understand my experience and my thought processes. It is possible, nay, highly likely that most of you have already come to this conclusion and didn’t need to spend half a decade autistically piecing together a theory of art philosophy like I did. Have mercy on me, I am slow.

13. Allow me to make one disclaimer — Some may read this essay and say something along the line of “It’s just entertainment, Radix. It’s not that deep.” In response to this, I would like to point out that this essay is written in reaction to people complaining about the situation their favorite fandoms find themselves in. Obviously, there is some expectation of quality in our entertainment. Yes, I agree that not all entertainment needs to be high brow or high quality. I am saying that we shouldn’t expect high quality where it is not to be found, that is, in franchise fiction viewed from a holistic point of view. What I am saying is, if you want specifically quality entertainment, that is to say you are already expecting quality, we must not engage with franchise fiction the way the marketing team tells us to engage with it. If you come away from this essay thinking “wow, Radix is such an elitist expecting every single cartoon to be high brow,” you have walked away with an incorrect interpretation of this essay.

14. Saint Basil the Great says in his Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature that we need to be “conversant” with poets, historians, orators, and especially philosophers. Much of our cultivation must center on these things. I recommend reading the address if you have not yet as it provides a key framework to dealing with art and literature and why it should be done.

15. This is tied to the concept of “background” I talk about in my Metaphysics of Nations essay. I define the concept of background in Chapter 2, Section V.

16. You have no idea how long it took me to be open to this idea.