GOLDEN AGENCY PT. 2

As I indicated at the end of GOLDEN AGENCY PT. 1. "vectors of agency" are what determine whether or not to judge a given crossover as being either high or low in terms of stature or charisma, or effectively null in terms of either.

Without re-examining all of my posts on the subject, I sense that I may have occasionally intimated that a given crossover might be "null" just because one of the icons involved doesn't do very much in the story. At least I see why one could come to that conclusion from reading my meditations on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel FIGHTING MAN OF MARS, in which the one-shot main character interacts in very minor ways with two stature-icons (John Carter, Ulysses Paxton) and with one charisma-icon (Jason Gridley). But if I misspoke, I'm now clarifying that even a low agency-vector-- like simply being physically present while the story's Prime icon gets all the action-- still counts as a crossover. 

The critical difference between "really low stature or charisma" vs. "null stature or charisma" was best described in A CROSSOVER MISCELLANY PT. 1. In that essay, I contrasted two works' usage of the Dracula icon. In one, 1972's BLACULA, Dracula appears only to initiate Prince Mamuwalde into vampirism. This is a low-stature crossover because of the qualitative significance of the Dracula icon, and if for some reason the character used had been some comparatively minor figure who never enjoyed stature, then it would only be a charisma-crossover. But even very minor agency is still different from no agency at all, which is what one gets from my other example, 1935's DRACULA'S DAUGHTER, in which Dracula has been staked into oblivion, the Count has no agency, and so this is at best a null-crossover (though one in which the character of Countess Zaleska is stature-dependent upon her absent father).

Even a simple cameo in which a given character, whether possessed of stature or charisma from another work, stands and does nothing counts as having crossover status. For instance, as I recall the majority of videogame characters who cameo in WRECK-IT RALPH don't even say anything. But as long as such characters are "on stage" and capable of doing something, even just reciting a line of dialogue or showing a reaction, they have "potential agency." However, "repeat flashbacks," in which one text simply reproduces a scene that appeared in another text, do not possess any vectors of agency. If DRACULA'S DAUGHTER had included a scene from the 1931 film with one or more of the main characters, or had filmed a totally new scene purporting to represent action from that film, those "repeat flashbacks" would possess no vectors of agency, no matter what they showed the characters doing. A "non-repeat flashback," though, would be one which repeated part of the action but with new information added. The most famous examples of such a flashback are seen in movie serials, when a given chapter repeats an earlier chapter's scene in which the hero goes over the cliff, but adds a new scene with the hero managing to catch a handhold rather than being dashed on the ground below. Such a scene could possess a vector of agency, though it might or might not have any relevance to the second work's crossover status.