What troubles me in this particular situation is that - partly because this all took place before the era where such matters could be discussed openly - we never heard directly from Sheldon's husband. All we have is reports from friends and family. And that does leave room for, at the very least, misunderstanding by the friends and family.
Moreover, while I don't think a desire to die rather than suffer is necessarily a sign of mental illness, there does seem to be some evidence in this case that Alice Sheldon was suffering from intense distress that might have disordered her mind. So I'm inclined to regard what happened as a tragedy for both parties.
As for the vexed question of how this relates to the naming issue: If I understand correctly the gist of the statement you linked to, the Tiptree Award folks are arguing that, just as "Astounding" (the new name of the Best New Writer award) was a magazine that didn't belong exclusively to Campbell, so too "Tiptree" ended up being a concept that didn't belong exclusively to Sheldon - it became something much bigger than the original creator, I suppose in the same way as Sherlock Holmes went beyond being simply a creation of Conan Doyle. And as a fanfic reader, I take that argument very seriously.
Mainly, though, I agree heartily with what you said earlier: "It's a thorny issue, and no mistake."
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What troubles me in this particular situation is that - partly because this all took place before the era where such matters could be discussed openly - we never heard directly from Sheldon's husband. All we have is reports from friends and family. And that does leave room for, at the very least, misunderstanding by the friends and family.
Moreover, while I don't think a desire to die rather than suffer is necessarily a sign of mental illness, there does seem to be some evidence in this case that Alice Sheldon was suffering from intense distress that might have disordered her mind. So I'm inclined to regard what happened as a tragedy for both parties.
As for the vexed question of how this relates to the naming issue: If I understand correctly the gist of the statement you linked to, the Tiptree Award folks are arguing that, just as "Astounding" (the new name of the Best New Writer award) was a magazine that didn't belong exclusively to Campbell, so too "Tiptree" ended up being a concept that didn't belong exclusively to Sheldon - it became something much bigger than the original creator, I suppose in the same way as Sherlock Holmes went beyond being simply a creation of Conan Doyle. And as a fanfic reader, I take that argument very seriously.
Mainly, though, I agree heartily with what you said earlier: "It's a thorny issue, and no mistake."