Talk:Peter Pan (disambiguation)

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I think the disambiguation for Peter Pan should be handled differently. Currently the undisambiggened article is about the stage play and the novel, which is a little odd, because neither of them is properly named simply "Peter Pan". Especially in light of the fact that more people today have seen one or both of the feature films, than have read the novel or seen the play, I don't think the latter are the "default" or most common meaning of the name to most people. The character is. Regardless of how they know him, when people hear "Peter Pan", they think of the character... who has appeared in the play, the novel, the movies, the prequels and sequels, etc. A quick survey of Special:Whatlinkshere/Peter_Pan and the number of piped links to Peter Pan (literary character) seems to support this. Other characters who appear in eponymous works are given plain title, with those works disambiguated (e.g. Superman. I think the article about the character should be moved to just plain Peter Pan.

That raises the question of what to do with the article currently at that address. "Peter Pan (play and novel)" would be ugly, and they have different official titles, so we couldn't use those for a single article name. They're fundamentally the same story, but there are differences between them. I'd prefer to keep them as a single article about the play, and include a section about the novel explaining how it differs. But if that gets unwieldy, I can see a valid argument for separating them, as long as that can be done without duplicating too much information between the two (e.g. character lists).

- JasonAQuest 19:10, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you that the current method is confusing. According to the Oxford Edition, these are the original titles:

the novel: Peter and Wendy, and a later edition, Peter Pan and Wendy, then later after the copyright expired, some published it as Peter Pan
the play, when it was published: Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up
(it's unclear what the title of the play was when it was performed in 1904 before either were published.)

How about this?

move Peter Pan (literary character) to: Peter Pan
move the play and novel page Peter Pan to the more well-known name of the novel: Peter and Wendy (also since it's shorter and easier)
redirect the name of the play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up to the combined article about the play and the novel, Peter and Wendy
redirect the other title of the novel, Peter Pan and Wendy, also to the same article, Peter and Wendy

In the Peter and Wendy article, the alternate titles and formats would be best mentioned in the article lead and made bold. We could have a section about the differences between the play and the novel.

The disambiguation page will still be needed, but the book and play articles would make more sense that way. --Linda (talk) 08:57, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The production of the play at the Duke of York's in 1904 was in fact billed as Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up.[1] - JasonAQuest (talk) 16:06, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's good to know. It's interesting to see the original program scan. Do you want to add that ref to the article? --Linda (talk) 05:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it needs a reference; it's simply the full title of the work. - JasonAQuest (talk) 17:50, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the name Peter Pan should point back to the original story, or better still just be that article. The comparison with Superman is not close enough. Superman does not refer to a single story - it refers to a character in thousands of stories. Peter Pan can not separated from the story of the play and novel. One of the reasons the character page is so poor, is it is hard to add much that is not duplicated in the story page. Almost everything that is important about the character is from the play and novel. And just because (as in WP:ATA) it exists does not mean it is right. If Superman pointed to the comic of that name and the character was on a differnt page that would seem reasonable too.Obina (talk) 21:48, 10 December 2007 (UTC) . Some other examples are Beowulf and Black Beauty which are the original tales, and Alice in Wonderland which redirects to the original book with it real title. Tarzan is like Superman, but note there are 23 sequels by ERB and countless new stories. Peter Pan almost always refers to the classic tale.Obina (talk) 22:02, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You make some good points. I prefer the idea of the article Peter Pan being about the character, because that's his name. That wasn't used by Barrie as the name for the play or any of his novels, those were Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, Peter and Wendy, published later as Peter Pan and Wendy, and then only much later was the name Peter Pan by itself used for the book. Disney's film used the name by itself as it's title, and it's true that many people got to know Peter Pan through that film, but lots of people know the play or the musical or the book too.

The other thing is that the novel and play, and the Disney film, have other characters in them, and most of those characters have separate articles too. If the main name Peter Pan goes to the play or the book, then when people what to read about him, they'd be in the wrong place and have to look further.

About your reason that it's a poor article, you might be right about that, but I don't think we should decide about the names of the articles by looking at how they are now. Several people are working on improving all of these articles recently, so I bet in a while, they'll all be a pretty good bunch of articles, and the one about the character will improve a lot. And other people will probably help too. --Linda (talk) 04:22, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If we don't make "Peter Pan" an article about the character, the only other justifiable choice would be to make it a disambiguation page, because there are too many other contenders for that name (the three feature films, the peanut butter, the bus line, etc). The argument that the character is associated with only a single story is (for better or worse) increasingly incorrect. Between Spielberg, Disney, Barry & Pearson, Geraldine McCaughrean, and a few others (to say nothing of Barrie's own "prequel"), there are already several other published stories out there featuring the character, and probably more to come after the EU copyright expires next month and more people realize that the US copyright is invalid. There is plenty to be said about the play-and-novel that isn't about the character (the other characters, the plot, the real-world history, the themes), and there's increasingly plenty to say about the character that isn't in the play-and-novel. - JasonAQuest (talk) 23:11, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]