Another country heard from... (was: Thoughts on exclusion and culture) LONG

[Haggridd]

--- In HPFGU-Feedback at yahoogroups.com, "gwendolyngrace" 
<gwendolyngrace at y...> wrote:
> Hi, everyone.

> 6. Filking is canon. Dumbledore instructs everyone in the first 
book 
> to pick a favourite tune to sing the Hogwarts school song. 
Hermione 
> has never, to my knowledge, presented Harry and Ron with a 
syllogism 
> by personifying herself vis-à-vis her theory.
> 
> Okay, that last one was silly. But I think you get the point.
> 
> Gwen

Thanks for a brilliant post.  I found it persuasive and compelling, 
except that I think Dumbledore's exhortation is perhaps your 
strongest point, and not at all frivolous.  I also refer you to his 
comment on the magic of music.

But, having pretty much accepted your conclusions as to the 
vialbility of TBAY and of FILKing,  I wonder if banning TBAY will 
improv the list.  As you pointed out, the TBAYers and the FILKers 
turned to thes forms either out of boredome with the then current 
essays only format, or that they realized-- as you have admitted-- 
that there are things much more elegantly conveyed through an 
alternative form.  Would either of these populations return to 
posting those boring-- to them-- essays if TBAY was banned, even 
begging the question of their natural reaction to said banning: 
resentment at best, anger and retaliation at worst.

So, however TBAY started (thank you too, Heidi) and was nurtured, 
now the little mandragora plants can flourish in the soil of the 
main list, but without detracting from the parallel essay-type 
discussions, sometimes briefly intersecting and enriching one 
another in the process?

While agreeing with you wholeheartedly that Sturgeon's law indeed 
applies to HP filks, I find my enjoyment at finding the 10% far 
outweighs my dismay at the 90%.

Give uniform, appropriate prefixes to allow for sorting, why not 
continue these now time-honored alternatives to essays?

Haggridd