[HPFGU-Feedback] The movie rule

[Mrs.) Lee Storm (God Is The Healing Force]

I guess I'll throw my knut into this little pot. :-)

[David wrote]:
| Here is the relevant text of the admin:
|
| "Due to the recent very high message volumes on the main list, and
| the inevitable tendency of any discussion referencing the Warner
| Bros. Harry Potter films to drift off-topic, the elves have decided
| to reinstate the old rule banning discussion of the films on the
| main list, effective immediately. If you wish to post about the
| films, even if you are using them as support for a book-related
| point, please direct your post to the Movie list:
|
| http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-Movie "
|
| My understanding is, that, other things being equal, there *is* a
| valid place for the movies in canon-related discussion ("support for
| a book-related point") and that, in that sense, Geoff has logic on
| his side.
|
| We don't know the extent to which the movies may indicate canonical
| developments not yet revealed, or partially revealed, in the
| existing books, and JKR herself has dropped intriguing hints on
| this.  Furthermore, there is the interesting question, not much
| discussed, of the extent to which JKR's portrayal of characters in
| OOP may have been influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by her
| viewing of the first two movies.

[Lee]:
All well and good, but, as far as I understand the function of the main
list, it is to discuss book-related things with canon (book) support, be
they theories, conjectures, etc.  Whatever influences the movie may have to
foreshadowing and such do not relate as there is no book-written support for
them, so they should go to the movie list.

[David]:
| (There is a moment, for example,
| where Nearly Headless Nick is cut short in conversation; I wondered
| if that was a playful reference to the way John Cleese gets so
| little screen time.  (If anyone wants to respond to *this* point,
| they'd better do so on the movie list))

[Lee]:
Correct. <Nodding.>

[David]:
| Also, it has in the past been a valid main list topic to discuss the
| extent of 'canon' itself - some, unlike Dicentra, do not accept
| anything from JKR's interviews as valid, for example.  The movies
| are legitimately part of that discussion, especially as not all
| would accept there just two simple categories, canon and not-canon.

[Lee]:
Hmm--I tend to swing toward the books (what has been writ by the author) as
canon and interviews, movies, as an off-shoot but not within the canon
realm; they haven't been incorporated into the books so they have relevance
to the Potterverse but do not fall within the realm of true canon.

The exception I'm willing to concede is the dearth of notes on characters
which have been included in canon, i.e. backgrounds, names, etc.  These are
things which help to flesh out the already established characters and give
them more depth.

[David]:
| My understanding of the reason for the rule, however, is that it is
| impossible in practice to hold the logical line ("the inevitable
| tendency of any discussion referencing the Warner Bros. Harry Potter
| films to drift off-topic").  Threads which validly discuss the canon
| implications of the movies just too often fail to stay that way.

[Lee]:
Well, that's the fine point..."Canon *implications* of the movies."  Because
the so-called implication has not yet been incorporated or written, it is,
therefore, not yet *truly* canon; it's only a conjecture or theory.  Until
it actually becomes a part of the written body of work, it can't really be
considered canon.

[David]:
| People start discussing the content of the movies themselves
| instead.  So the rule is about pragmatic control of the content of
| the lists, not about whether the movies have a place in canon
| discussion.

[Lee]:
Both, actually, because of the fact that these topics, for the most part,
have not yet been truly put into the penned mode and published by the author
into the body of canon work.

[David]:
| For that reason, I feel that discussion of the extent of JKR's
| influence on the movies is beside the point as far as this rule is
| concerned.  Anyone who wants to suggest an alternative needs to
| look, not to logic, but to a practical and easy-to-understand-and-
| enforce definition of what is on-topic for the main list.

[Lee]:
IMHO, If the topic exists in the written and presently published body of
work (The Canon), it is right to discuss and extrapolate on the main list.
Conjecture and theory and projection are fine with that.

If the discussion does not stem from the written body of work (the canon),
alluding to a possible point of canon but from a movie POV, it should
probably be on the movie list.

Again, this is simply my take on this.

I'm a list moderator myself on the Battlestar Galactica list and this kind
of thing has cropped up, too, in a slightly different vein since Battlestar
was a TV series.  The idea of what was canon and not canon stemmed from the
original series vs the novelizations and the addition of the follow-up
series of Galactica:1980.  Now, to throw an added bad potion into the works,
there is this new remake which came out end of last year which is as far
removed from the original as one can get.  But, there are some who, at some
point, may want to call it canon, too.  So, our stance is that if it wasn't
in the original series of episodes it *is not* canon.

Like I say, been down this road. <Sigh>

[David]:
| Dicentra's list of acceptable and unacceptable posts missed out the
| kind of post that, I thought, has now changed status as a result of
| the rule:
|
| "I think that Lupin's references to Lily in the movie foreshadow a
| Lupin/Lily ship which JKR revealed to Kloves and Thewlis, which she
| is intending to put into HBP."

[Lee]:
Key word "intending." But we haven't seen it in print, yet, so it,
therefore, can't be considered truly Canon until it is actually part of the
written body of work.  Again, it's from the movie POV; it's an allusion, not
a written fact as we know it yet; therefore, it's not within the realm of
true canon.

[David]:
| As I understand it, that was acceptable before the rule change, and
| now is not.  I thought all the unacceptable ones listed by Dicey
| were already unacceptable, because they illuminate no canon point.
|
| Is that right?

[Lee]:
Probably, but perhaps the good Elves are trying to make a more delimited
line which is fine by me.

Personally, I appreciate keeping book (canon) things and all their like to
the main list; movie things and all their like should be on the movie list.
I have no problem with that.

Please, I'm not trying to trample toes, just trying to see all of this in a
logical and consistency-oriented framework having experienced something like
this myself.

Cheers,

Lee :-)

Do not walk behind me,    | Lee Storm
I may not care to lead;   | N2FGC
Do not walk before me;    | n2fgc at ... (or)
I may not care to follow; | n2fgc at ...
Walk beside me, and be my friend.