Fics with slash, children's books, the purpose of my schpiel on warnings (in other words, multiple responses)

[heiditandy]

ER wrote:
> JK's books are designed to be read by children and I
think 
> the "violence" is pantomime stuff. Maybe 
> upsetting to very young children, but otherwise just part of a fairly 
> gentle story. Cedric was killed (very cleanly and painlessly as far 
> as the reader is concerned), but big deal. Who cared about him?


Really? Wow, then you've got a very different take on this than JKR! On
a lot of issues!

<<I feel that the ending of Book Four is frightening. But there are
reasons for that. It was not done for pure pleasure of thinking I was
frightening people. I was dealing with an evil character and there's a
moral obligation, I feel, to show what that means. I don't see (Books)
Five, Six and Seven as, you know, that I have to up the stakes with
every book at all. (Book Four) was a pivotal moment at the heart of the
series. I wouldn't necessarily say that Five is darker, but I can't say
that there's isn't more dark stuff coming because I know that there is.
>>(http://www.oregonlive.com/books/index.ssf?/books/00/10/al_11browl22.f
rame)

On Cedric: 

 I cried during the writing of that one [Book Four] for the first time
ever. I cried doing the actual writing of it. It really upset me. 

E: It opens with a murder and then there's one at the end, which I won't
say who it is. And you cried then? 

JK: Yeah. 

(http://www.cbc.ca/programs/sites/hottype_rowlingcomplete.html)
Now, I admit that it's vague as to whether she cried when writing about
Frank or Cedric, but really - which do you think it was? Or do you think
she was lying?

Clearly, she cared about him. I was so hit out of the blue by it when I
read that part that I didn't cry, myself, but I did when he asked Harry
to bring his body back to his parents. I wonder, how could anyone
(especially reading this after 9/11, in a universe JKR never could have
contemplated when she wrote this scene - when the whole issue of
returning the smallest bit of one of the victims to his or her loved
ones) not be touched by that?

And on the issue of whether they're children's books, among other
quotes, JKR has said... 
"I would think probably 8 or 9 is the youngest I would recommend as a
reading age for the books." (again,
http://www.oregonlive.com/books/index.ssf?/books/00/10/al_11browl22.fram
e)

In the book trade, fyi, books for 8 and 9 year olds are considered on
the edge of YA books - not children's books. And for comparison, Judy
Blume's books are also YA, as is the Adrien Mole series. Of course, I
read Forever when I was 11 and Less Than Zero at 15, and I'm sure many
of you know that Forever is somewhat graphic in its depictions of
boy-girl sexual activity; Less Than Zero isn't graphic in the boy-boy
scenes, but they're clear enough when you get to them - and IIRC, there
is *no* advance notice on the back of the book. 

More on the age issue, for those of you who still dismiss them as
children's books:
I never, at any point writing any of the books, worried whether children
would understand or whether they would find it funny or whether I would
frighten them too much, ever, because I wrote the books entirely for
myself. I just went where I wanted to go and hang the consequences
really.
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/books/club/harrypotter/transcript.shtml,
August 1, 1999 (Hmmm. No wonder I didn't hear the interview when it was
originally done; I was in labor at the time.))

> I'd also go further and say that FanFics should follow the spirit of 
> the original story (it doesn't matter if it's not what would happen 
> in real-life, the story is the thing). 

There are some wonderful stories that follow the spirit of JKR's novels.
How about Dreamwalk Blue, where Tom Riddle gets homicidal while at
school? It's totally canon based! It also contains both sexual activity
among students and some violence - but it's about Tom Riddle in his last
years at Hogwarts - could you actually walk into a story where the
summary indicates that and be surprised that he's Not Such A Nice Guy? 

The spirit of the story is that there is a lot of darkness in the
backstory - and a lot of dark things set to happen in the future books.
The spirit of the story contains sex and violence and lewd jokes and
causes people to muse on the main list about exactly how giants and
wizards can physically get together. If you feel that fanfics should
follow the spirit of the original story, please recognize that such
spirit is a little more multilayered than you seem to be giving it
credit for - of course, if I'm misreading you, then I apologize, and ask
you to please explain it a bit more clearly. 




Acire (Welcome!) wrote: 

> Also, in anime fanfic, male homosexual relationships *w/o sex 
> (and this refers anything that would lead to arousal)* were 
> stated with a "shonen-ai" warning, which, translated into 
> English, means "boy-love." Female homosexual relationships 
> w/o sex were referred to as "shojo-ai", meanining 
> "girl-love." Anything with sex in it was called a lemon. 

I find this interesting as a glimpse into another fandom (although I
must point out that most of the HP fanficcers when the fandom was just
getting started (about 3ish years ago) had never done fanfic in any
other fandom before, and had no idea what the conventions and stylings
from other fandoms were) but I'm a bit confused about something - what
is "anything that would lead to arousal"? Is it feelings generated in
the reader? In the characters? It's an interesting gague, and I can
certainly think of fics where it would be relevant, but...

Either of those leave a pretty large gap, where things like George's
characterisation in Trouble in Paradise, or Justin in Paradigm of
Uncertainty (PoU, as separated from HWATF), or Ben & Gareth in Draco
Sinister, or Remus and Sirius in After the End are not shown in any way
that could reasonably be expected to cause arousal in any reader - and
they're not in any situations that show arousal either. They're
characters, they have roles in the plot, and they happen to be gay or
bi. Where's the issue in something like that, and how would a warning be
beneficial to anyone but a homophobe? 

To be honest, I don't care much about benefiting homophobes. 

I don't see this as any different than JKR's seemingly deliberate
nonindication of the gender of Professor Sinistra (or, for that matter,
the genders of the couples in the bushes at the Yule Ball). 

However, I do note that on all the larger archives, all fics are
required to be rated. If you are reading something rated R in Astronomy
Tower, it's reasonable to assume that there will be some "fade to black"
or euphamism-described sexual activity in it. I guess what I don't
understand is why a summary shouldn't be sufficient. Why does a fic have
to say "warning"? It feels so *Danger Will Robinson* that it's a bit
ridiculous. 


ER also wrote:
> What is this nonsense leading up to? My view is that one should warn 
> about the things that are _likely_ to upset or offend the _majority_ 

Nonsense? It's a logical extension of the premise that one should warn
about things that are likely to upset or offend a number of people, if
not a full scale majority (and unlike you, I don't think that the
majority of people in the over-13 side of the HP fandom are offended by
the idea that people in the world are gay; some are, but I don't think
it's a full 51%.)

Oh, and a note to Haggridd, who wrote, "As you can see, this [use of the
word "nonsense"] refers to ER's comments."

No, it doesn't. It clearly refers to my "warning", which I admit is
overblown and ridiculous - I think that the idea of warning the reading
public about the contents of a story is not only antithetical to the
process of reading, where a little suspense and glimpses of the
unexpected are a natural and requisite part of the interpritation of
narrative and appreciation of suspense. But the point of why I provided
the warning has clearly been missed, so I'll spell it out again - If
warnings are required about things that might offend or upset, then
those warnings would be required for GoF. They would be. Point out
something in that warning that would upset nobody, and I'll delete it -
but I don't think that anything in there would upset *nobody*. 

Novels don't require warnings. They don't require ratings, either, so I
admit that my parallel falls down here, but HP fanficcers are working
within a literature-generated, novel-based medium, and are creating
literary works as well (at least, the good ones are - the bad ones write
in netspeak and have Hermione hoping that Krum becomes a sk8tr boi).
We're operating within a literature-based construct and it's only
natural, expected and reasonable for us to adopt and utilize conventions
from literarure - summaries are no different than what one finds on the
back or flyleaf of a book. But warnings? I haven't seen them in an
ordinary chain bookstore, and I go to them a lot. 

> Under age-sex may offend, so it too should be pointed out. 

But *why*? Why should fanficcers be held to a higher standard than JKR?
Of course, she hasn't actually said point blank that James and Lily had
sex when they were teenagers, but there is a very strong implication in
the books that they were married at 19. She never said *what* Molly and
Arthur were doing when they were sneaking out at night, and we have no
idea if the kids in the bushes were talking, snogging, or doing
something more. 

Personally, I think that when a fic contains intercourse between kids
under 15, it should be mentioned in the summary, or obvious by the
rating (i.e. "Rated R for sexual content). But what if you have a
fourteen year old making a joke about "Uranus"? What if you have a story
where an 11 year old catches her 16-or-17 year old brother making out
with his girlfriend in an empty classroom? How do you warn for that,
without spoiling the story? 

As John said, interracial relationships may offend people too, just as
much as a story which contains 17 year olds having sex. Should a fic
have a warning about that? And if so, should we require JKR to put such
a warning on GoF, not just because of Fred & Angelina, but also because
of Cho and Cedric?

Now, let me sum up, so my points above are clear:
1. Ratings are good, ratings are important, ratings must be clearly
placed on the top of a story in its header such that on a glance, people
can see whether the rating for a fic is higher than they want to be
exposed to. 

2. If you don't want to read stories that have gay characters, have
someone read OoTP first and make sure there aren't any. And ignore the
subtext that a lot of very smart people see in PoA. If you don't want to
read fanfic that has gay characters, get recommendations and read only
things that people recommend to you. And avoid PoU, ASA, ATE, Malfoy,
P.I., TiP and Call of the Wild. And you should probably avoid my Surfeit
of Curses too, because just because I haven't said on "paper" that any
of the characters are gay doesn't mean you can presume that, say, one of
the editors at the Daily Prophet isn't. Now, if you want to avoid fics
where gay characters are involved in romantic relationships that include
on-"page" sexual situations (euphamistically described or otherwise),
you'd be fine with PoU, ASA, ATE, TiP, COTW, SoC, etc. And if that's the
case, then go forth and look through the fics listed in the various
pairing sections on FictionAlley's Sorting section - the Cruisin' forum.


3. If you want to avoid fics with student-teacher relationships, skip
the brilliant Rebecca Anderson's Darkness & Light trilogy, but you'll be
missing out on a wonderful characterisation of Snape. Too bad for you.
But it also means that you probably shouldn't read any Minerva/Albus
fics, either...


Heidi, who's read probably more fanfics than she should (ah, the task of
coding is never done!)