Canon Draco vs Fanfic Draco

[Steve Vander Ark]

No: HPFGUIDX 5799

canon Draco vs. fanfic Draco
not the same character at all

This is an interesting point. It's true not only of Draco but of any 
character, setting, etc. That's why I do not read any facfic at all--
I can't afford any of the fan transfigurations to get into the 
Lexicon or it loses its credibility. When I write about Draco, I have 
to be sure that all the information I put down is just from the books.

But the same concern could be noted about our discussions here. We 
have delved much deeper into the subtext of the books than I believe 
even JKR herself has. I see that in the offhand way she announced 
Lily's maiden name. I was convincing myself that the fact that she 
hadn't mentioned it meant there was some deep dark secret. Nope. 
That's very likely the case too with the whole wand order thing. It 
probably WAS a mistake; we're all creating something huge and 
mystical out of nothing at all (although I'm clinging to my theories 
and ideas until she SAYS otherwise!). I see it too in her statement 
about Hagrid being in Gryffindor. I believe that she just put ALL 
the "good guys" in Gryffindor and never gave it another thought. We 
analyze their characters and make incredibly well-founded predictions 
only to find out that she's done no such thing. How many students? 
About a thousand, she says blithely. Even though I can PROVE to her 
that she's wrong ;)

Okay, now how arrogant is THAT??  :)

Now don't misunderstand. I am not saying we're doing something wrong, 
not at all! I LOVE all this analysis and wondering and speculating. 
But I'm starting to think that the simplest explanations are pretty 
much true with the Potter books. There are simple editorial mistakes 
where we see deep dark mysteries. The characters are a lot less 
deeply thought out than we think. The "missing 24 hours" is probably 
just an error in her planning out of the events for book 1. Neville's 
grandmother will turn out to be just that, Neville's grandmother, 
even though JKR hasn't mentioned her name. Crookshanks will turn out 
to be just a very smart cat. And that's okay, I guess.

But when the series is done and all the mysteries solved and all the 
mistakes acknowledged and all our speculation over, I for one will 
miss it so much. It's such a fun time, hashing this stuff out with 
you guys. 

I wish JKR would drop by and join us. I'll bet we could teach HER a 
thing or two!

Fondly to all
Steve Vander Ark
The Harry Potter Lexicon
http://www.i2k.com/~svderark/lexicon
(which BTW just got listed on Yahoo and the hit counts are very 
exciting!)