Steve's Canon versus Fanfic Post

[naama_gat at hotmail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 16388

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Penny & Bryce Linsenmayer <pennylin at s...> 
wrote:
> Hi --
> 
<long snip> 
 
> I don't mean to sound argumentative, but I think you've completely
> missed the point of the posts yesterday regarding fanfic versus 
canon.
> Some fanfic is poorly-written or departs so completely from the 
canon
> that it isn't even recognizable.  But, there are lots of fanfic 
pieces
> that can challenge a person to go back & re-read canon with a new
> perspective (a perspective that might very well be just as valid in
> JKR's eyes as the one you originally held I might add) -- it adds a
> completely new dimension to the way you enjoy the books.  It's that 
sort
> of fanfic that is great.  It's just a different medium from you & I
> posted pro/con reasons for the student numbers being what they 
are.  I
> could just as easily create a fanfic that illustrates my point on 
that
> very same issue.

I understand your point on fanfic serving as an illustration of an 
opinion, but that's not the aspect of fanfics that Steve is afraid of 
(I think). 
It's simply not true that fanfic is "just a different medium" for 
explaining an interpretation. A fanfic, is first and foremost, just 
that – a FIC, that is fiction, a work of art, a creation, and as SUCH 
it does "contaminate" the original work of art produced by the 
original author. When you read a fanfic, you read (and therefore 
absorb, to some measure) about the characters doing and thinking and 
feeling. These images and impressions are stored up somewhere in your 
mind.  
Steve is afraid (I hope you don't mind me speaking for you, Steve) 
that to that layered and associative repository of things Harry et 
al. did, thought and felt will be added the images absorbed from 
fanfics. And these images, even if the interpretation they illustrate 
is perfectly correct, are NOT original images. You can't escape from 
that – they are created by a different mind than that of the original 
author.


> I'm completely opposed to the notion that there is only one JKR
> interpretation of these characters and books and I'm especially 
opposed
> to the notion that this one interpretation is discernible by people
> other than JKR herself.

I agree with that wholeheartedly.  

:-)

Naama