Strong Hermione - Draco - Games - Slash - Prefects

[Catlady]

No: HPFGUIDX 11699

Stacy  love2write_11098 at y... wrote:
> There was an article in my local paper awhile back pointing out
> the fact that there are no strong women in the HP world, and I was
> so incredibly offended that I went around ranting and raving about
> it to anyone who would listen

There was an article like that in SALON or SLATE and there was plenty of
that type of ranting against it on this list -- this was back when we
were still a Yahoo Club. PS, I remember your handle from hpa, nice to
see you again.

Amanda wrote:
> Harry and his friends will know how to deal with adversity when
> they need to. Draco will not.

If he's had enough adversity at home, he doesn't need to have it at
school in order to learn to deal with adversity. The spoiled foolish
child of canon doesn't seem to have had much adversity at home, but the
self-controlled and competently manipulative one of fanon does seem to
have had.

Dave Hardenbrook wrote:
> A Quidditch board game -- Sort of like chess, but with Quidditch
> players/balls and moves that reflect the rules of the #1 wizard sport.

> Snape's chemistry set -- The Potions master teaches the "magic"
> of chemistry.

There IS a Quidditch board game, which includes a plastic catapult to
launch the Quaffle. IIRC someone on this list got it for Xmas and
reported that it was a very dull game except for the Quaffle always
going under the refrigerator when launched. I've seen multiple (IIRC 3)
"potions" HP chemistry sets at sylvanlaneshoppe's website.

Jen Faulkner wrote:
> Despite the stated gender/sex of  the main characters, m/m slash is
> often really about women. (snip)  'Realistic' m/m is of little
interest
> to most of the audience.

As a straight woman who has only marginal experience of slash and no
experience of anything having anything to do with anime/manga, I feel
you are correct. I've suggested before that straight women like the
original kind of slash, that involving romance between the series's hero
and his sidekick, because the hero and sidekick already love each other,
just not sexually.

However, I have at least an intellectual curiosity, if not a literary or
erotic desire, to know just how unrealistic my reading matter is, and I
get annoyed at my gay male friends because they won't tell me when I
ask.

Ender wrote:
> I find it interesting that while fanfic writers have come up with so
many
> different interpretations of Draco (who, in canon, has shown little
> evidence, so far, of being so multi-faceted), there's very little
variation
> in how Lucius is portrayed.  Why can't he be loving?

Speaking as someone who is trying to write about Lucius, even if he does
love his son and his wife, I can't make him be anything but an evil git
in all other aspects of life. Further, I have to give Draco at least a
'highly disciplined' upbringing in order for him to be sexy snake Draco
instead of spoiled hog Draco.

Penny Linsenmayer wrote:
> as for the prefect issue -- I'm not even so sure about Hermione.  How
> will the professors/staff feel about her close friendship with 2
> notorious rule-breakers?  :--)  (snip)
> But, she's a much clearer choice than Harry or Ron.  Like Cassie, I'm
>  not sure how their grades stack up with the other Gryffindors.  I
have
>  the feeling that they are both about average, perhaps slightly above
>  average, as far as grades go.

Being known as one of two ringleaders of the biggest mischief makers to
attend Hogwarts in generations didn't prevent James from becoming Head
Boy, which implies that he became prefect first. This argues that their
history of rule-breaking will prevent neither Hermione nor the boys from
becoming prefects. I expect Hermione and Harry to be prefects and
eventual Head Girl and Head Boy, because JKR is not as uncliched as we
like to think. If she were being uncliched, I like the idea of the
faculty choosing Neville to be prefect to force him to grow into the
job. If there are only two prefects (1 boy, 1 girl) per House per year,
and Harry (or Neville) gets the boy job, that pushes Ron out. The image
leaps to my mind of Harry begging Dumbledore to make Ron the prefect
instead of Harry, as he imagines how upset Ron will be at losing the job
to his friend.

About the grades: as I wrote in my multi-topic post #11628, I bet Ron
and Harry get excellent grades and "I suspect that ALL those Weasley
kids are academagical geniuses."

Donna Rae wrote:
> I was just thinking...does anyone really think that this next school
year,
> after GoF, will be anything close to normal?  Isn't the wizarding
> community going to war?

We don't know whether Voldemort will attack in force in the upcoming
year or whether he will lay low. If he lays low, much of the wizarding
community will follow Fudge's lead of refusing to believe that he has
returned. I agree it is quite likely that Voldemort will attack and the
entire wizarding community will be at war, and big exciting events and
deaths will occur that will completely rule out ALL sixth year fics
being written now, and a great deal of shipping, but I also think that
Dumbledore will try to keep Hogwarts as normal as possible. He appears
to have kept Hogwarts normal enough during the first V war that the
Marauders could spend their time on pranks and escapades, playing games
in their Animagi form, and not worrying about the Dark Side. There has
been a lot written about people in England trying to keep their lives
very normal during the Blitz -- going to work as per normal, and not
bothering to go to bomb shelters when the alarm went off because it
would take too much time away from the paperwork...
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