Speculation, fanfic, perspective, and style

[Darth Vulgarweed]

No: HPFGUIDX 39016


>Message: 5
>   Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 01:21:14 -0000
>   From: "jferer" <jferer at yahoo.com>
>Subject: Re: FF: Speculation - a matter of perspective)]
>
>Serenadust:"I don't expect anyone who reads or writes fanfiction to
>change their minds about it based on my problems with it, and it
>really wasn't my intention to do so. I just wanted to explain why I
>find it to be too subversive in it's relationship to canon for me
>personally to enjoy."
>
>I have to admit a lot of fanfiction does that, but that's only one
>kind of fanfiction. Other fics set out to explore and explain the
>universe JKR created, and try to be faithful to the Potterverse; so
>they don't explore the "books" themselves, but the universe and people
>described in the books.
>
>Some fics are written to look at questions, like "What if we found out
>the Potterverse was real?" or "What if *my* kid got a Hogwarts
>letter?" But before I am totally guilty of OT posting:
>
>sariadotia at a... wrote (concerning a Draco/Herm ship):"Ok, I honestly
>do not understand why so many people even consider this as a
>possible future relationship."
>
>Heidi wrote:" Um, because nothing has happened to date to rule it out?
>Because JKR's sowed the seeds for a redemption for Draco, which would
>be a necessary precursor to such a thing happening?"
>
>Like you, Serena, I don't see any redemption seeds in Draco; and I
>would say that, for the Hermione I know, "...Mudbloods and
>Muggle-lovers first! Well, the second; Diggory was the f..." rules out
>Draco/Hermione for me, or I lose respect for her.  For Draco to turn
>into someone Hermione could love it seems some new being would have to
>steal Draco's skin and reoccupy it.
>
For me it's all about *negative capability*, you know, the ability to hold
more than one idea in one's head at once? Like I said, a while back, the
girl in the movie doesn't look like the Hermione in my head at all. Yet
she's a fine young actor who did good work in the role, and I enjoy her
interpretation--meanwhile still enjoying my own, which is different; the
movie doesn't mess with my own mental version much at all. Etcetera, for
the whole cast. It ain't rocket science. I agree with you--in *canon*, so
far, there is nothing to point definitively towards Draco's redemption (and
in canon, I'm not a huge supporter of it). Yet I have read and enjoyed many
fanfics in which that happens.

I mean, I _guess_ fanfic is subversive. (I'm reluctant to use that word
'cause it's a compliment where I come from, and I write the stuff, so I
don't want to seem egotistical.) But only if you can only hold one
possibility in your head at a time. I think most fans are smarter than
that. Most fanfic readers, I know, can handle enjoying a fic where, say,
Snape and Hermione discover they belong together 10 years after the latter
finishes Hogwarts, and a few hours later, another one in which Snape was
snowing Dumbledore all along and is a gajillion times sleazier than
Pettigrew, and then, hours after that, Draco realizes his true destined
love is Harry, that's why they reacted so strongly to each other all along.
I think the anti-fanfic reaction is selling fanfic writers/readers short
WRT the ability to consider multiple possibilities.

Ultimately, the books are the books. Those are a "higher" take on this
world than those of fanfic and always will be, and yet fanfic is still fun
and worthwhile in its way (and will continue to be even after JKR is
done--I mean, Lord of theRings fanfic is still being written too, and
Professor Tolkien died 30 years ago). The reality fanfic spins
is...related, but different.

And honestly, the TBAY posts differ from fanfic only in writing style.
Anyone who's fooled by that trick of the prose stylist...well, jeez. I
write for a living, and I'm well aware that writing something in, say,
first-person-omniscient doesn't make any *substantial* difference from
writing it in, say, third-person-singular, no matter how many "maybe"'s you
throw in. Look at it this way:

(1) "President George W. Bush was nervous. Those reporters claimed to be
unbiased, and yet, looking into their eyes, he couldn't shake the fact that
those SOBs _knew_. It was as if they'd seen the same papers as the ones
he'd ignored, full of fist-shaking threats from those who claimed to know
the Will of Allah. He wished he could bundle up those papers and throw them
away. Set them on fire. Shred them like Enron records. Oh, he'd heard the
threats, well before, for years, heard about them from his father who knew
all about them from his CIA years. But there had been so many before. How
could he possibly have known that this time, they were real? Those bastards
out there at the press conference had no clue what it was like to helm the
biggest and most vulnerable ship on the seas of the universe-- how could
they know what it was like to possess towers so grand that most of the
world wanted nothing more than to take them down?"

(2) "President George W Bush told the reporters that terrorist threats
against the US were common, that there was no way anyone could have known
that these threats would be put into practice."

(3) "Ah, but maybe HE KNEW. Wouldn't THAT be something, President Bush
KNOWING about the threats beforehand? That would put a whole new spin on
it, wouldn't it? I mean, think about all the years his old man was head of
the CIA. And you think there was no foreshadowing of this during the Reagan
years???....ahem, I think NOT: [extensive quotes from Woodward's book on
Iran/Contra making links from Reagan/Bush I to Islamic fundamentalists]"

All facts from pulledoutofmyass.com, of course ('cept the Woodward book),
and probably thoroughly boring to non-US folks, and I apologize, I'm just
using what's at hand to try to make a point.

Difference is: (1) is fanfic,(2) is standard AP-style reporting, (3) is
TBAY. The difference is pretty superficial, though, really. Maybe the first
IS more subversive, because it's more emotionally manipulative. To which I
say, hey, DEAL. There's manipulation everywhere; making your case for your
story is the root of both literature and advertising.

Yes, actually, I do believe Draco is more likely to be redeemed than GWB
(although neither, IMO, is *very* likely). But maybe I've just read the
wrong fanfic...uh, theories...uh, canon. This is probably venturing
super-OT, but I also *did* hear the undertones that Heidi was reacting to,
and I don't blame her for reacting; I had to put my 2 Knuts in too.

luv
AV