FF and Canon Subversion

[naamagatus]

No: HPFGUIDX 39056

Hi,

First, let it be said - I have nothing against FF. I don't read it, 
but I admire the creativity and imagination that produce it. I have 
no problem with other people reading it and enjoying it. OK? :-)

OK. The reason FF is *not* like TBAY and certainly not like theory 
discussions, IMO, is that it is story telling.  To really read a 
story, means that you enter it. To do that, you suspend belief. That 
is, although I know that what I'm reading does not represent real 
events, I nevertheless accept (for the duration) the reality of what 
I'm reading. To clarify: I don't mean suspense of belief on the 
cognitive level, but on the experiential level. As long as I'm 
reading, I experience the reality that the author has constructed *as 
though* it was real. [That's the ideal. Often the reading experience 
is not that pure, but still, I think it's a pretty close description 
of what it means to read fiction.] 
Now, in real life, I receive an impression of the people around me 
through the collection of memories I have of them. It is largely an 
unconscious process. That is, I don't recall all of the memories I 
have of a certain person, catalogue them, and then reach a logical 
conclusion as to his/her character. The general impression, the sense 
of "getting" who that person is, somehow arises out of a lot of 
little impressions and memories. Something in us evaluates the 
information we've gathered and reaches a kind of internal image 
(which, of course, can change once the impressions we continue to 
receive challenge it). 
My point is, that in reading fiction, we also receive a collection of 
impressions and memories of the various characters, out of which we 
construct (in the same experiential way) a general impression of the 
characters. Since it's a process that bypasses logic (being, as I 
said, experiential), reading FF may indeed subvert the original 
impressions the reader has constructed through reading the cannon. 
For example. If I read PoU (the only FF I ever read), I ingest a 
large collection of impressions and memories of Hermione, for 
instance. I "see" her in various situations, saying and feeling and 
acting many things. Precisely because the story is well written, *I 
can't help* being sucked into the reality of the story. 
Now, other people may be able to seperate their impressions of 
JKR!Hermione from their impressions of Lori!Hermione. For me, it's 
difficult. The better the FF is, the more difficult it is to 
seperate, in my own mind, the canon character from the FF one. 
Possibly because I have really bad episodal memory (I think that's 
the term), which means that I remember facts, but not how or when 
I've acquired them. Three days after I've seen a movie, I can ask the 
friend I've seen the movie with, whether she'd seen it. So, for me to 
read FF is simply asking for trouble. I get an impression of a 
character, I don't remember where it's from, it mixes up with the 
collection of canon impressions - and my general impression of the 
original character is subverted. See? 
Personally, I'm not even sure that reading FF affects theorizing. On 
the cognitive level, it's not difficult to seperate cannon from FF. 
As far as I recall, I haven't read posts here that confused FF with 
cannon. But, like I said, I think that reading FF may subvert the 
reader's *genenral impression* of a character, thereby making certain 
actions seem more or less likely than is warranted by the impression 
gained through the canon alone. 


Naama