Ship-Fanon-Cho/Character-Person/Rhetoric/'trash' (3 of 5)

[Petra Pan]

No: HPFGUIDX 51454

(continuing)

Eileen:
> Starting with Petra, (who must
> wonder why I never responded to her
> interesting email about Crouch, the
> answer being that I was ill at the
> time, and still mean to get back to
> her on that)

Ahem.  <two fingers a-twitching>

Okay, so the second was a correction 
of the first but yes, I was wondering 
if it's impossible to gift away loose 
and non-ship affiliated can(n)ons 
nowadays! <snarky smirk>

Petra:
> I expressed no assumption about your
> motives or your ship when I wrote
> the above as a part of my reply. 
> It's just that what you said about 
> not considering it a bad thing to
> trash characters led me to think...
> and too much time on my hand + 
> thinking = posting. 

Eileen:
> I'm afraid we all suffer from that
> equation. :-) But, you must
> understand, that it is very
> uncomfortable when Ebony and I were
> the only people on the list (at
> that point) who had recently written
> anything that pertained to this
> discussion of trashing characters
> for rhetorical points. 
> 
> So... Pax!

Actually, my train of thoughts is not 
engineered from anything you and Ebony 
had said in discussion...only your 
thoughts on the use of the term 
'trashing.'  I should have made that 
abundantly clear...

Truth is I now skip over most of the 
shippy stuff so not only am I not 
referring to the two of you, I did not 
read you and Ebony's most recent 
posts.  Interesting though, that you 
thought I was... <seriously evil grin>

My objections to the idea of trashing 
characters really gelled over my 
experience with fanfics.  Lest I am 
being unclear: I am not making a case 
for drastic and draconian <g> measures 
to be taken in dealing with fanfics as 
a whole.  I would have to see them as 
homogenous to do such a thing...and I 
don't.  I do not seek to regulate 
fanfics and only suggest that those 
who do write, read, and/or beta them 
never cease to evaluate and re-
evaluate the themes and motifs of 
fanfics and how they compare to those 
of canon.

Let me offer you further reasons to 
believe that I didn't have you two in 
mind.  I don't remember reading any 
fanfic that you have written as Eileen 
(or lucky kari?).  Ebony's fanfics are 
some of the few that actually read 
like literary efforts with plots that 
(usually <g>) actually go somewhere 
and characters that develop along with 
the plot at the same time as driving 
it forward.  TiP et al are some of the 
few fanfics that manage to create a 
believable (perhaps alternate?) 
universe; their validity as shipping-
debate-in-fanfic-form lies in the fact 
that they are illustrations of her 
POV, not just trashing rival ships;  
her Ron is a twerp and believably so.

Truly.  No brown-nosing here...

Maria's comment about Cho simply 
reminded me of those fanfics that do 
not bother to convincingly write an OOC 
Cho.  How has this missing character 
arc become par for the course?  even 
dogmatic?  There are sooo many other 
OOC's that test the readers' ability 
to suspend their own understandings of 
canon but Fanon!Cho is arguably the 
most out of character.

Eileen:
> Petra ever-so-evilly then asked:

I RESENT THAT!

Well I would...if I didn't RESEMBLE it 
so much...see below...

<snip possibly empty promises of 
Crouch shipping news>

Petra:
> Not at all.  But not seeing them as
> complex characters is problematic. 
> Not actually your problem, per se. 
> But in your seafaring voyages 
> surely you have met those who do
> insist on reducing canon to
> simplistic terms.

Eileen:
> You mean, my brothers? 
> 
> Of course, the answer is yes. Who
> hasn't?  
> 
> But you know, I usually don't bother
> to complain about them. They're just
> a hazard of seafaring, I guess.
> Like fog. Or heavy winds.

Complain?  I'm well into the ranting 
stage by now...

With great liberty in creativity come 
great possibilities for good as well 
as bad.  Oftentimes both are present 
in the same fanfic.

Here is the temptation of playing at 
being the divine in the world of one's 
fantasy - just type the word and there 
it is.  No need for justification.  No 
need to take all viewpoints into 
consideration in the formation of 
world view.  Or in this case, canon 
view.  How CAN one resist if one 
doesn't first acknowledge the 
temptation for what it is?

In completely embracing to the 
exclusion of all else the rhetorical 
GOAL of converting as many to their 
ship as possible, many fanfic writers 
have left literary worth on the 
wayside.

I understand why, but it nevertheless 
blows my mind that truly well-written 
fanfics are lumped into the same 
category as those without one iota of 
character development, those without 
one degree of arc, those barely 
recognizable as that which is 
inspired by canon.

And the clearest example of poor 
writing is EvilInFanon!Cho.

You saw that coming, right? <g>

Eileen to Amy:
<snip>
> The fact that I have not made the
> whole case for my opinion does not
> mean that there isn't a case to be
> made. 
> 
> It does not mean that I am, under
> your definition of reducing
> character complexity to flatness,
> trashing the characters. It simply
> means that I haven't proven the
> point.

I suspect that you two are also 
talking about different parts of the 
discussion process.  Amy seem to be 
more concerned with the audience's 
burden of figuring out what to make of 
the topic while Eileen is concerned 
with one participant's burden of 
keeping up his/her end of the 
exchanges.

Eileen:
> Children are twisted and sick.  We
> educate them not to be.

Agreed - this is part of the reason 
why I picked the handle that I 
picked...you know, NeverNeverLand and 
all that...

<eg>

     *     *     *

Ebony:
> I emphatically do not believe that
> there is a such thing as 
> overanalysis.  If anything, the
> tragedy of the postmodern West is 
> that we rarely, if ever, analyze
> anything very much... especially the 
> great masses of the Anglophone
> world.  

Very true - especially things of 
spiritual importance.  Only in my 
literature classes do people discuss 
the issues we contend with in our 
lives from more than one POV.

That said, I'm not sure that under-
analysis characterizes this group in 
general.  There's over 50K+ posts on 4 
books + 2 booklets after all...

Ebony:
> However, this brings me to a
> question I have. 
> The reason why ship 
> debates in the past have been so
> constantly maligned on this list is 
> because they tend to be emotional.  
> 
> Is it possible to have a Harry
> Potter ship debate based on logic
> and cold hard facts?  
> 
> Or are ship debates, because of the
> very nature of *what* the debate 
> is about, fraught with this
> irreconcilable tension between the 
> head and the heart?

Couldn't have asked it better myself.  
Though I'd like to add that when no 
new discoveries are being put forth to 
tip the scale in what is essentially a 
stalemate, frustration is inevitable, 
no?  On the part of the debaters (you 
mentioned your weariness with the 
'they're 14!' argument) and on the 
part of the audience.

Newbies are understandably 
enthusiastic...and there is no 
shortage of newbies in this fandom.  
:)

FWIW, I do see the shipping debates as 
impossible to resolve at this point in 
the series.  On what grounds can we 
assume that the resolution is 
reachable?  There's 3 more books to 
come and tying up the loose romantic 
threads at this time is premature both 
within the internal logic of the books 
AND in regards to the narrative 
structure.

If fighting a troll together can make 
friends out of the trio, fighting a 
war against Voldemort can make sadder-
but-wiser adults friends and lovers 
even though as children they may not 
have clicked.  Right now, the 
youngsters interact like the 
larvae/pupae that they are.  Once they 
turn into butterflies, who they are 
now should be only a part of who they 
are then.  This'd be why 'they are 
14!' is relevant to the topic, though 
not supportive to the case you're 
building.  I suspect you see it as an 
explanation but not much of an excuse.

Pippin:
> I think there are two different
> styles being used on the list, which 
> results in confusion or unfulfilled
> expectations. One is a sort of 
> essay question response, as in
> "Lupin is Evil. Discuss" in which 
> the poster would marshall both pros
> and cons before drawing a
> conclusion. 
> 
> The other one is like a position
> paper for a debate: "Resolved: 
> Lupin is Evil --The argument
> against," which would present only 
> one side. The poster's expectation
> would be that listees who 
> disagree would respond with their
> own position, and the original 
> poster could then offer a rebuttal.

Agreed.  The 1st approach is what I 
see as Amy's in which at some point, 
the time for reckoning comes and a 
conclusion is reached.  This is the 
POV of the audience.  Elkins' concerns 
seem to peg her approach as the second 
one in that a position/conclusion is 
the starting point, not the ending one 
per se.  This is the POV of those who 
bear the burdens of proof.

(continued)

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