FF: Evil!Cho: Cho Chang and Reader Response

[ssk7882 <skelkins@attbi.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51702

Some thoughts here on the prevalence of Evil!Cho as a fanon staple, 
and on what this might tell us about how the readership as a whole 
is responding to Cho Chang's depiction and role within the canon.

-------------

This topic came up, as far as I can tell, in response to two things:
a poster's assertion that she disliked the character of Cho Chang;
and a much earlier discussion of the possibilities of Cho-turns-evil 
as a future canon speculation, a discussion in which the question of
the canonical plausibility of such an event was mixed with expressions
of reader desire for such a plot turn, mainly based on dislike for
the character herself.

Petra Pan wrote:

> This is really where this thread came from. The subject of 
> 'disliking' Cho, a character we barely know in canon who gets 
> trashed in fanon.

Well, why does Cho get trashed in fanon?

Presumably because very many readers *do* dislike the character 
and/or find the idea of a Cho-Is-Evil plot development plausible or 
appealing.

It's only to be expected, to my mind, that the same reader responses 
we see here are also going to be reflected in fan fiction.  Fanon is 
a reflection of *popular* reader response.  It is not random, and it 
is not arbitrary.  It's a reflection of how people are reading the 
books.

> No need to look up passages in canon - just fashion one of your 
> own devising. If you can type it, it can become fanon...and even 
> fanon has its dogmas. This is at the root of my disquiet.

I don't know if I agree with: "if you can type it, it can become 
fanon."  

If that's the case, then why is Evil!Cho fanon?  There are fanfics 
that feature sympathetic portrayals of Cho.  I've read them, and some 
of them are excellent.  So why is that portrayal *not* the "fanon," 
if all one really needs to do is to type something out to make it so?

Really, you know, anyone can write anything.  I don't think that's 
enough to make it fanon.  Things only become *fanon,* I think, when 
they touch on some already existant and widespread desire or anxiety 
or need or perception or projection within the readership as a 
whole.  Evil!Cho, evidently, meets the requisite criteria in a way 
that Sympathetic!Cho does not.

It's an interesting question, though.  Why?  What is it about this 
seemingly harmless -- indeed, admirable -- character's portrayal or 
role in the canon that is causing so many people to react so 
negatively to her?

> EvilInFanon!Cho is the best example of giving free and unchecked 
> rein to the desire for wind in the sail. Firstly, nothing in canon 
> characterizes Cho as being unworthy of Harry's attention; the 
> emergence of Fanon!Cho has no roots whatsoever in canon. Not in PoA 
> and definitely not in GoF. Is there?

Oh, almost certainly there is!  How else would Fanon!Cho have come 
about, if it had no roots in the canon?  Popular fanon depictions 
emerge *from* the canon, after all.  They aren't spontaneously 
generated, and space aliens aren't beaming them into our brains.  
There are a few examples of HP "fanon" that don't have any particular 
canon basis but instead are side-effects of people running with ideas 
that were laid down in early and influential fanfics ("Lupin lives in 
North Wales" is a good example of this type), but for the most part, 
fanon emerges from the intersection of the original canonical 
material and the readership's response to that material.

So let's look at Evil!Cho, shall we?  Where does she come from?  Why 
is EvilInFanon!Cho so popular?  

Right off the top of my head, I can think of a number of possible
reasons.  Many of them came up on last week's thread.


1) Dissatisfaction with Storyline  

Readers found Harry's crush on Cho an unwanted and irritating 
intrusion in the storyline of GoF, either because they were not 
interested in seeing *any* romantic subplot for Harry or because they 
would have preferred a romantic subplot involving a different 
character, or perhaps merely a different *type* of character.  

The 'Crush on Cho' subplot did not interest them and/or actively 
annoyed them.  Annoyance with authorial decisions almost invariably 
gets displaced onto the characters who serve as the textual agents of 
those decisions (a phenomenon which ties into that old question 
of "What Does It Mean To Like/Hate A Character?").


2) "Where the hell did SHE come from?"

Related to (1) above.  The introduction of a new character who is 
slated to be emotionally important to the hero is problematic when it 
is done mid-series, because it asks the reader to expend the time and 
energy necessary to engage with someone new.  Authors need to work 
overtime if they want to introduce such a character half-way through 
the series and still have the readers like him or her.  JKR didn't 
put in that work -- quite possibly because she actually has *no* 
intention of shipping Harry with Cho in future canon.  Many readers, 
however, likely *did* perceive her as the introduction of a long-
running romance plotline.  Resentment followed, because the reader 
felt that she was being asked to do "extra work," work that was 
properly the author's job.


3) Idealized Portrayal  

Cho has, so far in the canon, been depicted as a character without 
flaw.  She is pretty, popular, athletic, gracious, nice and (we 
assume from her House) clever.  She displays good sportsmanship.  She 
is not "silly:" she does not giggle idiotically at the approach of a 
boy who may have a crush on her.  She shows remarkable maturity, 
social skill, consideration and kindness in her ability to reject an 
invitation.  She is desired by the desirable Cedric.  She can even 
*weep* attractively (no humiliating blubbering for Cho, right?
Just those ever so dignified silent tears).  

Readers tend not to care very much for characters who are presented 
as without flaw, even when there are perfectly valid story-telling 
reasons (Harry's POV, for example) for the author to have done so.  
One-sided portrayals nearly always foster both reader suspicion and 
reader resistance.  Fans often suspect "perfect" characters of 
harboring secret or hidden vices, just as they often suspect that 
flatly-portrayed "evil" characters must actually possess significant 
yet hidden virtues (cf Fanon!Draco).  In Cho's case, this suspicion 
is likely reinforced by the fact that we see Cho only through the POV 
of Harry, whom we know to be both besotted and often fallible when it 
comes to character judgements.


4) Unintentional Authorial Implication  

We know very little about Cho, but two of the things we do know about 
her are that she is "pretty," and that she is "popular."  To American 
readers, "popular" is a somewhat negatively-connoted word, 
*especially* when combined with the word "pretty."  This is because 
in colloquial American English, "popular girls" is the code phrase 
for a particularly unpleasant type of exclusionary and unkind 
female in-crowd.  (I get the impression that while this stereotype 
does also exist in the UK, the word "popular" is not nearly as 
negatively-connoted as it is here in the US, nor half so often used 
as a euphemism for cliquishness.)

Therefore, although Canon!Cho is indeed depicted as an utterly 
exemplary person (as well as an unusually kind and considerate one), 
and although JKR surely did not intend for her use of the 
words "pretty" and "popular" to imply anything dire about her, her 
word choices act against her intent for many American readers, 
especially younger ones who may not be as familiar with UK/US 
differences and for whom the social hierarchies of the schoolyard are 
still very much a pressing concern.  (The conflation of "popular" 
with "handsome" turns many a reader against Sirius Black as well, 
although at least with Sirius, those suspicions have a bit more in 
the way of canon support.)  

When you combine this factor with number (3) above, you get a 
situation in which readers feel that they have succeeded in "sussing 
out" the true nature of the hidden vice of Cho Chang.  She is not 
actually what Harry believes her to be, but is instead one of those 
Evil Popular Girls.


5) Competence

This one applies more to Evil!Cho proper than it does to any of 
fanon's other negative Cho portrayals (Whiny!Cho, Bitchy!Cho, 
Shallow!Cho, etc.).  Cho Chang is a female peer of Harry's about whom 
we know virtually nothing, but who seems to be talented, intelligent, 
athletic, beautiful and socially adept.  This makes her tempting as a 
villainess.  So far in the canon, JKR has not provided her readers 
with much at all in the way of female characters upon whom they can 
project their hopes, their desires, *or* their fears and 
aggressions.  Evil!Cho tempts precisely because while she is not 
*quite* a blank slate, she comes close, and yet the author has not 
defaced that slate with any scribbles of silliness or banality or 
incompetence, as she has with Lavender, Parvati, Pansy, etc.  One 
can, at least, imagine Cho as an *effective* evil character.  It's 
hard to do the same for Harry's other sketchily-portrayed female 
peers.


6) Narrative Utility  

Harry's crush on Cho can be exploited for narrative purposes.  Femme 
fatale.  It's a kind of a banal plot hook, IMHO, but it's also a 
standard one.  It is ubiquitous in movies and on television, and in 
prose fiction as well.  To many people, it therefore seems an obvious 
and instinctive direction in which the character might be taken.


7) "But what's She FOR?"

With Cho, we have the introduction of a character who serves as 
Harry's romantic interest, yet who is also perceived as rather too 
blandly and flatly portrayed to serve effectively as a future 
relationship for the protagonist.  Perhaps, therefore (people think), 
she's actually being set up to do something *else.*  Evil!Cho is one 
obvious possibility, and the very same things that make her an 
unlikable character -- her blandly idealized portrayal, for example --
 would also suit that dramatic possibility.


So there are seven reasons that I can think of right off the top of my
head for the popularity of Evil!Cho.  There are doubtless many more.

> How can such a negative prejudgment be so pervasive? 

Well, I hope I've helped to suggest some reasons why it might be so.

If the readers had liked the Cho/Harry plotline better, then I am 
guessing that you would not see such a prevalence of Evil!Cho.  If 
the word "popular" did not have very specific connotations to many
American readers, I don't think you would see as much Evil!Cho either.
And if Cho's presentation in the books had not been quite so one-sided
and idealized, then I also doubt that Evil!Cho would be nearly as 
widespread a reading as it is.

Combine all of those factors, though, and I'd say that you have a 
very good recipe for fan vilification of a character.

I would point out, though, that these factors are really *not* 
completely external to the canon.  They are rooted in the character's 
canonical role, presentation and depiction.  They may not reflect the 
author's intent, but they do derive from the choices that the author 
made.  Fanon emerges out of the intersection or the collision of what 
is actually there *in* the text, and what the readership wants, 
needs, or expects *from* that text.  

In Cho's case, I would say that what the author wanted to give was
clearly not what the readership wanted to take away.


> If the strongly negative portrayal in fanon stems not from Cho the 
> character as JKR has delineated so far, then perhaps it stems from 
> her narrative function as the current focus of Harry's romantic 
> interest. 

I hardly see how it could not do, honestly.  Cho as a character barely
exists.  So far, her role as Harry's romantic interest *is* pretty 
much how JKR has delineated her so far.

I do appreciate the distinction you're trying to make here -- it's 
that old distinction between the character-as-a-person and the 
character-as-a-construct -- but at the same time, when it comes to 
the development of fanon, I think that we have to accept that both 
factors are always going to come into play.  Fanon portrayals reflect 
reader response, which derives from reactions to the characters both 
as people *and* as constructs.  

After all, don't you think that it's reader rebellion against Draco's 
designated narrative function that lends such force and momentum to 
Fanon!Draco?  I certainly believe that it is.

> In order to develop an alternate relationSHIP, many fanfic authors 
> felt obliged to address the issue of shifting Harry's focus since 
> his reactions to Cho in PoA are a drag to the dynamics of nautical 
> speed.

I agree that this is surely one of the factors contributing to the 
popularity of Evil!Cho, but I don't think that it's the only one.  
See above.

> The inconvenience that is Cho's narrative function to shipping has 
> led to poor characterization of her in fanfics in general. 

I don't really think that "shipping," in the sense of readers plumping
for certain already-hinted-at potential future relationships for 
Harry, is by any means the only factor at work here.  I suspect that 
many readers who hadn't previously even bothered to *consider* 
Harry's love life still may have found Cho to be an irritant.  One of 
my housemates is about as little interested in the entire shipping 
issue as it is possible for a reader to be, I'd say.  He absolutely 
loathed Cho.

Just for the record, by the way, I myself have no problems with Cho.  
I felt affection for her while reading the books; I felt rotten for 
her at the end of GoF; and I'd like to see more of her in future 
canon (although only if she's actually going to get fleshed out a bit 
more).  But I really can't say that it surprised me in the *least* 
when I learned that she was so widely disliked.  Neither, however, 
has this fact led me to reevaluate my own reading of her canonical 
depiction, which I view as positive, if also rather blandly 
idealized.  

I suspect that if she hadn't been set forth in the text as such an 
unmitigated collection of idealized traits (pretty, smart, 
sportsmanlike, popular, athletic, sensible, kind, mature, ick, ick, 
ick), then people would both have liked her better and be far less 
inclined now to propose Ever So Evil Cho speculations.  I don't 
particularly dislike the character myself, but I can *certainly* 
understand why others would -- as well as why others might consider a 
descent into darkness a way to redeem her as a character who might 
add interest and relevance and...well, and *Bang!* to the storyline.


-- Elkins