JKR's opinon. was What JKR's up to

[abigailnus]

No: HPFGUIDX 98680

> Antosha wrote, speaking of :
> Which leads me to my next point: the work isn't finished. Until we can see the opus 
> complete, it is presumptuous of us to tell the author--the only person on earth who 
> knows where we're going--that she's wrong about her work. We can't say what Draco is 
> like yet--we don't have all the data. We can barely say what Harry's like--he's still 
growing 
> and changing, as are all of the other characters, something I think JKR is handling better 
> than any other author of children's books I can think of.
> 
> I think it is miraculous, the imagination, intelligence and breadth of thought that the 
fans 
> bring to bear on her work. But it's still her work.

Yes, I was actually going to say something about that in my post.  
Because Harry Potter is essentially a work in progress, the fannish 
reactions to it differ greatly from your average book fandom.  I 
think we might see greater similarity to HP fandom in fan 
communities of television series, which are also, to a certain extent, 
a story in progress.  The fact that there are parts of the story that 
we haven't read does allow us to be wrong in many more ways than 
your standard fans.  I guess we could say there are different levels 
of wrong.  Sometimes we assert facts that are contradicted by canon 
(Sirius' eyes are blue).  Sometimes we presume things about the 
future that turn out to be false (the female DADA will be a good guy).  
And sometimes we just disagree with JKR.

It's true that JKR knows things about her characters, including their 
futures, that we can't know.  Maybe in future books, Malfoy will do 
something so horrible that he will lose all reader sympathy (right now 
he's a little too pathetic for me to hate).  However, until that canon 
exists, we can only react to the canon that we have.  So, shall we stop 
discussing characters that interest us?  Shall we stop taking an 
interest in those characters?  Shall we stop feeling for them?

As you said, the fact that the HP books lend themselves to so many 
interpretations, and that even their darkest characters have champions 
among the fans, is a tribute to the strength and quality of the work.  
It's possible that in the future JKR's words will cause some of our 
feelings towards certain characters to change, but that doesn't mean 
that we can't have those feelings now.  All that matters is that JKR 
makes any changes or character developments natural and realistic.  
We will follow where she leads us - we don't exactly have a choice.

Abigail