My Beloved Part of Harry Potter Canon

[paulamcg]

Challenge #9

In your own space, promote at least one canon that you adore (old, new, forever fandom).



My forever fandom is Harry Potter, and you might think it’s too old and big to need any promotion at all. But since the author of the canon has probably made some fans doubt it deserves their love, I want to urge them to stay or return. As far as I understand, a noble purpose of fandom is subversion, and it’s ever more important that we continue to make our inclusive, cheerfully queer fanworks.

I know there are brilliant people around whose interpretations, extrapolations, and AUs lead to satisfying and important stories set in the HP world as Rowling has shown and also explained it to us. However, having noticed that I’m not the only one who was disappointed with some developments in the themes and characterisations in HBP and DH, I’d like to promote particularly the part of canon which I’ve always followed (partly because I started writing fanfic in September 2003 and have enjoyed not contradicting my own work).

If you rely only on Rowling’s first five novels, and not on anything she’s said in interviews or otherwise outside of the story, this chosen canon offers fascinating possibilities for the characters and their magical world. I’d love to see more fanworks based on these possibilities.

Comments

[schweetheart]

Hear, hear! I love the books and movies for what they've meant to me personally, but I've long since given up listening to the author or her opinions.

[paulamcg]

Oh, I’m glad you second me on this: giv[ing] up listening to the author or her opinions is obviously the most important part of my urging. The last two novels can well work as inspiring canon for others, even if not for me, particularly thanks to endless AU options.

[james]

This is wonderful!

[paulamcg]

Thank you! You mean I’ve succeeded in talking you into my fandom, haven’t I?

[james]

I used to be in HP fandom, but my fav character is Percy and it's really hard to maintain passion about a character almost nobody else writes about (including jkr...)

[paulamcg]

Great! The more reason for you to write about him! What about doing it on the basis of books one to five only?

[james]

http://gila.faking-sanity.net/potter.html

[paulamcg]

Thank you! What a list, and I’m glad not all of those are high-rated!

[james]

I need to finish moving them to AO3 - I've only got four there. Maybe I will get around to that soon...

[paulamcg]

I hope you will! (It’s so much easier than submitting to FictionAlley was. I’ve still got most of my earlier fic now only on my Livejournal, though.)

[tellshannon815]

Ohhhh....those are the ones I can get really passionate about, they deserve some love and some of their story filling in!

[paulamcg]

Yes, they deserve the love, and their stories have all the potential! (I got passionate about Remus just because OotP made me realise JKR wouldn’t write his story. And I didn’t think he deserved how she treated him later, but that’s another issue...) But at least for me it’s essential to get to share the passion with someone in the fandom.

[spikedluv]

As far as I understand, a noble purpose of fandom is subversion, and it’s ever more important that we continue to make our inclusive, cheerfully queer fanworks.

Not part of the fandom, so not as deeply hurt by her words/actions as some others, but this is very well said.

I’d love to see more fanworks based on these possibilities.

I hope you do!

[paulamcg]

I've hoped I managed to say it somehow well enough. Thank you so much!

[rhoda_rants]

The 'three year summer' was one of the most fun eras of HP fandom for me, in that brief interlude between in-person fandom interaction and when everything moved online discourse-wise. Carrying a copy of one of the first four books around and/or asking, "So what's your Hogwarts house?" was how I made friends in my first year of college. (That, and picking apart the Star Wars prequels.) It was fun to speculate over what *could* happen before we knew what *did* happen, and before JK started talking to the fans waaaaaaaay too much.

[author_by_night]

It was fun to speculate over what *could* happen before we knew what *did* happen,

Oh, I know. It really was. There were ALL the possibilities.

[paulamcg]

There were ALL the possibilities.

We can decide that they are still there, can’t we?

[rhoda_rants]

That time period was when I first started posting fanfiction! It was a great time.

[paulamcg]

Oh, thank you for sharing those memories! Now I feel nostalgic about what I didn’t get to experience. I have to confess that (until your comment) I didn’t even know the term three-year summer. I started imagining my Remus-centred story in the (last) summer before I got OotP in my hands, and I was on my own, without knowledge of Lie Low at Lupin’s as a trope, and after starting to write the fic as post-OotP on a small forum, it still took me some time to find out that Wolfstar was a popular ship – and that people were so eager to hear what Rowling said outside the books.

[rhoda_rants]

Oh, I'm sorry! I forget not everyone was there for that. It's easy to get mixed up as to who got into the fandom when, because even though they technically started in the mid-90s, they have stayed consistently popular since then with every single generation. Which is . . . amazing, when you think about it.

I can't remember when I figured out that other people shipped Wolfstar. Back when we called it "Remus/Sirius" and "ships" were called "pairings," I think? But I can't narrow it down more than that, heh.

As I said upthread, that era was when I first started writing fic, and I had this atrocious Mary Sue type thing that I still might dust off and reboot at some point, because I think the concept has potential, so long as I take out the OC. (Short-version: crossover with "The Ring" in which Arthur Weasley has to deal with the fallout of the haunted videotape, since I figure out counts as Misuse of Muggle Artifacts. Even then I was doing bizarre crossovers with a heavy tendency towards supernatural horror. That much has not changed.)

[paulamcg]

No, not at all! I’m only happy that people share such memories and let me imagine more vividly those early fandom days, as if I’d made it there in time. It comforts me only a bit that I know people of my generation who found HP fandom even later than 2003. I didn’t become aware of the existence of fandoms in the 1990s, perhaps because I’ve never been into watching TV shows. I remember searching facts about HP in the internet in summer 2001, but didn’t notice fandom, perhaps just chose more official-looking sources. I could have… Yes, my life could have been different! I could have written the defining Remus/Sirius story and got my page in fanlore…

Well, two years later I landed on a small forum with no slash other than mine (of very subtle kind, at first). I learned about Remus/Sirius as shared fanon when I entered FictionAlley in autumn 2004, and there it was called HMS Wolfstar.

On the small Snitch Forums I met some lovely Mary Sues and Gary Stus, too. Oh, you make me miss them! In FictionAlley it was sometimes hard work to convince people that OCs could have potential.

Because of my lack of TV show knowledge, most cross-overs always go over my head, the summaries in a fun way!

[pink_ink]

HP is my forever fandom as well and i agree with so many points you make.

i understand people leaving HP behind in light of JKR's harmful views but i love what the fandom has made out of HP. there are so many popular fanons that enrich the world and deepen the themes of the canon or add layers of meaning to it. i'm so happy that black hermione and genderqueer tonks have become such popular fan readings of the chars, eg.

[paulamcg]

Yay! Yes, yes, to everything you say here! And I believe that any individual, creative fanwork can do its share to enrich and deepen the world and the story extrapolated from canon, and adds meaning to it.

[author_by_night]

As far as I understand, a noble purpose of fandom is subversion, and it’s ever more important that we continue to make our inclusive, cheerfully queer fanworks.

YES.

Also, I think the backlash against JK Rowling spoke loud and clear. She has this huge fan community that really rose together and became about acceptance and fighting for the common good... and now we see that we've marched ahead, whereas she's dug her feet in defiantly and looked the other way. It's hard. But just as one can take or leave what they want, one can also separate what they take away from the things that the author has said and done. I still love Buffy, and Joss Whedon's extremely problematic. I love some of Alfred Hitchcock's films, and... yikes. So there you go. I'm a fan of the text and what I take away from it, I'm a fan of the fan community, but I'm NOT a fan of JK Rowling as a person anymore. Which is honestly as shame, I used to admire the fork out of her, but I'm pretty much done with her after that tweet.


like to promote particularly the part of canon which I’ve always followed (partly because I started writing fanfic in September 2003 and have enjoyed not contradicting my own work).

Even though I liked HBP and DH, I should read some pre-HBP fic, or fic that has a different take on canon. Especially as despite liking HBP and loving DH, I did have a few issues, and I have also wondered what could have been. I've especially been more open to that since The Cursed Child, which is apparently supposed to be canon. (I really don't see it. I actually don't think TCC is the worst thing ever, I just think it makes a better fanfic than anything else. A better crackfic than anything else, even. Apparently it's different if you see it on stage, but while maybe the visuals are better, I don't see how that fixes the plot.)

ETA: You might like these fics, which are a series of fanfics about Remus Lupin, mostly written before OoTP. There's definitely a little Remus/Sirius, too. I'm biased as the author is actually one of my best friends, but I liked the fics before we were friends. https://www.fanfiction.net/u/186489/Linda-Lupos The first one is a general MWPP fic, the rest are the books from Remus's POV.

[lee_bella]

"I've especially been more open to that since The Cursed Child, which is apparently supposed to be canon. (I really don't see it. I actually don't think TCC is the worst thing ever, I just think it makes a better fanfic than anything else. A better crackfic than anything else, even..."

Agreed. By the time CC came out, the fans had already gone through thousands upon thousands of possibilities that anything she came up with by then would probably feel a lot like what fans had already come up and played around with years ago.

[paulamcg]

This almost makes me feel pity for her. It wouldn’t be my place to give advice, but perhaps she should have moved on – to another fantasy world if not only to other genres. Easy for me to say, when I’m unable to move on from the universe of my very first fanfic!

[paulamcg]

Yay, I’m so glad you’ve come to say loud and clear that I’ve understood correctly!

I’m proud to be part of this fan community. I used to admire JKR for making up Harry’s world and story and for tempting so many children to read – and adults to form this community. I must be grateful – I say reluctantly (the words she made Lupin say). But since HBP made me conclude that she abandoned some promising themes of equality for marginalised minorities, and developed themes of dehumanising of enemies, I’ve been a fan of fanon, not a fan of the whole of the canon. Now it’s ever clearer that I’m a fan of the fandom, not of the author of the canon. I’m glad that I’ve always been in the-death-of-the-author camp (generally, not just related to HP), believed in the readers’ right for interpretation and extrapolation.

The Cursed Child … makes a better fanfic than anything else. I first thought you meant it’s the best fanfic there is! Crackfic, yes!

And thank you for linking to that pre-OotP-written Remus! I’m always happy to see how he’s been loved and seen worth his own story.

[logospilgrim]

"a noble purpose of fandom is subversion"

A million times this.

I haven't given a flying fuck what Rowling's had to say about pretty much anything for years. I keep her monkeys away from my circus.

[paulamcg]

I’m so glad that you, too, agree! And you say it much more eloquently, just the way she deserves:

I haven't given a flying fuck what Rowling's had to say

[logospilgrim]

I can be most eloquent when I'm irked ;-)

[ilyena_sylph]

Amen a thousand times over to this!

[paulamcg]

Hallelujah!

[lee_bella]

I started writing HP fanfics after OotP came out, so I get what you mean.

[paulamcg]

I’m thrilled to see so many people joining in here to support this subversive fandom. Ans it feels wonderful that someone, sharing somehow similar experiences, also expresses understanding for this more personal side of my post.

[sperrywink]

I agree! Early Canon AUs can be so much fun!

[paulamcg]

Yay! Early Canon AUs – that’s a great term to use in promotion!

[silveradept]

It is always a useful thing to be able to ignore the author when the author has consistently decided to be Wrong. Which means we can rework it however we need to.

[paulamcg]

Yes!

Before I got HP fandom in my life, I enjoyed absorbing myself in good, well-written stories and not questioning them. But I also never read authors’ explanations or additions outside the stories.

Having devoted myself to my post-OotP fanfic, it was hard not to question JKR’s decisions in HBP, but I suppose I still didn’t say she was Wrong. I just decided that the reader’s right for interpretation and extrapolation had to apply also to unfinished canon, and – in my own writing – ignored the new books and interviews etc. Now it’s not hard at all to believe that she can be Wrong!

[ragdoll]

My personal canon has always ended with Order of the Phoenix for a lot of reasons. I heartily agree with you on this point.

[paulamcg]

Yay for personal canon ending at the end of OotP, or even before it! I agree that there can be a lot of good reasons for fanfic writers to make such decisions.

[notreallystars]

HP fandom definitely needs some love around now. Also I adore the idea of a forever fandom.

Ignoring her in favour of the world she created can be such a joyful experience - particularly if you eliminate HBP and DH, as we've talked about before.

[paulamcg]

Yes! Welcome to join in promoting HP, not the original author herself, but the world and the story as we joyfully subvert them – particularly what’s based on the books before HBP and DH!

[bluapapilio]

Harry Potter was my first BIG fandom and it had such a huge impact on my life and learning about fandom. No matter what has happened over the years I will always look on it fondly and continue to check out fanworks that come to my attention. 💖

[paulamcg]

Thank you for this lovely comment! I’m so glad you’ve come to my journal.

Now that I see people around me active in so many fandoms that I know nothing about, and I’m still devoted only to this one, it’s wonderful to meet people who look on HP fandom fondly! When I’ve mentioned to some family members and even closest friends that I write fiction again (since last February, after a break of eight years), I’ve got such response as “not some Potter stuff again, I hope”. Writing my fanfic and interacting in fandom have been a very real part of my real life, and that’s why it feels great to meet people who say that HP has had an impact on their lives, too.

I’d be happy to friend you, but it’s all right if you don’t want to – because of the lack of current shared fandom or for any other reason. If you feel like checking out any work by me, I’d be thrilled about any kind of feedback, but I can also not reply, if you ask me not to. I’m saying all this, because I looked at your journal and saw something about people’s different wishes concerning comments. Myself I’ve always welcomed any feedback and also thought that it’s obvious that every writer does – and that every reader wants the writer to reply.

I’m sorry if this reply got too long, but I’m really happy about your comment, which has led me to think about all this.