[Fandom] Now I need to go re-read canon...

[jennaria]

...because I'm fairly sure that Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince is not actually about Harry's sexual awakening, featuring Draco, the aforementioned Half-Blood Prince, and possibly Ginny Weasley. (I told Wife this. She made the most interesting faces in response.)

In any case. I have now looked through ~500 pages of Harry Potter fanfic on AO3, and come to the following additional conclusions:

- Top AU: rewriting all of canon from the ground up, usually but not invariably sorting Harry into Slytherin. Also tends to peter out somewhere around the Triwizard Tournament. Second Most Common AU: Everything Changes After The Fire Nation Attacks Sirius Dies.

- It's fascinating to follow certain tags down a rabbit hole. 19 pages of 'Pureblood Culture' (but only 6 pages of 'Wizarding Traditions')! (And two and a half of those 19 pages are from one particular author who specializes in the kind of romance where it's super-shocking to brush your hair in front of someone who isn't your family or your fiance, and kissing someone, well. Abstinence porn in the finest Victorian tradition.) 9 pages of 'Wrong Boy-Who-Lived' (which usually involve Harry being a twin, and you can figure it out from there)! And 11 pages of 'Creature Inheritance,' wherein it turns out Draco is a Veela, Harry is a Dragon, and Snape really is a vampire after all. (I kid. Sorta. Not as much as I might be.)

- Also, wow, canon is over here and fanon is over there and I see those of y'all who are trying to bridge the gap, y'all are doing God's work, but it's a really big gap.

- Finally, you know that thing where you're reading a lovely rich WIP, and you get to the end and want more? And go check the Last Updated stamp and it's all 'ha ha this was uploaded from a defunct archive and hasn't been updated in over a decade'? Yeah. :hollow laughter:

Comments

[hitokage]

is it bad that I think the Fire Nation attacking the fandom would be a good thing? *puts self in corner*


but it is reassuring to see I'm not alone in thinking wow fanon has wandered into the tall weeds in places.... and not in the good way.

[jennaria]

:laugh: I stay happily on the edges of the fandom. HP Fandom as such has a reputation, after all.

I've been reading a wide enough cross-section of fanfic - plus re-watching the movies, slowly, and re-reading canon - that the contradictory bits stand out a lot more obviously than they might otherwise. (Also the bits where I am, apparently, too ace for this. Somebody being hot does not excuse them from being an evil asshole! No really! Not even Snape, and I like him!)

[hitokage]

It so does, and not undeservedly so. The habit of large swathes of the fandom to seemingly forget that every single piece of the novels is viewing events through the lens of an unreliable narrator has led to some very ... look, wanting to take a critical look at fiction is good! Great! But you should probably start that critical look somewhere earlier than just blanket excepting Harry's PoV as Perfect Gospel not to be interrogated in the slightest ever. >_> And then there's the whole magic in America thing JK's doing now and I loved Fantastic Beasts and I will totally see the next one, but THAT'S NOT HOW ANY OF THAT WOULD HAVE WORKED. But that's a whole other rant that I have yet to fully form into Actual Words.

Snape... I have feelings on Snape that are not in line with fanon as it currently stands. Definitely still an asshole, though, but again, unreliable narrator means I question how much. But then I question a lot of fanon for that reason. ;)

[jennaria]

Oh, both fanon and canon deserve lots of questioning, and I am here for that. (The new HP movies, oh lord. I'm going to see the next one too, but for me it's filmed fanfic. I can simultaneously love Newt and Tina and Queenie and Jacob and Credence to bits, and hate the sloppiness of the worldbuilding around them.)

My hardcore OTP for Snape is Snape/Therapy. Even more than it being my background OTP for the entire cast. Possibly also Snape/Having Some Friends Who Aren't Albus Fucking Dumbledore. (Is Snape friends with the other Death Eaters? I've seen some fanon that has him besties with the Malfoys, and some where he's *totally* isolated, and I don't know if canon even says anything.)

[hitokage]

I just... no one seems to want to ask why, if Magic is Ancient and Global but European Muggles forced Wizards to hide because of reasons of European culture that ... probably wouldn't have been repeated universally across the planet, then why does the modern world look the same but with magic pasted on yey? [I realize the answer is to change things would have required a hell of a lot more in-depth interrogation and work than Boarding School Shenanigans Trope generally needs or wants, but still.]

Therapy for everyone! Especially Harry! An intense summer session for clueless 11yo muggle-borns who never even knew anything about the wizarding world before throwing them in the deep end! SCHOOL THERAPY FOR ALL BECAUSE JESUS CHRIST THE CASTLE IS LEGIT CURSED YA TOOLS!

... I haven't read the canon in so long, plus again, Harry is totally not a reliable source, but what I remember suggests Snape was pretty isolated. But again, Harry's perspective is completely biased, so who tf knows. I need to reread to see how much the canon ever bothered to develop him as a character or if he was stuck as flat Red Herring Villain until the end, but I'm not sure I can actually make myself read past Book 4 this time. I made it a good third of the way, maybe more, into Book 6 the first time, but 5 was a real grind and 6 just ... I just couldn't take it anymore.