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reenkaI've seen this topic beaten to death again and again, so I just feel like writing a coda, after which I promise to never involve myself in this subject ever again. And so, my last defense of Harry/Draco. EVER. Ta-da! (applause, applause. thankyou, thankyou. *bows prematurely*)
Basically, I keep seeing the question of "is this [slash] pairing `canonical'" raised repeatedly. The question itself is just deeply, deeply flawed and the presumptions behind it seem ill-formed to me. First of all, are we talking about author intent? If so, then we can pretty much assume that it's not there in 98% of the cases, end of story. There are some instances (`Dawson's Creek', Buffy), where you could make a case for the creator having slashy thoughts, but in most cases, it's like chasing UFOs, except they're metaphorical ones. What's the point? If you really need to know, write to JKR. Don't debate about it, just ask her, and voila! Revelation is at hand.
If you see it, you see it. If you don't, you don't. That is slash for you-- a clear-cut case of "mind of the beholder". I've seen (and agreed with) plenty of arguments where there are references to `chemistry' or `unresolved issues' or `heated looks'. There are all those things between straight males, aren't there? But that's not the point, right? It's not that it -could- be a "straight" story or "gay" story. It's about what we want to write and read, in the realm of fanfiction, which is inherently removed from canon even as it's bound to it.
What really concerns me is the practice of using this theoretical "canonicity" to defend the "virtue" (or lack thereof) of a slash pairing that one is or isn't interested in. The idea of defending your interest in a certain type of story because it's "there, right -there-, in the -text-", or conversely, your lack of interest because of the impossibility of this presence. So what? So what if it's there or not there?
It seems to me that slash rests on the idea of possibility, of the subversion of the original material and most likely its aims. Poof! Presto Change-o! We have made slashy lustbunnies out of the ever present ghost of "homoerotic tension" within any homosocial situation with the slightest bit of spark! Wheeeee! You can sit there and tell me that JKR doesn't like Draco and that canon!Harry is set up to never reconsider him as long as he lives, and of course I would agree with you. But so what??
All fanfiction is basically an AU scenario. By writing it, we're using the elements and characterizations and situations within canon to create something else, something -other-. In slash, this is inevitable even more so than in genfic or established-het-pairing fic, though both of these are also AU because their author simply isn't the author of the canon text. It's funny to even talk about the OOCness of a slash pairing when most fanfic out there is so blatantly out-of-character no matter -what- pairing it is. Even if H/D -was- in-character for them both, most fanfic written for this pairing would -still- be OOC, and so what? Even JKR has been accused of not keeping some of her characters "in character", which might be a ludicrous claim but has some merit if you think "in character" means "linearly consistent"... which is true for some people and not others. Some people just... don't behave consistently. I've been accused of it, heh.
To me, it's all about telling the story that I want to tell, telling the story that -means- something to me, about the love for this dynamic I see in my head and for the characters within it. The idea of its inherent (rather than practical, point-by-point) "canonicity" is really beside the point, simply because it -can't- be. I can write Molly/Arthur or James/Lily or Hagrid/Olympe, maybe even a Harry/Cho out-take if I wanted to, I guess, if I wanted to be "canonical", but that's about the extent of it. Even then, it wouldn't be JKR's James/Lily. And again, this is an old, dead horse, of course. Heh.
I just wish it could be generally accepted that one takes fanfiction pairings on their merits within that particular story, because really, that's all one -could- do. You could develop an affection (obviously) for this pairing or that, but there's a -wide- variety of interpretations of any pairing to the point where it's almost like reading about different characters altogether sometimes, all labeled "H/D", or "H/S" or what have you. It's a huge leap of faith every time, believing this particular author is really talking about what -I- consider Harry & Draco. That's because I think the basic template for their "story" isn't in any fanfic or in canon, but rather in my -head-.
It's often been said that one enjoys slash & fanfic in general most of the time because it's not going to happen in canon, and one -wants- it to. So instead of sulking, one just supplements. The very idea of thus debating the issue of how "canonical" any given slash (or het!) ship is becomes silly. I don't know why I get drawn into it, even-- I think it's just the petty "wah! H/D is -not- inherently flawed!" kicks in. Which is also silly. I -know- it's improbable, impossible, ridiculous-- hey, so is -your- slash ship, whatever it is. I can be a "man" about it and admit it, at least. It's not inherently flawed though, regardless, and neither is any other ship, and I will argue that till I'm blue in the face (though I'm trying to stop, obviously).
But really, it's not skin off -my- back. I love the story one -could- tell about them, and that's what counts, isn't it? JKR is never going to tell this story, and that's fine; who cares, really? Maybe I don't even -want- JKR to tell this story. Maybe it's not her forte (I don't think it is, really). Maybe this void in characterization or slashiness allows -us-, the readers, to use our imaginations. Whoa.
~~
I think I'm getting too worked up about this, aren't I. I can only take the "H/D is a silly ship" -so- many times before I start saying, you're all silly! Wake up! It's slash, not nuclear physics! We're not studying the laws of reality here, that's what I mean. Subverting texts to develop their homoerotic side is -not-, by definition, something that's engaged in the business of being realistic. Depending, of course, on how you look at "literary realism".
We have this uncomfortable arrangement between the fannish desire to subvert and the desire to conform to the original text, and the contradictions begin to multiply once we try to do both at the same time.
Basically, as a writer of fanfic, you can conform to the text insofar as you can project a character's behavior based on their past, "canonical" behavior and known history as well as your opinion of their personality in general (remembering you're not the original author most strenuously there), taking into account any changes you make within this history. People in general are complex-- their behavior almost (not quite) unpredictable.
There are any number of responses any given person will have to a variable set of conditions. I'm tempted to start talking about human behavior as a wave function and how people can contain the essences of several contradictory natures within themselves and only show one or the other aspect at different times. I will refrain. Physics metaphors hurt -my- brain too, you know.
So back to literary realism.
In the quest for "realistic" behavior of any particular character within the closed sphere of a particular literary universe, one inevitably has to make a series of choices which lead you further and further away from your starting point with each one. This realism becomes exponentially more difficult the more characters you're considering at one time, because their new interactions with each other necessarily impact their "natural" behavior patterns.
This is to say: people change (duh). I don't mean they get redeemed, I don't mean they get into mud wrestling, I don't mean they start to like each other if they hated each other before. No. I just mean they change, and in a myriad difficult-to-trace ways that point back to a number of seemingly insignificant and only sometimes obviously "significant" events, which organically form an emergent, composite ever-changing "self".
Understanding this "self" is usually quite a challenge either by the individual in question or by other people, no matter -who- the individual is. There is always this wide margin of unpredictability, of -error-, basically. Understanding the nature of identity enough to predict it is something that no one has (as far as I know) been able to do with complete success.
Now, here I'm talking about -true- realism, that is to say, "what are human beings really like". When most people talk about the realism or lack of it within a pairing or characterization, they mean as regards to the source text. And as I tried to say already, this is a very narrow playing field. In order to do -anything-, really, you're going to have to start theorizing and hypothesizing and interpreting and basically subverting every which way. You're going to have to follow up on possibilities you yourself see-- and whether this possibility is "strong" or "weak" depends entirely on how good you are at writing, basically; at creating the right environment for believable human character growth and transformation to occur.
This is why I think the masses of "hard-to-believe" H/D and "believable" H/D, for instance, have so little truly in common with one another. When the characters are well-drawn and developed within themselves and in their interactions, what you have is almost completely a different story from the barely-rendered version of what is supposedly the same pairing. In this pairing, you obviously have to depart further from canon-reality than with some other pairings (because they can't stand each other and such), so one can either succeed admirably or fail abysmally. It is simply a greater challenge than some other things, that's all. A question of engineering, in terms of writing, and of course basic talent and insight into psychology and the source text itself.
I've often noted that my favorite H/D fics have little enough in common with each other as far as narrative, style or characterization. They all tend to avoid certain tropes (simply because -my- internal vision of the characters couldn't tolerate certain things), but while they all seem related to canon in one way or another, it's usually in very different ways. There are -many- possibilities, obviously, and if the writer has a particularly strong vision, it seems to lead to rather diverse final destinations. Plus, a talented writer is going to be pretty unique in terms of style and maybe their underlying philosophical stance as well, so that this artistic sensibility is going to inevitably lead them away from "canon" in terms of JKR's natural philosophy about human beings and their interactions, as one can deduce from the text.
~~
In conclusion, it seems rather limited to pretend there's only one way to interpret Harry & Draco, some right or wrong way for them to necessarily always interact, and some sort of cast-in-stone future for them that we can -see- even without being the author. Secondarily, even if there -was- a cast-in-stone future, it's puzzling why a fanfic writer should be constrained by it. While clearly there are guidelines and some things just don't make sense, a romantic pairing itself (unlike other details of behavior) doesn't really lend itself to "sense", in the traditional way it's meant, anyway.
I will agree that some pairings would not lend themselves to romance and rather seem destined to be based on power-play or misguided attempts to recapture the past or loneliness or blah-blah-blah all the myriad reasons human beings get together. I admit to a sizeable bias towards the traditional yin/yang-type romance-driven pairings, and I will call the pairing itself OOC if you use one for romance that doesn't seem fit for it, and make two characters whose dynamic points to wild power imbalance and a dominance/submission dynamic have a gentle love story.
I suppose that's what the people who say H/D is inherently flawed and "uncanonical" would mean: that it doesn't lend itself to romance. There's where our visions of the possibilities for the two characters as seen in canon would diverge, as well as possibly our requirements for romance itself. This isn't a question of agreeing to disagree (heh), it's simply that I see their point and yet I see how it's not the end of the story. I would agree that one tends to need an equality between partners to have a pairing work; I would also agree that such equality between Harry & Draco isn't there at present, though I would argue it can be written into existence plausibly if the writer's good enough. I agree that one tends to avoid the people whom one can't stand rather than fuck them-- and yet, I see possibilities in the idea that this inevitably changes if one has to learn more about these people by some necessity. Again, this "necessity" is inherently in the realm of fanfiction rather than canon.
If you take as a given that Draco has something to offer Harry if both of them grow up a bit, and that he's got interesting possibilities for development (not in -canon-, just in -general- as far as one can imagine while using the basic template), you have the recipe of something happening. As a slasher, the idea of seeing homoerotic "sparks" within this dynamic is, of course, entirely subjective and inarguable. I myself am a sucker for H&D friendship stories and would read them happily, if anyone were to write them. I don't -need- them to fuck, though of course I'd like them to~:) I simply like the way they are together; in canon, yes, but mostly in my head.
I will shut up and go eat now. I'm getting way too verbose even for me, to the point where I feel completely beside the point and disturbed at my own verbosity. Maybe one day I'll condense this into 3 sentences that start with, "DAMN YOU ALL, I'M RIGHT, WANNA FIGHT?!!1 >:O" ....Or not.
Basically, I keep seeing the question of "is this [slash] pairing `canonical'" raised repeatedly. The question itself is just deeply, deeply flawed and the presumptions behind it seem ill-formed to me. First of all, are we talking about author intent? If so, then we can pretty much assume that it's not there in 98% of the cases, end of story. There are some instances (`Dawson's Creek', Buffy), where you could make a case for the creator having slashy thoughts, but in most cases, it's like chasing UFOs, except they're metaphorical ones. What's the point? If you really need to know, write to JKR. Don't debate about it, just ask her, and voila! Revelation is at hand.
If you see it, you see it. If you don't, you don't. That is slash for you-- a clear-cut case of "mind of the beholder". I've seen (and agreed with) plenty of arguments where there are references to `chemistry' or `unresolved issues' or `heated looks'. There are all those things between straight males, aren't there? But that's not the point, right? It's not that it -could- be a "straight" story or "gay" story. It's about what we want to write and read, in the realm of fanfiction, which is inherently removed from canon even as it's bound to it.
What really concerns me is the practice of using this theoretical "canonicity" to defend the "virtue" (or lack thereof) of a slash pairing that one is or isn't interested in. The idea of defending your interest in a certain type of story because it's "there, right -there-, in the -text-", or conversely, your lack of interest because of the impossibility of this presence. So what? So what if it's there or not there?
It seems to me that slash rests on the idea of possibility, of the subversion of the original material and most likely its aims. Poof! Presto Change-o! We have made slashy lustbunnies out of the ever present ghost of "homoerotic tension" within any homosocial situation with the slightest bit of spark! Wheeeee! You can sit there and tell me that JKR doesn't like Draco and that canon!Harry is set up to never reconsider him as long as he lives, and of course I would agree with you. But so what??
All fanfiction is basically an AU scenario. By writing it, we're using the elements and characterizations and situations within canon to create something else, something -other-. In slash, this is inevitable even more so than in genfic or established-het-pairing fic, though both of these are also AU because their author simply isn't the author of the canon text. It's funny to even talk about the OOCness of a slash pairing when most fanfic out there is so blatantly out-of-character no matter -what- pairing it is. Even if H/D -was- in-character for them both, most fanfic written for this pairing would -still- be OOC, and so what? Even JKR has been accused of not keeping some of her characters "in character", which might be a ludicrous claim but has some merit if you think "in character" means "linearly consistent"... which is true for some people and not others. Some people just... don't behave consistently. I've been accused of it, heh.
To me, it's all about telling the story that I want to tell, telling the story that -means- something to me, about the love for this dynamic I see in my head and for the characters within it. The idea of its inherent (rather than practical, point-by-point) "canonicity" is really beside the point, simply because it -can't- be. I can write Molly/Arthur or James/Lily or Hagrid/Olympe, maybe even a Harry/Cho out-take if I wanted to, I guess, if I wanted to be "canonical", but that's about the extent of it. Even then, it wouldn't be JKR's James/Lily. And again, this is an old, dead horse, of course. Heh.
I just wish it could be generally accepted that one takes fanfiction pairings on their merits within that particular story, because really, that's all one -could- do. You could develop an affection (obviously) for this pairing or that, but there's a -wide- variety of interpretations of any pairing to the point where it's almost like reading about different characters altogether sometimes, all labeled "H/D", or "H/S" or what have you. It's a huge leap of faith every time, believing this particular author is really talking about what -I- consider Harry & Draco. That's because I think the basic template for their "story" isn't in any fanfic or in canon, but rather in my -head-.
It's often been said that one enjoys slash & fanfic in general most of the time because it's not going to happen in canon, and one -wants- it to. So instead of sulking, one just supplements. The very idea of thus debating the issue of how "canonical" any given slash (or het!) ship is becomes silly. I don't know why I get drawn into it, even-- I think it's just the petty "wah! H/D is -not- inherently flawed!" kicks in. Which is also silly. I -know- it's improbable, impossible, ridiculous-- hey, so is -your- slash ship, whatever it is. I can be a "man" about it and admit it, at least. It's not inherently flawed though, regardless, and neither is any other ship, and I will argue that till I'm blue in the face (though I'm trying to stop, obviously).
But really, it's not skin off -my- back. I love the story one -could- tell about them, and that's what counts, isn't it? JKR is never going to tell this story, and that's fine; who cares, really? Maybe I don't even -want- JKR to tell this story. Maybe it's not her forte (I don't think it is, really). Maybe this void in characterization or slashiness allows -us-, the readers, to use our imaginations. Whoa.
~~
I think I'm getting too worked up about this, aren't I. I can only take the "H/D is a silly ship" -so- many times before I start saying, you're all silly! Wake up! It's slash, not nuclear physics! We're not studying the laws of reality here, that's what I mean. Subverting texts to develop their homoerotic side is -not-, by definition, something that's engaged in the business of being realistic. Depending, of course, on how you look at "literary realism".
We have this uncomfortable arrangement between the fannish desire to subvert and the desire to conform to the original text, and the contradictions begin to multiply once we try to do both at the same time.
Basically, as a writer of fanfic, you can conform to the text insofar as you can project a character's behavior based on their past, "canonical" behavior and known history as well as your opinion of their personality in general (remembering you're not the original author most strenuously there), taking into account any changes you make within this history. People in general are complex-- their behavior almost (not quite) unpredictable.
There are any number of responses any given person will have to a variable set of conditions. I'm tempted to start talking about human behavior as a wave function and how people can contain the essences of several contradictory natures within themselves and only show one or the other aspect at different times. I will refrain. Physics metaphors hurt -my- brain too, you know.
So back to literary realism.
In the quest for "realistic" behavior of any particular character within the closed sphere of a particular literary universe, one inevitably has to make a series of choices which lead you further and further away from your starting point with each one. This realism becomes exponentially more difficult the more characters you're considering at one time, because their new interactions with each other necessarily impact their "natural" behavior patterns.
This is to say: people change (duh). I don't mean they get redeemed, I don't mean they get into mud wrestling, I don't mean they start to like each other if they hated each other before. No. I just mean they change, and in a myriad difficult-to-trace ways that point back to a number of seemingly insignificant and only sometimes obviously "significant" events, which organically form an emergent, composite ever-changing "self".
Understanding this "self" is usually quite a challenge either by the individual in question or by other people, no matter -who- the individual is. There is always this wide margin of unpredictability, of -error-, basically. Understanding the nature of identity enough to predict it is something that no one has (as far as I know) been able to do with complete success.
Now, here I'm talking about -true- realism, that is to say, "what are human beings really like". When most people talk about the realism or lack of it within a pairing or characterization, they mean as regards to the source text. And as I tried to say already, this is a very narrow playing field. In order to do -anything-, really, you're going to have to start theorizing and hypothesizing and interpreting and basically subverting every which way. You're going to have to follow up on possibilities you yourself see-- and whether this possibility is "strong" or "weak" depends entirely on how good you are at writing, basically; at creating the right environment for believable human character growth and transformation to occur.
This is why I think the masses of "hard-to-believe" H/D and "believable" H/D, for instance, have so little truly in common with one another. When the characters are well-drawn and developed within themselves and in their interactions, what you have is almost completely a different story from the barely-rendered version of what is supposedly the same pairing. In this pairing, you obviously have to depart further from canon-reality than with some other pairings (because they can't stand each other and such), so one can either succeed admirably or fail abysmally. It is simply a greater challenge than some other things, that's all. A question of engineering, in terms of writing, and of course basic talent and insight into psychology and the source text itself.
I've often noted that my favorite H/D fics have little enough in common with each other as far as narrative, style or characterization. They all tend to avoid certain tropes (simply because -my- internal vision of the characters couldn't tolerate certain things), but while they all seem related to canon in one way or another, it's usually in very different ways. There are -many- possibilities, obviously, and if the writer has a particularly strong vision, it seems to lead to rather diverse final destinations. Plus, a talented writer is going to be pretty unique in terms of style and maybe their underlying philosophical stance as well, so that this artistic sensibility is going to inevitably lead them away from "canon" in terms of JKR's natural philosophy about human beings and their interactions, as one can deduce from the text.
~~
In conclusion, it seems rather limited to pretend there's only one way to interpret Harry & Draco, some right or wrong way for them to necessarily always interact, and some sort of cast-in-stone future for them that we can -see- even without being the author. Secondarily, even if there -was- a cast-in-stone future, it's puzzling why a fanfic writer should be constrained by it. While clearly there are guidelines and some things just don't make sense, a romantic pairing itself (unlike other details of behavior) doesn't really lend itself to "sense", in the traditional way it's meant, anyway.
I will agree that some pairings would not lend themselves to romance and rather seem destined to be based on power-play or misguided attempts to recapture the past or loneliness or blah-blah-blah all the myriad reasons human beings get together. I admit to a sizeable bias towards the traditional yin/yang-type romance-driven pairings, and I will call the pairing itself OOC if you use one for romance that doesn't seem fit for it, and make two characters whose dynamic points to wild power imbalance and a dominance/submission dynamic have a gentle love story.
I suppose that's what the people who say H/D is inherently flawed and "uncanonical" would mean: that it doesn't lend itself to romance. There's where our visions of the possibilities for the two characters as seen in canon would diverge, as well as possibly our requirements for romance itself. This isn't a question of agreeing to disagree (heh), it's simply that I see their point and yet I see how it's not the end of the story. I would agree that one tends to need an equality between partners to have a pairing work; I would also agree that such equality between Harry & Draco isn't there at present, though I would argue it can be written into existence plausibly if the writer's good enough. I agree that one tends to avoid the people whom one can't stand rather than fuck them-- and yet, I see possibilities in the idea that this inevitably changes if one has to learn more about these people by some necessity. Again, this "necessity" is inherently in the realm of fanfiction rather than canon.
If you take as a given that Draco has something to offer Harry if both of them grow up a bit, and that he's got interesting possibilities for development (not in -canon-, just in -general- as far as one can imagine while using the basic template), you have the recipe of something happening. As a slasher, the idea of seeing homoerotic "sparks" within this dynamic is, of course, entirely subjective and inarguable. I myself am a sucker for H&D friendship stories and would read them happily, if anyone were to write them. I don't -need- them to fuck, though of course I'd like them to~:) I simply like the way they are together; in canon, yes, but mostly in my head.
I will shut up and go eat now. I'm getting way too verbose even for me, to the point where I feel completely beside the point and disturbed at my own verbosity. Maybe one day I'll condense this into 3 sentences that start with, "DAMN YOU ALL, I'M RIGHT, WANNA FIGHT?!!1 >:O" ....Or not.
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no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 12:01 pm (UTC)If you really need to know, write to JKR. Don't debate about it, just ask her, and voila! Revelation is at hand.
You wouldn't have committed some authorial fallacy here, would you??? Who *cares* what JKR thinks she said!!!
We have this uncomfortable arrangement between the fannish desire to subvert and the desire to conform to the original text, and the contradictions begin to multiply once we try to do both at the same time.
Oh, this is a very good one...especially since I've been having various exchanges about the supposed subversiveness of slash and how it may not really be. But I think it is exactly that tension that makes fanfic so interesting. I'm repeating myself, but it *is* repetition with a difference...not enough, and it is boring...too much and it is unrecognizable...
And yes, I haven't really addressed the central points of your argument, but since I just spent a lot of time writing about AU's (and how did we end up thinking along similar lines at the same time :-), I just wanted to comment on these things first...
no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 12:25 pm (UTC)But yes.
It just seems like -some- people seem ...er... obsessed with what JKR thinks... I'm not one of those people~:) I think authorial intent is a tired old game, and I don't want to play it. Maybe it's because people almost -never- understand stories -I've- written the way I meant them. Often enough I get told that I myself apparently understand other people's work in the way they mean it, but I think that's just... er... a sort of ability to pay attention without judging that I have, which... er... isn't common, maybe :-?
Anyway, in terms of general dialogue and discussion, there can only really be -dialogue- with the -author-, if you're talking about some sort of "authority" (heh) on what it's "supposed to mean". Or something. I myself wouldn't ever go running to the author to explain their text to me, but then... just, the -amount- of "this is who Draco -is-, because JKR -says so-... see, see?! he's SO GAY!!1" discussion gets a bit much for me sometimes ^^;
hee. And... I'm not sure whether I believe slash is subversive or not... I think, quite obviously, it depends on the person and the instance and the particular fic. I think the act of slashing is subversive (since it basically twists the supposed intentions of the sexuality of the characters, among other things), but the slash -fic- may not be subversive at all, naturally. And often isn't~:)
no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 12:13 pm (UTC)Heh, love this. Am in complete agreement with you for much of this - especially this:
I suppose that's what the people who say H/D is inherently flawed and "uncanonical" would mean: that it doesn't lend itself to romance. There's where our visions of the possibilities for the two characters as seen in canon would diverge, as well as possibly our requirements for romance itself.
Or, in short, go you. :D
no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 12:15 pm (UTC)>:D
no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 12:21 pm (UTC)Needless to say, ITA.:-) Sometimes I really think people lose sight of the fact that fiction is...fiction. Like when JKR is accused of writing her own characters OOC and other people thinking that's impossible. For me it's like...of course it's possible! If JKR changes her characters could morph just as easily as a writer of fanfiction's could. Writers talk about having characters write themselves and that's often very true, but the author is still a powerful presence there. The author can shut a character up or she can start wishing a character was different and then see her differently and so write her that way. Or just fail to communicate all the steps she went through in her head to get the character into the form we now see. I never understand the idea that just because JKR wrote something it's IC. If I thought that way I'd never get so attached to fictional characters. I really do believe they all "exist" somewhere out there in the ether, in all their incarnations, independent of their creator.:-)
Then there's this "looking for pairings" in canon. I've never really gotten that easier. I just usually get a vibe about two characters that makes me think I'd *like* to read about them in fanfic. Is it based on canon? Sure it is! These are the guys I want to see, after all. But if I see those vibes then as far as I'm concerned they're already there. They're there in the story I have in my head when I read canon, therefore they are canon. If somebody else doesn't see the same ones then they're not there for them. Knowing the author is dropping them in on purpose honestly doesn't make me feel one way or the other about it--in fact, if the author's intrusive about it the whole thing falls apart for me. The Mulder/Krycek kiss in TRTB was slashy because I believed it when I saw it, not because I thought, "Oh ho, CC is giving a little metawink about M/K."
Also, something I've noticed in shippy-obsessed fandoms (which would be all of them), sometimes you just miss so much when you only look for that. I hated the way CoS the movie pretended that Hermione was hurt and sad at Muggleborn prejudice but I accept it was there. On FAP there were D/Hr shippers wildly proclaiming the movie was all about D/Hr, just as they'd also claimed the Potions scene in PS/SS was slashy for D/S. Ditto Remus and Sirius giving joint Xmas presents. "There's nothing else it could be!" they say.
Of course there's something else it could be! In fact, there's something else it's clearly MEANT to be, primarily. Draco and Hermione keep "looking" each other in the movie because they are Pureblood/Mudblood. They actually only look at each other when that subject comes up. Snape and Draco "look that way" in the Potions scene to show us Draco thinks Potions is as cool as Snape does. Sirius and Remus...well, where to start? Sirius is falling apart. He can't go out. He's drinking. Remus isn't much better off as a penniless werewolf. But they're the last of the Marauders, sticking together to present a gift to James' son. It's more poignant for them to give a gift together, highlights their bond in isolation and makes the scene cleaner with less gifts. Even if they are lovers (which they certainly could be--this isn't a refutation of slash there) their main concern when it comes to Xmas is hardly going to be gay ettiquette on gift-giving.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 12:45 pm (UTC)Also, you tend to express the views I fully support, except more eloquently, like with the R/S gift-giving thing, which I've tried and failed to really expound on before ^^
Ahahahah, I find it hilarious, seeing the D/Hr in that scene. *giggles madly* I think in our meeting of the slasher-brigade after we saw the movie last year, people were like, "there's EVERY SINGLE SHIP IN THIS MOVIE", and everyone was nodding. some of us were like, "BUT HARRY/DRACO IS STILL SUPERIOR!!1 >:O" and you know, more nodding >:D
Yeah, I dunno what it is about the slashy author. Maybe we just want to think that JKR is "like us" or something. *laughs* She's One Of Us! We're a secret society, spanning the wooooorrlld!!
and makes the scene cleaner with less gifts
ahahaha, that's what -I- thought >:D<
I was like, -hey-, why isn't anyone bringing that up? ehehehe. I guess I'm just not a pure enough slasher~:) Must support the gay-sunglasses way of looking at things ~:))
I actually do see how
Even if it -was- slash-friendly (or wasn't), it doesn't really matter to me. Er. I never even -consider- that, I just fall in love with characters and then I want to see them together, 'cause, you know, they're so perfect for each other (in my head).
Dude. This was a total "me too" comment-response and yet look at it! Whoa, scary :D
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Date: 2003-09-26 03:39 pm (UTC)except more eloquently,like with the R/S gift-giving thing, which I've tried and failed to really expound on before ^^
Oh no--you are totally responsible for me seeing it as clearly as I do. When I read it it seemed *right* but it didn't strike me as slashy. Then when I read it used as proof of that and nothing else I wasn't sure why that seemed so wrong until you said it!
Seriously, I do think A LOT of what is great in HP fanfic is due to lapses in characterization and things. The more open the better, I say.
Plus I do think a lot of stuff comes in because it's written by a woman. The men all being described as attractive when the women aren't being one.
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Date: 2003-09-26 03:46 pm (UTC)oh holy...wow!! i'd never considered that jkr may be er... focusing on the attractiveness of the males (well, the ones that are attractive), because she's more -into- writing about how hot guys are. ahahahahahah!!! OMG that is so funny :D :D
i love it >:D<
jkr is the one with a crush on remus, not harry.
for some reason, i just find that hilarious. and yet very possible somehow >:D
'cause seriously. she doesn't make -any- girl pretty except fleur. there's something fishy about that.
*laughs and laughs*
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Date: 2003-09-28 02:24 am (UTC)It's very easy to slip inadvertantly from being analytical to being normative, and I hope I didn't do that in my babble on slash-friendliness. I think what's missing in this point, though, is a sense of generic intentions within fanfic. Some people do, in fact, subordinate their fic to canon, in the sense that they're trying to make deeper sense of what they take to be JKR's characterizations or clarify puzzles that JKR doesn't appear to have thought out. Others are content to appropriate JKR's characters as raw material in fleshing out archetypes, in telling stories, that originate primarily in their own heads, prior to any encounter with JKR. I would never want to see a scale or judgment set up between the two approaches. But they're different games, like tennis and badminton, and practitioners of one or the other can try to clarify their own rules without necessarily prescribing for the other group.
I have a healthy wariness of another round on authorial intent, but I think the issues are related. I think it's unfair to suggest that "authorial intent" means you just grill the author on random micro questions that you frame in your own terms. What I'm getting at is more of a sense that particular literary projects can often be described fairly successfully in fairly neutral language. I'm thinking of Anna Akhmatova's famous story about a woman who came up to her in the prison at Leningrad and said, "Can you describe this?"
"Describing this" is a project. Describing the disintegration of a romantic personality in a coarsely philistine French rural village is a project. Capturing the subjective feeling of the unbearable lightness of character and fate, through the rise and fall of the Mayor of an English market town, is a project. These are high-level projects, but they decompose into component tasks that can be similarly described. The hierarchy may or may not go all the way down -- I don't have a dogmatic position on where the acknowledged indeterminacy of language and texts or the limits of authorial control take over -- but I do, personally, find it instructive and interesting to try to comprehend a writer's project, in this sense, to the greatest extent that I can, and to study in very specific terms how he or she constructs a thing that serves that project's ends.
One may then go on to make a choice about whether a particular author is interesting enough, has a compelling enough set of projects, a successful enough technical realization of those projects, to be worth studying in depth, mining for ideas or technical tricks. And if the answer is yes, then you get canon-oriented writers, who, given the question of whether, say, Sirius is manipulating Harry or genuinely cares for him, take that question seriously because they think JKR has done something wildly interesting in creating the character of Sirius. It's no particular disgrace to subordinate oneself to another writer's program in this way, because that, after all, is the appeal of very strong writers. Though we could debate whether JKR is strong enough to necessarily demand this sort of treatment.
At the same time, the ultimate goal of the exercise is to develop one's own sensibility and hone one's own technical skills, so if someone doesn't find JKR compelling, merely finds her characters and situations useful raw material, then no one needs anyone else's permission to appropriate them for his or her own ends. (At least in the copyright-free zone of fanfic.) I am making a case only for the legitimacy of both projects, and for the usefulness of a certain type of canon-reading for the first project.
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Date: 2003-10-02 09:06 pm (UTC)Ah, but do you find slash fanfic attempting to full subordinate itself to canon...? I mean, isn't the slash itself necessarily an extrapolation that demands a departure from canon? By certain standards, shippy (vs. gen) fic in general can't entirely subordinate itself....
Though I do see your point on a purely theoretical level (whereas I don't know if I've seen this thought-out thesis on Draco, for instance, even though that's what would make sense as the motivator). All the Draco-thesis-type fics I've seen don't really spend much time with canon-Draco (UL, DT). He's always already different. Harry, on the other hand, is sometimes pretty canon-based, but then if he's not, it would really be a glaring mistake, and also it's a lot easier to make him that way since he's so much better characterized in the first place.
I guess what I'm saying is, I can see how they're different games, it's just that I think most actual fics play both of them, in practice.
Authorial intent -can- be quite enlightening to know, of course. I mean, it helps me to know that Cassie intended Draco Dormiens as a pastiche, and it helps knowing that Maya really sees her Draco as a reflection of canon and that's her take on it, and it helps knowing that Aja didn't pay so much attention to canon or plausibility for the first bunch of chapters of LUW because she wanted to get to the plot in Chapter 10. All these things, I know from the author directly, on the other hand. So yes, it really helps knowing what the author's project (as you so eloquently put it) is. On the other hand, only the author knows, usually~:)
I think to try to determine the motivation of the author as a reader with an agenda of some sort is where I run into difficulty. I have a sense of what JKR is going for, outside of my personal relationship with the text, myself. There's also the interviews and so on. I also think slashiness is different than the "thematic project" which is much more easily seen and deduced, because you'd think an author would consciously provide clues to sustain their ideas in it. Slashiness would be rather more iffy, by definition. Most likely, JKR isn't even aware of it, realistically speaking. I mean, we know Joss was with Buffy, so that's good. But there are literally no concrete signs that JKR even knows about such a beastie aside from Dudley's joke about Cedric, unless you read into things that could also be read differently.
So yes, you can read the text in a slashy way, but implying the author meant to put it there is a different thing that would be much more difficult to make believable, IMO.
I would be very willing to give JKR enough credit to discuss her goals and vision of heroism and responsibility and destiny as seen through Harry's arc. There's also the things on choice, on the lasting effects of love, on the need for other people to supplement you, the way you cannot succeed alone, etc. I've actually never seen any writer I would consider to be continuing JKR's thematical work in this sensitive of a manner. If you'd like to recommend any fic to me, slash or het or gen, I'd probably read it and tell you what I think~:) Though after OoTP, there -has- been a rash of Sirius-and-Harry and Sirius-and-Remus ficlets which were playing on the one thread that was Sirius's death, I guess.
I'm definitely interested in that sort of imitative writing, though I've yet to encounter it. I've never really seen any writer who's able to fully mimic any significant aspect of the source in its -fullness-, from the source, in any fandom. But I'm rather picky.
I always thought that using canon is er... a foregone conclusion in terms of fanfic, as a reader. When I read fanfic, I usually want a specific thing, a recognizable thing. I definitely see the dual approaches as valid, but really I prefer a happy medium~:)
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Maybe one day I'll condense this into 3 sentences that start with, "DAMN YOU ALL, I'M RIGHT, WANNA FIGHT?!!1 >:O" ....Or not.
Here ya go:
Aight, bitches, this is how it is. No fanfic is canon, fucking deal with it. P.S. H/D rules, die.
*bows* Thank you, thank you.
But my point is, aren't you coming down this weekend? *peers*
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Date: 2003-09-26 02:51 pm (UTC)<3
you are the best summarizer ever, you know that, right? >:D<
oh, and yeah. um. yeah! *look of inspiration*
i was just -thinking- how i need art supplies for monday and like... i can't get them 'cause i ...er... the campus store is -out-, so yeah! *excited* i have an excite.
take the 1st bus i can wake up to tomorrow morning, then~:) ehee. also, after someone (*coughsmymomcoughs*) deposits more money ;)
*points at icon*
hee. it's the war of the icons >:D<
although i admit yours is adorable. damn. they're all adorable. though mike sucks, kind of. but... not all the time :D
*coughs* and not brian. ahahahahahahah
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Date: 2003-09-26 02:59 pm (UTC)*coughs*
but same thing, right? -.-
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Date: 2003-09-26 08:18 pm (UTC)I have studyish plans with a friend tomorrow afternoon, but I'm not sure if we're still gonna do that. Whatever, even if I do I'll still get back in the early early evening, so.
Then it's you, me, vampires in leather, and bacon cheeseburgers, yes? Give me your number so I can call and harrass you instead of leaving six thousand comments like last time. >:-O
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Date: 2003-09-26 08:29 pm (UTC)i really don't -want- him, so like... as long as he doesn't get naked on tv anymore, it's all good. ahahah. too much to hope for, i know ><;;
i can't tell if he's not my type or if i'm just blinded by the b/j. heh.
dude, i need more b/j icons. although that would take away from the h/d icons.
it's a difficult, difficult sort of life i lead >:D
!
Date: 2003-09-26 03:02 pm (UTC)To me, it's all about telling the story that I want to tell, telling the story that -means- something to me, about the love for this dynamic I see in my head and for the characters within it.
your words made me think. I don't know it that's a good thing, but this is what came out.
*ahem*
first it comes a story, the creed of its writer. it grows into your head, thought after thought, it takes shape with every twist and turns you insert in the plot, every color you give to the characterizations, the words you cut, the words you add. you patch it up and take it apart, again and again and you polish it until you're satisfied, until you can say "hey, that is! that was what I wanted to write!".
then it comes a reader who decides to give his/her trust to the writer, to the story. for this trust, the reader wants something back and this something is just the same satisfaction the writer got at the end of his work, the "hey, that is! that was what I wanted to read!".
obviously, it is hard to find the match between writer and reader. here they come the favorites and the love-letters or the critics and the fights.
now, I think that beforehand everything is possible. Harry/Draco, Harry/Hermione, Harry/Hedwig... the matter is the realization. alas, truth is that some ships are easier to write than others. or better, some ships are easier to write in a way that is up with most people's expectations.
but all this (ships, canon-vs-fanon, realities and other fanciful-pseudo-literary-observations) can't-doesn't-mustn't constitute a rule because in writing and reading and every other activity that involve imagination can be no rule, for if it were, then there would be no fantasy.
and then, what would we be discussing about?
blue
H/D sucker *wanna discuss about it? eh? I'm always ready for a good fight. ;)*
hee~:)
Date: 2003-09-26 04:01 pm (UTC)I like how you said "musn't constitute a rule", because well, once you set -up- a rule, you're pretty much saying it has to be broken (subverted! heh) anyway. so if you said, omg, draco is SO GAY, it would be fun & easy to write lots of fic where he's got this mad need to snog ginny. or not, because i'm not into that. but still!
yeah >:D
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Date: 2003-09-26 08:47 pm (UTC)But there are still degrees of believability that have to be met. Sure, people change. But Draco isn't just suddenly going to wake up one day and realize "Hey, I'm the world's biggest asshole, outside of Snape! I should be nicer! Start giving everyone flowers and damn is that Harry Potter hot with his thin, underfed looks and his dumb NHS glasses and wild black hair, maybe I should kiss him and he'll fall in love with my blond hair that's dry and chunky from the gel and pointy chin and new loverly attitude!" My problem with the pairing is that no one bothers to justify the change. Even setting a story ten years in the future, you damn well better explain what happened in the last ten years in order to justify that change. Even a sixth year story is going to need justification for a nicer Draco given that he leaves threatening Harry because of his father.
On the flip side, a writer has to do some serious storytelling to order to get Harry to see Draco as a) anything and b) when he bothers to notice Draco, anything more than a bully. Frankly, I find more stock in Draco/Ron than I do Harry/Draco simply because Draco and Ron notice each other. (Though, again, there's that believability factor. I dislike D/R quite a bit because there is so much prejudice and hatred that no one bothers to justify past. Or at least not in the one or two stories I've managed to get through.)
See, my problem is more that writers tend to say "This is how Character is." But Character doesn't have any sort of resemblance to canon and there's no reason within in the fanfiction for that change. Write whatever the hell you want, just make sure it's logical and justified within the story.
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Date: 2003-09-26 09:13 pm (UTC)I often rail against the characterization on most H/D (then again, I'm not that thrilled with the H/S characterizations or the Sirius/Remus ones that I've read, either).... The reason I still haven't "given up" is mostly because I see it as a writer, not just as a reader, I guess. It's like... the main sustenance for my vision is in my head-- it exists outside of the fanfic or the canon. Which is probably a weird concept if you don't share it (like... er... well, some people do, like
Meaning, I guess I myself have a template in my head that is a composite of a number of sources and of my own perceptions of the characters.... And I do find it v. v. hard to write H/D-get-together, and in fact I -still- haven't written it. I take it pretty seriously....
I do think some stories -attempt- justification but yeah, most of it falls through somewhere. I was trying to think of something I'd consider "in-character" H/D recently, and I couldn't really come up with anything. Either the Harry or the Draco is off or their romance is given short-thrift in favor of plot.
Ali's `Sins of the Father', Antenora's `The Losing Side', even Maya's `Underwater Light' all have a thesis behind them, a logical thread. They may not convince all readers, but there -are- so many H/D fics out there, that you can't really generalize -anything- about all of them. Heh. And man, do I know too much about that ^^;;
As far as short fics that attempt a logical scenario, there's
you could say that cassie claire's `a season in hell (http://home.nyu.edu/~amw243/fiction/fic/cassie_seasoninhell.html)' definitely follows a logical trajectory, having a plot element propel harry into what would usually be considered OOCness.
er. yeah. i agree, of course, it's just that... it's -possible- doesn't mean it's -common- or even er....there~:)