[ahhh, first wank. *cue premature nostalgia music* -.-!!]

[reenka]

I'm afraid to read this. I fear one more discussion on fanon!Draco (vs. canon!Draco) and I'll really bite through my own tongue or something. Yes, I officially Can't Take It Anymore, and yet it calls to me. Rant, Reena, RANT! RANT ABOUT FANON!DRACO SOME MORE, WE ALL KNOW YOU WANT TO. (noooooo *runs away* stay awaaaaayyyy..!) Um. I'm sure it's a perfectly reasonable, normal discussion. Really. Just because I have the heebee-jeebees and start to sweat at the very mention of fanon!Draco doesn't mean anything. Really. Okay, I'm exaggerating a little... maybe. -.-


It's not that I don't like any version of him, because clearly I do. I don't even set out to write non-fanon!Draco myself, because I don't. I just write him like I see him at the time, and whatever makes sense at the moment-- I really don't think about characterization much when I write. Probably because I don't actually think much when I write, period. And "fanon" is a huge term that encompasses every Draco that is not JKR's, actually (that is, just 'cause it's "fanon" doesn't mean it's "out-of-character"). On top of everything else, I don't like canon Draco (much). But. I -hate- (hate... hate... HATE) the character most people mean by fanon!Draco, because they don't seem to mean any of the ones I've loved, given the sorts of traits he has (poncey, cool, sophisticated, self-controlled, blah-blah).

Just yesterday, Adora said that it seems like I'm on a path trying to write The Most Unlikable H/D evah... heh. There might be something to that... and there might be something to the idea that I'm doing it partly as a backlash against fanon!H/D. And clearly fanon!Draco is all about making Draco more likable, right. Except most (not all! but most!) writers that try it are totally pants at it, what can I tell you. They just are, okay. Everything I know or imagine I know about Harry tells me he'd laugh at poncey-and-cool!Draco and not give him a second glance (except to laugh). It's not that opposites don't attract, it's just... Harry isn't missing this. This isn't what he needs, so the idea that (that kind of) fanon!Draco "fits" Harry is entirely ridiculous and based entirely on a certain type of reader's response. It's not based around canon!Harry's most probable response as far as I can see.

It seems like such a cop-out to say that you need to perfect or improve a character to make him perfectly suited to another character, if anything because no one is perfectly suited to anyone! That's crazy messed-up Harlequin talk, man! Snap out of it! People are messy and pissy and unpretty and beautiful, isn't that what reading any real literature shows us? And isn't the very difficulty of making people connect, and especially these two people, the whole point of even trying?

And like I said, I don't even like Draco as-is, and I want him to change and grow up and become his own person that both I & Harry could respect... but why does this mean he has to become cool? Why?! Tell me this, fandom, though... I don't want to understand anymore (even though, blah, I do)! Harry isn't 'cool' to start with! Harry's a dork, a psycho, a normal teenage boy with issues and insecurities and a few rage problems, you know, here and there! Why does he need a smooth operator to sex him up like a love machine, man?! Oh right, because this is all 'fantasy' and our collective happy escapist joy-ride, right. Who wants real people, anyway?! Real people smell!

...Though I admit I may be going a bit overboard with just how messed-up my Harry and Draco have become lately. It's really more me than them though, ahahah.
~~

EDIT - Er. Well. I um... "read it" now. Er. I can't believe I was this wanky, but. It had to happen sometime....?? Er?? *FACEPALM OMG*

Comments

[malafede.livejournal.com]

Oh, I can see how she wanted the conversation to stay cool, but honestly, weren't you disagreeing with her main point? that harry "needs" this draco? ehehe, i actually can't believe you found yourself arguing that side given the number of times we've discussed about this very subject. okay, i actually can believe it, because i am just too fascist on this for words. and maybe it's true that you shouldn't make simple, moralistic judgments on people -- but honestly, that's exactly what i think about ice prince cool draco. people like the shine. they don't like the draco from canon, because he doesn't shine. maybe it's not morals as much as simple sociology.

and, hi. :)

[ethrosdemon.livejournal.com]

oddly, I really really agree with what you say in your comments on that other journal. I especially agree with how by shifting Draco, you shift who Harry has to be.

"ponceyiceprince!Draco", yeah, that's the guy I hate. Right on the nose there.

Ok, though, how could Draco ever be a "normal" person? Wouldn't the introduction of that idea follow in the heels of some sort of AUing? I mean, a big Auing. Draco at 15 has already been emotionally and intellectually conditioned that he's not going to just "see the light" and be "normal". Please explain further.

What I find odd about your take on H/D interaction is that you like it at all. I mean, all of the things that you say about fanon Draco (and the warping of Harry's character) are the very things I have alwasy said about why I can't buy the pairing from the get go.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I think maybe you're using the word "need" different than she is...like I think her point is that obviously fandom "needed" this character because people came up with him and he won't go away. She came up with him and then all these other people did too, so it wasn't just a case of somebody reading one person's version and then writing their own. Generally the things that become fanon are the things that "take" somehow. Like with Draco there's tons of Draco stories where he's weepy and sad with big puppy eyes, and while that version's made fun of, he's not what people mean when they say Fanon!Draco.

Her saying he "fits better" with Harry is obviously just her opinion, but I think the post is sort of asking the question of all the people who have preferred him or used him. Like you suggested that they don't like canon!Draco and probably a lot of them don't, but a lot of them do like him--Maya, for instance, loves Canon!Draco and yet UL!Draco is considered King of Fandom Draco by a lot of people. For me, I can see him as fanon but I also see him coming straight from canon.

I think also there's all those superficial parts of Draco that canon doesn't touch. I can't see him growing up and losing all the flaws of his current personality, but I think I do assume he could become cooler on the outside with a lot of fanon!Draco's superficial qualities, so maybe those don't bother me as much. So if somebody wants to have fun with that part of him I can see why they're writing Draco and not Blaise or Theodore, and having him be with Harry.

Today I was thinking that in a way in those fics Draco can be more be about representing the old WW in a different way than he does in canon, showing the more beautiful aspects of it instead of just the barbaric side, if that makes sense. Maybe fandom's problem is they mostly think it has to be one or the other when the challenge is to combine the two.