author over character, and how to pick one: a conundrum

It occurs to me that (most often post-Hogwarts) fanon!Draco is usually a Gary Stu by the following definition: it's not that he has no flaws (though there's the omg-special eyes/hair/body/powers, which would be possibly fine by themselves), per se, though often he's been indeed scrubbed clean of such nasty things as arrogance and pettiness and (inconceivable!) outbursts of the foot-in-mouth disease (not... not Draco Malfoy!), but that often enough other characters (i.e., Harry) don't react in a believable fashion to those flaws which remain. In fact I've only seen Harry boggled & disturbed at Draco's wacked-out changes (and not omg-so-impressed) once, and that was in Resonant's `Transfigurations', which was all by itself enough to endear that fic to me immediately, Kitty!McGonagall nonwithstanding.

I think that's some sort of basic fantasy-fiction principle of keeping the all-important 'realistic consequence' clause to unlikely or sudden developments. So! If your aunt, for example, overnight grows a great big orange nose (or possibly you come back after 5 years to find this to be true)-- leopard-spotted, for instance-- you don't go, "oh, what an interesting color this evening! this really complements you, Auntie! well done!" No, you go, OMGWTFLOL!!1 This makes the reader able to identify with the character's reaction, thus lessening the blow of Teh Weird or in other words, some really outlandish change having occurred.

In the end, perhaps I can best liken my reaction to the phenomenon of new-and-improved!Draco (post-Hogwarts or not) to the many people who went 'wtf??!' at the new-and-improved Ginny in Order of the Phoenix. Here you could contrast her with Neville, who also underwent some changes but we could see them happen gradually throughout the book, and people's reactions shifted accordingly; Ginny, on the other hand, was changed clumsily & halfway retroactively. Meaning, while one could see where this character could have come from (and for some readers, that was enough), it was still a bit ridiculous that the others (basically Harry) just accepted this change without any real difficulties adjusting or 'wow, I still can't believe she's like this' moments.

Usually, you get this new-and-improved!Draco, and what happens? Harry's like, 'omg Draco is so different... how intriguing! how fascinating! I can't help but be strangely yet inexplicably attracted to the new-and-yummy him!' and then, possibly, '*angst*'. And as a reader, I'm like, 'Harry! Harry! wake up! it's Malfoy! Wake up!'
    And I think this gets into the question of why people write about a certain pairing; and perhaps the assumption we have that because we're reading a fic labeled "H/D", of course Harry will be attracted to Draco. Of course they want each other; after all, isn't that what we're all expecting, and what we'd most often believed while writing the fic? So in another sense, it would be a sort of discontinuity, an unpleasant jolt, if Harry did react negatively (or 'realistically') to new-and-improved Draco; after all, wouldn't that go against the implied point of the ship? Isn't the point that 'we believe Harry should-- and therefore does-- want Draco'?

Well. That is the question, I think: in a given fanfic, do your goals and biases as the writer (and in a more meta sense, a reader) dictate how the characters act & react, or do the characters themselves (no matter what your interpretation of them) dictate those biases and generate the direction and flow of the story?

( And onto the wherefores of fic, romance, and the letter D, inspired in part by black_dog. )