Canon fodder, or: why I phased out of HP fandom

[resonant]

When I posted my HP WIPs, I said, "A pox on open-canon fandoms," and arby_m said, "I totally agree, but what about SGA? (Does the openness of canon not count, because it is SGA after all and the writers are on crack?)"

Crack helps, but really I have two problems with writing in HP fandom now: (1) unity vs. episodic-ness, and (2) how much I trust JKR, which is not much.

There are no spoilers in this post, but it's the sort of discussion that could easily generate spoilers in the comments, so beware.

A TV show is episodic, pretty much by definition. And when your canon is episodic, there are multiple conflicts, multiple antagonists, multiple resolutions -- and thus multiple points of entry. You can come in in any episode.

And because there are so many episodes, you also have the feeling that what you've been told isn't comprehensive, that the characters are having many other adventures in between the episodes we've been shown. Often an episodic story will also make you feel that the adventures could go on after the end.

Take Stargate:Atlantis. You can be fairly certain that they won't end the series without dealing pretty comprehensively with the Wraith, but maybe it's Atlantis vs. the Wraith and maybe it's Earth vs. the Wraith and maybe the Atlantis people trick everybody so it ends up being the Genii vs. the Wraith. Or maybe the Wraith find Earth and it ends up being the Wraith vs. the Common Cold. Or maybe (this would be unwise, but not impossible) they wipe out or humanize the Wraith day after tomorrow, and the rest of the series is devoted to the Genii or the Replicators or some other antagonist. You just can't predict right now what the climax is going to be.

Some novels are episodic (The Hobbit is, and so are most of the Hornblower books; that's why they make such a lovely miniseries), but it seems to me that the current novel market places a high value on unity in novels.

The HP series is kind of an extreme example of this; six volumes so far, all basically telling one story. One antagonist, one conflict, one confrontation for the climax, two possible outcomes depending on who wins that conflict. The climax of Book 7 can't possibly be anything but Harry vs. Voldemort, can it? And either Voldemort wins or Harry does, and at that point the series is over.

Now, problem 2, which is related, is how much I trust JKR, which is not much.

Please understand, this isn't a literary criticism. The choices she's making are perfectly legitimate from a literary point of view. But they're choices that make it difficult for fanfic writers to find a place in her universe. In a nutshell, I don't trust her to value her characters as much as I do.

Think of the death of Dumbledore. Of course it was inevitable -- I killed him myself in Transfigurations -- but I was very surprised that she killed him so soon. Placed that early in the series, his death really served almost no purpose except to throw suspicion on Snape.

No, think about that for a second. She threw away Dumbledore in order to throw suspicion on Snape.

Basically this tells me that she's only telling one story, she's only got one conflict, and she's going to throw everything she's got at it.

Now I myself think there are lots of stories to be told after the war; when I was writing HP, I had a sort of a minor concentration in stories that amounted to "Voldemort's dead. Now what?" But I don't think that interests JKR much. I think she's going to tie up every loose end, and some of them she's going to tie up in shrouds, because once the Harry vs. Voldemort conflict is finished, she's done.

That's as closed as a canon can be. Too closed for me.

Comments

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

You know, I wonder whether the discussions about good and bad source texts (i.e., why so much Sentinel and comparatively little WW given the number of viewers) might be connected to your closed/openness.

I've been reading a lot of stuff on narrative complexity in TV series and just watched the first season of the wire, and it was very much one story...beautifully and annoyingly so.

And I think you're really right in how *that* level of closedness, that level of singlemindedness is something we often cherish in terms of "quality" but which we really can't use as fanfic canon all that easily...

...also, totally OT, but I translated one of your short pieces into German this morning as an experiment. It sucked in translation (mine at least), but it made me very much appreciate your word choice and pacing and scarcity of words with wealth of meaning!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

The words closed and open aren't really well chosen -- it frustrates me; I can't think of the word I want! I'm just thinking of the percentage of what happens in the HP books that's intimately related to the Harry-Voldemort conflict, as opposed to, say, the percentage of what happens in Due South that's intimately related to Fraser's search for the killers of his father.

that level of singlemindedness is something we often cherish in terms of "quality"

Sometimes, yes -- the episodicness of The Hobbit bugs me sometimes, because I want all those adventures to add up to more than they do.

(And I'm really impressed that you know German well enough to translate anything into it! I'm hopelessly monolingual.)

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

Yes, open/closed isn't exactly what you want, but I knew what you meant. Rich vs impoverished worlds might be better, but then hundreds of thousands of stories might beg to differ...

I've just decided that to *me* the world wasn't what i wanted any more...or maybe the fandom wasn't what i wanted any more? it's always so hard to discuss these things without pissing in your fanfriends' cereal or sounding like you're somehow better... But I think it's a really interesting and important discussion to have...what canon works for me, for us...

eh...it's my native tongue. lol. i better know it, though i realized yesterday that i hadn't *written* in german in over 20 years...and it showed :)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

English is your second language? Good lord, I figured you were a native speaker.

non-spoilery comment post!

[mremre.livejournal.com]

I'm still unspoiled, and I'm not reading ANY comments until after I read the book, but I wanted to say THANK YOU for articulating my down-deep discomfort with HP. It's come to the point I don't actually care which way she ends it; I just want to see her end it, because I finish things. I always have to see a series through to the end.

But the bit about seven books, one story--yeah, it is an awfully LONG story, isn't it? I think I've got fan/reader fatigue or something. ::ponders::

Re: non-spoilery comment post!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

it is an awfully LONG story, isn't it?

This may be why I've always been more interested in the little things that are (or at least could be) happening around the edges of the frame -- or in the things that might or might not happen after the whole Voldemort thing is finally wrapped up. Except that I'm worried that in wrapping it up, she'll lose or damage all my favorite action figures!

Re: non-spoilery comment post!

[mremre.livejournal.com]

::handwavey::

::disavows knowledge of non-complient canon::

Thankfully, books allow me (and loads of others) to do that! AU-ville, here I am =)

[gchick.livejournal.com]

I don't have any opinion at all about HP or JKR, but your episodic vs. open distinction really nicely nails why I've never really gotten bunnies for novel or movie fic while TV and comics make me flail and buzz. If the whole thing is wrapped up all nice and snug, there's no room for me to move around in it.

[gchick.livejournal.com]

episodic vs. unity. D'oh. Still waiting on the computer that types what I actually meant.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Those words are rather ill-chosen -- that's why you can't remember them. I can't come up with the right term for them.

why I've never really gotten bunnies for novel or movie fic while TV and comics make me flail and buzz.

The rare occasion when I've written novel or movie slash (except for HP), it's been where there just seemed to be one scene missing -- you know how you come out of some movies thinking, "Now, the sex -- we know it happened, but did it happen before the car crash or after?"

You know, it's just occurred to me that maybe what made HP different for me at first was that I experienced it through fandom. I read the slash before I'd read the books, and maybe they all mixed together in my head, and that's why I felt so sure there was that necessary multiplicity of stories happening even though the books (more and more as the series went on) were only telling one.

[yahtzee63.livejournal.com]

See, I don't think that's why she killed Dumbledore (I think it's isolating Harry and forcing him to assume an independent, adult role in the battle that he otherwise really could not have), and I really don't think the end of Book 6 is that early in the series.

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

I have to say I agree. The "throwing suspicion on Snape" aspect was certainly useful, but this is the same kind of required mentor death that killed off, for example, Merlin and Obi Wan Kenobi so that the young boys could become men.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I confidently predicted that Dumbledore would be killed at the beginning of book 7, and I can't explain why the end of book 6 feels so much earlier to me! Well, no, wait, maybe I can -- the beginning of book 7 would have felt like Dumbledore's death was the start of the climax of the series, maybe even the catalyst for events to start moving faster and faster; the end of book 6 felt to me like his death was isolated from the events of the climax. Maybe it will feel different to future readers who don't have a long wait between one book and the next.

Of course you're right about the mentor death, though; I'm surprised Molly and Arthur Weasley have made it this far.

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

You're right! Molly and Arthur are kind of like Luke's aunt and uncle (although...nicer *g*), but then again, King Arthur's foster-father, Sir Ector, lasted, so maybe the adoptive parent thing is iffy. :)

[vee-fic.livejournal.com]

Novel-writers can aim towards a particular goal over the course of their series and still leave the kind of open canonicity that invites fanfic. (No less so than TV writers can do the same, over a season-long arc.) It is not a necessary component of writing an arc that all details serve the arc and the arc only. Actually, I would say that's a hallmark of bad writing.

I'm not sure that open/arc or closed/episodic canon is the issue you're driving at here, or you might be describing predominant signs but not the disease itself. The issue, from what you're describing, sounds like the difference between a rich world and a poor one: a rich world always has more stories in it -- stories that fit in after the arc is over, or before it began, or into the interstices between segments, even if the originating author doesn't intend any more stories; a poor world doesn't have enough extraneous detail to support any other stories, even if the author wants to tell them.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the words were badly chosen. I'm still flailing toward a concept I can't quite articulate.

a rich world always has more stories in it -- stories that fit in after the arc is over, or before it began, or into the interstices between segments, even if the originating author doesn't intend any more stories; a poor world doesn't have enough extraneous detail to support any other stories, even if the author wants to tell them.

Maybe what it is is that I'm afraid book 7 is going to transform HP from a rich world into a poor one? There are tons of stories in HP, millions of them; they multiply with every new character introduced. I think the world is extraordinarily rich, though the main Harry-Voldemort conflict is to me one of the least interesting of the available stories.

[vee-fic.livejournal.com]

It's entirely possible to get to the end of an arc-y epic and suddenly -- all the characters get married! Even the minor ones! To each other! Even if they've never met!! And the ones who don't get married join convents or die!!!

So, yes. By "rich world" I think I mean that lives are not all tied up in a bow and neatened to the point of ending. That they continue to have texture and conflict, both on the page and projectable into the future and past tenses.

(Ironically, coffeeandink and I discuss this occasionally and like to say that a good fic universe is a universe that's incoherent -- which is a less-flattering way of saying that it leaves enough texture lying around that we can make something of it. Kind of two different ways to look at the same ficability.)

[zelempa.livejournal.com]

And sometimes a good fic universe IS, actually, incoherent. :)

It's impossible to tie this in with quality of the work because both closed/poor-world/comprehensive/unified/difficult to fic and open/rich/danglybits/texturey/fic-able works can be good or bad. (Not that anyone has really said there's a correspondence, really, but I'm thinking about it and realizing there is none.)
I mean: Buffy: good show, plenty of room for fic; Sentinel: terrible show, a galaxy of fic. (And I say this out of love.)

Similarly everything fitting together in the end could be good or bad, depending on how it works/how believable/how badass it turns out to be in the context of the story. Hitchcock movies, for example, are great, but I don't think you could really fic them, since you're given information so economically and the scenes which are implied but not shown are not shown precisely because they don't need to be: it's clear exactly what must have happened.

On the other hand, Steiner and Strauss Shaw and Morgan in Rope are very very gay. (Sorry, I was thinking of the Leopold and & Loeb guys in Compulsion. That's kind of an incoherent telling of that story, much more ficable, except the guys are maybe less pretty.)

I think I lost track of where I was going with this.

[vee-fic.livejournal.com]

Oh, Hitchcock's a good example. His narrative economy is so spare, to fic anything of his would be to fic it entirely on his terms. His worlds are made up of exactly what Hitchcock has put into them, and no more.

Whereas, despite the grisly ending for most of the characters in Titanic, the movie brings up enough extraneous details to provide a lot of jumping-off points for fic. It's intentionally mimicking reality (with the addition of some Hollywood flourish and rassenfrassen Celine Dion), in all its narrative inefficiency.

One of the funny instances of the authors narrowing the universe, but not being able to decrease the ficability, is Blake's Seven. Everybody dies in the end! Violently! And yet, you wouldn't believe how much post-series fic there is out there.

[myalexandria.livejournal.com]

I think the world is extraordinarily rich, though the main Harry-Voldemort conflict is to me one of the least interesting of the available stories.

I think this is *exactly right*. In a lot of ways they're the two least interesting characters in the series -- or at least, they're not interesting when they're in relationship to each other. In relationship to themselves, or to other people, they can become interesting.

So I also, when I read HP stories, am usually looking for the other characters to become what I refer to as "real people" -- three-dimensional, with a reality of their own which doesn't depend on their service to the plot.

One of my rules for good writing is that if you have to sacrifice your character to your plot -- making them do something idiotic if they're not idiots, or whatever -- then you need to think much harder about why you want the plot to go in exactly that direction. I think this is something Rowling is *awful* at.

[cordelia_v]

Perhaps read Book 7, and then see if you feel the same way? I've read it, and I wouldn't say that most aspects/characters are wrapped in a shroud.

She does have only one story to tell, you're right. There is one conflict, but in the course of Book 7 you see that there are many issues being fought out within the context of that one conflict.

But even though that's the story she wants to tell, I think the richness of her universe is such that it's impossible even for her to close off every story line, to leave everything that tied up.

YMMV. But you may be pleasantly surprised.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Well, of course I have to read it! I'll be later than everybody else because I ordered mine from amazon.uk and it will have to be shipped internationally, but I don't think I could not read it.

I think the richness of her universe is such that it's impossible even for her to close off every story line, to leave everything that tied up.

Well, I hope you're right. Somehow in the middle of book 6 something happened in my head and I no longer felt like that universe was giving my stories enough oxygen.

[susancalvin.livejournal.com]

We exchanged emails a long time ago about your story Bread and Board, but other than that, you don't know me. I'm purely a lurker in fandom.

Anyways, because I love your HP fic, I was very interested to see what you'd have to say about DH, and I'm still interested to read your reaction once you get it.

With respect to what you say above, though, OotP was the book that got me interested in HP fan fiction. I read everything I could get my hands on until HBP came out and then... I just didn't care anymore. You're right that something happened during Book 6 that just made the universe less compelling.

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with DH. Despite its flaws (and there are many), it practically makes ME want to write fic, and I don't write. I'll check back later to see what you think after you read it.

[susancalvin.livejournal.com]

Err, Bed and Board.

[jeddy83.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is a very interesting discussion I wish I hadn't come upon it at bedtime. I think in talking about the episodic nature of SGA you've enlightened me about why I find SGA so frustrating at times. SGA is extremely episodic in that there is precious little character or emotional continuity between episodes. While everyone else in the fandom was squeeing over MacKay and Mrs Miller, I was grinding my teeth because Rodney was suddenly and for no apparent reason isolated from the rest of the team.

Supernatural works much better for me, even though it is still episodic. It may be a monster of the week episode, but the emotional arc usually carries over, so I'm not left floundering in quite the same way.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I wonder if there's one level of continuity/economy/whatever you want to call it that's perfect for fanfic writers? Or if it's just that every show, movie, and book is so different that we'll find a different place in each one to colonize?

Like mildew.

[arby-m.livejournal.com]

*unspoiled eyes closed*

I think part of what makes the difference between a fic-inclusive world and a fic-exclusive world is how well the creator succeeds in telling the story - well-executed single tales (book/movie) are less likely to be ficced because s/h/it already told it so beautifully that it seems unnecessary, somehow. But less consistent and controlled creators - or episodic series that aren't strictly planned (think Babylon 5) - always mess it up at some point, just enough that we can play with it, or sometimes go horribly off the rails and don't do justice to their own characters/canon. When that occurs in the plots or the writing (more so than the casting/acting/directing), the temptation becomes great to pick up the pieces and see if you can do better. Or at least more satisfyingly.

I still have Buffy & X-Files fic that I consider active WIPs, even though I haven't worked on them in years, because by the end of each of those shows I was so pissed at how the shows ended and the precipitous drop in quality when it became apparent that the creators were paying other people to phone it in for them, that I grew weary of their worlds. But there's plenty of room because the characters were originally so, so great and then something happened and that wound can be healed in fic.

I do continue to wish that I'd stopped watching X-Files after S4 though. The Darrin episodes excepted of course. But I really didn't need to see Doggett & Reyes. Or the movie, really.

[arby-m.livejournal.com]

something happened in my head and I no longer felt like that universe was giving my stories enough oxygen.

I know exactly what you mean!

A lot of times I just part ways with the creator, in such a profound way that I become disconnected from their world - I felt that way about Angel after "Through the Looking Glass". Like I just didn't buy Fred and Gunn together at all, I was shipping Wes/Fred really hard and it just seemed wrong. Thankfully in the case of Angel I was saved by the reset. I've felt that way about SPN ever since IMToD. I wanted YED!Daddy to stick around, and it just really bugged me the way it played out. Towards the end of the season I felt better when Andy came in because he's just adorable and I love him and want to smoke out with him.

[quivo.livejournal.com]

You don't know me, but I've read your fic and thought it awesome, and wondered over here from browsing at astolat's, and once cathexys mentioned The Wire, I KNEW I was going to comment ;)

That incoherence you speak of, that ficabillity? I'm starting to know exactly what you mean. HP is most definitely one of those universes that's messy, malleable, liable to reinterpretation- especially after DH, I'd say. At the very least, DH taught me that a lot of the fic I read early on that had to do with Magical Objects of Power weren't that far wrong, that I could even play with a few Objects in my own fic if I wanted to. But what it's definitely taught me is that I can pooh-pooh an author's writing, plot, characterization and handling of important issues (sometimes, all at once!), and still love her universe to pieces, and want to write a giant AU and stick it up there with the rest of the scads of fic its fandom has generated.

And despite how poor a read the HP books seem in comparison to stuff by, say, Lois Bujold, or Garth Nix, or Scott Westerfeld or the Tolkelephant in the room, I'm more likely to fic around in the HP universe than any of the others.

You wondered above whether the ratio of continuity to incoherence varies amongst fans, allowing them to settle in different places. I think that's very true, and that given the intense variability of books and series and tv shows and so on, everyone can find a pleasant home for some time. Because damn, writing fanfic for The Sharing Knife, a series Bujold recently started that I love to death, feels strongly close to blasphemy. Okay, perhaps not as close as all that, but though I know I could do it, I also know I wouldn't want to. I liked her story just the way it was. And I think that's the x factor, in a way. HP, I did very much not like a lot of the story just the way it was, from plot to characters to main story focus. And maybe that's why I'm still writing fic for it, and probably will be for a while.

And maybe that's why there's always so much wank about liking the canon in various fandoms and sticking to it and so on- everyone feels differently about their own x factor, their own willingness to change things, the way they like to change things (e.g. by going subtly around canon or by blasting holes through it). The story they want to read, the story I want to read, can sometimes be so exactly what we read and watch that no one wants to touch it at all in any significant way. It's when that story diverges that we want to change it...or leave the fandom, or change our minds about it. Or something. :)

[elsie.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, we've got a little thing called EWE: Epilogue, What Epilogue? *glees*

I too am more interested in the story apart from the Harry vs. Voldemort aspect, both before and after his elimination from the picture.

I was reading an article the other day on a reader/author's view of EWE (totally can't remember now who wrote it). She was responding to the fact that a lot of people are completely against it and want nothing to do with fic that isn't totally canon-compliant. Which is fine if that's what one prefers, because it's all a matter of taste in the end. But as this fan so insightfully said, the wonderful thing about fic is that the fans get to continue and/or rewrite Rowling's story as we wish to see it written. We get to make decisions that are different from the author's. Basically, we really ARE allowed to pick and choose our canon, to adopt some of Rowling's opinions and statements about the series and to reject others.

For me, it's easy to find or write fic that tells the stories I want to see told because although I tend to stick to the solid elements of Rowling's canon (plot, new magic factoids, character development), I am perfectly happy to leave behind her insinuations. For example, she makes it clear that Ginny Is The One For Harry--at least in her mind. In my mind, Ginny is a girl who has been Intended for Harry for some time, and whom he likes but doesn't know very well; for many readers, their story is anything but closed even if one does take the epilogue into account. HP fandom will probably continue for some years still because it has no qualms about redoing AND continuing Rowling's story.

P.S. - thanks for saying "phased" and not "fazed." Pet peeve of mine, that.