Ah! Yeah, I get what you mean there. With H/D--well, really, not just with H/D but with every pairing--getting them together is always going to be the challenge, but people who are reading and writing the pairing often want them to be together so they're more interested in getting to the sex than working through exactly how, realistically, that could happen. And they are, of course, perfectly within their rights to do that since it's not like it matters either way to the outside world. I don't have as many problems with future fics being that way--I've got no problem believing that Harry and Draco meeting at 25 would have a totally different dynamic because that's been my reality anyway. I mean, not that you can just erase the past, but you can't have them be adults and starting from that place in canon.
I think sometimes something I wind up reacting against too, though, is that you've got the fanon versions of the boys (usually Draco, since he's the one with the sort of Fanon that Ate Fandom alter ego), but then people do sort of feel like anything that's not that is canon. I'm not talking about you here--I don't mean just saying "this isn't right," but saying, "this isn't right, so that is right."
Like, I think after OotP I felt that sometimes I was just completely out of sync with a lot of peoples' takes on the character. Probably we all feel that way, really.:-) And in HBP I was both surprised with where the character went and totally pleased at being far more validated than I thought I'd be. Really, I think I'm probably in the same boat as you in feeling like people just often don't deal with the stuff in canon--I'm just not as bothered by it since, uh, I just don't read fanfic much anymore. ::blush::
What often happens, I think is that a lot of fanfic is about scratching itches, and so people have a certain itch they want to scratch with a fic. That just probably rarely involves all the work it would take to present both characters with all their complexity and honestly exploring how they would get to where you want them to go. So they just give Harry a monster in his pants for Draco instead of Ginny and have at it: you're attracted, go.
I mean, I'm trying to think of situations where I can imagine these two characters "realistically" (whatever that means, since it's not going to happen in canon) and I can see something almost weird happening. That is, instinctively when I think of them at the point of canon they are now, it seems like everything is so up in the air I feel like there's a lot more possiblities than there were when they were both at school. You'd still have to sell whatever you came up with, but it's different.
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Date: 2005-11-13 05:31 pm (UTC)I think sometimes something I wind up reacting against too, though, is that you've got the fanon versions of the boys (usually Draco, since he's the one with the sort of Fanon that Ate Fandom alter ego), but then people do sort of feel like anything that's not that is canon. I'm not talking about you here--I don't mean just saying "this isn't right," but saying, "this isn't right, so that is right."
Like, I think after OotP I felt that sometimes I was just completely out of sync with a lot of peoples' takes on the character. Probably we all feel that way, really.:-) And in HBP I was both surprised with where the character went and totally pleased at being far more validated than I thought I'd be. Really, I think I'm probably in the same boat as you in feeling like people just often don't deal with the stuff in canon--I'm just not as bothered by it since, uh, I just don't read fanfic much anymore. ::blush::
What often happens, I think is that a lot of fanfic is about scratching itches, and so people have a certain itch they want to scratch with a fic. That just probably rarely involves all the work it would take to present both characters with all their complexity and honestly exploring how they would get to where you want them to go. So they just give Harry a monster in his pants for Draco instead of Ginny and have at it: you're attracted, go.
I mean, I'm trying to think of situations where I can imagine these two characters "realistically" (whatever that means, since it's not going to happen in canon) and I can see something almost weird happening. That is, instinctively when I think of them at the point of canon they are now, it seems like everything is so up in the air I feel like there's a lot more possiblities than there were when they were both at school. You'd still have to sell whatever you came up with, but it's different.