Blaise Zabini

[sistermagpie]

I was reading this really interesting post here about a troubling fanfic trend I was unfortunately unaware of, which is that apparently post-HBP Blaise is less interesting than he was before...because he's black? Um, what? I recommend jazzypom's post because it is about fanfic depictions of black characters in HP in general. I don't read fic about the adults very often so I didn't know about the clichés concerning Kingsley Shacklebolt. As a Slyth fan I do know a bit about Blaise, though, and the post made me really think about

...how my own feelings about him have changed since HBP and I'm sticking them here too. Nothing coherent, just thoughts here and there:


I would never deny that one of the things about Draco Malfoy as a slash character is that aesthetically; it's interesting putting him with contrasting people. Harry, of course, is the main person I contrast him with. The two of them are like blood brothers with the black hair/white hair, green eyes/grey eyes, etc. I've always liked Blaise and was very happy with fics that created a sort of European Malfoy-ish family that probably taught the Medici’s a thing or two. I always saw Blaise as a boy, and pictured him as dark haired, tanned, big brown eyes.

My view of him shifted after I got the truth in HBP, but I honestly don't understand how the back-story we have for him could in any way be considered less interesting. The main difference for me is that where I used to imagine Blaise as part of a big family, now I see him isolated, more just him and his mother, though he probably has lots of relatives scattered around. He still seems continental to me, I think because I imagine his mother traveling around to all the hot spots to meet her rich husbands, with little Blaise in tow. How is this not a rich life for a Slytherin character? Especially one we now know is friends with Malfoy?

Plus he's also a Pureblood snob, so you figure his mother must be from a good family. She's not a little chorus girl who was pretty and so used that to snag a man of a better bloodline. Maybe she's from a family like the Blacks but they'd lost their money, so she took it upon herself to win back the life to which she was accustomed.

I wonder, too, if anyone would do anything with the fact that Blaise is the most sexualized kid in canon, and he has no father and a highly sexualized mother. Is this another woman who's bad because she's sexually aggressive? Is Blaise "bad" because of this quality of his mother? (The books don't have the best track record there.) Is anyone writing incestuous scenes where he and his mother engage in sexual conquest contests when they're bored in Monte Carlo? Somebody could probably write a really funny story where Draco visits Blaise over the summer and gets his mind blown at one of Blaise's mother's parties, or just in general gets an education.:-) Or he and Blaise wake up in Borneo with raging hangovers, wearing women's underwear. I mean, Blaise is totally cool by sixth year, but that's why it seems like it would be fun to see him at 12 when he hadn't gotten it down yet.

Perhaps Blaise's mother is distant. Perhaps they're very close and have a wonderful relationship that's lots of fun. Perhaps all the Slytherin boys adore her. Was Blaise close to any of his stepfathers? Did he hate any of them? Did he kill any of them? Perhaps the rumors about their death are just that, vicious rumors. Blaise is not the Slytherin boy who'd seen death, interestingly enough, so perhaps he and Draco are more alike in that way, surrounded by death but thinking it a game. Did Blaise help Draco out at all during the year?

What were anyone else’s thoughts about Blaise in HBP? Unfortunately anything about the character seemed to get overshadowed by the idea that ZOMG heez black and that totaly sux in a totaly non-racist way I swear but I'm gonna keep him white anywayz!!11!

Comments

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

Personally, my feelings about HBP!Blaise were more like, ZOMG heez black and that totally rocks because JKR just turned everybody's assumptions on their heads like whoa!!11!

One thing that I really like about the HP series is the way racism has been turned entirely perpendicular to its normal meaning: witches and wizards are black, white, Asian, even partly nonhuman - but what matters to the wizarding "racists" is the purity of magical blood.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Seriously, Blaise is the one character where JKR really does this flat-out. Throughout the series there have always been wizards who were different races while the only thing anybody seemed to care about was Wizarding blood, but here it's made totally explicit. It's like...except the challenge or not.

For once, using my default icon on purpose.

[cleverthylacine]

Well, I actually don't think all of the objections are racist--and you've heard me say this before, haven't you?

People try to figure out minor characters, and they sometimes put a lot of work into it. Blaise Zabini offered the opportunity to write about a Slytherin who wasn't Draco Malfoy, and who hadn't already been described as ugly, stupid and mean. (For Americans, especially teens and twentysomethings who grew up with the regrettable American notion that any remotely euphonious male name should be appropriated for girls, because heaven forbid an American boy should be named something less butch than well, Butch, it was doubly confusing.)

Despite all the tortured explanations for how Zabini could legitimately be an "African" name, the fact remains that it IS an Italian name, with origins in the Tuscan area where the Italian witchcraft tradition of stregheria (not to be confused with Riley's 'strega' in Pawn to Queen--I actually do like that fic but her definition of 'strega' has nothing to do with consensus reality whatsoever, not to mention that streghe are from Tuscany, not Sicily). Now, when you consider that Imperial Rome and Renaissance Italy (and Florence is in Tuscany, btw) are eras rife with Slytherin potential--we're talking about the folks who brought us Machiavelli--it is quite understandable, I think, that people are attached to the fanonical Italian Zabinis. (And really I would have to understand it since I've more than done my part to contribute to this piece of fanon.)

"I'm keeping him the way I see him" is not necessarily a racist battle cry at all when it is attached to as much work as has gone into something like World Well Lost, not to mention the works of wemyss and luciademedici.

I will not argue with you about the people who can't understand how he could be both sexually attractive and black. That is racist. I don't think not being attracted to people outside your own ethnicity is racist (mostly because I do not think people can or should be expected to be able to decide who they are sexually attracted to--are straight and gay people sexist?), but I think not being able to understand how they could be attractive is.

But I think the tortured etymologies put forth by some of the black Blaise supporters as reasons why he was never, ever meant to be thought of as Italian are equally fanciful and say just as much about their origins, especially when accompanied by artwork and icons that depict BlackPowah!Blaise as ebony dark with incredibly short tight hair as though he were no more than a generation out of Africa.

I mean, Europe is full of mixed-race people. Why couldn't he be both black AND Italian?

My biggest problem with Blacktivist Blaise is that I don't think his mother's a very attractive portrait of blackness. The phrase "black widow" for a woman who murders her husbands may not be as common across the pond as it is in America, but anyone who knows about the habits of spiders can make the connection--and to make her actually black comes uncomfortably close to being a totally-non-racist I swear ethnic joke. The sort of thing I'd rather expect from Jo Rowling.

Re: For once, using my default icon on purpose.

[mondegreen.livejournal.com]

My biggest problem with Blacktivist Blaise is that I don't think his mother's a very attractive portrait of blackness. The phrase "black widow" for a woman who murders her husbands may not be as common across the pond as it is in America, but anyone who knows about the habits of spiders can make the connection--and to make her actually black comes uncomfortably close to being a totally-non-racist I swear ethnic joke. The sort of thing I'd rather expect from Jo Rowling.

Oh my God. I never even thought of that. Wow. If it was purposeful, then it's very not funny.

[kaskait.livejournal.com]

I'm ashamed to say that I had absolutely no idea who Blaise was until this book. He was a nonentity to me. Just one of those nondescript students, Harry stumbles into every now and then. I also fully expect him to disappear in book 7, never to be mentioned again.

Which is why I was surprised to see Blaise with a big fanbase here at LJ.

I do like the backstory that has been created for him. It kind of explains his arrogant behavior. Blaise is overcompensating for his broken family. It seems that they are keeping up appearances. His family exists in that grey area between the down-on-their-Luck Weasleys and the hoity-toity Malfoys.

I would really like to know how the pure-blood network really works. But I don't think the books will ever address that issue.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL--Harry didn't even tumble into him now and again that I remembered. I think he was mentioned as the last one sorted in PS and then that was literally it. There may have been one other mention of him, but I can't remember him. The biggest question about him in fandom was whether he was a girl or a boy, since some people felt Blaise could go either way.

I wish the books would address the Pureblood issue. Well, this is just the type of thing Slytherin fans are interested in, but we don't get, unfortunately.

[mondegreen.livejournal.com]

I remember reading about Blaise in HBP and thinking, "Hmm. Not as I pictured, but I like!" And then I started really thinking about it -- and being very happy about it. Because I've noticed that a lot of Slytherin is, well, white. We only see racial diversity in other Houses, so it's nice to see someone break the Slytherin mold in that regard (even if he is rich and a Pureblooded snob like the rest of Slytherins, ha).

I get a little uncomfortable with racial/ethnic/national diversity in HBP. Some of the names JKR chooses to name her characters are less than politically correct. She might as well have named Cho Chang "Chinky Chink."

I would love -- love -- to read a Blaise fic where he's not used as a plot device or a sex object. Where it actually goes into depth into his past life and his relationship with his mother. Oh man. Especially after you've made these great suggestions here.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

We only see racial diversity in other Houses, so it's nice to see someone break the Slytherin mold in that regard (even if he is rich and a Pureblooded snob like the rest of Slytherins, ha).

Yes, and there's also the nice little plus when you see someone who gets shrilly self-righteous about how they hate the Slytherins because "they're racist" then suddenly can't deal with one of them not being white because it turns out they're not racist at all, in terms of the real world.

I get a little uncomfortable with racial/ethnic/national diversity in HBP. Some of the names JKR chooses to name her characters are less than politically correct. She might as well have named Cho Chang "Chinky Chink."

It's so sad, because that's almost exactly what I thought when I heard about people not getting that she was Chinese when she was cast for the movie. Cho Chang wasn't enough of a clue? What did she have to be named for you to think she could be Chinese? Chinky McChinkerson?

Of course, that's also why you can't then turn around and pretend it's strange for anyone to think Blaise was Italian.

I would love -- love -- to read a Blaise fic where he's not used as a plot device or a sex object. Where it actually goes into depth into his past life and his relationship with his mother. Oh man.

Not to mention that in canon Pansy says he's hard to please, and one of his few lines is to say he wouldn't touch Ginny because she's a blood traitor. One could easily go the other way and give Blaise a complete horror of sex because of his mother's past.

[galaxianomiko.livejournal.com]

I remember being irritated by the mention of Ginny being TEH PRETTIEST (must EVERY BOY like her??) and not noticing the rest until my sister pointed it out when she got to that part later on. *g* And then all I could think was "...this is the most fashionable kid EVER."

The only legitimate complaint I can see people having is their (sometimes numerous) fic/art/RPG now being AU, but really, the new details about him and his mom should have spawned a huge amount of fic. I second your request for Blaise in Monte Carlo, Blaise at 12, etc. ;)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL! It's true that canonically poor Blaise is there mostly to be turned down by Ginny even though he totally likes her because she's the best. Gag.

The only legitimate complaint I can see people having is their (sometimes numerous) fic/art/RPG now being AU, but really, the new details about him and his mom should have spawned a huge amount of fic. I second your request for Blaise in Monte Carlo, Blaise at 12, etc. ;)

Yeah, and really I kind of like the idea of pre-HBP Fanon!Blaise being a cousin or something. Somebody could write about the two of them hanging out together.:-)

[gramarye1971]

If I were JKR's editor, most of the backstory of Blaise Zabini that's been revealed in HBP would have had a line drawn through it with a red pencil.

I really feel that she went overboard in the amount of information she threw at us re: Blaise. I honestly wonder how much of this came from the fact that people have been pestering her for ages about this mystery Slytherin, whose only real claim to fame before this is that Zabini was the very last surname called out in Harry's Sorting Ceremony. Fandom grabbed hold of Blaise as an ambiguous character with an ambiguous name who could be used for anything the author wanted -- he (or she!) could be an Italian sex god or Snape's love-child or strega or the 'good Slytherin' or any of a hundred other fandom variations. And now that Blaise has been given a backstory (and once which feels a bit tacked on to me), I don't find it all that surprising that interest in him has dropped off. And I don't think it has so much to do with race as it does with a lack of the ambiguity that drew many fans to his character.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That's a good point and one I was thinking of as I was reading the thread. Do you think if some of Blaise's backstory was given earlier on it would have been less of a problem? Because honestly, if we'd heard that little about him earlier I can see him having been incorporated into fanon easily. It's just that now he's working against a character that already exists in many peoples' minds in some form. It's not like Theodore Nott whose name was less interesting. Did people do much with Theodore Nott's information we got on the website? I seem to recall the only reactions I read about it were from people who immediately changed the information to fit what they wanted him to be.

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

Was I the only one who was totally unshocked by him being black? I guess I never really thought about him much at all, being a basic name on a page until HBP (I presumed he was a boy because I've only ever heard the name applied to boys in this country, and that he had dark hair because of the last name.) It just seems the general consensus is either what you mentioned or else 'OMG JKR just totally PWNED fandom with such an unexpected twist, confronting us with our own racism and showing us how skin colour is no issue in the Potterverse, just endless boring double-standards magical blood'. Eh. Not so much. Speak for your own assumptions, people.

Is this another woman who's bad because she's sexually aggressive?

Can't trust a beautiful women who's been married a lot, naturally.
And of course she's marrying for money, rather than having a job or talent. Her beauty is her job! How very Ginny of her. Oh, well, you know what we women are like, desperate to suck men dry.

Perhaps all the Slytherin boys adore her.

I imagine Crabbe and Goyle to be in fits of joy, visiting between her house and Narcissa's. I hope those two have ladies nights out, what with Lucius in prison and Ms. Zabini being a perpetual widow.

Perhaps the rumors about their death are just that, vicious rumors.

Naw, you can always trust rumours heard by Gryffindors. It's those evil ones written in the Prophet you can't trust!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was like...well, yes she showed us but it's not exactly subtle. Not that it has to be, of course, but I couldn't say I was really shocked that a Slytherin could be black. It was more like, "What took you so long to reveal yourself?"

I imagine Crabbe and Goyle to be in fits of joy, visiting between her house and Narcissa's. I hope those two have ladies nights out, what with Lucius in prison and Ms. Zabini being a perpetual widow.

I've always loved Blaise and Draco are friends fics, and it's true, these two seem like they could make a really good pair doing girls night out, especially since Narcissa since HBP seems kind of youngish. I mean, she's not literally that young, but I can see her getting a kick out of her wild friend Ms. Zabini. And Blaise and Draco could bond over having hot moms.

Naw, you can always trust rumours heard by Gryffindors. It's those evil ones written in the Prophet you can't trust!

Yes, if there's one thing all the lies told about him haven't taught Harry it's to not believe everything he hears about other people.

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

Dude, I KNOW. I was wandering about the streets of New York on Saturday with Cassie and Josh and Clio shouting 'DARK CHOCOLATE LOVE GOD!' in an emphatic sort of way. I do not believe I will ever be able to write fic without explicitly saying that Blaise is hotter than Draco. (It's a creepy compulsion of some kind. And speaking of creepy compulsions, when am I going to be shouting about love gods on the streets with you, woman?)

I thought Blaise was interesting in HBP, though the only thing that really surprised me was the explicit and canonical Slytherin hotness - by sheer chance I had a similar enough idea of him already. One, yes, he's sexualised to the point where one is led to believe he's sexy. And he's confident. He has a famous mother and he's part of Slughorn's special coterie. He's got all the markers of a leader but (as we do see in the train scene) he's not a leader. Draco, who is by all known measurements demonstrably less cool, is quite clearly the leader. (as even Harry recognises - his low-grade hostility towards Zabini is just a case of 'Random Slytherin #5... glare')

Blaise comes off as friendly with all of them in that scene, but he is the only one who directly challenges Draco with a reminder that his father's in jail, his status has fallen, why would Voldemort want an untrained kid? Practical points all, and his take on Ginny struck me as greatly practical too - totally hot, but he's not touching that. And of course he comes from the house of great ambition, so I wondered vaguely all the way through the book, while Blaise was watching his stock rise with Slughorn's favouritism and Draco was very obviously FALLING TO PIECES - how'd that affect the power dynamics down in the dungeons? I have ideas...

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

N.B. Mrs Zabini as the Slytherin MILF. God, I want to see that.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I was one of the people who hadn't given Blaise much thought at all, though I found the various fanon Blaises interesting. And then JKR described him, I went, "huh, he actually sounds really hot," and then merrily continued with caring only about Draco and, to a lesser degree, Harry (that's just in the books, though -- in fandom I really like to read thoughts and essays and suchlike about all the characters).

And then I was astonished (and disappointed, and then sad when I realized that I probably shouldn't be so surprised) when finding out that Blaise was black upset some people and made them less interested in him. Though luckily no one on my flist reacted that way.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Heh--that was very much my take: Interesting--but how does this affect Draco?:-)

The stupid responses were just one more way for HP fandom to look bad. That and complaining that they cast a Chinese-Scot to play Cho instead of...whatever they thought would be more appropriate. Blaise hadn't had a single line in canon, how exactly did you get tricked there?

[ackonrad.livejournal.com]

I was one of those who were puzzled about the obvious popularity of Blaise in fanfiction, considering that we didn't know anything about him except being a Slytherin in Harry's year. In fact, there were times I really hated his character, because many H/D writers insisted including him in their fics and announcing him Draco's best friend, which isn't canon and never has been - it felt unfair to me, as a Crabbe and Goyle lover and apologist, to replace them with Blaise just like that, only because they aren't the most clever guys at Hogwarts. I warmed to the character only after reading a couple of nice Draco/Blaise fics, but in general, I've never considered him as interesting as the rest of the fandom.

So, I understand what you're saying, even though I understand the stand of the people who think that JKR revealed too much about him in HBP and therefore left less room for interpretation to the fanfiction readers. As far as I'm concerned, post-HBP Blaise is more interesting than pre-HBP Blaise, but as I said, this is from my limited POV.

As for the rubbish that he's become less interesting because of his skin colour, I can only shake my head in disbelief and ask myself what some people have been smoking. I haven't seen anyone complain that Dean's black - what is it about Blaise that makes people behave like that?

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

It felt unfair to me, as a Crabbe and Goyle lover and apologist, to replace them with Blaise just like that, only because they aren't the most clever guys at Hogwarts.

Totally. They don't have the glamour of Blaise, but I'd rather read a fic about them, personally.

[(Anonymous)]

Just a quick comment to say that the link to jazzypom's post doesn't work correctly. There's a "http//" too much, and it currently leads to a microsoft page, which was very strange.

Off to read your post now. :D

- Clara

[jollityfarm.livejournal.com]

I think many of the objections to Blaise as he is now come from people simply having to adjust their previous image to correspond it with this new one. Some people don't find it that easy to write AUs. I haven't been able to continue with my Snapefic since HBP came out and made it AU. Some people have written elaborate fanfictions in which Blaise Zabini featured prominently and it might well have freaked them out to have this totally different image.

Although I quite like new!Blaise. If I ever go back to writing fics, I might do something with him. And Percy. Percy-fic is the way foreward, methinks.

[saturniia.livejournal.com]

Percy-fic has always been the way forward.

([sarcasm] No, I'm not saying this as a voracious consumer of Percy fic... no. What would make you say that? [/sarcasm])

[gillieweed.livejournal.com]

I got exactly this far: On one hand, I do understand that to Americans, ‘black’ means anything other than white, due to the Jim Crow laws about blood and race established in the 1800s. before understanding the writer's premise was starting from well--a rocky start to say the least. Catching a glimpse of the word "quadroon" in some exposition about 200+ year old terminology that I seriously hope she doesn't think we still go by was like hitting an electric fence.

Actually I think Blaise (for ficcers) got "boring" once they found out he was a boy and that his ethnicity has very little to do with "the fandom" losing interest in him. As far as Kingsly goes, My first impression of him was as "a black Mr. Clean" which was cemented when I was informed that in Germany, Mr. Clean is black. So there.

But I'm so far out of the loop as far as fanfic goes (and happy to stay there) I really didn't know there was any sort of problem for the poor boy. I'd imagind if Severus Snape found out that all it took to fend of rabid fanficcers was to suddenly to be revealed as a black man, he'd be into some sort of Negrotizing potion in no time flat.

[quivo.livejournal.com]

He'd have it down that pale throat so fast, he'd swallow his own tongue (and thus also deprive PWP fanficcers of the fabled 'expertise' of that body part).

[(Anonymous)]

Oh God, I feel like ten times an idiot reading this, because I really didn't notice. Blaise being black, that is. I read the whole stomping thing very fast and furious, granted, but still. Oops does not quite cover it. I vaguely remember that there was something about his mother, and that he was Slug Club material, but yeah, no impression. I just kept on thinking about him as dark-skinned and of Mediterranean family origins.

What I did remember and notice about Blaise, was that Harry seemed to find him hot... So when some people went, "OMG heez BLACK" I was busy going "OMG look at teh GAY-ness of Harry checking out Blaise!!".

That being said, Blaise being black changes, well, nothing. Blaise confirmed to be a boy made more of an impression, back when that was made clear, probably because there were so many fandom jokes about hermaphrodite Blaise, Blaise changing gender every fortnight because of some curse etc. But yeah, Italian aristocrat Blaise is as valid with black Blaise as olive-skinned Blaise. Duh.

Given his name I imagine him as an African/European/North-African Arabian mix of some kind rather than West Indian black, but that's as far as I'd get in pinning him down. Fairly dark, though, since JKR said black, I don't think he can be "Omar Sharif"-kind of Arabian-looking, for example, he'd be much darker and more African than that. But I don't think he'd wear his hair afro-style, Harry (with his handsome boy hair-fixation) would have noticed that I think.

I really like your idea about his mother being old blood fallen on hard times. Although, it could be that she's pureblood but not anciently so like the Blacks, and that the snobbery is learnt somewhere along the way, maybe she marries "up" every time. Or Wodehouse style snobbery where the grande dames have secret chorus girl backgrounds. ;-)

But yeah, either UK or Commonwealth (can you even talk about Commonwealth with regards to the Wizarding World since the time-lines would be after they hid from the Muggles?) background somewhere too, I think, sending Blaise to Hogwarts rather than a different magical school. Do we know whether Zabini is his mother's or his father's name?

- Clara

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Probably the main reason I noticed it as much as I did is that that was one of the few spoilers I read pre-HBP: Blaise is black, he's attracted to Ginny but thinks she's a blood traitor. I thought it couldn't be true. Not that he was black but I thought please, God, let him not be attracted to Ginny because everyone must be.

I'm beginning to like ChorusGirl!Mom for Blaise. I had really only thought it couldn't be because it didn't seem like it was held against Blaise when he presented himself as equal to, like, Draco. But then I thought you know, maybe she's just accepted.

[grasshopper.livejournal.com]

She's not a little chorus girl who was pretty and so used that to snag a man of a better bloodline.

Actually, it's usually the little chorus girls who become the snobbiest of all once they've caught their man, probably because they remember that if they can claw their way to the top, then so can anyone else from their background. So they shut out the people whom they now consider 'beneath' them.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That is a great point and totally true--I was thinking more the fact that Blaise seemed to be accepted by this group of people who are all supposed to know who each other are and assuming that this meant they didn't see her as a social climber. But maybe they just don't care. Molly Weasley seems Pureblood and not upper class, maybe Blaise's mother was Pureblood but many generations removed from money if there was any and clawed her way up from the bottom. And go her, if she did.:-)

[xerox78.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, I laughed right out loud when I read that Blaise was black, as much from my own surprise as from predicting the "blacklash" that was sure to take place. Kind of like an employer who speaks to an job applicant over the phone and likes what (s)he hears, then when meeting him/her in an interview, is shocked to find that (s)he is black. (But (s)he spoke so well over the phone! And his/her name is Tommy/Sarah Jones not Montavious/ShaQuita Jenkins!) Employer then assumes that Tommy/Sarah can't possibly do as good a job as whoever Employer imagined Tommy/Sarah to be over the phone.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Hee! Well, and also with Rowling's track record with names it almost is surprising that if Blaise was supposed to be Black she didn't name him something like Darkman Noir.

sidestepping the main issue in favor of hot boydom.

[shusu.livejournal.com]

Oh, they've just never seen this fellow. My friend transitioned from an Italian Blaise to another RP with that model. (Our characters may or may not have woken up in Tahiti hungover and well-rolled. *g*)

I wonder if perhaps the aesthetic standards of dark beauty have been under-explored. I mean, who has ready adjectives for that? There are a million ways to make pasty little brats attractive, but perhaps English is not the cultural language for flattering Blaise.

Re: sidestepping the main issue in favor of hot boydom.

[(Anonymous)]

He's quite lovely and more along the lines of how I might envision Blaise.

There are a million ways to make pasty little brats attractive

I certainly think so (the Draco in my mind has or will grow into an ethereal beauty), but not everyone agrees. Some people are certain that being pale and pointed means Draco is ugly whereas I think it only tells us that he is very light-skinned and his features are sharp rather than blunt. Of course, someone that doesn't like blonds or pale skin or sharp features can label him as unattractive off-hand.

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

I say Blaise is even hotter now. To me, anyway. Because he's got that exotic look going on, you know?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, really, you don't have to give up anything exotic for Blaise. Slanting eyes is a great thing to have going for you, it seems to me.

here via Snitch

[amihan-811.livejournal.com]

I agree. I find Blaise more interesting post-HBP. There's just lots of new ways to explore his character in fiction now that we have new canon. I haven't paid attention to him before since he didn't seem to stand out in the previous books other than being another Slytherin kid with an unusual name. I actaully want to know more about his mom and how she got rid of all her husbands and if she's still on the look out for the next one.

Re: here via Snitch

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes, basically what we have now is just a nugget of backstory people can do whatever they want with. People have been doing quite a lot with just a name for years.

[nellie-darlin.livejournal.com]

To be honest, Blaise Zabini didn't even register on my radar before HBP. I'd only been in fandom a few months by HBP, and I'd sort of known who he was, but was still a bit vague on him since my principal ship was Remus/Sirius. But then HBP came out, and I didn't really notice that Blaise was black. I mean, I was glad to get some more perspective on a Slytherin, but I was more interested that JKR made him ANOTHER "bad guy" than that he was black, since my embryo thoughts on him had been that he could be a "good Slyth".

But like you, I found my interest piqued by the new canon info. How can we not be? The boy is good looking, wealthy, surely neck-deep in issues, and with a mother who is intriguing despite being mentioned once. What is there not to like? (And if you write that story with him having conquest contests with his mother ... well, I'll love you forever.)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It's funny how fandom has a totally skewed view of things anyway. Most people reading probably didn't even remember Blaise from his one mention, while fandom was having involved discussions about whether he was a girl or a boy!

*third times the charm*

[latxcvi.livejournal.com]

more later on the actual substance of the post, but just an LJ FYI:

When you do a cut-tag for your post, it helps if you copy and paste the text of the cut-tag itself *into* the post. If you don't, then the text of the cut-tag is actually lost once someone clicks on the link, so if you're cut-tag text said something interesting, like "So, that got me to thinking about fanon perceptions of a character's racial make-up and how that gets affected by canon ..." no one who clicks on the link will see that in the text of the post. It becomes an issue if someone is sent to the post directly via the HTML link (like, say, being referred from the D_S) because someone clicking the direct HTML won't get the benefit of the cut-tag text unless they back out of the post and look at your LJ directly.

Re: *third times the charm*

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Damn! I've been trying to remember to do that lately and I completely forgot with this post. Thanks--I'll put that in now.

[lavinialavender.livejournal.com]

Somehow, the first time I read that passage, I totally missed "black" - I saw "handsome," "high cheekbones," and "long, slanting eyes," and I just got such a kick out of how Fandom's Favorite Minor Character is now canonically sexy. It was only later (before I finished the book, I'm pretty sure, and probably before I finished the chapter) when I went back to re-read the description, that I noticed the second adjective after "tall." I'm pretty sure I laughed aloud - as others said, my first thought was, "Oh, clever twist, Ms. Rowling, clever twist." I didn't really think it would impact his popularity in fandom, except to increase it. I was rather under the impression that racism was old. You know, so 1960's. Especially for liberal!fandom that fangirls slash so much. And hey, I just live in Texas. And am dating a half-black guy whom my parents hate for totally different reasons than the color of his skin.

I still haven't run across any examples of over-sexualizing him, trying to insist he's white, or expressing disappointment that he's black now - except for one case I found on fandom_wank. But that was done by someone who was obviously not the brightest fan.

On another note, after realizing that he was black I thought there was a double-twist - we had all assumed he was Italian, but I thought that Zabini was an African name. But it seems like fandom has decided he's still Italian, no matter what color he is.

Zabini is NOT "African" (which isn't a language.)

[cleverthylacine]

That would be because the name actually IS Italian. It comes from Tuscany and the northern part of Italy and there are real people that are named this who are not African. It's not a common name, and it is believed to refer to the Sabine tribe. Fandom isn't making this up. Fandom, in the person of wikdsushi, made up the "African" attribution (through tortuous reworkings of Semitic root languages and Arabic, never mind that neither one of those is an African language, of which there are many, such as Swahili and Yoruba, which aren't even very related to one another). If you do a Google search on "Zabini" and exclude enough Harry Potter references eventually you get the names of people who live in Italy and Switzerland and have this last name. If you search through the name at the Gens website for Italian names you find that there are only a few thousand people with the name, but that they are all clustered in Tuscany and Lazio.

The people who are claiming that this is an Italian name have DONE their research and are not just pulling shit out of their asses. I know because I am one of them.

[onomatopoetry.livejournal.com]

I don't really have anything to add here, other than that I agree with whoever said that part of the reason he lost appeal in fandom is that he was made concrete and definite, ie. not just a blank slate on which people could plant any characteristics they wanted.

Now, what I *really* wanted to say is that you are brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. An entire day has been swallowed up by reading your essays on all things HP, as well as the comments, and now I am friending you as not to miss any in the future, I hope that's OK :)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It sure is okay--I love people who think I'm brilliant!:-D

But yeah, the comments are usually where it's at here. Feel free to jump in any time--glad to have you!