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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 ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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!
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!
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Re: The amazingly unbeta'd multimedia megahit!
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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?
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I imagine Blaise as utterly not clued in. Because Draco didn't even tell Crabbe and Goyle, who are not only his loyal best friends but turning into LITTLE GIRLS and getting hit on by Harry Potter, so I'd see him as paranoid *and* trying to protect his friends. (I heart mixed motives, and especially the thought he might be scared for them while firmly telling himself he was keeping the secret so all glory would be his.)
I *am* stunned that anyone who wanted to write Smooth Lovah Draco has not immediately set up camp in Blaise Zabini's Land of Love.
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Re: The amazingly unbeta'd multimedia megahit!
Alluding to symbols validates the symbolic truth. To validate the Oswald allusion, JKR would need to make Fudge a DE or a supporter of the DEs. But it seems to me that her "Oswald" is just a clueless dimwit not a facilitator.
So that leads us back to the "kewl" factor. It was just a quick "Do you know who this is" type of Blue's Clues deal.
Let's put that in our handy dandy notebook!
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Off to read your post now. :D
- Clara
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Oh, please do. Many, many ideas. &hearts
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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.
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Re: Malfoy=Frenchy?
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Re: Malfoy=Frenchy?
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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.
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Hmm, I've sorta been thinking, on and off, of keeping him sort of Arabian-Italian or whatever in my fic, because I don't particularly feel like changing it. Maybe I could - in the beginning of my AU, his father is the one looking for him, and no mum is mentioned. If I've the time, I'll insert that and the sublot of his suspect mum into the story. Might as well do the thing properly, since I'm trying as hard as I can to follow HBP canon whether things happen a bit differently or not.
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I totally third this - you'd think he'd have cottoned on, after seeing Snape's POV about his dad, and the whole Pettigrew thing, and the whole ScarletWoman!Hermione thing, AND the whole Harry-is-off-his-trolley thing...wait.
Just shoot the poor kid already, there's no hope.
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Wouldn't it be interesting having Harry pining over her and hearing her laughing it up about his crazy life? ;)
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Re: The amazingly unbeta'd multimedia megahit!
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Learn from the masters, JKR, dammit.
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Why the hell can't I have her job, anyway? Seriously, for one of my fics, I actually pulled up the 1997 calender in Publisher. Jeez, beta!geek alert.
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The way I see it, Draco's a bit of a sycophant. Blaise, on the other hand, is not. He may still be crazy, but he's a quiet crazy if that's the case. We know Draco's not really acknowledged by his parents even in the dying light of the HP series's "golden afternoon" (the Quidditch World Cup) as an individual. He's just his father's son and heir, and another Slytherin in the family line. Draco wants their attention, the attention of the professors as surrogate parents, and the respect of his classmates, so he acts out. If he were cooler, he'd be the class clown, but he isn't really, so he's to the Harry Potter universe what Hodges is to "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation".
Blaise probably also likes to get attention, but he does it in a quieter way. He doesn't seem to bother the other Houses, and he doesn't seem to talk when it's not necessary. I, for one, think he might make a magnificent spy. He may or may not be clued in, but if he is, he doesn't care. He isn't getting caught up in that because, really, what's smarter: to declare a side early on, and then get caught on the losing side, or to remain neutral and when everything comes out on one side or the other one just says "I wasn't on that (the losing) side. I was at school when all this was going on"?
Sometimes winning the little revolutions is more effective than fighting the big ones.
"Dark Chocolate Love God!"
*falls over laughing*
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([sarcasm] No, I'm not saying this as a voracious consumer of Percy fic... no. What would make you say that? [/sarcasm])
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Re: Malfoy=Frenchy?
From: (Anonymous)
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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