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

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

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

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

Oh yes, absolutely. It just seemed like most interesting discussion about Blaise got drowned out by this and the reactions to it, which is a shame, because views like yours are more interesting because it was character-based--when I was trying to think about good discussions about Blaise during HBP your lj was the one place that came to mind. As you said, the fact that his name is Zabini did give fanfic writers something to go on--and, I mean, it's not like this is a series where one could usually go wrong depending on a name that way. Seamus Finnegan anyone? Cho Chang? Padma and Parvati Patil? Why shouldn't Zabini, the only Italian name in the series I can think of, have an Italian background as well?

I did not mean to imply--though I see I sort of did--that keeping one's previous background for him was necessarily racist. That's just a standard fanfic thing--do you rewrite your characters when they get rewritten in canon? In many cases the sensible answer is no because there's no reason to. With Blaise especially you're talking about someone who was once only a name so fanfic authors did all the work. They'd be starting from scratch now for no good reason. That too, I think, got lost in the F_W cliche of young girls who were writing badfic to begin with saying they were going to continue to write badfic making him white with black hair (and probably calling him Zabini). That didn't seem to happen when we found out he was male and plenty of people continued to write him as female or say they were going to do that. It wasn't a sexist thing, it was just about their fic.

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.

Wow--see, this is how clueless I am about Blaise in fanfic at all, because I didn't know anyone had tried to argue he was not meant to be thought of as Italian. For the reasons I mentioned above, that I don't get. I mean, *I* don't look Italian at all and have an Italian last name, but of course I'd assume that if all you had of me was my name and you were supposed to build a character for me based on those two things, I'd probably be more Italian than I am. Any fanfic writer has to come up with an explanation for his name, just as fanfic writers often come up with an explanation for the Malfoys having a French-y name.

And of course, having seem specifically like a black activist again goes against canon, because Blaise is supposed to judge himself based on his magical blood, not the color of his skin. It's again bringing our racial concerns into a place where they are not supposed to exist, even if they of course exist for the author.

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

[cleverthylacine]

Well, it's not so much like they write him as an activist, as that they are out to prove something themselves when they write him this way.

I mean, for every ten twinkie fangirl who still insists on writing female and white Blaisie Sue, or that they want to write him white because that'd be hotter somehow, there are also two or three people out there pointing to this essay wikdsushi wrote on how Zabini could be Arabic, that it could be from 'al-Zabin' and therefore he could be ALL African. Well, jazzypom and a couple of people were ALL over this and suddenly there's this huge spate of HP icons where Blaise is a younger version of Kingsley Shacklebolt! Is that the only image fangirls have of black men: dark as ebony, rippling with muscles and either bald as an egg or with tight close-cropped hair? (Admittedly I have a thing for tall skinny cafe au lait guys with long curly black hair, so that's what I was looking for and disappointed not to find...)

Now nonstandard etymology can be fun. I've tied "Malfoy" to things other than "mal foi" in part because if you're going to do that you might as well just name the character Dr Evil, and lord knows Rowling has done that before. But if you are doing it to prove you're not racist, or to prove that JKR is Cool....... ...... ...

Yeah, okay, sure.

And yes, the scorn FW has heaped upon those who think of Blaise as Italian after she practically named Cho Chang "Chinky Chink" and named a vampire Sanguini and a werewolf Remus Lupin? Totally uncalled for.

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

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Al-Zabin. As you said, nonstandard etymology can be fun--Malfoy being a fun challenge. But still, what one is doing there is taking an obviously Italian name and finding a long explanation to make it not say what it says. I'll have to read that essay to see why it would wind up as Zabini instead of Zabin. One might just as well say that it came from Zabiniski.

Where as it is very fun thinking up the background for a name that you get. Even if you have in your fic that Malfoy is bad faith (which is right up there with ickle Slytherin MALcolm BADdock) it would be fun to come up with a reason for that. I mean, I'm not an expert in where names come from but they might have gotten the name Bad Faith for a noble reason. To some fundamentalist Christians who hate the books the name might simply imply that they are witches. (But then, I often feel like a lot of the stuff with Slytherin and Purebloods could be read as the Old Religion vs. the New Religion represented by Gryffindor's crusaders.)

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

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

I've checked my Arabic dictionary, and can't find a 'Zabin'. The closest is Zbun, which means a kicking camel, fierce battle, a fool or foolish, customer or buyer, hotel guest, regular guest or customer...

Ooh. I just read down. ZabAna - pedipalpus or the claw of a scorpion or crayfish. Usually dual (zbAnia). Also zbAniA: myrmidons, angels who thrust the damned into hell.

(Sorry about the caps, but it's hard to explain the differences in spelling from an entirely different alphabet)

I guess a lot of those definitions could match the Zabini family backstory. I particularily like the claw of a scorpion, and the angel who thrusts the damned into hell.

On Blaise's ethnicity, his description does sound a bit like Tiger Woods: A tall black boy with high cheekbones and long, slanting eyes (HBP Scholastic p. 143). I immediately thought of Blaise as being darker than Tiger Woods, but otherwise, similar in face and build. Tiger Woods calls himself "Cablinasian", which stands for "Caucasian-black-Indian-Asian" (Oprah show, see this link http://www.salon.com/april97/tiger970430.html from a search to find the right ethnicity). Blaise Zabini may have many ethnicities, Italian being one, if the WW is more blood-purity conscious than color-conscious as it seems to be.

I'm surprised that there aren't a spate of new fanfics starring the gorgeous Blaise Zabini in all his haughty glory. I haven't even bothered to check lately. I could easily see him in a dom role, slash or het.

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

[(Anonymous)]

Admittedly I have a thing for tall skinny cafe au lait guys with long curly black hair

Yum!

Malfoy=Frenchy?

[saturniia.livejournal.com]

Actually, the Malfoys might have their last name as it is because the family is originally from Brittany. (Well, they could be! It was once part of England.)

Re: Malfoy=Frenchy?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes, you're right! They certainly could be from Brittany.

Re: Malfoy=Frenchy?

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

I've always assumed that they came over with the Conquest and the name is Norman-French and therefore classic English aristo (and anyway practically all of France was once part of England (or, to be accurate, an Angevin Empire whose capital was London) - that was what Joan of Arc was all about). And one of the nastiest baddiest Big Bads around in the Italian Renaissance was Sigismondo Malatesta di Rimini. And what do you get if you translate Malatesta from Italian to French, near as dammit?

Re: Malfoy=Frenchy?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I admit I always thought the idea was Norman French. Malatesta--I'm surprised Rowling didn't go with that for one of her Slytherins.

Re: Malfoy=Frenchy?

[saturniia.livejournal.com]

Ah, that makes sense, too. I was just trying to work with what I remembered from HS world history and what I gleaned from the wikipedia, so my idea's slightly more local and probably wrong.

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

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

and probably calling him Zabini

Should read: and probably calling him Zambini.

Sort of lost the joke there by accidentally spelling the lad's name right.