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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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Can I just say I find the whole idea that Blaise is necessarily hotter than Draco to be really, really funny? Because when you get right down to it, Harry doesn't actually tells us that Blaise is an "attractive, tall black boy with high cheekbones and slanted eyes", he just tells us that he's a "tall black boy with high cheekbones and slanted eyes" (and Harry can go on and on about it when a boy is *fine*, cf. Cedric, Tom Riddle, hell, Bill Weasley). And yet, because that description *sounds* aesthetically pleasing, pretty much everyone is all "ZOMG, Blaise is hot like whoa!" Yet there seems to be debate in the fandom as to whether Draco really is attractive. Nevermind that Harry's never described him in unpleasant terms despite disliking him, and Harry has no problem given unpleasant descriptors when he wants us to know someone's *not* attractive (cf. Snape, the Dursleys, Umbridge, Slughorn). The most Harry gives us re: Draco is white blond hair, pale, pointed face, grey eyes and now, as of HBP, that he's tall. None of those descriptors are ugly; in fact, it's arguable they suggest aesthetically appealing. But there doesn't seem to be the kind of fandom consensus that Draco is hot the way there is with Blaise even though the descriptors for both boys are pretty light and Harry doesn't explictly note their handsomeness the way he does with Cedric or Riddle. And if it's down to "Blaise's mom is a great beauty" or whatever, well, Harry tells us in GoF that Narcissa is pretty, and certainly the objective narrative description of her in "Spinner's End" suggests aesthetic appeal.
I just ... think it's really funny that there really isn't much more canon "evidence" for Blaise's hotness than there is for Draco's, but the former is a done deal in terms of hotness while the latter is a point of debate.
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From:
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Now, I absolutely get it that the descriptors used for Blaise are ones that would absolutely appeal to a person if their personal aesthetic taste ran to tall men, men with high cheekbones, and/or men with slanted eyes. It's not so much that is surprises me that people find Blaise's physical description to be aesthetically pleasing. It's just really amusing to me that it really is pretty much as sketchy as Draco's physical description and they both have hot moms (Slughorn tells us Blaise's is a reputed beauty and Harry deems Narcissa "pretty" - but for the unpleasant face she's making when he first sees her - in GoF). Yet everyone universally agrees Blaise is hot while there's ongoing debate about Draco. I've even heard people argue that Draco is supposed to be ugly ... nevermind that "pale" and "pointed" aren't synonyms for ugly and, you know, Harry has *no problem* with describing people in really unflattering terms when they don't appeal to him/he doesn't like them. Given how much he really doesn't like Draco, you'd think that if Draco were in any way *actually* unattractive, Harry would have found a way to tell us that by now. I mean, maybe it's just me, but I don't hear "pale", "pointed face," "white blond hair," "grey eyes" and "tall" and think "Oh, all those things also mean 'ugly'".
I get it that Draco's *personality* is off-putting and maybe that's why people assume he's not really physically attractive, but the narrative doesn't ever tell us he's physically *unattractive* (the way it does for the Dursleys or Umbridge or even Snape) either. And like I said, in terms of the substance or actual comment on physical attractiveness, the narrative isn't any more enlightening when it comes to Blaise than it is when it comes to Draco; their *features* are described, but the narrative itself is actually silent on whether the features come together in a physically appealing way. Yet haughty, dismissive Blaise is *of course* totally hot while haughty, dismissive Draco is more of a question mark. It's just really *funny* to me.
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Also Blaise gets described as hard to please, et cetera, whereas I'm not sure Draco could play it cool enough to be described as same. Plus, one always sees Draco the fiendishly attractive silver-haired blond or the ratface. Having Blaise be hotter is a good way to strike a happy medium, while embracing Draco being attractive as well. Because certainly, if Harry had something bad to say about Draco's looks, he would've said it at length.
As for Blaise not being actively described as hot by Harry - I didn't expect him to be. Because Harry is very good at noticing the hot boys (to the point of being disturbing, in Tom Riddle's case) but he never notices that any contemporary of his is hot. Sure, older boy, sure, diary vision boy, sure, godfather in past, but never a contemporary. Too real? Too gay for JKR? Too likely to lead to touching boys' shiny hair?
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See, "hard to please" to me doesn't mean much more than that the person in question has self-set standards that are high; it doesn't necessarily mean the person themselves is a great catch. After all, there are plenty of ordinary looking men in the world, for example, who still think they should only ever have supermodel-like women on their arms.
Plus, one always sees Draco the fiendishly attractive silver-haired blond or the ratface. Having Blaise be hotter is a good way to strike a happy medium, while embracing Draco being attractive as well.
Oh, I get this and it's not even that I'm objecting to the idea that Blaise is considered hot by Fandom At Large; *I* pictured him as very attractive based on the descriptors given for him. It's just that there seems to be practically no *disagreement* about Blaise's attractiveness whereas with Draco, there's varying interpretation -- even though for both boys, all the narrative gives us of their looks is a description of their features alone, without comment on whether the features come together in a visually appealing way. The distinction is a curious - and to me, amusing - one.
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One of my husbands friends is just like that. He wants young and very attractive when he's always been quite a bit overweight and ordinary looking. He's still single and in his early 40's even though he's wanted to settle down since college.
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Well...if Gryffindor has one of the two prettiest girls of Harry's year (Parvati) as well as the two fairytale princesses, Cinderella (Hermione) and Fiona (Ginny), I say scew the happy medium.
Let's not forget the never-been-more-fanciable Harry and manages-to go-to-the-ball-with-the-prettiest-and-attracts-the-Lav Ron and popular-girl's-boyfriend Dean.
Why was the sorted hat needed? Couldn't you just tell by looking at them that the trollish, rabbity, pug-faced and so forth belonged in Slytherin?
Blaise and Draco are both hot. It only seems fair.
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I am in complete agreement with you. And I love you for stating what I had been thinking.
Long, thick, dark brown hair with golden highlights...big brown eyes framed by long, black lashes...olive skin...voluptuous----Am I hot?
I've been called a smartass....Does that make me hot?
And Narcissa has been called pretty, and Bellatrix once beautiful, and Sirius once handsome...
His mom is portrayed as a gold digger with a penchant of collecting and disposing of husbands. I interpreted the "poser" crack as her saying he was pretending to be something he was not in order to deceive or impress others. (bloodlines maybe not so impressive)
I worked in the same lab with a really goodlooking man, Kent, who had an identical twin brother, Kyle. Kent told me that his brother was hard to please...Kyle hadn't been interested in dating Laurie (very attractive woman), but Kent was. Kent and Laurie married. Now even though they were identical, there were some differences. Funny thing...both me and one of my friends who met the brothers thought Kent was the hotter of the two. But is Kyle hotter for being hard to please?
white-blond hair, grey eyes, and tall invoke strictly positive images to me although, in actuality (like Blaise's physical attributes), are rather neutral by themselves.
pointed can come across more negatively...BUT again is by itself neutral...I have wondered if he has a vulpine look to him...foxes associated with cunning
pale also can have a negative connotation (and maybe the mean-spirited JKR meant to imply something about inbreeding)but its primary definition is whitish in color....again I would say neutral on its own although I have a fascination for white-gold hair and really light skin....it is so different from me and seems much more fine in comparison
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I've always liked foxy-faces myself, so I've always considered it just fine that he was pointy. So I do sort of see him as ferret-faced, but to me that's a good thing. It just means a certain kind of face that to me is attractive and kind of intelligent-looking.