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I feel like I should say something for its being the end of the year, but I have little to say. I've cleaned stuff out in my apartment, which is incredibly satisfying. Actually, I almost bought this feng-sui book about getting rid of clutter, but wound up just flipping through it in the store. I think not buying is probably a better step towards reducing clutter than buying it to follow its instructions on losing clutter, particularly since I already knew all the reasons it was giving me for not throwing stuff out ("I'll keep it just in case..."). So my resolution is that I'm trying to get rid of something I don't need every day, even if it's just one small thing. I've been pretty good so far, but that's been part of the clean-out process.
One interesting question (or wanky thing) I've been seeing on my flist, is the one about liking villainous characters in a series. HP has always been a bit unique for me this way because usually I am more interested in the good guys, unless the protagonists are bad guys, I guess. I don't find evil more interesting in itself. I think I tend to go with an idea I read somewhere that said that evil usually lacks imagination. That's how LOTR works, basically. Sauron can not imagine that anyone would try to destroy the One Ring. Maybe in HP
...there's enough lack of imagination to go around.
I hadn't thought of that before, but maybe that is true. Harry's not a particularly thoughtful hero. He rarely examines his own actions and tends to collect information that confirms his worldview and reject that which doesn't. He definitely doesn't want his worldview challenged. Not that this makes him an exceptionally bad person--probably most people are like that. Most people in his own world are like that. Perhaps that makes me want to do it for him or something. But I know that often when people sometimes ascribe high motives to Harry they ring false for me, like sure he's got good impulses, but they're not that highly evolved.
I was just struck by the fact that I know someone recently said that often when people like the villains in the series they have a problem with the good guys, and someone else said seemed to think that idea was the sign of a sick mind. Err...I don't see why that would be true at all, but maybe people get the wrong idea about "having a problem" with the good guys. I mean, in fiction we don't have to pick a side. "Having a problem" with the good guys does not have to mean you hate everything about them or that you'd side against them in the canon situation. Sometimes the problems you have with certain characters are just more interesting to you than the things you're okay with.
I've been trying to remember just how I wound up focusing on the things I focus on in HP. I read the first four books all together, so I didn't really form thoughts about who I liked or what problems I had as I was reading. I just read and was mostly concerned with Harry and his pov. My participation in fandom, however, has always been Draco-centric. I got into fandom to discuss that character. That's another thing I seem to remember seeing intentionally misunderstood somewhere recently, the difference between liking something and being a fan, with "being a fan" meaning that your interaction with the material is somehow active instead of passive. It's the desire to interact with the canon in some way, by speaking with other people about it or analyzing it or writing about or creating art--that's what makes you a fan. Fandom is for people who have something to say about the thing, be it positive or negative.
For whatever reason, I always have something to say about Draco. I'm not sure why. He doesn't offend me the way he offends some people, but not because I think what he says is always right. The one character I can sort of compare him to is maybe Damont, who was the antagonist of the main character in the Wishbone series that I worked on. I didn't focus much on Damont but I did find myself seeing more in him and finding him a more interesting character than Joe. (That series, iirc, ended with a sort of acceptance between him and the hero too.) I think that post-HBP I can say that I just do find Draco's story more interesting, and since his story is very much like the story I imagined he'd had all along, I guess that's always been what drew me to him. I remember way back post-GoF I said on FAP that I thought Voldemort's return was just as bad news for Draco as it was for Harry and that surprised people. My reasons why were pretty much everything that happened in HBP. I saw Draco as sort of on the Via Negativa while Harry was on the Via Positiva (though I was probably misusing those words--I'd love a real definition of them if anybody knows them).
People always scoffed at the idea of Draco having any "hidden depth" and to me it just never seemed hidden. Not "depth" if by depth you mean he was secretly a philosopher king, just depth in that I saw a life full of emotion and conflict in him since day one. Harry's not a particularly deep character, after all, but that doesn't make him interesting. And then in HBP Rowling went straight to the heart of all of it for a story. I can't really say I was drawn to Draco because he was a bad guy--I definitely wasn't drawn to him because I found something positive about Voldemort. On the contrary, I think I just found this tale of Why Voldemort Is Bad News more heart-wrenching. Here's this kid who has good qualities just like everyone does (and I do see him as having some exceptional qualities that are twisted to petty and repulsive ends rather than just being petty and repulsive--though by exceptional I don't mean Super Speshul Powers or anything) who's trying for something...I used to have a quote pinned up over my desk at work. I unfortunately lost it and I can't even remember who said it, but basically it said that the main thing you needed for a character was for that character to care about something outside of themselves. If they cared about something meaning would rise up from their story like mist off a river or something like that.
That must be why it drives me crazy to read--as I just read in some comment today--about how Draco is a character who only cares about himself and rejects anyone once they don't give him what he wants. Err...no, he's kind of the opposite of that. That's kind of what's tragic. That's why he's never fit into the mold of the smug bully sitting atop his kingdom ready to be toppled by plucky underdog Harry. This character cares a lot about lots and lots of stuff.
So I don't know...does this point to my having a problem with the good guys? I guess to an extent. I do something have problems with them that aren't addressed in the text that probably come to light when thinking about Draco's story. But it's probably also just as simple as getting something from this character I don't happen to get from other characters even if I like them. It's not like I don't like Harry, his story just doesn't resonate with me the same way. I'm not sure why Draco's does. Something about his story just calls to me for some reason, though what calls me really isn't the bigotry. That's more an embarrassing thing I have to deal with along with the stuff I like, because it's all tangled up with it. That's what a lot of fanon with Draco does, obviously, is tries to hold on to all the pain of canon while getting rid of those ugly things. Unfortunately without the bigotry and ties to the wrong side and all that Draco would be a much happier person, so it has to then be replaced with something else like Lucius hitting him or whatever. It takes the internal conflict and makes it external, and that makes him less interesting. As it makes all characters less interesting.
The same really goes for all the bad guys at this point, except perhaps Voldemort since his story seemed to be intentionally purged of sadness. He's more of just a thing that mixed badly with the more human problems of the villains. Post-HBP the Bad Family on the other side seems to be yowling right along with Draco and yeah, Harry's missing Sirius just doesn't cut it the same way. I wasn't one of the people who had a problem with his not mourning Sirius enough, I just never saw that much of a bond there when Sirius was alive, and besides Harry's mourning is given a legitimacy that other losses aren't. The most I felt about Sirius' death came from Phineas Nigellus in OotP when he went searching Grimmauld Place for him. Maybe it's because I saw Sirius as such a wonderfully flawed character while Harry was often shielded from that-I mean, that's part of Harry's character to do that. I can just more easily imagine his family knowing the real Sirius and both loving and hating him at the same time, just as Sirius loved and hated them (especially Regulus). It's so typical of the Blacks to destroy themselves this way even when it hurts them more than anyone else.
Same thing with the Malfoys. They just seem so incredibly flawed that their positive impulses stand out. Lucius seems like such an ordinary guy in HBP--an ordinary guy who screwed up a lot and has a wife who's always seen his faults and loved him anyway. And then he's got this son who's a lot like his mother and feels the same way. You just have to pull for Draco, as the youngest and so potentially able to change, to finally bring the family back to the brink of sanity. He just has to succeed where Regulus tried. There's no victory in just killing this generation's crazies or defeating them. The real victory would be in them surviving and having to see themselves more clearly. Of course that would be great if all the characters did that, but the Blacks are going to have a harder time avoiding it, imo. All of this of course applies to Snape as well, who is potentially the ultimate “living with your mistakes and humiliations” character.
I don't think any of this has to do with their being villains. It's just something about the way they're characterized that I like. I'm so in it for the Blacks at this point. Argh. It's really just so hard to even try to figure out what I like about them. I mean, I can say what I like about them just fine, but not why I like them instead of or more than the good guys or whatever, since that didn't really occur to me. You can't control which characters you're drawn to. I just know I feel compelled to speak up when I think they're being described inaccurately and that I've never been worried that this makes me a bigot or a bully or that I don't know the difference between right and wrong...probably because, as I've said, I've always seen them as such essentially tragic characters because they're tied up with this completely insane and destructive philosophy. And yes, I can see the "good side" as easily going into their own versions of destructive thinking, particularly once Voldemort's vanquished, but it's not happening now. I recently said to someone, for instance, that I can easily imagine a terribly dark future for the Twins in canon that has nothing to do with them becoming Death Eaters. If I was reading that story I'd probably like them too.
See, this is the problem with my having nothing to say. I ramble like a rambling thing.
One interesting question (or wanky thing) I've been seeing on my flist, is the one about liking villainous characters in a series. HP has always been a bit unique for me this way because usually I am more interested in the good guys, unless the protagonists are bad guys, I guess. I don't find evil more interesting in itself. I think I tend to go with an idea I read somewhere that said that evil usually lacks imagination. That's how LOTR works, basically. Sauron can not imagine that anyone would try to destroy the One Ring. Maybe in HP
...there's enough lack of imagination to go around.
I hadn't thought of that before, but maybe that is true. Harry's not a particularly thoughtful hero. He rarely examines his own actions and tends to collect information that confirms his worldview and reject that which doesn't. He definitely doesn't want his worldview challenged. Not that this makes him an exceptionally bad person--probably most people are like that. Most people in his own world are like that. Perhaps that makes me want to do it for him or something. But I know that often when people sometimes ascribe high motives to Harry they ring false for me, like sure he's got good impulses, but they're not that highly evolved.
I was just struck by the fact that I know someone recently said that often when people like the villains in the series they have a problem with the good guys, and someone else said seemed to think that idea was the sign of a sick mind. Err...I don't see why that would be true at all, but maybe people get the wrong idea about "having a problem" with the good guys. I mean, in fiction we don't have to pick a side. "Having a problem" with the good guys does not have to mean you hate everything about them or that you'd side against them in the canon situation. Sometimes the problems you have with certain characters are just more interesting to you than the things you're okay with.
I've been trying to remember just how I wound up focusing on the things I focus on in HP. I read the first four books all together, so I didn't really form thoughts about who I liked or what problems I had as I was reading. I just read and was mostly concerned with Harry and his pov. My participation in fandom, however, has always been Draco-centric. I got into fandom to discuss that character. That's another thing I seem to remember seeing intentionally misunderstood somewhere recently, the difference between liking something and being a fan, with "being a fan" meaning that your interaction with the material is somehow active instead of passive. It's the desire to interact with the canon in some way, by speaking with other people about it or analyzing it or writing about or creating art--that's what makes you a fan. Fandom is for people who have something to say about the thing, be it positive or negative.
For whatever reason, I always have something to say about Draco. I'm not sure why. He doesn't offend me the way he offends some people, but not because I think what he says is always right. The one character I can sort of compare him to is maybe Damont, who was the antagonist of the main character in the Wishbone series that I worked on. I didn't focus much on Damont but I did find myself seeing more in him and finding him a more interesting character than Joe. (That series, iirc, ended with a sort of acceptance between him and the hero too.) I think that post-HBP I can say that I just do find Draco's story more interesting, and since his story is very much like the story I imagined he'd had all along, I guess that's always been what drew me to him. I remember way back post-GoF I said on FAP that I thought Voldemort's return was just as bad news for Draco as it was for Harry and that surprised people. My reasons why were pretty much everything that happened in HBP. I saw Draco as sort of on the Via Negativa while Harry was on the Via Positiva (though I was probably misusing those words--I'd love a real definition of them if anybody knows them).
People always scoffed at the idea of Draco having any "hidden depth" and to me it just never seemed hidden. Not "depth" if by depth you mean he was secretly a philosopher king, just depth in that I saw a life full of emotion and conflict in him since day one. Harry's not a particularly deep character, after all, but that doesn't make him interesting. And then in HBP Rowling went straight to the heart of all of it for a story. I can't really say I was drawn to Draco because he was a bad guy--I definitely wasn't drawn to him because I found something positive about Voldemort. On the contrary, I think I just found this tale of Why Voldemort Is Bad News more heart-wrenching. Here's this kid who has good qualities just like everyone does (and I do see him as having some exceptional qualities that are twisted to petty and repulsive ends rather than just being petty and repulsive--though by exceptional I don't mean Super Speshul Powers or anything) who's trying for something...I used to have a quote pinned up over my desk at work. I unfortunately lost it and I can't even remember who said it, but basically it said that the main thing you needed for a character was for that character to care about something outside of themselves. If they cared about something meaning would rise up from their story like mist off a river or something like that.
That must be why it drives me crazy to read--as I just read in some comment today--about how Draco is a character who only cares about himself and rejects anyone once they don't give him what he wants. Err...no, he's kind of the opposite of that. That's kind of what's tragic. That's why he's never fit into the mold of the smug bully sitting atop his kingdom ready to be toppled by plucky underdog Harry. This character cares a lot about lots and lots of stuff.
So I don't know...does this point to my having a problem with the good guys? I guess to an extent. I do something have problems with them that aren't addressed in the text that probably come to light when thinking about Draco's story. But it's probably also just as simple as getting something from this character I don't happen to get from other characters even if I like them. It's not like I don't like Harry, his story just doesn't resonate with me the same way. I'm not sure why Draco's does. Something about his story just calls to me for some reason, though what calls me really isn't the bigotry. That's more an embarrassing thing I have to deal with along with the stuff I like, because it's all tangled up with it. That's what a lot of fanon with Draco does, obviously, is tries to hold on to all the pain of canon while getting rid of those ugly things. Unfortunately without the bigotry and ties to the wrong side and all that Draco would be a much happier person, so it has to then be replaced with something else like Lucius hitting him or whatever. It takes the internal conflict and makes it external, and that makes him less interesting. As it makes all characters less interesting.
The same really goes for all the bad guys at this point, except perhaps Voldemort since his story seemed to be intentionally purged of sadness. He's more of just a thing that mixed badly with the more human problems of the villains. Post-HBP the Bad Family on the other side seems to be yowling right along with Draco and yeah, Harry's missing Sirius just doesn't cut it the same way. I wasn't one of the people who had a problem with his not mourning Sirius enough, I just never saw that much of a bond there when Sirius was alive, and besides Harry's mourning is given a legitimacy that other losses aren't. The most I felt about Sirius' death came from Phineas Nigellus in OotP when he went searching Grimmauld Place for him. Maybe it's because I saw Sirius as such a wonderfully flawed character while Harry was often shielded from that-I mean, that's part of Harry's character to do that. I can just more easily imagine his family knowing the real Sirius and both loving and hating him at the same time, just as Sirius loved and hated them (especially Regulus). It's so typical of the Blacks to destroy themselves this way even when it hurts them more than anyone else.
Same thing with the Malfoys. They just seem so incredibly flawed that their positive impulses stand out. Lucius seems like such an ordinary guy in HBP--an ordinary guy who screwed up a lot and has a wife who's always seen his faults and loved him anyway. And then he's got this son who's a lot like his mother and feels the same way. You just have to pull for Draco, as the youngest and so potentially able to change, to finally bring the family back to the brink of sanity. He just has to succeed where Regulus tried. There's no victory in just killing this generation's crazies or defeating them. The real victory would be in them surviving and having to see themselves more clearly. Of course that would be great if all the characters did that, but the Blacks are going to have a harder time avoiding it, imo. All of this of course applies to Snape as well, who is potentially the ultimate “living with your mistakes and humiliations” character.
I don't think any of this has to do with their being villains. It's just something about the way they're characterized that I like. I'm so in it for the Blacks at this point. Argh. It's really just so hard to even try to figure out what I like about them. I mean, I can say what I like about them just fine, but not why I like them instead of or more than the good guys or whatever, since that didn't really occur to me. You can't control which characters you're drawn to. I just know I feel compelled to speak up when I think they're being described inaccurately and that I've never been worried that this makes me a bigot or a bully or that I don't know the difference between right and wrong...probably because, as I've said, I've always seen them as such essentially tragic characters because they're tied up with this completely insane and destructive philosophy. And yes, I can see the "good side" as easily going into their own versions of destructive thinking, particularly once Voldemort's vanquished, but it's not happening now. I recently said to someone, for instance, that I can easily imagine a terribly dark future for the Twins in canon that has nothing to do with them becoming Death Eaters. If I was reading that story I'd probably like them too.
See, this is the problem with my having nothing to say. I ramble like a rambling thing.
