One for Sorrow

I can't help but think, reading what you're saying here, about how before, say, the 1930s, there were plenty of people we would think were humans that some of the time would not. I think of a really great western AU I read recently where Spock is half Native American, which in 1875 would not be considered particularly human by many folk. But then, for me the key thing about him is his half-outsider status, being inbetween—it's another reason Obama reads so Spock for me. (Jim is more Clinton, but I shan't extend the metaphor lest Bones become LBJ.) So I think that if you do it right, you can absolutely have that extraordinariness and make them human, just such a different sort of human. After all, what are we talking about, differences of thought, of emphasis, of a sort of culture, of power. I think you can look at that with humans, since they can show that ineffableness as well. I think we all are capable of seeming inexplicable.

But then again, this is probably what some fans would find objectionable or problematic about my approach to any of these characters—I'm always searching for their very ordinariness, which was something I loved about Harry Potter. Yes, he's a wizard, but also, he has crushes on girls and has to go to school and get reasonable grades and make the sports team.