Came here by daily_snitch and just wanted to say that I really enjoyed reading your thoughts and this whole discussion.
There isn't much to say that hasn't already been said, but I just can't help asking... why are a lot of HP fans so obsessed with ships in the first place? Can one enjoy a certain pairing only if there's canon evidence for it? If not, where's the reason for stretching the definition of canon to the breaking point just to prove a pairing has even the slightest hint of canon? I'm only a reader, not a writer, so maybe I'm missing something here. I agree it's fun to look for evidence of a favorite pairing in canon, but how does that relate to fanfiction? For example, my personal favorite is Sirius/Remus, which accidentally can be argued to be somewhat canon, so any hinting at it in the books is like a little treat. Then again, I also very much enjoy Snape/Harry, which in my opinion has very little basis in canon. Is a S/R story "worthier" than a S/H one? Seems unreasonable, yet people continually get very involved in arguments like "why R/Hr is more canon than H/Hr" etc., as if giving canon evidence would make a certain groups of fics more "real"... and therefore better? So does the quality of a piece of fanfiction depend on the pairing? Even the most devoted R/Hr shipper would probably agree that that's not the case. Which brings me back to the question... why the desperate hunt for canon evidence for pairings that probably are not meant to be? (in the books that is) Or using hints of one's own OTP to disprove another, when neither hasn't been proved by canon in the first place? Everyone reads the same books, but every word can be interpreted in so many ways it's just pointless to quote a line and then say "this is canon and therefore I'm right and your pairing is dead". That really has nothing to do with canon and everything to do with someone being too narrow-minded to consider anything but their own interpretation of the books.
Sorry for the rant, but like someone said before, HP fandom is pretty... intense about this whole shipping issue, which can be quite mind-boggling for someone not being used to that kind of thing (hobbitslash is so peaceful compared to this) ^_^;
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-07-07 07:14 pm (UTC)There isn't much to say that hasn't already been said, but I just can't help asking... why are a lot of HP fans so obsessed with ships in the first place? Can one enjoy a certain pairing only if there's canon evidence for it? If not, where's the reason for stretching the definition of canon to the breaking point just to prove a pairing has even the slightest hint of canon?
I'm only a reader, not a writer, so maybe I'm missing something here. I agree it's fun to look for evidence of a favorite pairing in canon, but how does that relate to fanfiction?
For example, my personal favorite is Sirius/Remus, which accidentally can be argued to be somewhat canon, so any hinting at it in the books is like a little treat. Then again, I also very much enjoy Snape/Harry, which in my opinion has very little basis in canon. Is a S/R story "worthier" than a S/H one? Seems unreasonable, yet people continually get very involved in arguments like "why R/Hr is more canon than H/Hr" etc., as if giving canon evidence would make a certain groups of fics more "real"... and therefore better? So does the quality of a piece of fanfiction depend on the pairing? Even the most devoted R/Hr shipper would probably agree that that's not the case.
Which brings me back to the question... why the desperate hunt for canon evidence for pairings that probably are not meant to be? (in the books that is) Or using hints of one's own OTP to disprove another, when neither hasn't been proved by canon in the first place? Everyone reads the same books, but every word can be interpreted in so many ways it's just pointless to quote a line and then say "this is canon and therefore I'm right and your pairing is dead". That really has nothing to do with canon and everything to do with someone being too narrow-minded to consider anything but their own interpretation of the books.
Sorry for the rant, but like someone said before, HP fandom is pretty... intense about this whole shipping issue, which can be quite mind-boggling for someone not being used to that kind of thing (hobbitslash is so peaceful compared to this) ^_^;