sistermagpie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sistermagpie) wrote2004-07-06 04:51 pm
sistermagpie) wrote2004-07-06 04:51 pm
Canon evidence
This came up recently and it got me to thinking. It has to do with finding "canon evidence" for a ship. It occurred to me I wasn't sure everybody was on the same page when it comes to what "canon evidence" is, and even what a ship is, really.
Okay, when I say I see evidence for a ship in canon, I'm referring to something pretty blatant. I mean I see things in canon that I believe the author is putting there to show me that one character is attracted to another, and would like to go out with them. Actually, I'd take it a step further and say one character has this feeling and it's not a crazy thing to wish for for that character. So, for instance, I see canon evidence of Arthur/Molly, because they are married and have children. I also see canon evidence of R/Hr, because I think Ron's doing things like buying perfume and being jealous of Viktor Krum is there to indicate that the idea of someone else with Hermione makes him a little jealous and that he has started, in his fumbly way, to want to treat her as a girl. I also saw it in Hermione's frustration at him in GoF. I saw canon evidence of Harry/Cho when Harry got flustered over how pretty she was and wanted to ask her to the dance, and when Cho started flirting back. Obviously these things can be one-sided, and someone having interest doesn't mean the two will end up together.
I would even consider it canon evidence when people say Remus and Sirius' joint Xmas present proves they are a couple, because gay couples, like married ones, tend to give one gift for both. I don't think the joint present means anything of the sort, but I would say that a person saying it is using it as evidence.
But it seems like often when people say "canon evidence" they mean more what I would think of as just...slash fodder. Like, I ship H/D, but I see no evidence that either boy is consciously attracted to the other in canon. Yes, I could say that Draco's obsession with Harry could be because he's attracted to him, but I've never seen anything that I thought was really telling me that's what's happening. For me OotP did not provide any more or less evidence for canon H/D, because their relationship stayed pretty much the same. Faced with competition from Umbridge and Snape, two adults with actual power, Draco's own ability to annoy paled considerably, but he continued to do what he always did. Harry was aware of him when he was in the room, he irritated Harry, he made him angry, he provided an easy behavior guide for Harry (if Malfoy would do it, Harry wouldn't), he dropped hints of doom to befall Harry's loved ones Harry couldn't stop. If OotP was from Draco's pov it may have been the slashiest book yet, imo. Interestingly, it seems like the biggest thing to happen to the H/D relationship in canon hasn't been all that dealt with in fanfic. Maybe I'm just missing the stuff because I haven't been reading much fic lately, but aside from a few very nice pieces, it doesn't seem like a lot of H/D writers have jumped on Harry's having taken Draco's father away and begun writing epics over it. That seems kind interesting in a way maybe I'll come back to.
OotP did, apparently, provide a lot more evidence for H/S. Now, I see that it provided a lot more fodder for slash but again I don't see a big change in the H/S relationship. Yes, Harry sees Snape differently after the Pensieve--that can't be denied. But not, imo, in a way that suggests he finds him any more attractive than he did before. More importantly, the Pensieve scene, as unique as it was, still followed the same pattern of all H/S interaction since book 1. Snape has always been the one to destroy Harry's view of a perfect father, Harry's seen Snape humiliated by MWPP before, they've always gotten on each other's nerves in a way that was disturbing to them because of its intimacy, Snape's tried to humiliate Harry, Harry's always humiliated Snape almost by accident. Snape's always been Harry's greatest protector, despite Snape and Harry's own disgust with that fact.
I think both these relationships (H/D and H/S) have stuff for slashers to work with, and both probably translate really nicely to smut. That is, I think both of them deal with issues that can be played out through sex, which to me has always seemed the basis of a lot of slash ships. So I guess it surprised me after OotP to hear one ship declared dead and the other the new thing. I mean, for obvious reasons I could see why people said that--Snape had a bigger part, one that made him briefly a sympathetic teenager, there was mind melding and loss of control. And Draco got none of the heavy attention-in fact a lot of his role was split between Snape (who became more taunting and more angry at Harry and provided more of a target for Harry's own anger-all things Draco used to do) and Harry himself (who became more taunting and more angry himself). But it really wouldn't occur to me to take this to mean that there was now more evidence for H/S simply because there's still nothing in either of these relationships that suddenly hint that Harry wants to see either of these two people naked. It seems to me what's really going on is just that H/S was a relationship that was important in OotP--Harry spent more time with Snape, alone; he was a more convenient focus of Harry's anger because he was tied to the MWPP era and the Marauders and Dumbledore, which is where Harry's anger was more coming from here. So sure, good stuff to work with for slash, but still no evidence by my definition to indicate Harry's more likely to sleep with Snape than any girl at Hogwarts. In fact, I found Draco the more sensual of the two in OotP, dancing around, singing, juggling, tripping, joking and above all laughing. He didn't match Harry's mood as well as Snape did, which is maybe why they seemed more at odds.
Just to get back to the thing I found interesting...it just doesn't seem like people have done much with Lucius' imprisonment. I feel like this is probably because the text hasn't done anything with it. Lucius went to jail at the end of the story, and we just didn't see much of Draco's reaction to it. We saw what Harry saw, and Harry saw what he wanted for himself and left the rest: he didn't care beyond the detached satisfaction of seeing Malfoy look so angry. Malfoy probably feels towards Harry the way Harry currently feels towards Snape--or really, he feels completely differently because he's his own person. Now, I'm hoping (with fading hope) that the slugifying scene is not supposed to be the wrap up of that particular thing, that Draco will not come bopping onto the train next year saying his Dad's been home since early July or just still fluttering around like a bug in a jar about it, unable to have any real affect on anything unless it's needed for plot purposes and dispatched with as much follow-through as you'd get if Malfoy had just come to hook up Harry's cable box and left. But even if nothing is done with Lucius' imprisonment it seems interesting that this huge thing that one half of a slash pairing has done to another isn't considered as good a fodder as Occulamency lessons.
It makes me wonder if the problem or solution is that slash only plays things out that are already in the text, albeit through sex. So it's not that OotP suddenly gave Snarry shippers stuff to build from, it's that it gave scenes to replay over and over through slash, while H/D had a book where half the ship was absent from the other. Harry was distracted, not following through. This in itself doesn't mean there can't be any good slash stories written about them. On the contrary, if you're looking at it from Malfoy's pov there's plenty of great stuff to write--like Cassie started to do with "Cigarettes Can Kill You," for instance. It just starts to make me wonder if fic writers often really do rely on the text more than they seem to do, so it's harder to write Draco's reaction to these things if we don't see it in canon the way we see Snape's reaction. Fanon!Draco can't help, of course, because he's a pale shadow himself. He doesn't even like his father.
Finally, one thing that made me laugh thinking of the canon evidence I don't see for these ships was that if you look at this triangle the one pairing OotP did provide evidence of (of the R/S variety, which is suspect but still a form of evidence) is S/D. I mean, here you have a scene where Snape and Harry are forced together against both their wishes and Draco barges in unannounced, looks surprised, and is perfectly polite to Snape, who calls him "Draco." This indicates Draco not only is allowed to walk into Snape's office unannounced, but knows enough of what he expects to see there to be surprised at Harry, that he shows a different side of himself--a pleasanter side--with Snape, and that Snape has enough personal regard for him to call him by his first name. Now, I don't think this means the two of them are having an affair, but it does, to me, seem like a scene that intentionally shows us these two have a personal relationship outside of class and after hours. Yet it still seems a commonly held belief in fandom Snape's only pretending to like Draco in order to suck up, despite there being no indication of this in canon. It could certainly be true, of course, but the only signs we get tell us the opposite.
So that again strikes me as odd-OotP, which stressed how Harry and Snape get on each other's nerves, offers evidence for a possible affair, while a scene that hints at more personal involvement between Snape and Draco still doesn't seem to change the widely held notion that these two really don't like each other. Makes it seem like a lot of evidence isn't that at all...that is, that slash isn't about what's there in terms of how the characters feel about each other, but what's there in terms of playing out the same scenes we see in canon. I think the Marauders are affected by this too-not matter how many times we're told James and Sirius were the two best friends, even in MWPP era fics Sirius/Remus will probably be the most intense relationship. Not just because James got married and they didn't, imo, but because there are no really good James/Sirius scenes to replay. So with S/D too, we see scenes between Harry and Snape just as Harry does. Since he's never witnessed a personal scene between Snape and Draco it doesn't exist and any hints of it must be explained away.
Okay, when I say I see evidence for a ship in canon, I'm referring to something pretty blatant. I mean I see things in canon that I believe the author is putting there to show me that one character is attracted to another, and would like to go out with them. Actually, I'd take it a step further and say one character has this feeling and it's not a crazy thing to wish for for that character. So, for instance, I see canon evidence of Arthur/Molly, because they are married and have children. I also see canon evidence of R/Hr, because I think Ron's doing things like buying perfume and being jealous of Viktor Krum is there to indicate that the idea of someone else with Hermione makes him a little jealous and that he has started, in his fumbly way, to want to treat her as a girl. I also saw it in Hermione's frustration at him in GoF. I saw canon evidence of Harry/Cho when Harry got flustered over how pretty she was and wanted to ask her to the dance, and when Cho started flirting back. Obviously these things can be one-sided, and someone having interest doesn't mean the two will end up together.
I would even consider it canon evidence when people say Remus and Sirius' joint Xmas present proves they are a couple, because gay couples, like married ones, tend to give one gift for both. I don't think the joint present means anything of the sort, but I would say that a person saying it is using it as evidence.
But it seems like often when people say "canon evidence" they mean more what I would think of as just...slash fodder. Like, I ship H/D, but I see no evidence that either boy is consciously attracted to the other in canon. Yes, I could say that Draco's obsession with Harry could be because he's attracted to him, but I've never seen anything that I thought was really telling me that's what's happening. For me OotP did not provide any more or less evidence for canon H/D, because their relationship stayed pretty much the same. Faced with competition from Umbridge and Snape, two adults with actual power, Draco's own ability to annoy paled considerably, but he continued to do what he always did. Harry was aware of him when he was in the room, he irritated Harry, he made him angry, he provided an easy behavior guide for Harry (if Malfoy would do it, Harry wouldn't), he dropped hints of doom to befall Harry's loved ones Harry couldn't stop. If OotP was from Draco's pov it may have been the slashiest book yet, imo. Interestingly, it seems like the biggest thing to happen to the H/D relationship in canon hasn't been all that dealt with in fanfic. Maybe I'm just missing the stuff because I haven't been reading much fic lately, but aside from a few very nice pieces, it doesn't seem like a lot of H/D writers have jumped on Harry's having taken Draco's father away and begun writing epics over it. That seems kind interesting in a way maybe I'll come back to.
OotP did, apparently, provide a lot more evidence for H/S. Now, I see that it provided a lot more fodder for slash but again I don't see a big change in the H/S relationship. Yes, Harry sees Snape differently after the Pensieve--that can't be denied. But not, imo, in a way that suggests he finds him any more attractive than he did before. More importantly, the Pensieve scene, as unique as it was, still followed the same pattern of all H/S interaction since book 1. Snape has always been the one to destroy Harry's view of a perfect father, Harry's seen Snape humiliated by MWPP before, they've always gotten on each other's nerves in a way that was disturbing to them because of its intimacy, Snape's tried to humiliate Harry, Harry's always humiliated Snape almost by accident. Snape's always been Harry's greatest protector, despite Snape and Harry's own disgust with that fact.
I think both these relationships (H/D and H/S) have stuff for slashers to work with, and both probably translate really nicely to smut. That is, I think both of them deal with issues that can be played out through sex, which to me has always seemed the basis of a lot of slash ships. So I guess it surprised me after OotP to hear one ship declared dead and the other the new thing. I mean, for obvious reasons I could see why people said that--Snape had a bigger part, one that made him briefly a sympathetic teenager, there was mind melding and loss of control. And Draco got none of the heavy attention-in fact a lot of his role was split between Snape (who became more taunting and more angry at Harry and provided more of a target for Harry's own anger-all things Draco used to do) and Harry himself (who became more taunting and more angry himself). But it really wouldn't occur to me to take this to mean that there was now more evidence for H/S simply because there's still nothing in either of these relationships that suddenly hint that Harry wants to see either of these two people naked. It seems to me what's really going on is just that H/S was a relationship that was important in OotP--Harry spent more time with Snape, alone; he was a more convenient focus of Harry's anger because he was tied to the MWPP era and the Marauders and Dumbledore, which is where Harry's anger was more coming from here. So sure, good stuff to work with for slash, but still no evidence by my definition to indicate Harry's more likely to sleep with Snape than any girl at Hogwarts. In fact, I found Draco the more sensual of the two in OotP, dancing around, singing, juggling, tripping, joking and above all laughing. He didn't match Harry's mood as well as Snape did, which is maybe why they seemed more at odds.
Just to get back to the thing I found interesting...it just doesn't seem like people have done much with Lucius' imprisonment. I feel like this is probably because the text hasn't done anything with it. Lucius went to jail at the end of the story, and we just didn't see much of Draco's reaction to it. We saw what Harry saw, and Harry saw what he wanted for himself and left the rest: he didn't care beyond the detached satisfaction of seeing Malfoy look so angry. Malfoy probably feels towards Harry the way Harry currently feels towards Snape--or really, he feels completely differently because he's his own person. Now, I'm hoping (with fading hope) that the slugifying scene is not supposed to be the wrap up of that particular thing, that Draco will not come bopping onto the train next year saying his Dad's been home since early July or just still fluttering around like a bug in a jar about it, unable to have any real affect on anything unless it's needed for plot purposes and dispatched with as much follow-through as you'd get if Malfoy had just come to hook up Harry's cable box and left. But even if nothing is done with Lucius' imprisonment it seems interesting that this huge thing that one half of a slash pairing has done to another isn't considered as good a fodder as Occulamency lessons.
It makes me wonder if the problem or solution is that slash only plays things out that are already in the text, albeit through sex. So it's not that OotP suddenly gave Snarry shippers stuff to build from, it's that it gave scenes to replay over and over through slash, while H/D had a book where half the ship was absent from the other. Harry was distracted, not following through. This in itself doesn't mean there can't be any good slash stories written about them. On the contrary, if you're looking at it from Malfoy's pov there's plenty of great stuff to write--like Cassie started to do with "Cigarettes Can Kill You," for instance. It just starts to make me wonder if fic writers often really do rely on the text more than they seem to do, so it's harder to write Draco's reaction to these things if we don't see it in canon the way we see Snape's reaction. Fanon!Draco can't help, of course, because he's a pale shadow himself. He doesn't even like his father.
Finally, one thing that made me laugh thinking of the canon evidence I don't see for these ships was that if you look at this triangle the one pairing OotP did provide evidence of (of the R/S variety, which is suspect but still a form of evidence) is S/D. I mean, here you have a scene where Snape and Harry are forced together against both their wishes and Draco barges in unannounced, looks surprised, and is perfectly polite to Snape, who calls him "Draco." This indicates Draco not only is allowed to walk into Snape's office unannounced, but knows enough of what he expects to see there to be surprised at Harry, that he shows a different side of himself--a pleasanter side--with Snape, and that Snape has enough personal regard for him to call him by his first name. Now, I don't think this means the two of them are having an affair, but it does, to me, seem like a scene that intentionally shows us these two have a personal relationship outside of class and after hours. Yet it still seems a commonly held belief in fandom Snape's only pretending to like Draco in order to suck up, despite there being no indication of this in canon. It could certainly be true, of course, but the only signs we get tell us the opposite.
So that again strikes me as odd-OotP, which stressed how Harry and Snape get on each other's nerves, offers evidence for a possible affair, while a scene that hints at more personal involvement between Snape and Draco still doesn't seem to change the widely held notion that these two really don't like each other. Makes it seem like a lot of evidence isn't that at all...that is, that slash isn't about what's there in terms of how the characters feel about each other, but what's there in terms of playing out the same scenes we see in canon. I think the Marauders are affected by this too-not matter how many times we're told James and Sirius were the two best friends, even in MWPP era fics Sirius/Remus will probably be the most intense relationship. Not just because James got married and they didn't, imo, but because there are no really good James/Sirius scenes to replay. So with S/D too, we see scenes between Harry and Snape just as Harry does. Since he's never witnessed a personal scene between Snape and Draco it doesn't exist and any hints of it must be explained away.
no subject
And you bring up a really good point here, that slash is really uncanonical by defintition--at least I know I've always thought of it that way. Meaning that if the two characters are together in canon it's not slash, it's just two characters who are gay or bisexual. I'm a person, for instance, who thinks that writing Brian/Justin from Queer as Folk is not slash because they're gay in canon.
So I'm more like you in looking at the relationships in canon--I'm really never looking for evidence. I guess I might be looking for "slashy bits" that just have that ring to it, something that sounds kind of sensual for whatever reason. There are a lot of slash ships that have those sorts of things. But what I'm really into is, as you say, the energy and potential for the characters. Sometimes ships that people argue have more basis because at least the characters care about each other not only don't interest me at all but seem less likely or easy to manage for whatever reason--Harry/Ron, for instance. There are certainly things in that relationship that can be slashed, but maybe not the things that people who love H/R usually like.
It's weird the way it brings up the whole OOC idea--is it OOC to slash certain pairs? And I feel that no, it isn't. I think you can keep the characters in character and slash them even if they would never do that in canon. I think I notice this a lot reading LOTR stuff--hobbit slash, to me, is interesting because by adding this sexual aspect you can see some of the parts of the relationship that aren't so clear in canon. In fact, I think hobbit slash brings out the cracks and flaws in the relationships while in HP slash often brings out the parts that bind characters together who were previously worlds apart.
Could it be that what you call slash fodder, is the kind of evidence or situations that lends itself well to fics that wants to tell of the *how* and that since they don’t necessarily tell anything about or even care about *why*, the writers of *how* might seem especially careless or unconcerned with character evidence or consistency? Slashing for the sake of slashing?
That could defintely be it. Or that one of the biggest draws of fanfic is the "what if?" factor, and the more there is in canon to begin with the more tempting the "what if?" scenario is. So if you've got Harry and Snape they already have an intense relationship. You just add the "what if?" of slash. Whereas with some rarer pairings the author has to convince you there's a reason to wonder "what if?" and then present their fic.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2004-07-07 10:48 am (UTC)(link)Yes, you just need different ways to convince the reader that this could actually happen. Say, for Narcissa/Hagrid's mother that would mean tons of work and major suspension of disbelief, both for staying IC and creating the opportunity, but I'm sure it could be done (don't think I'd really want to read it, though).
But I think that those kinds of pairings are read differently, there is perhaps a divide of some kind between pairings that are half tongue in cheek and pairings that are potential non-ironic OTPs? The emotional investment and clear ideas of who the OTP characters are, make for strong views on who they would ever fall for and still be IC.
I believe lack of *actual canon scenes* with two characters say next to nothing about the IC- or OOC-ness of the ship, mainly because of the books unreliable and narrow narrator. Pansy and Parvati obviously know each other from before Hogwarts and use first names, Harry would never know or notice if they were friends, but that does not make a friendship OOC. I can't remember any scenes with both Umbridge and MacNair, but they are probably very well acquainted. OTOH, Snape is *seen* to be quite comfortable lifting his robes for Filch, but even so a S/Fch romance wouldn't seem immediately IC, especially because there is so many other canon scenes that speaks against it.
"hobbit slash, to me, is interesting because by adding this sexual aspect you can see some of the parts of the relationship that aren't so clear in canon."
Thats interesting, I have never been able to read LOTR fanfiction, partly because the fake archaic tone of language that a lot of writers used put me off. I tried to read romance/smut and it made me giggle and roll my eyes a lot, but I never found anything good. But I didn't read hobbit slash, mostly because I didn't see them as sexual beings when I first read the books. If I were to slash them I think Frodo would go nicely with both Merry and Sam and Fatty before the journey, giving quite different dynamics, but Pippin I can't see with anybody other than Merry. But I think the main reason why I don't slash that book is that the romantic relationships that do exist kind of sets the tone, and love is presented in songs and on a separate level from the quest and the main characters, even A/A is not really *part* of Aragorn's reality or fight with himself, romantic love is set aside together with the banality of everyday life when they leave home (which is why I find the rabbit scene so moving). So for LOTR I would think staying in style, or in the overall mood of the books, would be much more difficult than staying in character when slashing.
- Clara