Geeks vs. Geeks

[sistermagpie]

Happy birthday, trazzie--an house early!:-D

I think I may have achieved ultimate geekness today. I went to see the the frogs finally and it was great! Blue frogs, red frogs, yellow frogs, huge frogs. Poison frogs, sticky frogs, Jabba-the-Hutt frogs. I saw an African bullfrog eat a mouse (yipes!) and did a virtual frog dissection. Then I swung by the North American birds exhibit to make sure they had a magpie (she's in the case with the bald eagle in case you're looking). I stared longingly at a Zuni crow fetish for a long time before admitting I couldn't afford it. Then I bought a calendar filled with quirky science facts, which I'll probably be blurting out throughout the year. I think the only way I could get geekier is if I moved into my parents' basement. Other than that I've got it all covered.

And speaking of geeky, that leads into recent discussions about why people are in fandom, which connects with Aja's idol_reflection essay. What I have to say is actually pretty obvious, but I'm saying it anyway.

Aja starts her essay with the sentence, "Draco Malfoy is the most controversial character in the Harry Potter canon," which is, of course, controversial in itself. I know somebody commented, "Wouldn't that be Snape?" But I think I know what she means. Snape is probably the most interesting character in canon, the most complex. I suppose he's controversial if you consider it controversial that he used to be a DE. But his controversy is all within the text. What I think Aja meant is that while not everyone likes Snape as much as anyone else he doesn't seem to inspire the same kind of anger regarding his interpretation. Oh, people can fight about his interpretation--I don't want to dismiss the Snape/Sirius fan wars, for instance, and after OotP there's the whole, "Was Snape perpetually picked on or did he deserve what was done to him in the Pensieve?" (A concept which disturbs me as well--I think he gave as good as he got, myself, and still didn't "deserve" it.)

But I think the reason I think of Draco as controversial is that, let's face it, even the author seems to focus in on this character's fans as in need of re-education or at least explanation. JKR's bad boy comments about Snape are usually in the context of questions about his love life. With Draco the mere existence of fans seems to be enough. In fandom what always strikes me isn't that not everybody has the same reaction to the character but that very often it seems like this character makes people very emotional. It's not just that you might disagree about what he will get in canon, it's that for some people (me) the idea that he's a hate object there to show us that "some people are just bad" and so must be punished is really disturbing while for other people (and here I'm speaking of specific posts I've read that have basically said this) the idea that Draco should inspire compassion is just as disturbing and must be stopped or at least explained away as being fangirl fantasy.

Anyway, how this relates back to the other recent discussion is that that thread asked, "Why do you stay in the fandom if you don't like the source material?" and "don't like the material" seemed to include not liking the way the author handled certain things, or not trusting her to handle them in a way you won't find disturbing. The "real reason" behind this attitude was suggested to be that people liked their interpretation of canon better than canon itself. So if one didn't like how the MoM scene was handled it was perhaps because one's idea of Lucius as being competent and cool was wrong, or because one wanted Sirius to marry Remus instead of going through a veil. Draco fans, well we know we're screwed. Anything that doesn't involve leather trousers, a change of heart and an Order of Merlin First Class is going to set us wanking, right guys?

Right. But what's funny--and I suspect cathexys just wrote about this but I'm doing it anyway--what's funny is the insinuation that not liking the way something that happens in canon means you were wrong in the way you read canon before that. This, of course, surprises me because of course what else is an interpretation based on but canon? I know I, personally, like to base everything on canon. It wouldn't be fun at all if it wasn't based there. I get annoyed when I mess something up, a quote or something, and have to rethink when it doesn't back up what I'm saying. So I know that no matter what happens, these things won't go away, unless canon specifically gives me another explanation that speaks to exactly what I see.

And then that brings it into the even wider idea that something going one way or another in canon *definitely* won't change the way things really are in life, which also seems to be a question. I mean, at this point I think the books could go either way on this issue and still be consistent. A lot of us are probably preparing ourselves for things to go in a way we're not going to like...perhaps this makes me secretly hope they do go in a way I'll enjoy, not even just because I would like it but because it would freak people out who are possibly even less prepared than I am on this. I mean, sometimes when people say people questioning the books moral position are claiming to be morally superior it does just seem like just a disagreement about moral values. After all, everybody considers their own moral judgment "superior" in terms of being correct. If we didn't think something was right we wouldn't consider it moral. I admit I have had some conversations where this was just laid out, where the very things I thought were ethically bad news were defended, and it usually left me disliking the books more than I did when I started because it scared me.:-)
Anyway, I think it just always comes down to this idea in fandom--all fandoms--that the ultimate thing everyone wants to have is objectivity. That's fandom gold. It's just more valid if you can say, "it's just canon" as opposed to, "this is something I want to see" or "this is what I believe." Everybody wants to remove themselves as much as possible that way. I'm not sure why. On one hand I guess it's part of the whole thing where fans call other fans geeks, you know? "Maybe you personally invest in ships or characters, but I just read what's there and appreciate it in an intellectual way." But maybe it's also about the relief of having something about your worldview validated, even if it's only fictionally: See, I told you these two were meant to be together. Of course I'm really better than those mean kids at school. Evil exists and it uses ethnic slurs...or whatever. Oversimplifying there, obviously. But you know what I mean? That's my big problem with the theory of fans being disappointed because they love their own speculations more than the real thing. Not that that doesn't ever happen, because it does, but because it can also be an easy and dishonest dismissal or real criticism. There's a lot of problems a reader can have that aren't the author's fault (for instance, it's not a flaw in the writing that the couple you like doesn't wind up together), but in general the author's going to have more responsibility about these things, like it or not. If you start blaming too many things on the readers...well, then you're Anne Rice writing insane things on Amazon.com where you claim everybody's reading wrong and the author can never make a mistake or handle anything badly.

Comments

[straussmonster.livejournal.com]

Happened to me, but I know I went to a particularly unique and insane place. Seems to happen where I am now, and that's my goal for when I get my hands on the little sprogs next year. Good argument is rewarded, remaining at the level of "oh, that sounds nice" is not.