Hello! Just popping in to say that your final assignment for the class is due Monday (I'm giving a bit of an extension), and you have until Monday to likewise turn in any outstanding assignments or extra credit.
To those who were around the first couple weeks and then dropped off, message me if you're interested in your class reward.
It's been a blast, guys. Even if you weren't able to participate often, I appreciate everyone who read and liked and reblogged and got something out of my incessant rambling about Harry Potter. Thanks for everything!
What has Harry Potter meant to you? What is your Harry Potter story, and how have you fit yourself into the global phenomenon of this series? And what do you think Harry Potter will continue to mean to you?
Take some time with this assignment. Make it substantial. It's due Friday, May 10.
Fanfiction is a pretty controversial issue. What do you think of it? Do you think it should be written? Do you think it infringes on an author's rights? What's your opinion?
Responses are due Saturday and are worth 2 points.
Well, folks, we've reached that point of the semester -- love it or hate it, we can no longer put off talking about fanfiction.Â
Now, fanfiction gets a bad rap, which is a shame, because honestly, there's a lot of good stuff out there if you can wade through the crap. I admit unabashedly and without shame that I write fanfiction. I write a lot of fanfiction. I've been writing fanfiction for the past decade, and I currently have close to 60 HP fanfictions written and posted on my profile, and I'm damn proud of really all of them. The ones I am not proud of (mainly those written when I was 14, 15, and 16) have been taken down. My user name is Realmer06, and here's the link to my profile. Go. Read if you'd like.Â
See, there's a stigma attached to fanfiction that I'd like to dispel. I have a whole rant on this, but this isn't the place or platform for it, so I'll probably post that on my personal Tumblr sometime soon. Suffice it to say, just because something is fanfiction doesn't mean it's bad. And it certainly doesn't mean we should be ashamed of having written it. There's a whole lot of published brilliant work in the world that is technically fanfiction -- The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is technically fanfiction. Breathing new life and offering a different perspective is not something we should duck our heads about and pretend to not take seriously.
I mean, yes. My Immortal exists (click that link at your own risk). Stories that are ridiculously bad, reading like they were written by 13-year-olds (because a lot of them were), with utterly awful characterization, complete disregard for canon structure, and basically just an excuse for a literary version of the author to have graphic sex with every character in the books. But hey. That sort of thing has been published, too.
Long story short, the fact that a piece of fiction can't be published doesn't mean it's bad anymore than the fact that a piece of fiction has been published means it's good.
Soapboxing done. Onto the lecture itself.
In the end, however you feel about fanfiction -- love it, hate it, support it, disagree with it, feel completely indifferent toward it -- you'd better get used to it, because fanfiction in general and Harry Potter fanfiction in particular, isn't going anywhere.Â
When we talk about fanfiction, we are talking about works of fiction, both short and long, written by fans, incorporating characters and worlds of a published author (or movie or TV series or what have you). The bigger the fanbase, the wider and more varied and more prolific the fanfiction. Harry Potter is one of the largest fanbases, and fanfiction.net, the larger hosting site online for fanfiction, currently houses more Harry Potter fanfictions than works for any other fandom. Last count was around 639,000 works.Â
And it is an undeniable part of the fandom. In fact, it's how I personally was introduced to the fact that there was a fandom at all. I found Harry Potter fans online when I was 14 through Harry Potter fanfiction.Â
Generally speaking, fanfiction falls into seven categories.
Alternate Universe (AU)/Speculative Fiction
I'm lumping speculative fiction in with AUs here just because it's not really possible to write speculative fiction for Harry Potter anymore. Speculative fiction requires an unfinished and ongoing story, like TV shows and current book series. There was a time, of course, when the HP pages of fanfiction sites were rife with speculative fiction, stories that wrote about Harry and Ron and Hermione hunting for Horcruxes before Deathly Hallows was published, stories projecting who the trio and other students would end up with, stories that killed off Hagrid and McGonagall and Snape and Percy Weasley long before any final battle took place.
But with the conclusion of the series, speculative fiction has died away, replaced by Alternate Universe fiction, where fans pretend that certain events of the books didn't happen, or that the same characters exist, but in a different setting. These are the "What If" fanfictions. What if Hermione had been Sorted into Ravenclaw? What if Fred Weasley hadn't died? What if Harry and Hermione had gotten together? What if Harry Potter and his friends were Muggles who wanted to start a boy band?Â
AUs give authors the freedom to ignore parts of the series they wish had happened differently, or to speculate on how the story might have turned out if someone had made a different choice. Some of these (what if Harry and Hermione got sucked into a time portal and went back in time to the Marauders era, and Lily fell for Harry instead of James and Harry had to get his parents back together!) are very silly. But some of these (What if Arthur Weasley had died in OotP? or What if Neville had been the Chosen One?) are fascinating.Â
Missing Moments
Missing moment stories take scenes that we know happened but didn't get to see, and write them out for us. For example, Harry and Cho kissing in the Room of Requirement is a moment we don't get to see. Ron hanging out with an Obliviated Lockhart in the Chamber of Secrets is a scene we don't get to see. What Dumbledore wrote to Petunia and how Petunia responded to it is a scene we don't get to see (sorry, that one, I'm still a bit frustrated about. I WANT TO KNOW!).Â
Whether because Harry's not present for it or there just wasn't time, there are plenty of events that we know happened but that we don't get shown over the course of the novels. And that's good, in many ways, because an author can't show us everything. But if you want to know how Hermione woke Ron up while Harry was off fighting Quirrell or how Krum asked Hermione to the Yule Ball, missing moments stories are the way to go.
Different Point of View (POV)
Different POVs are very similar to MMs, and there's definitely the potential for overlap. Basically, these provide the opportunity to see iconic scene from another character's perspective. What was going through Hermione's head when she kissed Ron? What was Remus's real reaction to seeing the Marauders' Map again? Was Dean truly that shocked when Harry kissed Ginny after the Quidditch match?Â
Different POVs combine with MM stories when we start looking at scenes that we know happened, but that happened outside of the events shown in the book and don't even come close to involving Harry -- Charlie getting Ron's letter about the dragon, for instance, or what was happening at Hogwarts during Harry's seventh year, or what, if anything, went on between Luna and Dean the three weeks they spent alone at Shell Cottage. We know that these things happened, but they're often largely unimportant to the plot -- inquiring minds just often want to know.
Character Studies
Honestly, these are some of my favorite stories fanfiction has to offer. These are the pieces that don't necessarily have a story to tell; the aim is more just to get inside a character's head. I've written so many of these -- for Snape, for Petunia, for Peter, for Lavender, these characters who are so different from me, whose motivations I want to explore and understand. I've used this kind of story to try and express better than I could in essay form why Snape wasn't fully evil and wasn't a coward. I've used this kind of story to make Lavender Brown bearable instead of someone I wanted to constantly slap. I've used this kind of story to try and make more sympathetic characters who typically get brushed off.Â
But these don't have to be done only of characters on the fringes -- I've seen some excellent ones written about Ron and Dumbledore and Ginny and Lily Potter. This is the kind of fanfiction that allows us to delve into a character's head and spin a narrative designed to understand him or her better.
PWP
I told you; I'm not going to try and pretend the smut doesn't exist. It does. It's referred to most often as PWP, which either stands for "Plot? What Plot?" or "Porn Without Plot" depending on how frank the author in question is choosing to be. And . . . yeah. It's exactly what it sounds like. Fiction written to provide the opportunity, canon or otherwise, for two characters to engage in swoodilypooping activities. And a lot of what you'll find might also cross the line into . . .Â
Crack!fic
So, crack fic is fanfiction that is purposefully ridiculous. You want to pair Aragog with the Giant Squid and write about their tragic love affair? Crack. Want Harry to decide halfway though OotP that hey, you know what, Voldemort might be on to something? Crack. Want to see the teachers of Hogwarts lose a bet and have to play Quidditch naked? Crack. There's really not that more to be said.
Prequels and Continuations
These are often the fanfics that come closest to being original fiction, depending on how far back or far forward the author choose to go. Basically, this category consists of any fanfiction that takes places outside the time frame of the series. It can be as soon after the events as finding out if Harry ever got that sandwich or as far in the future as watching Neville become Headmaster of Hogwarts in 70 years' time. As soon before as figuring out what Hagrid did with baby Harry during those missing 24 hours, or as far back as writing the tale of the Founding of Hogwarts.
What I've noticed is that the prequels, however, tend to focus mainly on the Marauders and/or the first Order of the Phoenix, while the continuations most often focus on the Next Generation, and because we know very little or nothing at all about these characters, fanfiction affords us as many different characterizations as there are authors, using the names and the world JKR gave us to create characters that are, essentially, original.
 Conclusion
 There are good and bad fanfics available in all of these categories, of course. And what I personally find fascinating is that, five years after the end of the series, the HP fanfic writing community is still going strong. There are fests and exchanges running constantly if you know where to look for them, and this is a huge part of the fandom, whether you know it's there or not.
Yes, this, but more importantly, Ronâs response just after this:
âWell, what Harry said is the most useful if weâre trying to tell them apart!â said Ron. âWhen we come face-to-face with one down a dark alley, weâre going to be having a look to see if its solid, arenât we, weâre not going to be asking, âExcuse me, are you the imprint of a departed soul?ââ
The loyal, practical, snarky Ron we never got to see enough of in the films.
Speaking to you out of this hole I've decided to step into for the moment . . .
My apologies, class. Here are your assignments, and you have until Monday to complete them.
Reader (3): Which is your favorite HP movie and why? Which is your least favorite and why?
Enthusiast (4): What scenes from the books do you wish had made it into the movies? Why do you feel they weren't included, and why would you choose to add them?
Scholar (5): Recast the Harry Potter movies as if they were being made for the first time this year. You may cast as many parts as you choose, but certainly hit the Trio and many important adult characters.
Week 13: Harry Potter Movies versus Harry Potter books
Now, we could not talk about the Harry Potter fandom and phenomenon without talking about the movies. However, opening this conversation puts us in some slightly sticky waters. Because I have tried very hard to be objective as Iâve posted lectures this term, but it is difficult for me to be objective about the Harry Potter movies.
Now, let me be clear. I donât hate them. For the most part, I even enjoy them. But I do personally feel that the movies suffered from too many directors, a poor screenwriter, and being made too soon. But Iâll get to that.
The seven book Harry Potter series was made into eight full length movies over the course of ten years. The first movie came out in 2001, right around the time that Goblet of Fire was being published (and I type that and it doesnât seem possible . . .)
The movies had four different directors (1 and 2 - Chris Columbus; 3 - Alfonso Cuaron; 4 - Mike Newell; 5-8 - David Yates) and two different screen writers (1-4;6-8 - Steven Kloves; 5 - Michael Goldenburg). The movies star Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley, Emma Watson as Hermione Granger, Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy, Dame Maggie Smith as Minerva McGonagall, and Richard Harris/Michael Gambon as Dumbledore.
The eight movies combined grossed 7.7 trillion dollars at box offices worldwide. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II alone grossed 1.3 trillion total. The main trio of the film are instantly and universally recognizable, and thereâs really no way to argue that this wasnât an incredibly successful film franchise.
But were the movies good? And were they good adaptations of the novels? Thatâs a different question, and itâs one that has to be answered movie by movie, really.
Personally, I think that the movies are, for the most part, pretty well done as movies. I enjoyed 1 and 2, 3 was okay, I really liked 5, 6 was great with one notable exception, and 7.1 and 7.2 were really good except for how the final battle was handled. Most of these movies, I am happy to watch and rewatch.
But as I stated before, they do suffer from constantly changing directors and poor screenwriting, but they suffer most from the fact that they started being made when the series was only half out.
My personal unpopular opinion is that, even though it would have meant sacrificing brilliant performances from the child actors who took on these roles, the movies should have waited until the entire series had been published. You canât foreshadow what you donât know is going to happen. We talked for weeks about the brilliantly constructed narrative JKR gave us in her series. She pioneered the writing technique of taking seemingly unimportant details from earlier books and making them incredibly important later down the road. I mean, they almost left Kreacher out of the fifth movie because he just didnât seem like that pivotal a character. JKR had to step in and tell them to keep him in. Alan Rickman was told of Snapeâs motivation so he could act it convincingly throughout, and he often had to tell directors that he wasnât following their direction because it didnât fit with Snapeâs motivation, unrevealed until Deathly Hallows was published.
Much as I might enjoy the movies on an individual level, they do not function as a movie series, telling one continuous story. Theyâre just eight adaptations of individual books. The throughline of the stories isnât there â how can it be when you donât know what will end up connecting? And sometimes (*coughGobletofFirecough*), the screenwriting got so focused on hitting the major scenes in a book that the movie even managed to not have an individual throughline.
The Harry Potter movies are fine. I watch them, I enjoy them (except Goblet of Fire; I canât stand that movie), but they do not tell the Harry Potter story that I love. I think they should have waited for all seven books and then found a director and a creative team that was asked, like the actors, to commit to the entirety of the series
I am not an adaptation purist. I do not think movie adaptations of books have to be exactly like the books; in fact, I donât think they should try, and some of my favorite scenes have been scenes written specifically for the movies. My problem with the HP movies lies not in the ways they were unfaithful to the individual novels. My problem lies with the fact that they started telling a story before they knew the ending, and the result of that is a collection of movies that have the same characters but donât take place in the same universe or tell the same story.
This is only my opinion; you are free and encouraged to have your own. And thatâs our discussion for this week: What did you think of the HP movies, as movies, as a series, and as an adaptation of the books? What would you have done differently? What would you have kept the same?
Reader (3 points): How involved are you in the Harry Potter fandom? What aspects touched on in today's lecture have you been a part of, and what has been your experience with them? Are there any aspects of fandom you're involved in that were not listed? What fandom aspect are you interested in learning more about?
Enthusiast (4 points): Find one of the fandom aspects discussed in today's lecture that you were not previously familiar with, and do some research. For Wizard Rock, listen to some bands and find a favorite or favorite few songs. For the HPA, find a project they've undertaken that you might be interested in helping with. For AVPM, watch the musical or part of it (be warned -- it's about 2.5 hours long in its entirety) and write down your thoughts.
Scholar (5 points): Find an aspect of fandom NOT discussed in today's lecture, and participate in it in some way, then write a summary of your experience, how you discovered the fandom aspect, and what you thought of it.
Assignments are due Saturday; you may complete any or all that you choose.
Read the lecture, and answer the following question:
In your opinion, what is it about the Harry Potter series that made it such a phenomenon? What inspired the fandom and caused it to grow in the way that it did?
Discussion responses are due by Saturday and are worth 2 points.
