The absolute character assassination and dismissal of one Harry James Potter (and golden trio era in general)
Sorry for the ass title. I didn't bother to come up with something fancy. The following text is hopefully coherent enough to get my point across.
Okay, so after the twitter discourse about the marauders fandom, I wanted to put my two cents in
Actually, nevermind marauders fandom, I want to talk about how my boy Harry is treated so unfairly by general as well as all the subfandoms.
Like, I'm not talking about erasure or inappreciation or whatever.
I'm not even talking about not liking Harry as a character. I've made peace with it like long long ago. Ofcourse, you're not obliged to like an mc just because they're an mc. You can dislike them. You have every right to do so.
I'm not even talking about those idiotic takes about Harry being stupid, bland, weak or whatever trash the others come up with based on completely personal fantasies and delusions, fully devoid of any canon backing.
No, this is about the complete dismissal or more like erasure of Harry's traits and his entire bloody story.
My problem is with the fact that most of y'all completely assasinate his character, his traits and his entire personality!
One says Harry's childhood abuse was ALMOST as worse as Regulus Black's. Yes, ALMOST. Honestly, it's just funny at this point. There is zero evidence or indication that the black brothers, atleast Regulus was "abused" by his parents. And no, your copy-paste headcannons doesn't count.
Another says Regulus Black should've been the chosen one, and if he was, he would have defeated voldemort way sooner. Seriously? The same guy who had shrines of his idol in his bedroom? The same guy who only "realized" the error of his ways after his beloved lord had hurt his house elf?
Having an active imagination and coming up with fun headcannons about your fav characters is amazing. That's what fandoms are for. But at one point, you have to ask yourselves whether the character(s) are original and created from "scratch" or whether you stole literally every personality trait from golden trio era characters and sloppily added a bit of glitter and glamour on top and called it a day.
Like why does everyone want Harry's nachos? Y'all say he's boring and then without missing a beat take his entire backstory and personality and give it to your barely-mentioned characters.
On every appreciation post related to Harry, there's atleast one mfan raving about 'oh, that's only because he's james's son 🤪' or 'that's sirius's godson 🥰', or god forbid, 'just like his uncle moony ☺️', and on one particularly horrific event, 'omg just like Reggie the DE Black 🤭'
???? Okay, sure.
Under a drarry post, one goes, 'oh like father like son'. Under a hinny post, 'like father like son'. Just give me a break.
The audacity? Bro, drarry's been around since forever. How can you even say that when your whole ship is a temu version of drarry? I'm sorry, I had no problem with it earlier. Still don't. But sometimes, those ppl really bloody drive me nuts. And I don't even ship drarry anymore.
Then comes the abhorrent fact that even in the Harry-based ships - in almost each of his ships, the majority of the fans are hellbent on using him as a fucking prop. Using the ship premise as a convenient arena to glaze their favourite character, or place them on a pedestal, while demeaning Harry simultaneously. Just to make the other half of the ship stand out.
Genuinely, when I read fics like that, I exit. Simple and obvious, yeah? But sometimes it makes me wonder, why even ship it if you are dismissive of the character which makes up literally 50% of your ship? Why do it when you're intent on shipping your awesome and talented fav with a boring, loser cardboard cutout? At some point, reading and writing that must be exhausting, no?
Anyways, I know no one's entitled to cater to your personal preferences. And if need be, you just gotta make your own stuff. And I do btw. Still, it nags me a lot. Especially as an avid fan of Harry. He seems to get shit on by a lot of people. (don't even get me started on the erasure of lily evans, the mischaracterization of snape, and the yaoification of baby death eaters 😭. That's a whole other topic.)
I did find many accounts on the contrary, however. Accounts which post detailed metas defending Harry and his honour 😭❤️. Love y'all btw.
At the end of the day, it's a fandom of a fictional series. We're all playing with dolls. We all have varied takes and headcannons about our favs. But, I do wish they weren't so dismissive of hjp. Like, I'm not saying it's mandatory for everyone in the fandom to like him. It's not. But, do not fucking steal his entire personality and paste it into your fav character and then do a complete uturn and shit on my boy. My only request is to just leave him alone.
Like bro, y'all are super talented. Even managed to make ships of characters who had no use or anything of consequence in the entire series and be dedicated at it. I'm pretty sure you can find an alternative or make an oc or whatever and stop besmirching Harry's name and his character.
On the bright side though, there's several creators who love and respect Harry's character and do him justice. I have a couple of fav authors, artists and fics. I appreciate and cherish them a lot.
The sole reason for this long post is the fact that I'm tired of the way this fandom treats Harry. He's fictional, I know. If you don't care about him, fine. Atleast don't spread bullshit about him.
Thanks for reading this far 😙. Would love to hear your thoughts on this, if you're in the same boat as me.
