I'm not talking about Sirius' character being destroyed because I actually think a large part of the fandom does have a problem with that. I'm talking about characters like Pandora, who literally doesn't have any canonical character, where we don't actually know her heritage, and where that doesn't matter.
So many Marauders fans actively dislike the out-of-character woobification of Sirius Black or any of the characters that do have canon personalities, but if there's no additional context other than "That's Dorcas Meadowes, Voldemort killed her personally" then actually what problem do you have in people utilising her character?
Why make Evan Rosier super besties with Barty Crouch Jr, or even his partner, when it’s clearly established in the books that Barty was several years younger and that it was a total shock to everyone that he ended up being a Death Eater, implying that he’d never been seen associating with them? It’s also canon that Rosier was part of the same group as Avery and Mulciber, the ones Snape hung out with (and funny how those three are always left out, right?). Or that Pandora is supposedly Rosier’s twin? That’s a completely made-up thing with zero foundation. It’s like inventing a twin sister for Rosier named Genoveva, why not just do that instead of slapping the name of a canon character who has absolutely nothing to do with this and probably didn’t even go to school with them?
Marlene McKinnon was a member of the Order, and it’s mentioned that she died along with her whole family. She could have been a married woman with children, for example, why do we always assume she had to be a teenager from the same generation? Most of the people in the original Order — aside from the Marauders and Lily — were clearly much older than them. They were apparently the only recent graduates in that first group, which was very small. So it makes no sense to lump every name from that era into the same year at Hogwarts. Especially Dorcas Meadowes, if she was important enough for Voldemort to kill her personally, it’s heavily implied she wasn’t some kid, but likely an experienced witch, maybe even on Moody’s level, an actual Auror.
So yeah, the issue is that we do have information about these characters. And sure, you can fill in the gaps however you like, but is it really that hard to be consistent with what we do know? Like, is it too much to ask for fics about the First Wizarding War that aren’t just teenage comedies that don’t even feel like part of the magical world anymore? Where the characters make zero sense, not just in terms of canon, but in terms of the time period?
The truth is, it’s way easier to get engagement if you use canon names than if you create an OC. But that doesn’t change the fact that people are basically using OCs like, it might as well be Annabet Lovestone, only instead you call her Pandora Rosier and act like she’s a canon character. And then you have the audacity to treat that character as if she’s part of the actual canon when she’s not.
And to make it worse, if you have a headcanon about one of those characters that doesn’t line up with what the “big four” have decided they should be like, you get hate for it. Even people who actually have the decency to make proper OCs, instead of co-opting random canon names, also get crap or have their fics looked down on.
There’s just so much double standard in this fandom.
