My Immortal: No Longer Harry Potter
This post is meant to discuss the fanfiction of My Immortal and its relation to the series it is based on, Harry Potter. Created by fanfiction.net user XXXbloodyrists666XXX who shall be called under the authorâs supposed name Tara for the rest of this work, this fanfiction is infamously known for its quality, as in it is next to zero. It is difficult to truly describe the plot of the fanfiction as interpretations are muddled through the remarkably poor grammar and spelling of the piece and through the inconsistent plot. But, in an attempt to summarize, My Immortal is about a seventh year transfer student to Hogwarts named Ebony Darkâness Dementia Raven Way who is in a romantic relationship with Draco Malfoy, who becomes a hostage for Lord Voldemort as Voldemort attempts to force Ebony to kill Harry Potter. In order to stop Voldemort, Ebony needs to go back in time to influence Tom Riddle to stop him from ever becoming the Dark Lord in the first place.
On the surface, the plot does look like it could conform to the universe of the original series with there being a suitable explanation for time travel with the existence of the Time Turner, a suitable reason for Voldemort to need to force a student to do the job with his inability to enter Hogwarts as well as him having access to Draco through his father Lucius. This text however does several things that greatly separate the fanfiction from the original body of the canon.
This fanfiction does not uphold what Henry Jenkins calls âmoral economy.â He describes this concept as âthe ideology of fandom [that] involves... some degree of conformity to the original program materialsâ (Jenkins 55). However, this does not immediately mean that this fanfiction would need to absolutely conform to the details of the book series. Rather, as Jenkins claims, âwhat determines the range of permissible fan narratives is... consensus within the fan community itselfâ (Jenkins 56). What he means is that fans are the deciding factor on what is or is not considered canon. If it strays too far from what the group considers to the canonically sound, then âit would not, from their perspective be [whatever property is being addressed]â (Bonnstetter 358).
By describing that the changes that this author has made are vast, from changing characters names, personalities, and histories to the addition of external elements both fictional and nonfictional, I will show that this text has changed so much that it too should no longer be considered a transmedial part of Harry Potter, but rather as its own separate property.
Changes made from the Harry Potter Universe
In this work there are many changes that the creator made to the Harry Potter universe and almost all of them are regulated to the character cast. As Bonnstetter explains of some fanfiction, they âliterally (re)writ[e] the social norms of the canon universeâ (Bonnstetter 355) and this is a good way to describe the actions of the author here.
The best way to describe the reshaping of the social norms of this universe is that everyone has become what, as the author considers to be, gothic. This, as shown from the series, consists of the addition of devilish or vampiric imagery, a like for bands such as My Chemical Romance and Good Charlotte, and a hatred for the social group known as preps who wear pink and like things like Hilary Duff (Tara 22) or and posers who attempt or pretend to be gothic while failing with their liking of bands and singers considered to be posers like Ashlee Simpson and the Backstreet Boys (Tara 18).
The main cast of Harry Potter separates into two of these groups, goths and posers. The main way that these groups are separate is that the majority of the named students of the Harry Potter universe are described as goths and many of the adults, whether professors or villains, are considered posers. For the sake of conciseness, only one example will be explained for each.
The main character that we will discuss for the students is not the titular character of the Harry Potter series, rather it is Hermione Granger, because she most clearly shows the contradictions found in these characters. The first thing to mention are the superficial changes; first, there has been changes to her appearance. She now has waist long black hair and crimson red contact lenses. The other change was her name. According to the text, she now goes by Bâloody Mary Smith (Tara 8). These changes are meant to reflect a supposed mainstream aesthetic of the goth looks; a color scheme of red and black with some creepy imagery in the form of red eyes. However this is not the only change to her character and, in fact, Hermione represents the most major elements of change common throughout all the characters: both her personality and history have been dramatically altered
Beginning with her backstory, according to the text, Hermione had been kidnapped at birth and her real parents were, in fact, vampires, with one of them being a witch (Tara 8). The most important element of change in this, though, a parent of hers as a witch; by having relation to a witch, the stigma that Hermione had of being a Mudblood has been completely removed. The impact of her intelligence and skill as a witch has also been lessened; her character revolved around her overcoming the stigma of not being raised in a wizarding household or being connected to any notable wizard to become the brightest witch of her age. Then there are changes to her personality. It is difficult to discuss aspects like personality in this work since there is little explication on any other characters besides the protagonist, but a key example of this Hermione contradicting her canon self is when it is said that she and Professor âSinisterâ (an alternate name for Professor Trelawney) get along great (Tara 24). In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Trelawney had insulted Hermioneâs intelligence by saying that she did not possess the ability to divine and saying that her heart was âas shriveled as an old maid⊠as dry as the books you cleaveâ and, as a result, Hermione developed a hatred for both Trelawney and the art of Divination (Harry Potter Wiki). By claiming that the two get along, the text is completely ignoring these aspects of her character in favor of changing Hermione to suit the gothic persona that the author created for her.
The second character we will discuss is the headmaster of Hogwarts Albus Dumbledore. Like with others, aspects of his character have been changed, but with this character, we will discuss another important aspect of these changes: fan response. While the original comment sections to these chapters have been lost to time, what is not lost are the authorâs notes, which are basically comments the author wants to make outside of the main text of a fiction. As was discussed before, fan acceptance is important when considering a fan work as close to canon and it is evident that the fans thought the changes made to Dumbledore were too egregious. In chapter 4, the protagonist Ebony and Draco Malfoy are discovered having sex in the Forbidden Forest by Dumbledore. Dumbledoreâs response was âWHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU MOTHERFUKERS! [sic]â (Tara 4). In the next chapter, in an authorâs note on top of the page, the author explains that â Da only reson Dumbledeor swor is coz he had a hedache ok an on tup of dat he wuz mad at dem 4 having sexx! [sic]â (Tara 5). The author then repeats the excuse again saying âdis is frum da movie ok so itz nut my folt if dumbeldor swers! [sic]â (Tara 9). What this implies is that there must have been comments, and considering the fact that the author often holds the story hostage until they get a certain amount of good reviews (Tara 5, 6, 14, 19, 33) Â Iâd say the majority, complaining about the out of character nature of Dumbledore, at least in regards to his swearing.
The deviations that this fanfiction has made from the Harry Potter series are extensive. From changing things like appearance, personality, and history in order to separate the characters into separate social categories, those the author aligns with and those the author doesnât, the fanfiction alters the characters to the point that even the most iconic details about the characters are lost. It is also apparent that fans have complained about the degree of separation from the main text, to which the author responses are insufficient since they had to repeat them. In regards to the fanfiction, the author has made so many changes that these characters are enough to consider them apart from the original.
Additions made beyond the Harry Potter Universe
Beyond these changes, there is another reason why this fanfictionâs universe should be considered apart from the Harry Potter universe, and that involves the additions that the author made to the text. These additions can be separated into two categories, the real-life inclusions, and the fictional inclusions.
This fanfiction often includes real world things that the author enjoys into the world of Harry Potter. The most prevalent real-world reference is of the band My Chemical Romance, which Tara references with realistically attainable merchandise such as t-shirts (2), to less likely existing merchandise like a license plate with MCR666 (20), portraits of MCR (28) and MCR corset (42), to more magically inclined objects like a broomstick (18), a spell (12), and moving posters (31).
However, the fanfiction breaks the separation between the real world and Harry Potter universe by having the real world bands of Good Charlotte (Tara 3) and My Chemical Romance (Chapter 16) play at Hogsmeade, the wizarding town near Hogwarts. Considering that, as part of the wizarding world, Hogsmeade would be inaccessible to the non-wizarding community, having these two concert implies that these two real-life bands are in fact wizards in this universe.
However, these real-life inclusions are not completely out of the realm of believability. In the Harry Potter universe, aspects of our real world, like these bands, are relegated to the Muggle side of the world. So, in theory, since these things could exist in the Harry Potter universe as Muggle institutions, there is some claim for the possibility of them being secretly wizards that would be allowed to enter into the wizarding society. However, this excuse could not cover the fictional inclusions, things added that come from other fictional universes. The main example of this in this fanfiction is the presence of Marty Mcfly. As explained earlier, the protagonist goes back in time in order to influence Tom Riddle, this influencing being in the form of seduction. The initial time she went back in time using the pensieve (a magical device to store memory) and the time-turner (a device mainly used to go into the immediate past). Ignoring the discrepancies, once there she apparently had no way back, that is until Marty Mcfly showed up to take her back to the future in his black time machine (Tara 35) which would later be revealed to have a disguise feature where it turns into an iPod (Tara 42). This inclusion means that not only was Marty Mcfly a wizard, as would be implied since he can enter the wizarding world, but also that the film he came from, Back to the Future exists in the same universe as the band My Chemical Romance as wizards and Harry Potter, which might be considered outside the acceptable range believability to continue considering this work a part of the Harry Potter universe.
As Beth Bonnstetter writes about the authors of some fanfictions â[they] appropriate[ ] a dominant media text to produce a discursive space where [they] can freely express [their] opinionsâ (Bonnstetter 353). My Immortal is a creation intended for the author to express their likes, through additions of their favorite bands and fictional characters, and play with social norms around the idea of the goth by changing the personalities of many of the characters of Harry Potter, without regard to canon, to fit these molds. What My Immortal not is a transmedial extension of the Harry Potter universe.
Bibliography:
Bonnstetter, Beth E., and Brian L. Ott. "(Re)Writing Mary Sue: Ecriture Feminine And The Performance Of Subjectivity." Text & Performance Quarterly 31.4 (2011): 342-367. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 11 Dec. 2016.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Alfonso CuarĂłn. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2004. Film
Harry Potter Wiki, âHermione Grangerâ, wiki article, 12 December 2016, viewed 12 December 2016, http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Hermione_Granger.
Jenkins, "Star Trek Rerun, Reread, Rewritten: Fan Writing as Textual Poaching." Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. New York: NYU Press. 2006. pp. 37-60.
XXXbloodyrists666XXX. âMy Immortal.â Harry Potter Fanfiction. Fanfiction.net, 2006. http://myimmortal.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Chapters.
