The Race that Has Not Been Named: Expanding Canon

An examination of a fandom's pursuit of inclusion

[thoughtsonharrypotter-blog]

Navigational Help

This blog can be viewed on a mobile device or a desktop computer with the option of simply scrolling down the page or scanning through the archives. All content - with the exception of likes - is categorized by tags to ensure an ease of search and can be found below. 

Specific Tags: 

“The Canon” - includes any post that challenges the notion of Rowling’s narrative

Canon - includes any post that is critically examining content in the seven original books

Fanart - includes any post with original depictions of the characters

Genderbent - includes any post where characters are depicted as the opposite gender

Fancast - includes any post where the original HP actors are reimagined

Food for Thought - includes any post where I am commenting on the material 

POC Harry Potter - includes any post where Harry Potter himself is depicted as person of color ​​

POC HP - includes any post where a character from Harry Potter is depicted or described as a person of color 

Reimaging Hogwarts - includes any post where Hogwarts (or it’s founders) are depicted around POC cultures 

The Golden Trio - includes any post containing Harry, Hermione and Ron

General Tags: 

All characters can be searched by name with few exceptions -

* Severus Snape is only referred to by last name

* Hermione can be found under two names “hermione granger” and “black hermione”

As well - 

Posts can be searched by book title if applicable 

For example, if you searched “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” you would find one of two posts. If you typed in “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” you’d find none.  

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Additional Tags:

Definitions

JK Rowling - includes any mention of JK Rowling

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I enter this blog and created it - 

With the idea that I could examine the function of the Harry Potter canon in it's relation to the fandom by simply presenting what I felt were the most significant parts of the expansion and writing around them. My intention was (though you'll soon read that intentions don't always matter) that I could allow these images to speak on their own. And whether or not this is entirely true, I feel the need to explain why this all is.

When I started Race, Class, and Wizardry the only Harry Potter I had ever known was the one on the screen and the posters and the magazines, for most of my childhood without even reading the books Harry Potter was defined. Period. Point. Blank. 

And now at 21, reading these books for the first time, is a lot different than "seeing" them. Contrary to what I had feared despite growing up with these specific images as I read through the series, I couldn't help but inform my own opinion of who these characters were and who they could be. Which isn't to say that I don't like the movies or that I see that particular interpretation as wrong, quite the opposite, I think Daniel did a great job playing Harry Potter and as much as he is "my Harry" in the sense that I've grown fond of his performance, he isn't my Harry. Not the one I see when I read that is. 

And admittedly that is the struggle, while reading the book I did find myself thinking back to his movie counterpart however for one reason of another, I couldn't get his rendition to stick. No, while I read this text I saw racism, I saw hate and as no insult to Daniel, it's not something I could see in him. So as my final project, this blog exists not to focus on how or why people write themselves into the Harry Potter universe, but on why the idea that they would've had to "write themselves in" is ridiculous in the first place. When I started my annotated bibliography (which can be read here) one phrase I kept seeing over and over was that, nothing in the canon could prove or disprove the existence of a POC Potter, to which I agreed. The evidence (or lack thereof) within the canon is troubling to say the least, but to me, is insulting to use as an excuse. 

Canon, whether written or visual decides what is or what isn't. Except in the case of Harry Potter we aren't given the benefit of choosing one over the other. The movies are so ingrained into popular culture I doubt that anyone is completely clueless as to how Harry Potter "looks". So splashing my blog with brown Harry Potters only seemed appropriate given that Harry Potter cannot "look" like anyone, as he is not a person just a few distinctive adjectives. 

My goal is not to argue the necessity but to rather inform of the canon. The ways in which canon functions within this universe, the way it has split it's fandom, the way it continues by will of it's author and the way in which all of these things might fail. 

I may have nothing more to offer than a few Black and brown Harry/Hermiones, but as you go through this blog, I'd like for you to examine this information "around." Look at the pictures, then check out the terminology, think or rethink about how you read these characters as opposed to how they're shown. Read this art, then go back to the articles. 

Expand your ideas of what this canon can be. 

[thoughtsonharrypotter-blog]

Expanding vs Rewriting

An important distinction that needs to be made is that of rewriting vs expanding, because the way you understand the two terms effects how you look at fanmade media. 

"Rewriting" is attached to the implication that someone is writing over what was already there or changing the "canon" as it was. They are making something new. 

"Expanding" simply means taking what was already there and building on top of it or building it out. 

For this blog, I've tried to stick with media that was expanding the narrative rather than rewriting it for two reasons. 

1) I find it dismissive to suggest that if someone reads Harry and co a certain way and chooses to act on that that they are "rewriting." 2) It suggests that whatever they read wasn't there to begin with. 

And to be clear, by expand I mean: we don't know James' life before Hogwarts, let's give him backstory. He still has the same friends, still marries the same girl, still is in the same house, still dies. But just happened to travel abroad and meet a snail beforehand. That, is adding on to the story. 

Rewriting is more or less like an alternative universe, which is fine in and of itself (trans Harry or lady Snape seem very interesting) but I don't want to imply that Harry and co. could only be people of color outside of the universe that they're currently in. Because I believe, as many others do, that canon supports an anything Harry. 

[archived-arts]

is back at her drawing tablet for 0.0001 seconds before drawing jily again

[bahsatan-deactivated20180403]

cho chang 4 ever

[twiggymcbones]

A little late night study sesh featuring BlackHermione!  Thanks, Sarah for the idea/marching orders :-P Who else is excited for HP and the Cursed Child???

[thoughtsonharrypotter-blog]

Padma Patil and Parvati Patil by Xsecretgirl

[vondellswain]

“The very first time I saw you Harry, I recognised you immediately. Not by your scar, by your eyes. They’re your mother Lily’s. Oh yes, I knew her. Your mother was there for me at a time when no one else was. Not only was she a singularly gifted witch, she was also an uncommonly kind woman. She had a way of seeing the beauty in others, even, and perhaps most especially, when that person couldn’t see it in themselves. Your father, James, however, had a certain, shall we say, talent for trouble. A talent, rumour has it, he passed onto you. You’re more like them than you know, Harry. In time you’ll come to see just how much.”

[stilesstays]

nightly pre-game broom prep 

not done but postin anyway

[carolsdrawing]

Hold on to the little moments of happiness

[paticmak]

Sirius, Remus Lily and James listening to some muggle music :>

(for some reason i gave sirius this little owl and it’s his now. deal with it.)

[archived-arts]

somewhere in the awkward transition stage from enemies to friends to true love

[archived-arts]

#mixed kids 

doodle of harry and ginny’s kids because they’re absolute dolls

[vondellswain]

my Lily & James before the photo filter.

[thoughtsonharrypotter-blog]

FanFiction Versus Canon: The Expanding Harry Potter Universe

It only took me three Odyssey articles to do something about Harry Potter! Let's talk some concerns about Harry Potter, fanfiction, and the expanding universe.

Food for thought.

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The Harry Potter universe still can't translate its gay subtext to text. It's a problem.

It’s 2016, and the Harry Potter fandom has evolved. Why hasn’t the HP universe evolved with it?

Where does canon fail?

[thoughtsonharrypotter-blog]

Up until this point I've tried to avoid discourse around why people feel the need to write themselves into an expanded canon, but with this article it's inevitable because a spectacular point is raised: despite Rowling's choice to continue to add to "the canon" the Harry Potter universe is still largely the same.

As a note here, the Harry Potter universe might feel static because Rowling hasn't actually "written" any inclusion into the Harry Potter narrative. There are no more Harry Potter books, that story is closed within it's medium. While Rowling has tweeted and interviewed and posted, she has yet to actually (or in this case physically) write people into the Harry Potter world. Which is troubling considering that most people live and breathe by the authenticity of "the books." For most, if it didn't happen in the books or wasn't shown, it's irrelevant.

  Even in the Cursed Child which is considered to be in "the canon" there is still very little inclusion written into the story in comparison with fan fiction. So when people go out and write these characters into the canon and draw them as they were read, they are responding to all the ways in which "the canon" - despite the constant interference of author intent - has failed them. 

[thoughtsonharrypotter-blog]

The Problem With J.K. Rowling Making Things Canon Retroactively

This year, Harry Potter fans learned the true meaning of the phrase "Be careful what you wish for." We've been clamoring for new Harry Potter details for years — and in 2016, we finally got them. Like, a ton of them. Now we know what school American

[thoughtsonharrypotter-blog]

I'd like to acknowledge here a painful truth about the Harry Potter series (here meaning books one through seven) as a whole and that is the fact that as it is written, the Harry Potter universe was straight and white. There's no avoiding the fact that Harry Potter is a colorblind, genderblind, whatever else blind text, that produced characters that existed within the default media whiteness. 

I emphasize written because this is where the lines are drawn between author's intent and reader's reception. If Harry or Hermione were written Black or Indian, I believe that Rowling would have labeled them as such like she did with Cho and Dean. Rowling did not intend for Hermione to be Black and although it's not fair to assume that she intended for Hermione and Harry and everyone else to be white it's safe to say that she didn't not intend it. 

Do I believe that Rowling intentionally left out people of color? No. But as the text is written this is what we have. 

With What We See When We Read I suggested that characters aren't made up of physical descriptors but rather behaviors - and I still believe this to be true. However in the same token, to add that a character has "brown skin" would be, in my opinion, the same as saying that a character has "green eyes." Because both inform different makings of meaning while not spelling out or dictating who this character is or can be. 

"Brown skin" simply means, that of whatever composite you make of a character they are brown and everything that comes with it. You see, this descriptor provides meaning but does not define the character. "Brown skin" does not in anyway erase or halt the reading experience, which is why, you'll hear some say that they, "Read Hermione as Black." 

Hermione is written as white, but can certainly be read as Black or whatever else and is supported by canon if not author's intent (though of course, even if Rowling didn't write Hermione as Black she is now open to the possibility) 

And it is here that fans of color can find their balance and "expand" the canon as they've read it.