Sycophant Hex ~ View topic - Fanon that makes you cringe and cry

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mouseII

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2005 4:15 am

Joined: 05 May 2005 Posts: 76

slytherinheiress does have a point, in that we haven't seen a lot of the inner workings of pureblood families in canon, and fanfic writers are free to interpret.

However, seeing a sexist Victorian world come up again and again in fanfic perplexes me, because I would argue that there is nothing in canon to support this interpretation - so why is it so prevalent?

Neville's grandmother and Sirius' mother are/were both pretty fiery human beings. Bellatrix is also. Narcissa might be submissive, but she also might not be - we don't know. Molly and Arthur are purebloods, but Molly's in charge. All of this is implies that pureblood women are not submissive; it's not conclusive proof, but it's enough to make me really wonder why dreadfully sexist versions of the wizarding world keeps popping up.

I think it might be a case of fanfic writers importing influences from other books/sources that they enjoy. A story that features a Victorian wizarding world is essentially making the same mistake that a story that features dark revels is - it's a mild canon error. JKR's world does not (apparently) include such things, but the fanfic writer wanted to flesh something out, and did so in a way that makes us canon-nazis cringe. Smile

slytherinheiress

Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2005 2:39 am

Joined: 24 Nov 2005 Posts: 11 Location: Middle of the Middle West, USA

mouse, I agree - but I'm not so sure that the "idea" of Victiorian female submission comes so much from the canon regarding the women as it does the inclusion of a few well-written and ridiculously overbearing male characters.

Again, though, just my opinion - I certainly had no intention of offending anyone. I can see that I'm kind of the "new kid" on the boards, and I don't want to ruffle any feathers!

Kristin

Diana

Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2005 10:23 pm

Head Moderator Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 116

I'll tell you what makes this canon-nazi cringe...

The fact that all the Victorian wizarding world (female submission, formal, stiff appearance, etc) bullshit stems from the simple fact that some smarmy bastard in the wardrobe department for the Harry Potter movies decided to dress Alan Rickman in a blasted frock coat.

Mark my words, that is the whole reason behind it.

I won't even get into the Louis XIV-like garb they've forced upon Lucius Malfoy in the films. All that they need to complete the look is the stockings and a pair of prissy pumps.

Something else about this whole staunch Victorian wizarding world trend that just chafes is the fact that anyone attempting to write the world that way appears to have no clue how human interaction really transpired during that period in history. Lets just say that as to the point of whether or not mass orgies and sexual depravity took place on a regular basis during the time, I won't comment on, but either way, it is damn certain that no one brandished that fact around as if common knowledge. Most fanfic writers not only incorporate this bullshit, but they incorporate it in such a way as if to make it common and much talked about knowledge among all the characters in their stories.

Diana

slytherinheiress

Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 1:48 am

Joined: 24 Nov 2005 Posts: 11 Location: Middle of the Middle West, USA

Diana wrote:

I won't even get into the Louis XIV-like garb they've forced upon Lucius Malfoy in the films. All that they need to complete the look is the stockings and a pair of prissy pumps.
Diana

I won't comment on the rest as it's harsher than I'm comfortable with, but as for the above..... didn't Jason Isaacs, who is not a 'canon-nazi', but is certainly familiar with the books, nix the first attempt at wardrobe and make those choices himself?

Zia

Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 12:53 pm

Joined: 29 Apr 2005 Posts: 19 Location: Den Haag

mouseII wrote:

slytherinheiress does have a point, in that we haven't seen a lot of the inner workings of pureblood families in canon, and fanfic writers are free to interpret.

And where do all the ideas from a pureblood society with its own behaviours come from? Not from canon, and not from logic. Wizards have their own world, no need for a pureblood subworld. And further are almost all kids educated at the same boarding school, rather difficult for parents to insert "pureblood values" iwhen most of the year the kids are out of reach and does anyone really think the mummy Blacks and offspring of this world will submit themselves to less freedom than inferior witches?

Diana

Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2005 1:05 pm

Head Moderator Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 116

Quote:

Isaacs's ego isn't anymore canon than movie!Snape's frock coat.

Jason Isaacs is indeed a superb actor, even if his Lucius is a bit too much 'comedy of errors' for my taste.

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Diana
Head Forum Moderator

azazello

Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2005 6:25 pm

Joined: 29 Nov 2004 Posts: 183 Location: Northern UK

I always think of it as "speaking forsoothly" - a term used in the book "Daughter of Time" by Josephine Tey, to describe cod attempts in historical novels to make characters sound like they might have in the fifteenth century.

Probably, if any historical novelist accurately rendered 15th C English, it would be utterly incomprehensible to all but a few scholars.

But this is even sillier when applied to the Wizarding World. Fact is, no one in canon speaks any other than very twentieth century except for the ghosts. And even Nearly Headless Nick speaks in a way that is comprehensible.

However, I've read numerous fanfics that have Snape and Lucius talking as if they were a pair of eighteenth century fops who hang out with the Prince Regent and Beau Brummell (with not even the redeeming entrance of Blackadder to make it funny). Fact is, we DO know how the WW world speaks and acts. It's exactly like ours, with magic.

The point about the WW is that it is set in and part of the UK (and I cannot stress this too highly: it is SET. IN. GREAT. BRITAIN - which is NOT some seventeenth century theme park) and in the late twentieth century. The characters have late 20th C diction. Snape sounds like a poshed up version of the Yorkshire boy he probably is, but not some Edwardian refugee. The clothing is robes. Not sodding stupid frock coats or breeches and stuff like that.

why in the name of all that is English should any fanfic writer who has actually read the canon, and not drooled over the actors playing canon characters in the movies, get it wrong?

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Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony ~ Monty Python and the Holy Grail

zooty

Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2005 2:59 am

Joined: 19 Jul 2005 Posts: 9

Sigh, "Daughter of Time", one of my favorites. I read it years ago and recently got the audio version read by Derek Jacobi, loved hearing it in his voice.

Ok, back to the topic at hand. Although JKR created a WW with modern speech and actions, she has also littered it with anachronisms. They write with quills and ink on parchment. They travel by carriage. Then there is the complete lack of electricity, so there are no modern conveniences, which means all the rooms are hauntingly candlelit. All of these combine to create a world reminiscent of a bygone era. JRK is able to weave the modern world with her WW, but sadly, many authors are not. I think they choose to have the characters "speak forsoothly" to try and add an old world flavor to their stories. Unfortunately, this just makes it rubbish instead.

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When the ship lifts, all bills are paid. No regrets.- L.Long

Pennfana

Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2005 3:34 pm

Joined: 07 Dec 2004 Posts: 216 Location: Ontario, Canada

Just a thought about the whole "pureblood values" thing: although the children all go to the same boarding school, their parents have them for eleven years before that. That's plenty of time for the children to learn their parents' prejudices. Just take a look at Draco Malfoy and the way that he acts on the train in the first book.

Besides which, we don't know much about how Rowling imagines the children born into magical families live before or between school years; Harry's raised by his Muggle relatives, after all, and we're only given glimpses into the life of the Weasley family. We know even less about other pureblood families in canon. Who (besides J.K. Rowling, of course) can really say that the ideas out there are completely WRONG? I'm not saying that I think that all pureblood families would be all rich and snobby like the Malfoys (the Weasleys, after all, disprove that theory), but I am saying that when fanfic authors who are familiar with canon insert a pureblood sub-culture into their work, it could be that they are doing what they can to use what little information we have about the lives of children born into the wizarding world.

In any case, just because they already have a separate world of their own doesn't mean that they all live in the same way. To say so is like saying that all Scots wear kilts, raise sheep, eat oatmeal and play the Great Highland Bagpipe.

Oh, and one other thing:

Quote:

The point about the WW is that it is set in and part of the UK (and I cannot stress this too highly: it is SET. IN. GREAT. BRITAIN - which is NOT some seventeenth century theme park) and in the late twentieth century. The characters have late 20th C diction. Snape sounds like a poshed up version of the Yorkshire boy he probably is, but not some Edwardian refugee. The clothing is robes. Not sodding stupid frock coats or breeches and stuff like that.

Why in the name of all that is English should any fanfic writer who has actually read the canon, and not drooled over the actors playing canon characters in the movies, get it wrong?

You definitely have a good point, azazello. The problem is that not all of us who write Harry Potter fanfic live in the UK. Having someone to "Brit-pick" for us can be extremely useful, but when we aren't extremely familiar with the culture, errors are bound to slip in, especially as Rowling has introduced so many anachronisms into the wizarding world herself, as zooty pointed out. Furthermore, on this side of the ocean (I live in Canada) one of the stereotypes of the UK--and England in particular--is something like Archie Leach's description of life in England in "A Fish Called Wanda":

"Wanda, do you have any idea what it's like being English? Being so correct all the time, being so stifled by this dread of, of doing the wrong thing, of saying to someone "Are you married?" and hearing "My wife left me this morning," or saying, uh, "Do you have children?" and being told they all burned to death on Wednesday. You see, Wanda, we'll all terrified of embarrassment. That's why we're so...dead. Most of my friends are dead, you know, we have these piles of corpses to dinner."

I'm sure that most of us non-British do try to get things right. However, we are still outsiders and most of us are bound to make mistakes.

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Accio mind! Mr. Green

Zia

Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2005 7:02 pm

Joined: 29 Apr 2005 Posts: 19 Location: Den Haag

Pennfana wrote:

I was not talking about prejudices. I'm talking about pureblood women who are raised to be submissive to their husbands, who enter magical marriage contracts where this submissiveness is magically enforced, who have arranged marriages etc. etc. We see enough from Hogwarts to see this is pure and utter rubbish.

Quote:

but I am saying that when fanfic authors who are familiar with canon insert a pureblood sub-culture into their work, it could be that they are doing what they can to use what little information we have about the lives of children born into the wizarding world.

Then please point out the canon to me where anybody can find something even remotely referring to my examples above. If anything is clear from canon, it is that there is no discrimination of women in the WW. We have female headmaster, female members of the Wizengamot, female heads of departments in the MoM etc. etc.

Quote:

Where are the anachronisms in language? I'm not British myself, and currently writing my first fanfic. But my characters speak normal English, as far as I'm able to write it. Now it will need Brit-picking as I read lots and lots of American books, but it is not that hard to keep away from trying to sound like an 18th century play.

Quote:

I'm sure that most of us non-British do try to get things right. However, we are still outsiders and most of us are bound to make mistakes.

Actually most do. But there are lots of people who use Rowlings world for things that are completely opposite what she does. If you want to create a sexist society which is magically enforced, create your own world.

Pennfana

Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2005 4:59 am

Joined: 07 Dec 2004 Posts: 216 Location: Ontario, Canada

Hmm...it seems that we have achieved a failure to communicate, part of which is probably my fault. Sorry.

In any case, what I was trying to say with my post was that as much as we try, a good part of what we do in fan-fiction is interpretation. When we read the canon, we filter it through our own perceptions. (Case in point: the debate between people who say that the events of HBP prove that Snape is evil through-and-through and the people who use those same events to prove that he can still be on the side of the Light.) I'm not excusing offenses like the repression of women; as you say, there's little to no canonical base for most of these. The problem lies in the fact that no two people see the canon in exactly the same way. Even if both of them are as familiar with it as it's possible to be without actually being JKR, you're likely to get different interpretations of things, even if the differences are just small ones.

Now, about the points in general:

1. Pureblood values. I thought you meant prejudice. Sorry. And while I stick to the point that eleven years is ample time to absorb the values of the culture into which you are born, I must point out that I never once attempted to directly justify the use of discrimination against women in fan-fiction versions of the wizarding world.

2. Discrimination against women. Nowhere did I say that I could find such a piece of canon evidence; it never occurred to me that this is what you were talking about, save as an example of fanon gone terribly wrong.

3. Anachronisms. I wasn't talking about anachronisms in the language, but anachronisms in the world itself: things like quills, the Hogwarts carriages, open flames as the main light source and other such things. However, as you have brought up the point of language, there are some characters whose speech tends to be a bit more formal than others. (I can't imagine Minerva McGonagall saying something like "That's bloody brilliant, mate!" in an ordinary conversation. It seems pretty natural for Ron Weasley, though.) The problem with "formal" is that it can sometimes be mistaken for "old-fashioned" or "words that went out of use a long time ago, and with good reason".

Of course, this doesn't excuse the offense, with the possible exception of Regency challenges where you expect a bit of a stretch anyway. Still, between characters who sound like refugees from the 18th century and characters who talk about hosers and Molson muscles and popping over to Timmy's for an iced cappucino, I'll take the refugees any day. They at least stand a chance at sounding like they're from Britain in some part of its history.*

4. People who create magically-enforced sexist societies. Actually, I agree with you on this point, as I've said before. JKR gives us the view of a society which does not see women as inferior, at least as far as I can see. However, this was not what I was talking about. What I was saying is that we non-Brits can't be 100% correct about British culture with every word we write in a work of Harry Potter fan-fiction unless we've actually lived over there and experienced it ourselves. For example, I've been to Britain three times: Scotland in 2000 and England in 2002 and 2005. Each stay was at least two weeks long, and while I was there I travelled to various parts of the country. A helpful side-effect of my travels there is that it has helped me a bit with the cultural and linguistic side of things, but as my total time in Britain is about a month and a half, I do not by any means think that I have begun to understand life over there even a fraction as well as my cousin, who lived and worked there for about five years.

Hopefully this has cleared a few things up. Sorry for the wordiness; I did a 4-year degree in English literature, and 2000-word essays are a way of life for English lit students where I went to school...

*Canadian slang. "Hoser"=person who drinks too much beer. "Molson muscle"=beer belly. "Timmy's"=Tim Hortons, a popular chain of coffee shops; the chain is Canadian in origin, but there are Tim Hortons coffee shops in some places in the USA now.

Edited to correct a spelling error.

Last edited by Pennfana on Sat Feb 25, 2006 2:57 am; edited 1 time in total
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Accio mind! Mr. Green

Delirium

Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2006 10:36 pm

Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 34 Location: New York

my pet peeves?

The overuse of the terms "ruddy" and "berk". And when was the last time anyone heard a 16 year old say "what say you?" Whenever I see those, I always know exactly who either wrote a fic or betaed it.

Another pet peeve: beta's notes. Author's notes are bad enough, but beta's notes make me cringe.

As for fanon: Snape Manor, overly stuffy Snape, Minerva turning into a cat at the drop of a hat just to eavesdrop, student-virgin-seductress Hermione.

Estrilda

Posted: Sat Apr 01, 2006 10:31 pm

Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 79

Delirium wrote:

Another pet peeve: beta's notes. Author's notes are bad enough, but beta's notes make me cringe.

I always wonder why authors post comments from other people (betas, friends, etc. ) in their work. Unless it is JKR's input on the piece, it seems like these would go much better in a 'review'. Just a thought.
Es

Delirium

Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 3:50 pm

Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 34 Location: New York

I just think it's ego stroking for the beta.

As for the comment that all HP characters would speak late 20th century English... what of those in their hundreds? Wouldn't they tend to have possibly a more formal manner of speaking since they actually were raised and schooled in a different era? I'm not talking Snape, since he's a child of the 60's, but someone like Dumbledore, who was born over 100 years ago.

Mimmy

Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 8:51 pm

Joined: 11 Sep 2005 Posts: 29 Location: Azkaban

Quote:

As for the comment that all HP characters would speak late 20th century English... what of those in their hundreds? Wouldn't they tend to have possibly a more formal manner of speaking since they actually were raised and schooled in a different era? I'm not talking Snape, since he's a child of the 60's, but someone like Dumbledore, who was born over 100 years ago.

thanks to Delirium I now have this awful picture of Dumbledore in "muggle" Hippy clothes shouting something like "yo dude, let's chill"
and a brightly coloured McGonagall answering "peace headmaster, what's up?". Two "older" wizards trying to adapt to the "new age".

Also, what is the difference between "normal English" and "late 20th century English"? Apart from new words for electronice devices, which are as far as I know not used in the wizarding world.

And yes i agree, beta notes are for the beta him/herself and nothing else. As a beta myself I appreciate a thank you, as it's sometimes pretty difficult to go through a story and so being acknowledged is a wonderfull feeling. But I would NEVER EVER add my own comments to a story or have them added.

~Mimmy

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