Dichroic Reflections

the dark side of fandom

Here we go again -- approaching what is supposed to be a "relaxing" weekend, since
we were traveling the last two. Um, yeah. Maybe somewhere between the necessary
food-shopping, laundering, the 90 minute erg piece I need to do, the straightening
up, and the pool cleaning, I'll manage to relax sometime in there.
Maybe.

Maybe not.

Only two more weeks until the new
Harry Potter comes out, but I'm thinking it may be time to put in another Amazon
order. I tend to put books in my cart there as I think of them (I love that
persistent shopping cart) and then purchase when the cart reaches a critical mass.
Right now, though, I need to either postpone some items until later or make that
purchase, before that mass becomes a little too critical for my credit card's
comfort.

Besides, it's not like Order of the Phoenix will take all
that long to read. And speaking of that, the longer I read href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/angiej">Ebony's blog, the more respect
I have for her, but the less appealing the whole world of HP fandom becomes.
Disgusting, even. I mean, really, it's a book. A book aimed at children,
albeit a really, really good one. Bibliomane that I am, many as are the books that
really have changed my life, even I have trouble with the idea of people seriously
fighting, nastily, over who should end up paired with whom. It's just wrong on so
many levels:

• fighting over fictional
  characters
• fighting over the romantic antics of people who are
  only fifteen and thus likely to shift pairings for quite a while
  yet
• fighting over the romantic pairings of anyone other than
  yourself
• getting more serious about fanfic than about the original
  canonical story -- well, maybe where the original is a bit week, or now closed,
  and fandom is very strong, as in Original Star Trek, but for heaven's sake,
  Rowling is still writing
• ad hominem snipes at other people
  for honest preferences

I'm sure there's more, but those are the
top ones. I should stress that I have never seen Ebony herself do any of these --
I think she writes about, reads and talks about her preferred shipping* for fun
and friendship only, with a sense of proportion, but she does often discuss the
darker side of the fandom.

*H/H -- for not fandom types, this means
she likes the idea that Harry and Hermione will end up together despite the
OBVIOUS AND CLEAR canonical evidence Hermione and Ron like each other in "that"
way. Just kidding -- I mean, I really do think JKR has thrown out unmistakeable
hints about R & H, but as I said (and as Ebony has pointed out) they're only 14 in
the fourth book and a crush now doesn't preclude any future entanglements.

Posted by dichroic at June 6, 2003 01:57 PM