Epilogue? What Epilogue?
| Tropes and genres | |
|---|---|
| Synonym(s) | EWE, HP: EWE |
| Related tropes/genres | AU, denialfic |
| See also | PWP, fix-it |
| Related articles on Fanlore. | |
The phrase "Epilogue? What Epilogue?", commonly abbreviated EWE, is used to describe Harry Potter fanfiction that ignores the epilogue of book 7. It is derived from the term Plot? What Plot?.
The dislike of the epilogue to Harry Potter may be said to stem from the fact that it bears an uncanny resemblance to a common genre of badfic: the post-Hogwarts fic done wrong. Clam Chowder's parody of the genre, written well before the final book came out, illustrates why fans were so put out: "PEOPLE are MILLING about. It is roughly TWENTY years since the END of the SERIES. Absolutely NOTHING has changed ANYWHERE." Harry's children are named James and Lily, Draco has "given all of [his] children weird, incomprehensible Latin names," and "~ To COMPLETE the ENEMBLE [sic] - a GARGANTUAN CLUSTER of WEASLEYS arrive -." Lupin, speaking for the author, says, "How is it that you all had children at the exact same time?"[1]
EWE is a particularly popular genre among fans whose ships were jossed by the epilogue, or those who dislike it for other reasons. Many fans don't consider EWE fics to be AUs.
EWE fic can be written by fans who don't dislike canon, but want to write ship fic for non-canon pairings.[2]
Example Fanworks
| Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples. |
- There are over sixteen thousand fanworks in the "Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue EWE" tag on Archive of Our Own, the vast majority of which are works focusing on Drarry or Dramione. The concept of EWE in those pairings is so prevalent that creators often don't use the AO3 tag as it's taken for granted that a Drarry or Dramione work is not Epilogue-Compliant.
- Blood and Fire by lq_traintracks Drarry, getting back together. Harry has spent twelve years working in Romania with dragons.
- Nearly Lost Things, Carefully Tended by SquadOfCats. Drarry. Harry is a layabout, Draco is an antique appraiser.
- dirtynumbangelboy by magpie_fngrl Drarry, fake dating. Harry is an Auror and Draco secretly studies at Kent Uni.
- Professor Potter and his Magical Menagerie by dracogotgame. Drarry. Both Harry and Draco are Professors at Hogwarts.
- Amateur Cartography by worksofstone. Dramione.
- Searching for "EWE" on FanFiction.Net in the Harry Potter fandom produces 2,169 results.
Epilogue Meta
- untitled Tumblr meta by inksplattersandearlyhours (16 September 2014)[3]
References
- ^ The Ultimate Harry Potter Cliché Collection, Chapter 11, Clam Chowder. Written 6 Jan 2005. Accessed 12 Feb 2009.
- ^ comment by JAGNikJen, May 2014
- ^ archived. 148,050 notes as of 2 January 2016. This meta was so widely reblogged that a year after it was posted an FFA anon felt the need to explain why they hated it in a thread about a completely different fandom: God, I fucking hate that tumblr meta about Millennials hating the epilogue because we're all depressed failures living in a stagnating economy. It's simplistic and ahistorical. (DH7 came out a year before the market crash, for one.) 2015-12-31