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Harry Potter

This article is about the series of books. For the multifandom letterzine, see HP. For the character, see Harry Potter (character).

Name: Harry Potter
Abbreviation(s): HP, SS/PS [Harry Potter and the Sorceror's/Philosopher's Stone], CoS [Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets], PoA [Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban], GoF [Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire], OotP [Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix], HBP [Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince], DH [Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows]
Creator: Joanne K. (J. K.) Rowling (1965-)
Date(s): 1997-2007
Medium: book, film adaptations
Country of Origin: UK
External Links: Harry Potter wiki, JK Rowling's site
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Contents

Harry Potter, the seven-book series written by J. K. Rowling, tells the story of Harry Potter, a young orphan marked by fate to fight the evil wizard Lord Voldemort.

Harry Potter has also been adapted into movies by Warner Bros. The first six films were released between 2001 and 2009. The final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was made into two films and released in November 2010 and July 2011.

See also Timeline of Harry Potter Fandom.

The Harry Potter Phenomenon

Harry Potter was a massively popular series which touched even people who aren't active in fandom.

The thing about Harry Potter is that, honestly, no matter what anyone would like to say or argue about the writing quality, the popularity, the way she kind of can't help but fuck with her fans a little (which I personally love, by the way), etc., the one fact remains that the books do something.
When you go to see a movie in the theater, half the fun is sitting in with a bunch of strangers experiencing the film together. Usually it's for the first time. It's almost like a religious experience at times.
Books aren't like that. They're solitary. They're private. These are two different approaches to worship, if you will.
But Harry Potter makes the private occasionally public. This is what I find truly awesome. [1]

The Fandom

The Harry Potter fandom presence online is massive; for example, on FanFiction.Net it has more posted works than any other fandom. Het, slash and gen are all popular, although femslash is less common. J.K. Rowling is supportive of fan activities; she has given her blessing for fanfiction[2] and gives awards for her favorite fansites [3].

Fandom has embraced myriad forms of fan activities, such as fanfiction, fanart, fanvids, conventions, podcasts, cosplay, knitting, wizard rock, discussion forums, etc. While the canon was still open, speculating about future plot developments was also widely popular. Hot topics included which ships were going to happen in canon (Harry/Hermione vs. Ron/Hermione) and whether Severus Snape was loyal to Lord Voldemort, Albus Dumbledore, or just himself[4]. During the long wait for the next novel, some theories became quite fanciful.

Indeed, the fandom is so large and diversified that fans in one corner may have no idea what is happening in another corner. This balkanization is often deliberate.

Anime/Manga Fandom vs. Media Fandom

It has been suggested that a large number of Harry Potter fans got into fanfiction, fanart, and even fandom in general through anime and manga fandoms rather than through Western media fandoms. This is hypothesized to have had a stylistic effect on fanworks and contributed to a lower overall age than in some other Western fandoms. It has also been suggested that Harry Potter fandom has an unusually high proportion of fans who have never been in a fandom before, i.e. was a threshold fandom.

Shipping, Slashing, and Arguing about Canon

With such a large cast of characters, HP also has a large number of potential pairings to ship. Many ships are popular enough to have multiples archives, fests, or Livejournal communities devoted to them; some ships have so much fannish infrastructure and so little crossover with other ships that in practice they act as separate fandoms.

Shipwars and debates over which pairings count as canon are common in many fandoms; however, Harry Potter fandom is particularly notable for the large proportion of fans who supported pairings as canon that were later proven not to be. These included Harry/Hermione (see also Harmonians) and Remus/Sirius, among others. The latter is especially unusual for being a same-sex pairing.

See also List of Harry Potter Pairing Names.

Fanfiction

HP fanfic is incredibly diverse and can be classified by character generation or time period, as well as by gen, het, or slash. There are stories about Harry's parents' generation at school or during the first war with Voldemort, the survivors of the war, Harry and his peers at school, Harry and his peers as adults, and the next generation of characters who are briefly mentioned in the epilogue of the seventh novel. Still older generations have been explored in stories: Dumbledore, Voldemort, Grindlewald, and some of the Hogwarts teachers. Founders Fic plays with the original Hogwarts founders (Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin), who were alive during the Middle Ages. Finally, cross-generational ship fic, as well as not so shippy fic, is popular.

HP fanfic can also be sorted[5] by the era in which it was written. Before the seventh book was published and canon closed, the period following the publishing of each new book represented a new wave of fanfic with new genres, tropes, and canon interpretation. The three-year summer between the fourth and fifth book saw a vast increase in the size of HP fandom and, consequently, its creative output. Starting with the fifth book, major recurring characters died in each subsequent book, forcing fans of those characters to decide whether to write canon-compliant stories, bring the character back to life, or simply ignore canon.

Given the time span covered in the books, HP "futurefic" is relative. Many stories were written about the second war with Voldemort before it took place in canon. A large body of work featuring aged-up versions of Harry and his peers appeared long before the final book was published, but the epilogue, which showed Harry at age 36, jossed most of these. A story written in 2005 about Harry and Draco raising a kid[6] is very different from a story written in 2007 about Harry and Draco's canonical children[7].

More information about het and slash stories can be found in the articles on specific pairings.

Little Black Dresses

Various characters have been described as the HP fandom Little Black Dress, including Severus Snape, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and others.

Tropes & Subgenres

Fannish tropes and genres of all kinds can be found in HP fanfic, but the following exist only in HP:

Fanzines

Harry Potter fan fiction appeared mainly in the form on online fan fiction. Based on the timing of the books and movies (post-Internet) as well as the fact that JK Rowling was protective of her intellectual property, printed fanzines were not the norm. However a small number of fanzines - gen, het and slash, were printed. In addition to traditional fanzines, Harry Potter also created a small but thriving amount of doujinshi 'fanzines' in both English and Japanese. The presence of a large number of anime and manga fans most likely also contributed to the wider acceptance of doujinshi fanzines.

For a list of Harry Potter fanzines on Fanlore, see: List of Harry Potter Fanzines.

Fan Art

Main article: Harry Potter Art

Individual HP fanart is often located on DeviantArt, where there are many groups dedicated to characters and ships (for example, the Draco x Ginny Club, or the Ron/Pansy Club), though some people prefer LJ and its ilk. There are also a number of individual websites and blogs, hosted privately by fan-artists (such as GoldSeven, which features the art of Jenny Dolfen). Many fansites and archives also have fanart galleries, such as MuggleNet and FictionAlley.

Communities

Mailing Lists

Harry Potter fandom had a significant presence on yahoo groups but, like other fandoms, was affected by the removal of adult groups from the yahoo groups search directory in 2001. Many groups dwindled or were deleted after the majority of their members moved to livejournal.

Some significant lists, past and present, include:

On LiveJournal

By the end of 2002, many Harry Potter fans had migrated to Livejournal. Many of the older HP LJ communities first saw significant traffic in early 2003.

Strikethrough

When LiveJournal began deleting journals and communities that featured underage sex in 2007 a number of Harry Potter communities were affected as well, such as the popular Pornish Pixies. As a result a portion of the Harry Potter fandom (especially Harry/Snape fans) moved to other journaling platforms such as JournalFen and InsaneJournal, where they could continue their practice without fearing oppression from corporate entities.

The main Harry/Snape fest Snarry Games moved to InsaneJournal for the 2008 round of the Games. Even after LiveJournal reinstated some of the deleted journals and people slowly started to move back, Snarry Games remained on IJ.

The main het Christmas exchange Smutty Claus moved the fest to JournalFen in 2007, but in 2008 Smutty Claus was back on LiveJournal.

[This spawned communities like X and Y and Z on JournalFen &c.]

[Members of Harry Potter fandom responded to the persecution by A, B, C]

Archives

See List of Harry Potter Archives.

Fan-Run Conventions (fan cons)

Fests & Exchanges

Harry Potter has had more than a hundred exchanges and fests. Some continue year after year. Some are a single event. Either way, there have been and will continue to be a huge number of Fests & Exchanges in Harry Potter fandom.

There are Big Bangs and holiday exchanges and every type of fest from Death Eaters to Gen and everything in between.

Check out the List of Harry Potter Fests & Exchanges and feel free to add whatever fests or exchanges that are missing.

Newsletters


See also Newsletter Communities.

Podcasts

After podcasting took off in 2005 [?needs citation], HP fen were quick to jump on the bandwagon. Here are a selection of HP podcasts, past and present:

In April 2007, a fan posted a list of 77 Harry Potter podcasts that was subscribed to:

Alley Cast, By The Muggles - For the Muggles, Dumbledore's Army Podcast, Dumbledores Studies, Dumbledores Army, dvmbcast, Emma Watson Empire Podcast, EnchantedCast, Fangirlin - Official Podcast of TheFangirls.com, Felixcast, FictionCast - Your number one source for HP Fan Fiction Podcasting!, FilkCast: Potter Style, FlooCast: Harry Potter Podcast, Harry Pony!, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter News Podcast, Harry Potter Prognostications, Harry Potter Rocks, Hogwarts Confidential, Hogwarts Unity, HoverCast, hp detectives, HP Dorkcast, HP Horcast, HpCast: Harry Potter Podcasting, HPTheorems, iMuggle, iPensieve, Leaky Fan Cast, Marauding the Map, MCFCC: The MuggleCast FanChat Cast, Misti, Morsmordre, MuggleCast: Harry Potter podcasting, Overflowing Pensieves, OwlCast, PheonixCast, pheonixXcast, Potter Phreak, PotterCast: Harry Potter on the Air, PotterFicWeekly, PotterPress, Quaffle Talk, QuibbleCast, Remembrall Live - A British Harry Potter Podcast, RowlingCast, Scholastic Harry Potter Podcast, Slashcast, Snapecast, SnitchSeeker Weekly - Your weekly highlights from SnitchSeeker.com!, Speaking Harry Potter Every Week, SpellCast: The Harry Potter Fandom Podcast, Spinner's End, SpinnersCast, SquibCast, Sword of Gryffindor :: Hog's Head PubCast, The-Portkey.com On Air, The DA-Cast - For everything Potter., The Daily Prophet:Muggle Edition, The Daily Quibbler On Air, The Leaky Mug, The Podcast That Must Not Be Named!, The Potter Report, The Secrets of Harry Potter, The Sorting Hat, The Witching Hour, The WRock Club Recordings, There and Back to Hogwarts, TheSnitch.Co.Uk Pod Cast, VeelaCast, WeasleyCast, Wizard Cast: A Potter Podcast, Wizard News Radio, Wizarding Wireless: the Harry Potter series from start to finish, Wizards Wireless, and WizardCast.[8]

Notes

  1. ↑ Great moments are always best with pretty girls. (Accessed June 30, 2010)
  2. ↑ Rowling backs Potter fan fiction, BBC 27 May 2004. Accessed October 2008
  3. ↑ J.K. Rowling Official Site
  4. ↑ The Great Snape Debate - Borders Exclusive
  5. ↑ Sorted, get it?
  6. ↑ Snakes and Ladders by Alvira. Posted: 2005-01-24 (Accessed 4 April 2011)
  7. ↑ "Coda To An Epilogue: Twenty Years Later, Or The Kids Are All Right" by Maya, posted August 2007.
  8. ↑ HP Podcasts Which ones are you subscribed to? dated April 6, 2007; WebCite.
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