OOTP, Harry/Draco, the Damnation of Slytherin, and the right of fans to be upset.
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| Title: | OOTP, Harry/Draco, the Damnation of Slytherin, and the right of fans to be upset. |
| Creator: | Aja |
| Date(s): | June 25, 2003 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Harry Potter |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | OOTP, Harry/Draco, the Damnation of Slytherin, and the right of fans to be upset. |
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OOTP, Harry/Draco, the Damnation of Slytherin, and the right of fans to be upset. is a 2003 essay by Aja.
It is part of a 2002-04 series of essays. See About Writing.
Some Topics Discussed
- the rights of fans, the power and subversiveness of fanfiction
- shipping a pairing that will never be canon
- feeling hurt when an author doesn't allow a character to "grow"
- authorial intent
Introduction
I have to say something. it is not exactly pretty, but i have to get it off my chest, and i firmly believe that true fans have just as much right to be upset or critical about something they love than anybody else who never loved it to begin with. this mostly concerns h/d and ootp and especially draco, but i just had to say that as a disclaimer, because there is much bitterness contained within.
Excerpts
I don't understand why people are even bothering to say "H/D is dead dead dead." I don't understand why people are even bothering to say, "No, it isn't, look at all this textual evidence to the contrary!"
I hate to break it to you, all of you, but: H/D was NEVER CANON. NEVER.
What is everybody ON about?
If there was ever any any any remote smidgen of possibility that Harry and Draco were going to get together in a romantic sense in either Book 5, Book 6, or Book 7 of Harry Potter, then it's patently clear given Rowling's calculated effort to portray Draco Malfoy as a sniveling, conscientiously mean git in Order of the Phoenix, that she has changed her mind. Harry wants nothing better than to be permanently rid of the Malfoys. On whatever subconscious level Malfoy is obsessed with him in canon, it is clearly NOT intended to be seen as sexual. Rowling has gone out of her way to imbue every other major character with development and growth except Malfoy. With Draco she has gone to great lengths to impress upon us that he is meant to be a bully--nothing more or less standard.
There was never any way on earth that H/D was ever going to happen in canon. H/D in that respect has ALWAYS been dead. ALWAYS.
So why is everybody making a point of coming down on one side or the other? "Yes, it's dead!" or "No it's not, it's still alive and well!" What are you trying to prove? Because as much as any of us might want it to, H/D is NEVER going to be canon. H/D is NEVER going to be sanctioned by J.K. Rowling. At the rate she's going with her characterizations she'd be more likely to approve Harry/Snape.
I don't understand why the fact that Malfoy is staying consistently cardboard and consistently git-like should be suddenly some earth-shattering thing that has arrived to crush the hopes of H/D shippers1` everywhere. Because Malfoy hasn't changed. He's still the Malfoy all of you fell in love with. He is still the Draco who all of YOU transformed into some larger-than-life fandom badass with leather pants and a sexy-but-sweet interior. He is still the Draco all of us believed in and the Draco that we all hoped would be expanded and changed and brought forth into growth and maturity. So he hasn't been. So the fuck what?
Surely, you can say, Rowling is preparing some sort of bait-and-switch where Harry discovers the Slytherins aren't as bad as he thinks--but this is NUMBER FIVE. For FIVE books now we've had NOTHING to favor the Slytherins, nothing to indicate any kind of growth or change among any of their ranks. If Rowling can backtrack and endow Ginny with a personality OUT OF THE PURE BLUE then how hard would it have been to give even one of the Slytherins a personality other than "arrogant bullying git" in any one of these first five books?
I used to laugh at shadowomega because she once famously said that you have to love a school that has a house for innately evil children. I used to laugh at it because it was comical. But that was two books ago. And if Rowling wants to believe that an entire houseful of kids has nothing redeeming about them whatsoever, fine. Let her. If she wants to continually portray the main Slytherin leader as a clever, intelligent, supremely shallow and determinedly mean school bully who abuses his prefect powers and crumples up into a cowardly ball the moment Harry attacks him, then fine. Let her. And it that's how J.K.R. feels about Draco Malfoy then fine. Let her.
As much as I respect Ivy's post about how H/D is NOT dead, and agree with a lot of her conclusions about Draco, I think the very fact that she and Tara and others have had to say "look, H/D isn't dead, see?" supports the wrong ideas about fan fic and about the H/D ship in general.
As much as I hoped for good things for Malfoy in canon, I've given up hoping good things for him in the future. I will still read and continue to love the books even if succeeding ones confuse and disturb and frustrate me as much as Book 5 did, but I am no longer placing any kind of faith in J.K. Rowling to do him or any of the Slytherin students justice. Maybe she'll surprise me but I doubt it.
I think that people are reeling because now that Book 5 has upended so many things, Harry/Draco slash feels more subversive than ever before. But who cares? So it's subversive? ALL fan fiction is subversive, and if you're worrying that Harry/Draco is really dead now that Malfoy has spent all of Book 5 being an intolerable git and Harry has spent all of Book 5 unable to stand him, why aren't you worrying that ALL of our fan fiction is dead? Malfoy's Redemption, in regards to canon as it currently stands, is just as subversive an idea as H/D slash. So is Harry/Ginny. Draco/Ginny. Ron/Fleur. Harry/Cho. So is Reformed!Lucius or UnwillingVictim!Narcissa. So is Alive-And-Well!Sirius. So is Dead!Hagrid. SupremelyWise!Dumbledore. Loyal!Percy.
So are a whole HELL of a lot of things, but we're not going to stop writing them because we have just as MUCH right as the next fan to make of canon whatever we wish to make of it, to write about it and transform characters as much as we want to. We have *always* had that right as fan fic writers and readers. We have *always* had that right as fans of the story, to believe in and love and admire the characters we wish to, and hope for the outcome we wanted.
I will love him because I love him, and I will love him no matter how evil he becomes, no matter how cardboard he stays. I love canon Draco. I loved him well before fandom, well before fan fiction, well before I had ever even heard of Harry/Draco slash. I love him for the potential I see in him, and for what he already is. And as mad as I am about the fact that he shows no signs of living up to that potential or becoming a fully realized character, I will still love him.