One of my favorite things about HP is that there is such a huge and complex world and an even larger cast of characters. JKR has made a world so big that there's absolutely no way she can really dig into every aspect of it in canon, and she obviously can't explore even a small percentage of the plot/relationship possibilities. So she takes the main point of the story, and explores the relationships she planned on exploring, namely Harry, Voldemort and the horcruxes, and all the canon romances. Jo's focusing on her story and what's important to that, and that's clearly as it should be.
However, because there is such a fantastic world there, I (and I'm sure a lot of other people) can't help but want to play around in it a bit. This is a fandom absolutely full of great fanfic possibilities, many of which veer towards being "AU" in the sense that -though no fanfic is going to happen in canon- their very premise isn't going to happen, much less the specific events. Jo obviously isn't going to have Harry date Draco Malfoy, and I think you'd be very, very hard-pressed to find a fan who honestly believes she will. Still, how interesting is it to imagine that Harry does question his sexuality, and that maybe he and Draco find that over the years they've come to understand the other better, and then perhaps a mitigating circumstance leads them to put aside their rivalry and enemy status and to become friends or even something more?
That and a million other situations aren't ever going to happen in canon, but that doesn't mean they couldn't happen in canon. I think that, if Jo made up her mind one day to have Harry fall madly in love with Draco, she could do it and do it well. And I think that there are a lot of fanfic writers are doing just that -writing about interesting but non-canon situations in the context of Harry and his world- because Harry and the rest of the series are so fun to play around in.
I do enjoy fic that digs deeper into specific and very canon parts of the book, but honestly I enjoy things that we probably aren't going to get in canon more. We're never going to get as in depth a post war story as AtE, and that's why I love it and reread it so much. We're not going to ever see a canon way of Draco becoming friends with Harry. We aren't going to ever see how a Remus/Sirius romance might work in the group dynamic of the marauders of a whole. Jo is never going to explain to us what motivation Ginny might have for loving Draco, but that doesn't mean I don't find it endlessly fascinating, and it doesn't mean I didn't feel like someone had reached into my stomach and quickly extracted my insides when I was reading Rising from Ash.
I seriously doubt I'll ever read a fanfic more times than I've read any of the HP books, much less the series as a whole. But the thing about fanfic is that if I want to read about Harry and Hagrid's relationship, or about the twins antics, or about Molly's relationship with her family, I can go read the best fic out there -the books themselves. For me, a lot of fanfic is for the everything else.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-04-20 02:19 am (UTC)However, because there is such a fantastic world there, I (and I'm sure a lot of other people) can't help but want to play around in it a bit. This is a fandom absolutely full of great fanfic possibilities, many of which veer towards being "AU" in the sense that -though no fanfic is going to happen in canon- their very premise isn't going to happen, much less the specific events. Jo obviously isn't going to have Harry date Draco Malfoy, and I think you'd be very, very hard-pressed to find a fan who honestly believes she will. Still, how interesting is it to imagine that Harry does question his sexuality, and that maybe he and Draco find that over the years they've come to understand the other better, and then perhaps a mitigating circumstance leads them to put aside their rivalry and enemy status and to become friends or even something more?
That and a million other situations aren't ever going to happen in canon, but that doesn't mean they couldn't happen in canon. I think that, if Jo made up her mind one day to have Harry fall madly in love with Draco, she could do it and do it well. And I think that there are a lot of fanfic writers are doing just that -writing about interesting but non-canon situations in the context of Harry and his world- because Harry and the rest of the series are so fun to play around in.
I do enjoy fic that digs deeper into specific and very canon parts of the book, but honestly I enjoy things that we probably aren't going to get in canon more. We're never going to get as in depth a post war story as AtE, and that's why I love it and reread it so much. We're not going to ever see a canon way of Draco becoming friends with Harry. We aren't going to ever see how a Remus/Sirius romance might work in the group dynamic of the marauders of a whole. Jo is never going to explain to us what motivation Ginny might have for loving Draco, but that doesn't mean I don't find it endlessly fascinating, and it doesn't mean I didn't feel like someone had reached into my stomach and quickly extracted my insides when I was reading Rising from Ash.
I seriously doubt I'll ever read a fanfic more times than I've read any of the HP books, much less the series as a whole. But the thing about fanfic is that if I want to read about Harry and Hagrid's relationship, or about the twins antics, or about Molly's relationship with her family, I can go read the best fic out there -the books themselves. For me, a lot of fanfic is for the everything else.