Snowflake: Canon Love

[author_by_night]

Whether it is to fix-it, honor it, or expand upon it, canon is why we are all here. So, let's celebrate canon today and talk about our favorites. Nostalgic, new, problematic, or forever canons are all welcome to be loved, dissected, and discussed. Have a favorite scene? A much-loved character? A much-maligned character? Just love the whole thing epically? Talk about it all or as little as you want!

This is going to be multifandom. Alphabetical order. I'm going to give some brief, slightly random thoughts. Feel free to bounce off of them. Spoilers for Buffy, Harry Potter, Schitt's Creek. I also talk about Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, but no real spoilers.



Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I've realized, in listening to podcasts, how shafted Anya was. I wish she'd been the one to leave Xander at the altar. I like Xander more than most fans, but while I do think he loves Anya, I don't think he respects her as much as he should, and frankly, I know a few people in that situation IRL. It's horrible to see and Anya deserved better.

Also, unpopular opinion, but I liked Dawn. There. I said it.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Such an underrated show, and I think there's far too little in-depth dialogue about it. I really should do my own analysis. In short, I think that the feminist themes are incredibly important, as are the themes of understanding mental health issues. It's good stuff.

Firefly

A very quick thought: I love how in charge of her sexuality Inara is. Especially for a show in the early 00's. I know some people think the "space whore" thing is demeaning, but when I rewatched Firefly last spring, that's not what I took away from it.

Harry Potter

With some things happening in my country (the US), I look at the books a bit differently now. I always felt JK Rowling drew from her experience working for Amnesty International, which is why she didn't take a more nuanced approach, which is what I think much of fandom would have preferred. (Then again, I remember people talking about Buffy as an example of nuance, and I don't know, the morality on that show tends to be similarly "this is good and this is bad," IMHO. With the exception of Spike, but Harry Potter has Snape, who I see as a similar character.)

Anyway, back to what I read differently. One example is Marietta Edgecombe. I feel a lot less sympathy for her these days. I never quite felt sorry for her, but now I really see the severity of what she did. I'm still not comfortable with a teenage girl being permanently scarred, but... imagine if in the US, someone reported a classmate to ICE. I wouldn't want them permanently scarred, but you can bet I would fully support never speaking to that classmate again, nor anyone who defended their actions.

ETA: In case it needs to be said, I in no way condone JK Rowling's transphobia, nor some of the problems with the canon text. Unfortunately she turned out to be a terrible person. However, parts of her books have always resonated with me, and this one is more recent. Unfortunately.

Schitt's Creek

I was hesitant to get into Schitt's Creek, but I'm glad I did. I love that Schitt's Creek is pure comedy, while also very intelligent. Don't get me wrong, I love Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and The Good Place, but it's nice to have a show that just shows how the world could be, as opposed to how the world really is in a sometimes comedic way, sometimes a very serious and scary way. I just wish it weren't over right when we really need it.

Also, I still have no idea what country it's supposed to be in. I've finally settled for the headcanon that either Johnny or Moira is from the US, the other is from Canada, so they lived in New York but Schitt's Creek is a few hours outside Toronto. Though why Alexis wouldn't just move to Toronto... I don't know. Perhaps it's easier not to think about it too much.

Comments

[rhoda_rants]

Yes, to Marietta Edgecomb deserving what she got, but also I'm a lot less sympathetic to Cho Chang now than I was then. Her friend CLEARLY did not want to be there from the get-go. She endangered everyone by dragging her along.

Obviously this doesn't apply to the movie version, where it's heavily implied Umbridge only got information out of Cho by using Veritaserum. In fact, there are a lot of places where the movie and book canons diverge in really interesting ways.

And I liked Dawn too. :) I've talked a lot more people who like her than don't, honestly. I wonder if that opinion has gone by the wayside now?

[author_by_night]

Yeah, it's not like Marietta said "fine Cho, I will do this for you" and pretended to like it. She glared at Cho the entire time. I have a whole headcanon where Cho herself realizes this, and eventually distances herself from Marietta. In the same headcanon, I acknowledge that Cho was dealing with a lot of trauma and not... totally "home" during OoTP, either. Very similar to Harry, actually. There's actually a really interesting parallel between them where Cho's response is to be all emotional and sad, and Harry's is to be angry.

The only thing I didn't like about the movie twist is that we then never see Harry acknowledge the difference TO Cho.

I've seen some fans say that they disliked her more when they were younger, so that might have something to do with it as well. But I also wonder if it's not more that people who don't like Dawn are very strong about it, so it's not as universal of an opinion as it seems?

[jedi_of_urth]

Yeah (again, as I recall), Marietta was always presented as not that into it, never happy to be there, and therefore the weak link in the chain; which as a secret rebellion army you really shouldn't have. But, as I was discussing with someone else a couple days ago, we know so little of what happens outside Harry's POV in the books, so we don't know why she kept coming for so long, or why she eventually decided to snitch. We only have Cho's brief version of events and it doesn't explain a lot.

I'd forgotten that it was actually Cho in the movies, along with there the truth serum part came in. And both of those things definitely mean Harry should have acknowledged what really happened. In the books, since all we have is Cho's account of what someone else did, Harry's not very interested in listening to excuses; and since even he had noticed Marietta wasn't happy to be there he sort of went in assuming there was no good excuse. But he actually knows Cho, and he knows she didn't turn them in on purpose, so he should definitely acknowledge it.


I can't speak for others, but for me it's less Dawn the character (I"m mostly indifferent to her) and more what Dawn represents in terms of the story. Between the connected points on the rewrite of the show's history and her having what can at times feel like unearned importance to the story/characters. Along with I certain feeling like the show is regressing, that the Scoobies were growing up and now we're resetting to care about this kid (not all her fault; for some reason the show treats the Scoobies like they're suddenly in their upper-20s instead of barely 20, so the age difference feels greater). Like with HP though, it's been a while since I actually engaged with canon so I'm going off memory here.

[rhoda_rants]

Yeah, Cho's response is to get weepy, and Harry's is to yell. Both of which are emotional responses! It is fair that we only get to know Cho during her absolute worst year. She's got a lot going on in Year 5 and that's essentially when we were introduced to her.

Y'know, I do remember the Dawn hate seeming more prominent when it was first airing. And now I wonder if it's just that so many of us have annoying younger siblings and projected that annoyance onto Dawn when she showed up. That, plus her being a newbie, and having her presence there just not explained for the longest time.

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