Fan Snobbery or Righteous Annoyance?
Sep. 12th, 2007 09:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
author_by_nightSo I've been thinking about how I feel about most of Jo's chats/interviews/appearances being catered for her eight year old fans, when IMO there's no way they actually understood TDH.
And wondering how reasonable it is.
And wondering how reasonable it is.
I guess I just have mixed feelings.
On one hand, I do get annoyed when she has all these chats, and it's so clear the majority of the kids get the very basics only, and that many of them probably have the books read to them. And when I think about The Deathly Hallows - in what way was a book where a House Elf is stabbed to death, a witch is called a bitch and some guy goes around eating kids a book for eight year olds? I love Harry Potter, but geez, if I were a Mom I'd make my kids wait until they were at least in sixth grade before reading that!
And I see these chats, interviews, etc, and find myself annoyed, because they'll upstage the good questions with questions like "what Harry Potter character do you most relate to" (you'd think Mummy would realize that might have already been asked and suggest thinking of better questions), "why was Ron so angry" (um, re-read the book), and so on.
OTOH, I feel a bit bad, because then I realize that:
1. Not all people have links to Madame Scoop's so they can check what has been asked.
2. If a kid thinks they're a fan, they think they're a fan, and they don't need to be informed that they don't really understand the books they love by JKR just not giving them opportunities anymore.
And it's not just the kids - adults ask pretty irritating questions too. And I guess to a fan who knows the names of characters we've never really met, anyone not necessarily remembering every fact about Sirius's family is going to come across as annoying. Which is actually quite unfair to those fans, because how can they be expected to, if they haven't re-read ten times and/or visited the Lexicon twice a month like the crazies?
Maybe the problem is that Jo needs to try and do more interviews for older, and/or more devoted fans. The Memerson chat was really nice, because Melissa Anelli and Emerson Spartz are crazies (heck, as admins of huge HP sites they're almost the Fruits of the Crazies), and they asked questions that mattered to fans - crazies and moderate. So maybe Jo needs to seek out more like that. I'm hoping her middle and high school chats will offer some opportunities, at least.
And to be fair, not all kid fans are non-readers. for the reading thing I did for work, one of the kids read PoA; he noticed something many Harry Potter fans fail to, regarding the characterization of a character. (I'm not going to elaborate further in order to avoid drama.)
Um.. yeah. So that's my rant/meta. Any thoughts from you guys?
On one hand, I do get annoyed when she has all these chats, and it's so clear the majority of the kids get the very basics only, and that many of them probably have the books read to them. And when I think about The Deathly Hallows - in what way was a book where a House Elf is stabbed to death, a witch is called a bitch and some guy goes around eating kids a book for eight year olds? I love Harry Potter, but geez, if I were a Mom I'd make my kids wait until they were at least in sixth grade before reading that!
And I see these chats, interviews, etc, and find myself annoyed, because they'll upstage the good questions with questions like "what Harry Potter character do you most relate to" (you'd think Mummy would realize that might have already been asked and suggest thinking of better questions), "why was Ron so angry" (um, re-read the book), and so on.
OTOH, I feel a bit bad, because then I realize that:
1. Not all people have links to Madame Scoop's so they can check what has been asked.
2. If a kid thinks they're a fan, they think they're a fan, and they don't need to be informed that they don't really understand the books they love by JKR just not giving them opportunities anymore.
And it's not just the kids - adults ask pretty irritating questions too. And I guess to a fan who knows the names of characters we've never really met, anyone not necessarily remembering every fact about Sirius's family is going to come across as annoying. Which is actually quite unfair to those fans, because how can they be expected to, if they haven't re-read ten times and/or visited the Lexicon twice a month like the crazies?
Maybe the problem is that Jo needs to try and do more interviews for older, and/or more devoted fans. The Memerson chat was really nice, because Melissa Anelli and Emerson Spartz are crazies (heck, as admins of huge HP sites they're almost the Fruits of the Crazies), and they asked questions that mattered to fans - crazies and moderate. So maybe Jo needs to seek out more like that. I'm hoping her middle and high school chats will offer some opportunities, at least.
And to be fair, not all kid fans are non-readers. for the reading thing I did for work, one of the kids read PoA; he noticed something many Harry Potter fans fail to, regarding the characterization of a character. (I'm not going to elaborate further in order to avoid drama.)
Um.. yeah. So that's my rant/meta. Any thoughts from you guys?
