Fandom Throwback Thursday: Predictions, Reactions, and Snark, Oh My!

[author_by_night]

I'm taking part in icmezzo's Fandom Throwback Thursdays, and thought I'd post some old forum/LJ posts. Expect spoilers.

With commentary, because why not?




My Order of the Phoenix Predictions:











- Dobby did die, but in the seventh book. I love how everyone thought Hagrid was going to die, and no, he survived. It's funny though because unlike most of fandom, I actually liked Hagrid, I just... thought he was an obvious goner. In hindsight, I'm kind of glad he wasn't killed off. Yes, it sucked that certain characters were, but in terms of structure I think the trio and Hagrid basically had to survive.

- I was right that Neville would kick ass in OoTP! But I had no idea how much he'd kick ass even later.

- I really think I expected Snape to be way more sympathetic after we learned he'd been a spy for the good side all along. I like how JKR did it better, in hindsight.

- I couldn't fathom Remus would tell anyone he was too dangerous. ROTFL at the irony, considering I was a pretty hardcore R/T shipper even by then. (I was so proud of myself because it was my "one non-canon ship." Oh, self.) And possible naivete of fangirl!ABN, who got a wolf calendar because it made her/me think of Remus. And wolf windchimes on my lamp. (I still have the latter. I always forget it was originally supposed to be Remus. Now it's just... prettyful. WHY AM I ADMITTING THESE THINGS? Shutupshutupshutup...

- Umbridge was actually an interesting inversion of the Mary Sue, in a way. She assumes the persona, but it makes everyone loathe her, especially with the evil behind it.


I also found this:




According to other posts JKR did indeed say this, and that actually confirms my suspicions that one of the reasons Remus's characterization seemed so "off" in the last book was because it had been cut down. (Although I also think Remus fans - my fangirl self included - tended to intentionally overlook the darker sides of Remus's personality.) But I definitely always got the sense we were supposed to have more than we ended up getting. I wonder if that is related, though? After all, this was after the fourth book, so who knows what changed in between. It wouldn't be the first time. Look at how the seventh book was supposed to end with the word "scar."









Buffy: Teen Magazine Style

I avoided watching Buffy for years, partly because of how dumb teen magazines made the show sound (which really, is a shame). Here are some examples I posted of that a few years back:

Season 1: "And so like, a teenager totally hates vampires and kills them, and falls for this guy named Angel who isn't really much of an angel on a bad day, but hey, he's hawt stuff."

Season 2: "Angel goes way badass."

Season 3: "More vampires are killed, and Buffy starts making out with Angel again."

Season 4: "Willow is gay. Don't know what gay means? See our story on page..."

Season 5: "BUFFY DIED. But not before totally making out with Spike. Oh and she has a sister who was living in the attic the other four seasons."

Season 6: "Willow is flirting with evil, hehehe whoooo badass chick time. Oh, and Buffy's alive again. And making out with Spike again."

Season 7: "Sunnydale totally went bai bai."

Turns out there's a lot more to the show than that. I just find it amusing that the magazines made it seem very... valley girl. (And yet I watched Sabrina the Teenage Witch, which actually was valley girl after the second season... although that's also why I stopped watching it, IIRC. That, and it was more of a preteen show.)





Heroes: Season One Finale Reaction Post

I was a huge Heroes fan for the first season. Then I stopped liking the show, although I still contend the first season was some of the best TV this decade. I think between wanting to be way too many things at once, having way too many characters, wanting the Sylar fangirls to be happy, and the Writer's Strike screwing everything up, the show lost its potential. But I digress - here's my old reaction post!

Yay to NYC not exploding, though I think there's still going to be trouble in the making. They're going to have many more battles to fight.

- Nathan, in the end, does the right thing.

- Nikle and Jyde came in handy, for sure! I almost like Jessica, although I think she's still evil. But maybe it's been to protect NIki and Micah all along? (Though that still doesn't excuse a lot of things.) I never saw Nikki as having split personalities - I really believed Jessica was her dead sister and co-inhabiting her body or something.

- The Peter/Claire shipper in me just loved those HRG-Peter moments. I actually thought at one point, "Ask her if you can have her hand!" *Sigh* One of these days, I will remember that Peter is her uncle. Oh right, I loved the idea of them, if Claire had been closer to his age and not his niece. They really did have too much chemistry for comfort.

- Noah. I just told sixth_light: when HRG first told him his name, I didn't even comprehend it. I thought it was a fake name, because I've gotten so used to him having no name or being "Mr. Bennett" or "HRG." And yet, it's fitting in a odd way. Plus, I think Sandra almost says it at some point, I have to listen to that episode again. I think he was always HRG to me.

- Hiro stabbing Sylar! Not fun to watch him kill someone, but on the other hand, he had to. And yay to Ando not dying - I hope he'll be back. I bet he will; Hiro's not Hiro without Ando. I completely missed the part where we realize Sylar is still alive, somehow.

Questions:

- So what happened to Nathan and Peter? Did we just lose two characters?

- Did Niki holding Molly and Micah mean they'll take Molly in? (Aww, Molly and Micah sound so cute together. Now I want them to grow up together as brother and sister.Maybe even everything Jessica and Niki should've been. That, or grow up  shippy.) Nope, though IIRC Molly is indirectly related to Nikki's plot in season two.

- Those were huge changes from Five Years Gone. I'm sure Hiro telling Nathan he was a villian helped, but what else was it? Does this imply that even stepping into the future/past for five seconds changes it? I do think they implied that somewhere, so maybe. That, or there's still time for those things to happen.

- So how will this tie into the next season? Will they all be drawn together again by new threats? Will we see individual storylines again? I had really hoped they'd all work together, but it wasn't quite like that. Maybe that's why I loved Buffy so much - I loved the concept of one Uber Team, not just... scattered people with awesome abilities who sometimes meet up for coffee. Or to kill each other. Heroes got really confusing.





I may or may not post more later.

Comments

[arctic-comet.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I definitely thought the Remus parts in DH probably didn't come out the way they were supposed to. It makes a lot of sense if something was cut.

Another problem I always saw with his story in the last few books was that we didn't really know anything about him that Harry didn't, and there clearly was a lot Harry didn't know. His relationship with Harry was (until the infamous scene at Grimmauld Place's kitchen) rather uncomplicated because they weren't that close and in part because he was a sort of a mentor to Harry (like Dumbledore, and there was a lot Harry didn't know about him either). He never wanted Harry or the other kids to see the darker side of his personality. There probably weren't too many people who knew that part of Remus.

In POA it seems that he's sort of accepted his condition, is extremely grateful for the chance he's been given by Dumbledore but sort of expected it to end fast, like it eventually did. But that may have been a facade too, who knows. Over the course of the next books it seems to bother him more, but I'm not sure if it's because of the change in environment in general, because he falls in love or a little bit of both.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

His relationship with Harry was (until the infamous scene at Grimmauld Place's kitchen) rather uncomplicated because they weren't that close and in part because he was a sort of a mentor to Harry (like Dumbledore, and there was a lot Harry didn't know about him either).

You make a very good point! They were in the odd position of being connected in an almost familial sense, yet still really just a student and a mentor. I think in a way Harry wanted more, and so did Remus, but in DH they realize their versions of that are different, not to mention clouded by everything going on.

Ultimately I think in OoTP, both Remus and Tonks were much more optimistic - they had Sirius, they thought they were ahead of the game, and they had each other. Obviously these things don't last, and it set both of them back. I also wouldn't be surprised if the first war screwed Remus up a little. Half the Order was murdered/arrested/in hiding, so the guy essentially lost all of his friends. In PoA and OoTP he may have felt like he had enough back that he could really move past it, but after everything kept getting worse he realized he couldn't.

[linda-lupos.livejournal.com]

I guess it could also be a matter of Jo going "wait a minute, I can do some interesting stuff with this gay/HIV+ parallel character". Otherwise I think it's mainly the environment, plus Harry growing up and learning more about the wider world. Hogwarts is pretty sheltered, all things considered.

I still wonder what the books would have been like had Arthur died instead of Remus, as the original plan apparently was. Hey, Tonks and Remus could have been what James and Lily never were! They could have been The Parents Who Lived!

[arctic-comet.livejournal.com]

You make a very good point! They were in the odd position of being connected in an almost familial sense, yet still really just a student and a mentor. I think in a way Harry wanted more, and so did Remus, but in DH they realize their versions of that are different, not to mention clouded by everything going on.

Exactly. Maybe if Remus had survived the war and been able to live like a somewhat-normal person with a family, he would have had the chance to overcome some of his issues and form a closer relationship with Harry too. I have no doubt that he was pretty screwed up by the first war and all the time he spent alone between the wars, which I think had an effect on all his important relationships.

[ragnarok-08.livejournal.com]

- Umbridge was actually an interesting inversion of the Mary Sue, in a way. She assumes the persona, but it makes everyone loathe her, especially with the evil behind it.

You're so right about that.

[thekaiserchief.livejournal.com]

Neville definitely Took a Level in Badass in OoTP and DH. And to think I just saw him as a dork in the earlier books!

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

I think I saw him as primarily comic relief, I never expected him to face Death Eaters with Harry though, much less yell at Voldemort. I wonder if anyone's written his POV throughout the series? I'd read that fic.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

I definitely like to think he would have formed a bond with Harry. Same with Tonks, honestly - it's weird, OoTP seemed to be building something up there. I still think Tonks should've been introduced in PoA or GoF.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

Ahh, good point about the HIV parallel.

I wonder what the books would have been like if they'd killed off Arthur too. It probably would've changed some things completely, honestly - Ron wouldn't be the same after something like that. None of them would, especially Molly. At the same time, it would be a way for Ron to relate to Harry... unless JKR just stuck it at the end. :/

[arctic-comet.livejournal.com]

Yeah, she always seemed to like Harry a lot, more so than their interactions in the books would've necessarily justified. It was a little strange, but it's something I filed under "she was just like that" and "Remus talked about Harry a lot" :D The scenes where Harry implies he doesn't trust Tonks not to screw things up (like with his nose in HBP) are really sad IMO. She wouldn't even have made Auror and I doubt Moody would've agreed to teach her if she was as incompetent as Harry seemed to think at times. I wish Harry had really had the opportunity to realize that there was a lot more to her than what he saw.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

... damn you, you've given me fic ideas.

But yeah, I see what you're saying. Of course it's reversed at times - Harry tries to reach out to her in HBP, but she's going through a meltdown and being really distant. When Mundungus has been selling Sirius's things, her reaction is basically "yeah okay that sucks, I guess." Now, my interpretation of Tonks is that she - much like Remus - is one to downplay her feelings, which got her in trouble in the first place, but of course Harry doesn't realize that. :/ But you're also right that he underestimates her. (And also, she was trying to keep Harry out of trouble.)

I think Tonks definitely felt connected to Harry. That "I bet you wish you could hide your scar" line sounded like it had a double meaning there somewhere. Maybe JKR will write a backstory on her that elaborates on Tonks a bit?

[arctic-comet.livejournal.com]

Haha, well, if you ever put them on paper, I look forward to reading them ;D

Yeah, that's true too. She wasn't necessarily a person who easily let others know about her feelings directly, especially the less positive ones.

Maybe JKR will write a backstory on her that elaborates on Tonks a bit?

I wish!