author_by_night | The Beginning

~~When Edward Cullen died...~~

Wait, sorry, same actor, different fandom.

So as you might have seen, I've been reading the fourth Harry Potter book (Goblet of Fire), though my recaps have mostly been in the form of drabbles and ficlets (even though I'm way behind drabble/ficlet wise, given that I have about ten pages left of GoF).

Now, in the past I've wondered why the HP fandom took off the way it did. I've listed a number of possible factors - timing (it was the AOL/AIM/Yahoo IM/messageboard/everything else ~~techie~~ tekky), similar fandoms co-inhabiting "cyberspace" as we called it, and so on.

But... as GoF comes to a close, I've realized something else: JKR left every single one of her fans on a ledge.

We all know what happens next: She traumatizes and/or kills off all of our favorite characters one by one. ;) At the time, however? We had no bloody clue what was going to happen. I don't really remember my exact thought process back in 2000 when I read the book, but I do remember having a million thoughts. They could be summed up as follows: Who - what - where - when - WHAT JUST HAPPENED? And what's going to happen now?!

JKR isn't the inventor of the cliffhanger, obviously, but by then the books were begnning to get pretty popular. So her already crazy obsessed fans (some of whom had already written fanfic - apparently there's pre-Prisoner of Azkaban fic out there*) scrambled frantically, trying to figure out WTF (or, for the younger fans, "what the gosh darn heck golly") the future held.

We had to wait three years to find out.

I really think this made a difference. I think how GoF ended, and how long it took for the next book to come out, made a huge impact. We had a crisis to work with, time to work with it.

As for GoF itself... I really think it's an overlooked book. It's kind of the "meh" of fandom - but it's really where the stage was set. I'll get to that in my general review later, though.

*Which I'd love to read, by the way, so if anyone has links or general ideas as to where they might be found...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I wasn't in fandom during that 3 year period but sometimes I really wish I was! Also, I am glad I wasn't because I'm sure I would have let my shipping desires/headcanon/fanon desires shape my impression of the subsequent books. Now I just appreciate canon for how it was handed to me, but I think there is something about being part of transformative work culture that makes us feel more indignant when things in canon don't unfold the way we would have liked to see them as fans.

I will say the fifth book was a shock to a lot of fans, myself included, because of that. I know when I read HBP and DH I really created a sort of filter, because I didn't want to be disappointed all over again. I mean, there's things I don't like about all seven books, nothing's going to strike anyone's fancy 100%, but there's a difference between critical feelings and fannish feelings.

The Beginning

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