[ SECRET POST #3210 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3210 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 045 secrets from Secret Submission Post #459.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I understand the people that are complaining. (Though I disagree how rude some of them are.)

If you read a book you want to interpret it in your own way. Nothing is more annoying than an author who wants to force an interpretation.

For example, like back in the days when she expressed surprise that some people liked Draco as a character, insiting that he was meant to be a character one was supposed to dislike. I'm sorry, but if an author has to explain such things because the book didn't suceed in getting their point across, they failed to portrait said issue. (And I'm saying that as someone who doesn't even like Draco.)

[(Anonymous)]

To me, it's a basic failure to understand how audience works. You can write whatever you want, but you can't control how other people feel about what you've written. She's not the first author to be surprised that a character takes on a life of their own in readers' minds, but honestly, it's not that rare a phenomenon.

[(Anonymous)]

It's not a rare phenomena but an annoying one. The usual reader will only read the book and will not be interested in anything the author has to say. There will be no interest to read interviews or twitter or anything else. The book stands there on its own and if it doesn't get the intended message across the author has failed.

[(Anonymous)]

She's not surprised. She welcome fan interpretation. It's some of the fans (those who complain that she's still around) who are "surprised."

[(Anonymous)]

Then you'll have to argue with the nonny who said: "...like back in the days when she expressed surprise that some people liked Draco as a character..."

[(Anonymous)]

She was surprised because it wasn't what she intended. She wasn't, as far as I remember, telling her fans to stop liking him -- which is the difference.

[(Anonymous)]

insiting that he was meant to be a character one was supposed to dislike. I'm sorry, but if an author has to explain such things because the book didn't suceed in getting their point across, they failed to portrait said issue.

Except she didn't fail. Draco was pretty clearly and unequivocally a cruel, weak person. Everything in the books makes that clear. Rowling, being older and wiser than most of the Draco fans, was giving them the "He's not misunderstood, he's just an arsehole, and good girls don't turn bad boys good" talk.

The desire to depart wisdom, parent-style, to people who A) aren't your children, and B) just don't want to hear it, is a bit of a foible in itself. But to claim that she failed to portray Draco as a weak, cruel person is, imo, patently untrue.

However, I don't entirely disagree with your point. I have seen writers portray something badly and then argue that everyone was interpreting it wrong.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I think people confuse Draco with Spike, personally.

He isn't. He's more of an Andrew.

[ketita]

I think part of what happened with Draco was momentum. He started out as more of a potential "rival" type for Harry, or nemesis, and could definitely have been redeemed. I know that I kind of liked him in the earlier books, though I was never crazy about him, and by the later books he really was a git (though still, some part of me wishes he had ended up the Good Slytherin or something). But I can see how for people who started off liking him in the first few books, and had several years of steam behind them, might not have quite made the turnaround to recognizing what his character ended up being.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

This is a good point.

Regardless of the reason, though, I still find it annoying when people refuse to make a distinction between their headcanon and actual canon - mainly because it tends to effect how those people interact in fandom. With the fandom I'm in right now, I've gotten to the point where I don't even like the canon anymore, yet I stay because I still really love my headcanon for the story. So I get what it's like to have a story go in a completely different direction to the one you desperately want it to go in. But when the response to that schism between what you want and what the story is giving you is to refuse to acknowledge that there is a schism...I just can't get with that. It's...weird? Like, I'm trying not to use judgey language here, but I really don't know how to not call it deluded.

[ketita]

I get your frustration. In my fandom now I see a similar thing - some people are so invested in a relationship between two characters (and Word of God that one character trusts the other 'more than anybody else') that they automatically interpret basically every occurrence between them as a beautiful expression of deep trust, no matter how little sense it makes. In my personal opinion, these two characters' relationship is a lot more complicated and loaded than these people want it to be, but they can't see it.

So not justifying the treatment, just explaining it...

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly. Draco is weak, a bully, bigoted, jealous and petty--this is all clearly depicted by his words and actions in the series. The Draco fans who are angry at JKR for stating this openly--and insist she doesn't know Snape or Draco, that they somehow discern their true qualities--are utterly, utterly ludicrous, not least because it is CLEARLY because these fans find these guys attractive--and for no other reason--that they overlook their flaws. I can sort of excuse the Draco fans who tend to be young and stupid, but less so the rabid Snape fans, who are generally adults and really should know better.

Look, I find Lucius hot as hell. But I don't kid myself that he's some kind of misunderstood emo brooding loner who wants to do the right thing. He doesn't. He's a bigot and likely a murderer (certainly an accessory to such). I can excuse it by saying my head-Lucius is a fantasy and meant to stay solely in my head, but I would never argue with the woman who invested him that I somehow know him better, nor would I argue that he's somehow better than he is.

[(Anonymous)]

"If you read a book you want to interpret it in your own way. Nothing is more annoying than an author who wants to force an interpretation. "

*rolls eyes*

I don't think answering questions about one's own characters is automatically forcing anything. If they're just saying "this is what the character would grow up to do" if it's their character, that's they're right.

Unless they're saying people can't think or write anything else every time they say something, they're not. IIRC JK Rowling has even said that she thinks some alternate interpretations (black Hermione for example) are cool.

She expressed surprise that people are fawning over her rude racist bully character, and stated that he was a jerk and not 'a misunderstood loner'. There is interpreting a character a different way based on what's in the text. And then there's turning the character into something completely different than what's shown.

The fact that you describe an author stating things about their characters as 'forcing an interpretation says more about you than it does her tbh. An author is going to state things about their character and what happens to them post story. That's not forcing you to do anything.