[ SECRET POST #1705 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1705 ⌋


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


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 10 pages, 241 secrets from Secret Submission Post #244.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 2 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 1 2 3 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 3 4 5 - too big ], [ 0 - repeats ]
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom.livejournal.com]

31. http://i52.tinypic.com/4ufew6.jpg

[helenadax.livejournal.com]

If I'm reading a book and I get the feeling that the author is trying too hard to make me dislike a character, it usually has the opposite effect.

[(Anonymous)]

yeah, JK had basically made her heroes a bit unlikable, and one of her unlikable characters a bit to fan-friendly. So instead of actually making her heroes better people, she set out to make them look good by making everyone around them as shitty as she could and failed. Draco ended up as the loveable butt-monkey, Team Rocket, underdog guy instead.

[(Anonymous)]

did we read the same books or do you just read too many fanfics?

[helenadax.livejournal.com]

I know people outside the fandom who don't like Harry.

[(Anonymous)]

i don't understand those people tbh. how can you continue reading the harry potter series when you don't like or even hate harry?

[helenadax.livejournal.com]

He always reminds me of Wile E. Coyote. Until sixth book, nothing really affected him. He attacked Harry, he was humiliated, and some time later he tried it again. He never learnt, he never thought about giving up, he never had a nice moment. He was like a robot who stayed in stand-by until the moment to attack Harry and make a fool of himself again.

And yeah, if you have to make your non-heroes characters act like complete fools all the time in order to make your heroes more awesome... I just can't respect that choice. That's why I never was impressed by Death Eaters, they were a bunch of morons. I find the dementors more frightening.

[(Anonymous)]

I thought it showed character, Draco got knocked down all the freakin' time and he got straight back up again. Just not prepared to quit...sounds like a Gryffindor trait rather than anything else (well according to the hat anyway, according to what JK wrote getting knocked down then going and sulking until you absolutely must do something is the real Gryffindor trait). Rather endearing its own way.

[(Anonymous)]

Nuh-uh. Gryf's house trait was making snide bitchy comments about people they didn't like and trying to humiliate them in pranks or in groups, or in groups of prankers, rather than saying anything to their face. Just like harry, Ron, Harry's Dad, Harry's Dad's friends, Ron's brother's, Ron's dad, Dumbledore. Jeez the list of Gryf dicks goes on.

[helenadax.livejournal.com]

Oh, of course, it's the way I interpret that when I'm writing fics, but I don't think it was meant to be a good trait.

[(Anonymous)]

one of her unlikable characters a bit to fan-friendly

Draco isn't especially fan-friendly, though. I'm not saying it's impossible to like him, he is an interesting character, but he's portrayed in a very similar way to Dudley in canon. Leather-pants!Draco, on the other hand, is fan-friendly, probably because he was created by fans. His woobieness and hawt-factor were ranked up to eleven - when I first got into fandom and read Draco-fic, the character I found myself reading was nothing like the one from canon. I tended to picture Spike from Buffy, in all honesty, even before the leather-pants nickname took off.

Draco ended up as the loveable butt-monkey, Team Rocket, underdog guy instead

Again, this statement feels like it's applied to fanon!Draco, not the character from canon. If anyone got loveable butt-monkey status in canon, I think it would probably be Ron or Neville. It's just strange to me that fanon!Draco seems to be more prominent in people's minds then canon!Draco now. If I tried to keep a picture of fanon!Draco in my head as I was rereading the books, canon!Draco would appear to be OOC all the time because the two are nothing alike. Although, maybe that's why there are so many comments out there saying JKR got Draco "wrong"....

[(Anonymous)]

It's the woobie-fication that drives me up the wall. We can acknowledge that Draco grew up in an environment where maliciousness is encouraged, thus not making him fully responsible in the way he turned out. But let's not make him out better than he actually was. There were others around him who had set up a better example and he still managed to act like a twit towards people because it suited him to degrade others.

Yes, Draco got his redemptive arc. But it doesn't erase all the horrible things he did to people before that. He also didn't try do very much to make up for the shit he did before either (minimal effort), although I'm glad doesn't seem to be stirring up shit anymore.

[(Anonymous)]

We're meant to feel a little sorry for him by the end of the series. I think most people acknowledge that, whether you like him or not. But I agree he's not totally innocent.

[arostine.livejournal.com]

In most TV shows/books/whatever, I usually find the villains to be the most interesting characters. That said, it irritates me to no end when people try to claim that they're not actually villains, but tragic misunderstood Byronic heroes or whatever. It always kind of seems like they're missing the point of the purpose that character served in canon.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree. I think Draco is a good character, and was pretty irritated he was downgraded from the guy Harry didn't get along with from the comedic relief in the films and the books(seriously, he went from, "I can help you become a great wizard Harry...oh wait, you're friends with a Weasley hope you die like your parents/I hope that Mudblood Granger gets murdered by the heir of Slytherin" in the first two to "Here I am...saying douchey things when Harry and his friends are upset, oh no got my comeuppance via hilarity" in third, fourth, and fifth, and an underwritten role in the sixth...seventh...*sigh*), but yeah....I don't get why people get all "Draco was sooooooooo much better than Harry! HE should be more powerful than Harry." Or just wanting to state that Draco was perfect and he had no faults. All the HP characters had major faults, that's what made them so interesting.

[(Anonymous)]

So agree.

[ariseishirou.livejournal.com]

Never read the HP books or watched the movies, but the fandom is pretty much inescapable, and what I've heard described as his failings are pretty much 100% bad parenting, so I can kinda see it.

If after going off to college/work and at the age of 30 he still acts the same way he's an irredeemable douche, but otherwise...

[checkerblob.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this is pretty much exactly how I feel about Draco too at this point, minus the "one of my favorite characters" bit. For a while I hated him with a passion, but then I realized that was more of a reaction to his god-status amongst the fans than the character himself.
It always interested me, though, that Draco is so loved, and Dudley is so hated, when they're nearly the same character. I mean, I understand Draco getting *more* love, since he's a much more central character, who's much more important to the plot, but to love Draco and HATE Dudley? It's really nice how being fat makes characters so completely unlovable in fandom's eyes. And I think that's sort of what happened to Neville, too.
Oh, and don't get me started on the Pansy-hate.

(This realization actually made me kind of like Dudley, for the same reasons the fans tend to love Draco, while I'm still very much "meh" about Draco and still sort of annoyed with his popularity, which probably makes me a bit of a hipster :/ I didn't care all that much about Draco's heel/face turn but Dudley's "I don't think you're a waste of space" made me squee a little.)

[(Anonymous)]

I think part of the Dudley hate is, yes, he's fat and mean and fat hate plays a role in it but also, he's picked on Harry and played a part in Harry's abuse all of Harry's life up until Hogwarts. I may be wrong, I've not been in HP fandom in years but I don't think any of the Dursley's are very beloved by fandom unless they're using them as abusive monsters. With Draco, he's not played a significant role in Harry's life as an abusive monster like Dudley......Harry can get away from him and fight back against Draco unlike the Dursley house where he'd get in major trouble, deprived of food, etc.....it a more equal relationship even if the Draco/Harry are essentially the same personality.....

[asimaiyat.livejournal.com]

Wait, what happened to Neville? (I love the books and movies and am not really in the fandom, and I kind of assumed that everyone adored Neville.)

[(Anonymous)]

He was COMPLETELY pitied/seen as the chubby annoying friend for so long. It wasn't until the end of the seventh book did people go, "OMG Neville's pretty cool!"

[checkerblob.livejournal.com]

lol, this comment I wish I read this comment before posting my long-ass comment- yeah, pretty much this, he gets more pity than admiration until Deathly Hallows.

[checkerblob.livejournal.com]

Oh, well, Neville's an interesting case.Over the course of my involvement in fandom, I've found about four - four in a fandom of about one or two bajillion- people who don't like him. It's not that he's hated at all. It's more that he's just neglected and overlooked in fics and discussions, and definitely in shipping. Neville's not *~sexy~* like hero-Harry or bad boy-Draco or even cute-funny-Ron. Harry/Hermione, Ron/Hermione and Draco/Hermione are all immensly popular ships, but Neville/Hermione, even though they were each other's first friends, even though he's freaking canonically ASKED HER OUT, has, say, about five shippers, myself included. But when you bring Neville/Hermione up, people always say "Oh, wow, I ship Ronmione/Harmony/Dramione like crazy but this is sooo cute!" and when you bring up Neville people always say "Oh, Neville! I love him!" so it's not like he's hated, he's just ignored. His popularity *has* skyrocketed recently due to a)his crowning moment of awesome in DH and b)Matthew Lewis's general sexyfine-ness, but before he was hot, everyone basically ignored him. Even though Draco was described as "rat-faced" or something, that's still not as inherently unsexy as the horrible, unforgivable fandom act of being fat (and his chubbiness is only really hinted at in the books, Dudley's described as being as wide as he is tall or something, so of imagine how completely ignored he is.) (Then again, Dudley's a horrible person and Neville's a wonderful person).

Basically, you're not wrong at all about people liking him, they just don't take him as seriously as the other male characters. Then again, take this whole rant with a big grain of salt- Neville's my favorite character ever, pretty much, so he can never get enough love as far as I'm concerned (although, I kind of like his unpopularity- adds to his underdogness.) (God, I really am becoming a hipster.)

[ivysaur.livejournal.com]

ITA that fandom treats Neville differently due to his weight. And YES, I'm glad that someone else has noticed that Neville/Hermione doesn't get enough love. I strongly prefer Neville/Luna (I squeed when it was implied in the movies) and Ron/Hermione, but Neville/Hermione is one of the few fanon Hermione pairings I can ship - and tbh, I've had serious issues with D/Hr that I'm not going to get into, because that could take a while.

Admittedly, I could never get into Sarah Rees-Brennan's writing because of her views on Neville and Draco, and actually using Draco's popularity vs. Neville's unpopularity as a valid reason for why she thought Draco was better than Neville.

[addisongrey.livejournal.com]

I always (usually) go for the main character in stories and originally I probably liked Harry best but fanfic came and I liked Draco best. Blah blah fanon doesn't equal canon whateves but my perceptions been skewed and I'm cool with that. Plus Tom Felton is hot. ;)