"That’s why we need to disarm the idea that JK’s personal canon is the be all end all of interpretation."
К счастью или к сожалению мне довелось впервые читать серию книг про Гарри Поттера в нынешнем возрасте. Я никогда особо не была в фандоме и все фильмы смотрела в пол глаза. А последние части я в кинотеатре смотрела просто как один из фантастических сказочных фильмов. Для меня вселенная ГП никогда не имела особого значения. Теперь, когда я на 4ой книге, то могу себе представить восторг, который испытывали подростки, когда появлялись новые книги. Могу представить как с каждым годом рос фандом. Никто не знал, чем закончатся приключения чудо-мальчика и наверняка было множество теорий и догадок относительно всех загадок в книгах. И теперь я могу понять нетерпение и удивление моих друзей, которые узнавали, что не читала ни одной книги.
С другой стороны, мне нравится, что я читаю их сейчас со взрослой перспективы. У меня нет того переосмысления, которое происходит с ГП фантами, которые стали на много взрослее. Что-то в их памяти законсервировалось как факт и не желает быть переосмысленным, что-то на данным момент вызывает шок, что тогда казалось отличным пейрингом. Я же как будто смотрю на всё со стороны и пытаюсь составить своё мнение о персонажах и книге. В связи с этим мне попался хороший пост, который напоминает, что сказка, которую мы привыкли лелеять в детстве, при взрослом прочтении может выявить для нас множество страшных и странных вещей. Это как разоблачить Вошлебника Оз, который казался могущественным и справедливым и который исполнит твои желания. А потом ты узнаешь, что это не волшебник, а трусливый, испуганный взрослый.
В посте говорится и о Снейпе, который был популярен в 2008-2009 и как сейчас почти весь фандом согласен с тем, что он ужасный абьюзинвый учитель. И про Дамблдора, который чуть ли не самый манипулирующий герой в ГП. Но в целом, пост довольно позитивный. Он напоминает нам о том, какое положительное влияние на фандом оказывают хэдканоны про расовые и сексуальные меньшинства. Потому что хэдкаоны существуют для того, чтобы сделать для себя канон лучше. Чтобы добавить в него то, что не хватает и сделать более цельным.
and now for a little rant I like to call,
Growing Up With Harry Potter: Accepting that JK Rowling is Not as Perfect As You Thought She Was When You Were Thirteen and That’s OKI think it’s really interesting the way everyone is beginning to respond to Harry Potter in hindsight. There’s this whole generation of kids born in the nineties who were young enough when Deathly Hallows came out that we’ve had the opportunity to read the complete series through a few times throughout our adolescence, and been subject to the uncomfortable identification of new issues with each re-read.
I remember the first time I read the books through again after DH came out, and having been a Snape sympathiser all through 2008 and 2009, realise that, actually, he was an awful, awful person. Dumbledore too, changed dramatically in my eyes, and you can see this shift in fandom as well. Not three years ago I got into a huge fight with someone on tumblr about Snape being an abusive character, and I received quite a bit of backlash at the time from Snape lovers (remember when that was a huge thing?), these days on tumblr, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t think Snape was at least a bit of an asshole. Popular opinion hates him now, but back in 2006 one of the the most popular artists on dA had the username ‘snapesnogger’, and got that way drawing a lot of sympathetic chibis of him.
читать дальшеAnd it’s hard to make that shift sometimes; I really struggled coming round to the idea that Dumbledore is most definitely a manipulative dickcrumpet who treated Harry terribly. But what’s harder, and more interesting, I think, is the much more real struggle fandom is now having with JK Rowling herself. The Harry Potter series, for all its qualities, has a real diversity problem, and that is solely our once beloved author’s fault.
Admitting that JK Rowling isn’t quite the flawless queen we lauded in our childhood is hard, it’s no fun realising that even our favourite writers do shitty stuff sometimes, inadvertently or not. However, I don’t think this is reason to abandon Harry Potter entirely. That’s why I am really into the recent trend in racial and sexual minority headcanons. Harry Potter has helped and shaped so many people’s lives, and it belongs to its audience just as much as its author, so I love that people are utilising that to amend where JK has failed us, and I wanna talk about why that’s so cool.
I see a lot of people looking for evidence in the text that characters were poc, or a sexual minority. There’s that post floating around that highlights the fact that some of the girls at Beauxbatons were described as wearing their scarves wrapped around their heads, and another pointing out that at one point Hermione is described as being tanned. Charlie Weasley’s stated disinterest in either men or women has lead to a widespread belief that he is canonically aro-ace. And these are all super cool observations that lend themselves to minorities in canon, however I also wanna emphasise that whether or not there’s specific evidence in canon for something or not, it shouldn’t affect how we reimagine these characters.
The fact is that alongside those posts, I see a lot of people using canon as a way to disprove minority headcanons, and unfortunately, they have a lot more ammunition. That’s why we need to disarm the idea that JK’s personal canon is the be all end all of interpretation. We are the Harry Potter generation, it belongs to us as well, and minorities deserve to see themselves in these books as much as anyone else.
Whether JK intended something or not is irrelevant. Harry Potter is much larger than just seven books. Yes, author’s intent ought to be taken into account, and we should not carry on as fans of the series and pretend that there’s nothing wrong with it, or that we do not draw from it, however I think it’s also important to acknowledge that JK’s intent and fan interpretations are separate entities, all of which are valid.
Take poc Hermione for instance; even though there’s nothing that explicitly negates the idea, it probably wasn't JK’s intent that Hermione be a poc. All of the poc characters JK gave us were all explicitly stated as such; Dean is described as black straight off the bat, and the Patil twins and Cho all have names to indicate their race. With almost every other character, their race remains unstated, but they’re given physical traits commonly associated with white people. It’s not a difficult jump to make that JK seems to subscribe to the unfortunate White Is Default school of character design. The fact that Hermione is never stated as being a poc is a pretty good indication that JK probably didn’t intend for her to be.
This does not matter, though. Even if Hermione was explicitly stated to be white it wouldn’t matter. Imagining her as a poc is not only important and valid, it makes a shit load of sense for her character, particularly when you consider her status as muggle-born, and the way she responds to the treatment of house elves.
Harry Potter brought many of us up in a lot of ways, seeing the way people are reclaiming and reimagining it is so heartening, and it’s a great way to continue to enjoy the series, even if time has seen our perspective of it change. I think a lot of people defend JK out of nostalgia, and we really shouldn’t. She did a shitty job of representation. Dumbledore’s sexuality is bonus dvd trivia, and the wizarding world’s aversion to lycanthropy being a metaphor for society’s treatment of AIDs victims is an iffy choice made worse by Remus’ supposed heterosexuality.
There are plenty of wonderful things to be found in Harry Potter, and I think people reject the idea that maybe it’s not as perfect as we thought it was in 2007 because they subscribe to the notion that liking something must be a black and white experience. It’s not. You can acknowledge that JK fucked up and still call Harry Potter your favourite series, you can do it, I believe in you or whatever.
And it can be taken further; reimagining these characters and this universe is a great way to continue to love the series, and that’s why I’m such a fan of it. It’s not “fixing” so much as expanding upon it; and that’s just as important. Harry Potter belongs to all of us. Remove yourself from the idea that JK Rowling is the only authority, and it cracks open anew and even more exciting than before.
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