![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Mar. 28th, 2006 10:30 amThe problem with being my sort of fanficcer is that my sort of fanficcer is generally more in love with setting and premise than character. I am working on Hellblazer: Hogwarts at the moment to set up John for a confrontation in front of the Slytherin DADA class, but from there I am terribly excited about evil things I am going to do to poor Seamus Finnegan and to bits of the Wizarding World we haven't seen- precisely because we haven't seen them , or heard much about them.
JKR has already written Harrykorp's story, or most of it anyway. The bit I want to write about is the bit no one's seen yet- the dirty grubby side of things, or the everyday side at the very least. I'm not so sure the Wizarding World really ought to have a truly dirty grubby side. The bits of the world that we see through Harry's eyes has an MPAA rating of PG; I personally think the setting hangs together somewhat better if we assume it overall has a rating of PG-13, or possibly something that stops just short of R. I mean, come on. The bad guys' main weapons are Fear and Pain and Death. Pain is created by- a couple of words, and then just plain hurting. Literally. That's all that Crucio is, a whoooole lotta hurting, and the bad guys love using it. Speaking as a member of Amnesty International, I can tell you that really ain't much. Fenrir Grayback's scarier than Bellatrix and her 'oooh, which Longbottom do I Crucio today?' bugnuts attitude. . . but I’m getting off track. What I'm saying here is that I think, in order to still feel like the Potterverse, even the horrible parts need to fall within a certain range of specific horribleness. Try to bring the setting's bad guys into line with what we know people are capable of, and willing to do, and it stops feeling like the Potterverse and starts feeling like Sierra Leone with wands.
This makes things kind of tricky for HB:H, but I can live with that. The fact is that the longer John stays in the Potterverse, the more things start tilting towards his version of reality. Where John goes, bad things happen- really bad things- and the Potterverse simply isn't prepared for that. John is, to put it bluntly, a star of ill omen. No matter how useful he may be against Voldemort, they will be glad to be quit of him come June, because John brings his own horror with him. In the Potterverse, you get heroic sacrifices, you get terrible torments that may or may not produce heroes. In the Potterverse, if you break someone, they may well heal and be strong at the broken places. In John's version of things, bad things happen to everyone- but more often, bad things happen to the undeserving. (I like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cadhla's definition of a horror movie: a movie where truly awful things happen to people who don't deserve them.) And they just keep happening. If you break in John's world, you pretty much stay broken- forever, given the afterlife stuff inherent to his cosm.
I suppose the fundamental difference between the two universes, if you dig down deep enough, is that in the Potterverse there is ultimately justice. In John's world, people just get screwed. Oh, you might get something that could be mistaken for justice if you shake it hard enough, but only if someone gets off his or her arse and forces it to happen. John's fundamental appeal is that he looked at the world and said "oh, fuck," because everybody- himself included- was going to end up shafted. Self-indulgence? Perfectly okay, when your universe hates each and every inhabitant. Might as well indulge yourself, since no one else is going to. Terrible consequences to your actions? Come up with new ways to do end runs around them, somehow- but really, everything has terrible consequences, so why are you looking so surprised?
That's why John's approach to teaching is the way it is. Where he comes from, earnest well-meaning children trying to learn are either annoying little swots or fodder for demons and paedophiles. This world might look and feel clean, but it's in his bones that reality hates you and you are going to be punished for daring to say things should be different, so you might as well strike back at reality first.
… dammit, I was going to talk about another fandom entirely in this post, but that'll have to wait for another time.
JKR has already written Harrykorp's story, or most of it anyway. The bit I want to write about is the bit no one's seen yet- the dirty grubby side of things, or the everyday side at the very least. I'm not so sure the Wizarding World really ought to have a truly dirty grubby side. The bits of the world that we see through Harry's eyes has an MPAA rating of PG; I personally think the setting hangs together somewhat better if we assume it overall has a rating of PG-13, or possibly something that stops just short of R. I mean, come on. The bad guys' main weapons are Fear and Pain and Death. Pain is created by- a couple of words, and then just plain hurting. Literally. That's all that Crucio is, a whoooole lotta hurting, and the bad guys love using it. Speaking as a member of Amnesty International, I can tell you that really ain't much. Fenrir Grayback's scarier than Bellatrix and her 'oooh, which Longbottom do I Crucio today?' bugnuts attitude. . . but I’m getting off track. What I'm saying here is that I think, in order to still feel like the Potterverse, even the horrible parts need to fall within a certain range of specific horribleness. Try to bring the setting's bad guys into line with what we know people are capable of, and willing to do, and it stops feeling like the Potterverse and starts feeling like Sierra Leone with wands.
This makes things kind of tricky for HB:H, but I can live with that. The fact is that the longer John stays in the Potterverse, the more things start tilting towards his version of reality. Where John goes, bad things happen- really bad things- and the Potterverse simply isn't prepared for that. John is, to put it bluntly, a star of ill omen. No matter how useful he may be against Voldemort, they will be glad to be quit of him come June, because John brings his own horror with him. In the Potterverse, you get heroic sacrifices, you get terrible torments that may or may not produce heroes. In the Potterverse, if you break someone, they may well heal and be strong at the broken places. In John's version of things, bad things happen to everyone- but more often, bad things happen to the undeserving. (I like
cadhla's definition of a horror movie: a movie where truly awful things happen to people who don't deserve them.) And they just keep happening. If you break in John's world, you pretty much stay broken- forever, given the afterlife stuff inherent to his cosm.I suppose the fundamental difference between the two universes, if you dig down deep enough, is that in the Potterverse there is ultimately justice. In John's world, people just get screwed. Oh, you might get something that could be mistaken for justice if you shake it hard enough, but only if someone gets off his or her arse and forces it to happen. John's fundamental appeal is that he looked at the world and said "oh, fuck," because everybody- himself included- was going to end up shafted. Self-indulgence? Perfectly okay, when your universe hates each and every inhabitant. Might as well indulge yourself, since no one else is going to. Terrible consequences to your actions? Come up with new ways to do end runs around them, somehow- but really, everything has terrible consequences, so why are you looking so surprised?
That's why John's approach to teaching is the way it is. Where he comes from, earnest well-meaning children trying to learn are either annoying little swots or fodder for demons and paedophiles. This world might look and feel clean, but it's in his bones that reality hates you and you are going to be punished for daring to say things should be different, so you might as well strike back at reality first.
… dammit, I was going to talk about another fandom entirely in this post, but that'll have to wait for another time.
