I think that if a writer has any bit of subtlety at all then of course fans will have different opinions about the characters. Some people, myself included, simply think baddies are cool, and also that heros/goodies are often a bit boring/predictable/stupid/whatever. It's funny that you mention Draco. I didn't like him in those books, but I was a massive fan of Snape and as the books went on and got more and more annoying to me and the "good" characters displayed more and more deploreable traits (IMO) Snape became the only thing in the series I really cared about. Now I'm not for a moment saying he wasn't horrible. He most certainly was. But he was interesting and I sympathised with him, and enjoyed reading all sorts of fic where revisionism about him and other bad characters was rampant. I didn't think I knew better than JKR how he should be written, but I could find sympathy/an excuse for every thing he did in canon. For example the worst thing he did in the series I thought was use a racist slurr about Hermione, but I immediately thought that he was staying in character as a spy rather than being a big racist, and that turned out to be correct in the end as we saw he didn't really have any problem with mudbloods at all!
It's obvious that JKR and I disagree about what constitutes "good", but I don't think that means that I should have stoped reading her work, especially when I really enjoyed the fandom at the time; although that's getting into a slightly different issue. Wow, I'm going on and on,
Anyway, I don't know what story you're talking about here but to me it sound like a childish thing that the author did. Why couldn't he handle people having differing opinions about his character? He should have continued to write her with subtlety and let the fans form their own opinions of her, not bang people on the head with THIS IS A BAD MEAN CHARACTER! I don't mean this in an entitlement way, just what is the problem with people having an alternative take on your characters, even if you the author don't agree with it. Isn't that part of the artwork coming to life?
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 10:35 am (UTC)It's obvious that JKR and I disagree about what constitutes "good", but I don't think that means that I should have stoped reading her work, especially when I really enjoyed the fandom at the time; although that's getting into a slightly different issue. Wow, I'm going on and on,
Anyway, I don't know what story you're talking about here but to me it sound like a childish thing that the author did. Why couldn't he handle people having differing opinions about his character? He should have continued to write her with subtlety and let the fans form their own opinions of her, not bang people on the head with THIS IS A BAD MEAN CHARACTER! I don't mean this in an entitlement way, just what is the problem with people having an alternative take on your characters, even if you the author don't agree with it. Isn't that part of the artwork coming to life?