Rant about non-hardcore HP fans
Jul. 7th, 2007 11:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valis2I know, it's hard to believe that they exist.
I'm pretty reluctant to talk about my HP obsession anywhere but online. Occasionally, however, it comes out, and people naturally ask questions or make comments. Most of the time it's really innocuous.
Sometimes it's just...argh.
There are two questions/attitudes that make me wince.
1) When someone who has read the books asks you a question with a tremendously complicated answer. For example, "Do you think Snape is good or evil?" Instant wince. It's one thing to answer that question from another fan, because there are a lot of phrases that are "shortcuts." You could bring up the Snape/Lily theory, and its permutations. You could bring up the Unbreakable Vow theory. The point is, the other fan has most likely heard all of those theories--and more. You don't have to go back and explain how Snape/Lily could have existed. I mean, it's one thing to ask something simple, but a huge question like the Snape Controversy? Ugh. I mean, I understand why they ask, but at the same time...it's very frustrating to try to encapsulate it.
2) This one actually irritates me a lot more. I am so sick of people snickering over the ages of the actors playing the Trio in the movies. "Oh, they're growing up!" (snicker, snicker) "Harry will be able to buy beer!" (ha, ha) "They're not going to be able to use Dan Radcliffe much longer, he's too old!" (guffaw) Recently I was out with my friend, and his father said something to the effect of the kids aging, and then pointed out that now that Dan had turned 21, how were they going to make the next movies (snicker, snicker). Yeah, I'm PMSing big time, and I said, "He actually just turned seventeen...and he's playing a fifteen year old in the movie. I don't see the problem."
The problem is, I think, that people who don't read the books suffer from the old-fashioned view that the kids are the same age through the whole series, like the Bobbsey Twins. Seriously. I once had a conversation with a friend who was horrified that people wrote stories where Harry had sex. "He's a little boy!" she said. I replied that he was sixteen in the latest book, and a lot of people lose their virginity around fifteen-sixteen, but it did not seem to make a difference at all. Not one bit. Her only idea of Harry Potter was of a little wizard boy of eleven.
JKR once said in an interview (I think) that she thought the Bobbsey Twins were unrealistic; they never seemed to age, and she wanted Harry to age in the books. I think she's accomplished that fabulously. Harry has matured and grown like a real boy in the books, becoming more emotionally complex with each book.
It just makes me crazy. I can point to Beverly Hills, 90210 and Grease...in those movies we have people from the ages of 21-28 playing teenagers, and it's accepted, generally. But here we have a seventeen year old playing a fifteen year old, not that big a difference, and yet it still seems to warrant mocking articles and commentary.
/rant
I'm pretty reluctant to talk about my HP obsession anywhere but online. Occasionally, however, it comes out, and people naturally ask questions or make comments. Most of the time it's really innocuous.
Sometimes it's just...argh.
There are two questions/attitudes that make me wince.
1) When someone who has read the books asks you a question with a tremendously complicated answer. For example, "Do you think Snape is good or evil?" Instant wince. It's one thing to answer that question from another fan, because there are a lot of phrases that are "shortcuts." You could bring up the Snape/Lily theory, and its permutations. You could bring up the Unbreakable Vow theory. The point is, the other fan has most likely heard all of those theories--and more. You don't have to go back and explain how Snape/Lily could have existed. I mean, it's one thing to ask something simple, but a huge question like the Snape Controversy? Ugh. I mean, I understand why they ask, but at the same time...it's very frustrating to try to encapsulate it.
2) This one actually irritates me a lot more. I am so sick of people snickering over the ages of the actors playing the Trio in the movies. "Oh, they're growing up!" (snicker, snicker) "Harry will be able to buy beer!" (ha, ha) "They're not going to be able to use Dan Radcliffe much longer, he's too old!" (guffaw) Recently I was out with my friend, and his father said something to the effect of the kids aging, and then pointed out that now that Dan had turned 21, how were they going to make the next movies (snicker, snicker). Yeah, I'm PMSing big time, and I said, "He actually just turned seventeen...and he's playing a fifteen year old in the movie. I don't see the problem."
The problem is, I think, that people who don't read the books suffer from the old-fashioned view that the kids are the same age through the whole series, like the Bobbsey Twins. Seriously. I once had a conversation with a friend who was horrified that people wrote stories where Harry had sex. "He's a little boy!" she said. I replied that he was sixteen in the latest book, and a lot of people lose their virginity around fifteen-sixteen, but it did not seem to make a difference at all. Not one bit. Her only idea of Harry Potter was of a little wizard boy of eleven.
JKR once said in an interview (I think) that she thought the Bobbsey Twins were unrealistic; they never seemed to age, and she wanted Harry to age in the books. I think she's accomplished that fabulously. Harry has matured and grown like a real boy in the books, becoming more emotionally complex with each book.
It just makes me crazy. I can point to Beverly Hills, 90210 and Grease...in those movies we have people from the ages of 21-28 playing teenagers, and it's accepted, generally. But here we have a seventeen year old playing a fifteen year old, not that big a difference, and yet it still seems to warrant mocking articles and commentary.
/rant