Is it really so freaking difficult for people to take the .5 seconds to get a name correct? Prime examples of what I'm talking about are:

Ginny Weasley's full name is Ginevra Molly Weasley - not Virginia, Genevieve or Ginger (wtf?).

Neville's Gran is named Augusta Longbottom - not Anabell(??), Susan, or Sharril.

Ms. Figg's full name is Arabella Doreen Figg - not Jennifer, Ana, or Bertha.

Sirius' mother's name was Walburga Black - not any of the wide range of crap I've seen (edit: but especially not Windy Black. WTF)
Cedric's father is named Amos Diggory - not Jeff ...that's the damn actor's name, Quinton (wtf?), or Mark.


These are real examples that I've seen just in the last few days. I can understand and live with messing up the names of less common characters, but come on. Each of the above is mentioned regularly in the books. Not to mention you can google this damn information in no time.

 

Heh, you think that's bad? I've seen people consistently misspell Lily Potter so much it almost makes my eyes bleed.

 

I've seen a fic where Ron was called Don for about 10 capters. I've also seen some Herminnie, Dumdore, and Sevrus.

 

Lilly makes me want to kill people.

The only thing worse than that is Luscious, but I'm not exactly sure it's always unintentional...

 

Uh I know I am probably guilty of it myself, but... its fan fiction. There are worse things coming from authors of fan fiction, such as mpreg and insanely ooc pairings.

It is also about effort, most authors do not put much effort into getting character names correct (many of which are very oddly spelled to begin with, sort of a pot kettle black scenario). While for the one story I have posted (at fanfiction net) I did put some effort into getting the names correct and spelled same as cannon, though it was far from easy.

Also most authors do not have beta's to help them out (heck I certainly do not and probably never will).

Plus the Average internet iq = fubar

Well you can see how that could really effect standards, not that there really are any solid ones.

Certain minor things like properly labeling slash stories as such and sites even requiring such things, maybe better filtering as well. Small stuff things done by individual authors and site admins. Often even these minor things are too inconsistent. Granted some sites are better than others, just like some authors.

Yes such crap is highly irritating.

As for the Lily vs Lilly thing, bah which is really correct considering what her sisters name is... heck it could have been spelled wrong in cannon to start with, yet not caught in time so they ran with it (hey it does happen).

Personally the average of language standards for fanfiction authors is too low, yet there is nothing to do about it, other than push for language experts to rewrite/beta stories. Yet considering problems just getting translators... bugger it all.

 

I've read a couple of stories in which Voldemort was misspelled as "Voldermont".

What pisses me off the most are the nicknames that the authors give to Dumbledore and Voldemort.

 

Well considering that Petunia is a flower and Lily is also a flower, I would have to say that Lilly is wrong.

And since this thread are mostly about names. What I don't understand is those fics where Harry suddenly becomes Henry or some other form, think I read one where his name was Harrison even.

 

A lot of that comes from the fact that in many cases "Harry" is just the casual form of address or nickname for a more fomal name such as Herold. The same is true for changing William to Bill, Richard to Dick, Andrew to Drew or Andy, etc etc.

 

What annoys me more than anything else is Zambini. Honest to god, why is it so difficult to remember that the characters name is Zabini and that the character is MALE!

 

I've always enjoyed seeing it spelled Zamboni. I spent an entire chapter laughing my arse off because of a mental image I got from that little gem.

 

I will excuse the Ginny - Virginia because for a long time it was unknown. Nowadays its inexcusable. Also the whole Zabini male/female was unknown until the 6th book. So most of that is excusable.

 

I read a story where, for the entire story, they spelled it Harrie Poter. I'm sorry, but if you can't read the title of the sub-section of the site, you are a failure at anything that has anything to do with life and need to go slash your calfs.

 

Oh for ffs. I just read one where Harry's parents were Lily and JIM Potter.

 

That is true, but how can anyone come to that conclusion when the book is named Harry Potter, official letters are adressed to Harry Potter and so on.

Lol, well alteast they did get Lilys name right.

 

I think that it was a pretty fair assumption for us to make, prior to JK's definitively saying it, that Blaise Zabini was a girl. Consider the Slytherins that we know--Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and Nott as the boys, and Bulstrode, Parkinson, and Greengrass as the girls (there is no actual referrence to Tracey Davis in canon). I think it's pretty fair to assume that Blaise (a rather effeminate name, and male blaise is a fairly effeminate character in the 6th book, too) would be that fourth girl to even it all out.

On an interesting side note, did anyone know that Andrew Goldstein is confirmed jewish? I find that hilarious (as a jew myself).

 

Speaking of writing wrong names and such. This one I have seen more then a few fics.

Suddenly they have started study Ancient Ruins instead of Ancient Runes.

 

Some people probably think it's studying the ruins of.. say Atlantis instead of runes

Could be that the study of crumbled buildings is more appealing to them than runes

Personally, I've seen a lot of "Albus Dumbledor" in the last few weeks aswell as "Voldermort"

 

I seem to recall that JKR actually mentioned at some point when she was answering fans questions that Blaise Zabini is a male slytherin in Harry's year, and that was back around GoF or something.

 

About fem!blaise, think of it this way: do you REALLY wanna have MORE slash fics? Plus, fem!blaise has been going on for so long, that there are groups of people that prefer it that way (like me), especially when you consider how big of a turdburger canon has turned into. If you wanna be canon-whores like that, then quit reading non-pussy Harry fics, because it has been firmly established by JKR that Harry is a pussy.

And I think it's rather ironic that a group of people who are bitching about researching proper spellings aren't even doing it themselves.

A CANNON is a weapon. It goes boom, and shoots large metal objects.

CANON is the official state of things in a series, seperate from fanfiction, or spin-offs.

Edit: Oh yeah, and the one that spelled Ron as Don, and so on, apparently the author had posted it on another site at first, and that site got scared shitless by the thought of lawsuits, and changed all the canon names in every story to avoid them. Supposedly that was also the only place said author kept his work, having deleted it from his computer.

And here's some more for you to puzzle over:

ARTHUR as AUTHER.
ALASTOR as ALISTAIR or ALISTER.
MOONY as MOONEY.