So this is, I'm guessing, going to be inflammatory. But I can't bring myself to care. Until recently I've been a lurker on this site anyway(Honestly I forgot I had it until I came back a few weeks ago to check on a story I liked). But I'm legitimately curious so here it goes.

Has anyone besides me noticed the ridiculous arrogance of the people in this fandom? Lots of fans like their interpretations of the characters but this is the only one I've seen in which fans have the gall to state how wrong the author was in their characterization or how shitty the story was compared to their own (usually terrible) idea of how the series should be.

And again I doubt this is completely unique to the HP fandom but they're definitely the worst of the perpetrators. Do they (or lets be honest, you) think that they have some right to the franchise? I love fanfiction because at its core its free stories that can expand upon the original authors works, but the arrogance of fans, and especially authors who casually dismiss their origins with their own creations irritates me to no end.

I've been completely ruined on stories because some author makes a crack about "what should have happened". Well when you make a multi billion dollar franchise you can do what you want. Until then, I'd say shut the fuck up and write your tribute story about how the series "should have gone".

This rant devolved a bit and for that I apologize. But I feel my point is valid enough to continue. If you disagree? Then by all means elaborate. Or don't. I just wanted to get all this out because it had gotten off my last nerve.

 

I don't think it's arrogance to criticise canon. Authors have no special status that means they should be invulnerable from criticism. That's just absurdly deferential.

Of course, I do think that authors deserve a certain level of respect when you are engaged in criticism, but again a lack of that isn't really arrogance, it's just bad manners.

 

Everyone's going to think they have a better idea of how something should have happened. That's the reason that fanfiction exists. Honestly, the best way to go about this is to just ignore it, because if someone starts slagging off an enormous series because they would have done better their own work is likely subpar anyway.

 

If you think the Potter fandom is bad, head to a Doctor Who site sometime, and start a thread telling people that Steven Moffat is great. Or Once Upon a Time, and ask what the big deal is about the Swan Queen ship. Same for Supernatural and Destiel. Potter fandom is no worse than any other fandom, tbh.

 

COUGHSTARWARSCOUGH

 

Eh, yeah, I think it's pretty normal for any fandom as vast and entrenched as Harry Potter (or Doctor Who or Star Wars). There tends to be a divide between the people who love canon as is and the crowd who wishes things had gone differently.

Personally, I'm one of the later. And it's not a matter of thinking it "should have been" this or that. Just that I would have liked it better if it had been. For example, I wish Harry had died at the end of the series. I can make an argument for why I think that would have been a fitting ending (predicated largely on Harry's characterization as a martyr figure who's secret power was love) but that doesn't mean I think I know better than Rowling, I did not write a juggernaut bestselling series after all. My tastes diverged from the direction canon was taking at some point, and the rest is history. The question is further abstracted when you take into consideration how far AU most stories being written this long after the end of the series are.

If there are people who hammer on about how the books could have been better, they're matched by those who think canon is sacred and unassailable. Both sides have members than range from incoherent and pigheaded to considerate and articulate.

Remain among the latter, and I expect you'll be greeted in kind.

 

The arrogance of Ron haters is particularly amazing. They complain about how lazy he is, how uncouth (because he likes to eat a lot), how irresponsible, how disloyal, how jealous and anti-intellectual he is, etc, saying that Harry and Hermione shouldn't have been friends with him because of that. I really wonder if those people have any friends at all, because they sound like they want their friends to be completely perfect. As if their friends ever jumped in front of a mass murderer and said they'd die for them, or went with them into a forest full of monsters at night to face their worst phobia. Ironically, many of those cretins are SJWs who believe that no one should be allowed to criticize their own self, for all its defects and tendencies.

The same can be said about people who complain about how unambitious, or lazy, or reactive Harry was - and then write fanfiction where he gets a PhD, black belt at karate, and becomes a gun-firing champion at age 11 - right before he learns all there is to magic in one summer. The irony of it all is that I have to wonder how uneducated, inexperienced and immature those people are in order to presume that Harry can do all of that so easily.

 

This reminds of the time I received hate mail for not following the canon plot of Harry Potter. I think it happened with a Pokemon fic too.

I don't have a problem with people saying the author didn't do something well, rather I have a problem with people thinking their interpretation is the only valid one.

 

Fanfiction can be a giant echo chamber: People tend to criticize many things in canon - often rightfully so - and they logically look for stories that fix those issues. Anything that contradicts that becomes difficult to accept and an unpleasant read, because it contradicts their personal preferences.

The end result of this (quite normal) behavior is that it kind of warps their memories and perceptions of canon. If you tend to read stories that bash on Ron a lot, you will over time start to remember Ron's flaws in canon more and more, while his strengths and successes fall to the wayside and get neglected and ignored.

This isn't really something to condemn, it's just something that people need to be aware of and watch out for in themselves. Irregardless of fandom, genre or topic in general. You are what you eat.

 

By this reasoning (commercial success == quality), sparkly vampires and schlocky bondage porn are the apex of literature and cannot be criticized except by those making GRRM cash off writing.

I suppose I do agree with your thesis at some level. The very act of writing and sharing one's prose is incredibly arrogant, the narcissistic sense that something someone's written might actually be enjoyed by others and shouldn't just remain in obscurity on a hard drive somewhere. JKR was certainly guilty of it, as are the rest of us following her lead, pretending that our make-believe worlds and interpretations are worthy of sharing.

Of course, without such arrogant writers, you wouldn't have much of a fandom outside of the odd random cosplay events and a small handful of Northumbrians writing canon continuations and "missing moments" fiction deferring fully to the unquestioned genius of the original author. To me, this seems less interesting or imaginative, but then I confess I used to commit the unspeakable offense of encouraging my child to play with other children.

 

Yeah, I think it's always important to draw a line between offering a proper critique and just going off on a rant.

As a general rule, attacking the author on a personal level is just going to come off as jerkish and immature, and tends to make me lose a lot of respect for the person doing it.

 

I'm not really sure why this bothers you so much. I'd like to think that one would like or dislike a fic based on its contents and not author rants. How does the author's supposed arrogance play a part in liking a fic?

Sure, the author seems like a fool with their claims, no matter how good of a story they've written, and you might hate the author for their remarks, but that's no reason to dislike a fic.

 

While I wouldn't judge a full fic on the basis of the author's attitude, I'll admit that if I'm just scanning the summary/intro blurbs and see something along the lines of "How canon should have gone" in the story description I almost never read the actual fic.

 

I FIX CANNNNNNNNON!!!

/follows up by jackass!indy!Harry, old-coot!Dumbledore, Evil Weasleys, Moldyshorts, Muggle guns and Harems.

 

Harry Potter started out as childrens books but got more mature as they went along. Unfortunately, especially after the 5th book, it couldn't really get more mature as there was still a lot of new children reading it.

As such, JK wrote a bunch of things that the audience may not always have liked, trying to appease everyone. As mentioned above, Harry should have died in the end. Harry should probably have tried a bit harder. The epilogue should not have happened.

Does this mean the books are bad? No! But perhaps, there could be room for improvement aimed at a specific audience.

 

It's not that the percentage of arrogance in comparison to other fandoms is high (Say for example an average of 23% of people in all fandoms are arrogant). It's just that there are more people in the Harry Potter fandom and so the number itself is higher and therefore more prominent.

 

I think that people get very passionate about books they love and if you are so invested in a story, you always wish to change some things and to make it happen the way YOU think it should be...

I agree that because the hp fandom is so huge that the opinions differ a great deal more than in smaller fandoms... If I would call it arrogance or just obsession- I'm not so sure about it... But as long as J.K. Rowling is respected as the author of the core, I am okay with it...

 

I've seen a lot of arrogance in the Naruto fandom too, but HP fanfic writers sometimes preface their chapters with statements like "I don't own Harry Potter because this should have happened." And it's often said in a derogatory way. It may not stop me from enjoying their story but it is annoying to see it so often.

 

So when not full of the irritation that sparked my original posts (like say after a good nights sleep for an unrelated example), I'm willing to concede to much of the logic many of you associated folks have posted. I should have been clearer initially.

Criticism is a vital thing. I'd never argue that, I suppose we could get into a semantic debate about what makes criticism good or bad, which seems like a lot of headache.

My issue stems from when authors, and often commentators trample the canon that inspired them. Building off of it, creating your own ideas? That's great. Creativity and etc. Hell even I have things I wish were different. But a little respect for the author would be nice is all. Not deification or worship at their feet(no one likes a kiss ass) but some basic respect for the canon series.

But the point that made the most sense for my original point and could probably serve as the end of this for me at least was (now that I think about it when it's not 3AM) the fact that there's no a larger amount of them, it's that there are more fans so that vocal segment just seems louder because they are proportionally bigger.