The Harry Potter Fanfiction Thread

The writer argues, in the original version, that rape is purely a product of non-Enlightenment cultures. Their explanation of how this is so explains...precisely nothing. Put more directly, he's blaming everyone who isn't a European for the existence of rape in the modern world and arguing that real issues, such as the rohypnol date rape epidemic among colleges during the Nineties (and which has never entirely ended, honestly), do not actually exist.

The best way to interpret this statement is that they are saying something remarkably stupid in a No True Scotsman defense of their worldview with extremely poor wording.

The simplest way is that they are displaying great galloping racism and a remarkable lack of awareness about the real world.

The rather snide revision of it admits no real fault and tilts the likely nature of their views towards the latter.

edited 21st May '15 9:23:47 AM by Night

Ah yes, now I remember why I never read that one.

What he was trying to do is portray Malfoy as the result of a culture that was stuck in pre-modern times, where nobles raped commoners as a form of stress relief, secure in their belief that they would never be punished. Among many horrifying things.

Draco improves dramatically from there.

On the topic of racism and shelteredness, this is a major point of frustration for me when it comes to EY. That, and his recurring display of neoliberal/neoclassical economic beliefs. I say frustrating because it really goes against the very humanist, tolerant, compassionate, give-all-sentoents-a-chance message he usually promotes. Of course, I could just chalk it up to him being raised by well-off Orthodox Zionist American Jews with a house full of Speculative Fiction books. But that would be racist.

Well, what he was trying to do and what he actually did...

Left Behind is trying to scare you into heaven, according to the authors, but what it actually does is present a misogynistic, horrific revenge fantasy in which everyone who is not the author's kind of premillenial dispensationalist Christian is turned into a caricature and subjected to increasing torments and finally killed because...well, they're not the author's kind of premillenial dispensationalist Christian.

What happened with Draco was very much similar; the author, attempting to portray something they have neither affection for nor interest in being defeated by something they do believe in, ended up revealing far more about themselves and their attitudes than they did about what they were supposedly writing about. The incoherent attempt to explain really clinches it in both cases.

In Left Behind despite it being blatantly obvious that this is the Rapture and the End Times as portrayed by Hal Lindsey and others, nobody in the story aside from the main characters is allowed to respond to that evidence and this must all be a big mystery rather than something that most Americans are aware of as a strain of Christian thought peripherally. L&J have the grace, being professional writers, to never explicitly call attention to this issue and thereby force themselves to explain it. It's a problem both integral to the premise and integral that it never be examined to sustain the premise.

EY is not a professional writer, and his personal beliefs often inhibit the appreciation that most things are not only sciences but also crafts; one cannot merely be content with the production of a good end product but must consider the best way to do so. EY never considered whether he should address an 18th-century mentality towards rape or how best to do so, merely deciding that his character should triumph over it. This gave us the no raping in Western society because Moon Landing in a spectacular example of not considering whether something was important to the story and not considering how best to handle it. It is the mistake of an amateur even by the standards of amateurs.

edited 21st May '15 11:28:57 AM by Night

I'm having trouble parsing that sentence.

Basically, the author wanted to show something he dislikes being pwned by something he likes. In doing so, he accidentally revealed more of himself than he did of what he was writing about.

Put simply, it's sort of the same thing that happens when very poor writers write your average powertrip fanfic.

For instance, I wouldn't blame you for assuming that Skysaber is a horribly sexist sack of crap after reading Partially Kissed Hero. And yes, I am aware I could've gone with Skysaber is a Supremely Sexist Sack of Shit for the power of alliteration, but I chose not to.

Less skilled writers tend to have trouble dissociating themselves from the characters and the narration. Which is why in stories written by bad authors, it's almost always safe to assume that the perspective of the narration is the author's perspective and that, on some level, the main character is a self insert.

edited 21st May '15 12:30:06 PM by IAmNotCreativeEnough

Isn't that what nearly all authors of heroic narratives do? The key element would then be having your likes and dislikes match those of your intended audience, so that your power trip is their power trip. Very few people want to read stories where their values are defeated. They want to watch staged fights where their beliefs win in the end, after building up the enemy as satisfying to defeat, by making them hateful/dangerous and threatening/competent; the struggle must be both urgent and a challenge. The fights have to look as fair as possible, but "good", however the audience understands it, must win where it really counts.

Certainly, I don't mind authors naively revealing themselves like this: I certainly prefer that to those cases where an author hides behind layer upon layer of irony and ambiguity until you don't know what the damned story is trying to say at all. When I read the likes of masters like Thomas Mann, I want to strangle them in frustration. There's lots of room for professionalism in life, but I don't think art is it, and I certainly don't think Fan Fiction is it.

edited 21st May '15 12:42:12 PM by TheHandle

Is it?

I disagree.

Telling a good story comes first. If the purpose of your writing is Author Appeal, then you shouldn't post it online for anyone and everyone to see it.

That's the whole point of fanfiction; you indulge yourself, and others are welcome to join in for the ride if what floats your boat flats theirs. Hence why blatant Mary Sue stories can have entirely sincere fans and followers.

Now, if we were getting paid, there would be an obligation to sacrifice one's pleasure for the sake of that of the intended audience, to compromise on your vision and your sincerity, but that's for work. Fanfics are for play.

edited 21st May '15 1:33:17 PM by TheHandle

Again, if you're not writing it because you want to write a story, if you're only writing it as a masturbatory exercise, then don't post it.

Why not? Some people might love to watch me masturbate. And maybe I myself enjoy being watched as a crucial part of the masturbation. Why deprive either of us? Those who don't can always go watch something else.

Certainly, masturbation is hardly unworthy, compared to prostitution.

edited 21st May '15 2:14:50 PM by TheHandle

"If you don't like it, don't read it" is a very poor defense.

If you're not writing with the intent of making other people enjoy it, why are you posting it? If it's a masturbatory exercise written for your enjoyment, then why are you posting it?

I disagree here. Prostitution, specifically regulated prostitution where várious steps are taken to mantain the safety and health of both parties as well as both parties being aware and loyal to the services and rules given in it... Is much preferable to masturbation.

The problem is that in most of the world Prostitution is highly negatively seen, só for example people won't regulate or give any necessary medical attention to the workers, won't check the background of the client etc.

At the very least, don't attach your real name to it.

Or rather, do.

So I can post a link to it on your Facebook page and let all your friends know that you wrote it.

...

Actually, I wouldn't do that. I could. But I won't. 's too much work. Just sayin', people could do that. If they wanted to.

If you commit your works unto the public, then you may no longer hide behind "but I like it" as a defense. You put it out there, for everyone to read; if you did not intend the work for everyone in the first place, you should not have done this.

edited 21st May '15 6:42:35 PM by Night

I just explained why that is wrong. You post what you like to write, in the hopes that, serendipitously, some people will like it, which you will like, leaving you both better off. Those who don't like it can and would direct their attention elsewhere, unless sadomasochism is involved. The net happiness result is positive. This is reason enough.

As for Unproblematic Prostitution, it still means that during sex pleasing the client is tantamount, and your own enjoyment can easily be null or negative. Worse, some clients will need you to fake enjoyment you don't feel in order to make them happy. Prostitution requires insincerity and compromise on a fundamental level.

edited 22nd May '15 12:33:23 AM by TheHandle

And you're failing to engage with the other part of the criticism: yes, you have the right to post utter stupidity online for the sake of indulging yourself, just as others have the right to point out when your writing is stupid and asinine.

That you can run your mouth because it makes you feel better doesn't mean you should, especially if you can't take the contempt you invite. Good writing requires a measure of discipline, and with really good writers able to present a complex issue well, just because their protagonist flies one banner doesn't necessarily mean that the author also flies it.

tl/dr.◊

No, you didn't. Aside from Sabre's criticism, you're arguing from a perspective that if you howl unto the void and the void howls back then all is well; but the sound of the wind in your ears as everyone runs past is not the same thing as the roar of the crowd.

Masturbatory fantasy reaches people and slides off. They don't invest in it. You can track their waning interest as it goes on, as it begins to bore them and is eventually cast aside. Nobody keeps the sock on after they're done wanking, and they'll be done long before the wank material runs out.

There's nothing wrong with the lowest common denominator but if you desire staying power of any sort, either as a story or with your audience, then that can't be where you stop. That's the difference between making, say, Strike Witches as your World War 2 allegory and making Mobile Suit Gundam as your World War 2 allegory. One you get a show about magical airplane girls in panties that a few hundred thousand people care about and is mainly used as an illustration of how weird your culture is. The other you get a decades-long franchise known and beloved by millions in some form. They've both got a lot in them aimed squarely at the LCD, but MSG had more to it than that.

edited 22nd May '15 10:38:15 AM by Night

I'm not failing to engage with it; I consider it obvious. You masturbate in public, you need to be consider that not everyone will find what you're doing praiseworthy.

Indeed. That's precisely one of the things that Yudkowski attempted in that story. The whole point of HPMOR is to be a good Author Tract, and that requires constantly making an Iron Man of the opposing views, and to admit when you aren't sure that the views you endorse are actually correct, by leaving debates inconclusive. There was, somewhat early in the story, a very intense debate between Harry and Dumbledore on the desirability of immortality and that of death. While superficially one may leave with the impression of a one-sided Curb-Stomp Battle on Harry's part, a more attentive reading will reveal Harry's arguments to be a lot less firm than he thinks.

Another thing you have to do is leave the character room to grow, rather than make him a paragon example of your position. In the fic, Harry expresses several times views that the author explicitly disavows in other materials: contrast Harry's naive "we're gonna ga to Space and make friends with the aliens" with the content of Three Worlds Collide, a previous work by the same author.

Again, when writing a story about the thing you like beating the thing you don't like, you have to find ways to keep it interesting, challenging, and seemingly-fair, so that the victory can feel as satisfying as possible.

The thing I don't like about making a character purposefully flawed is that it muddles the distinction between when their flaws are a deliberate artifice of yours and when they are an involuntary consequence of your own.

I strongly dislike this kind of shield of ambiguity, this leaving yourself room to say "I Meant to Do That" and giving others room to answer "You probably didn't". There should be a way to tell the audience exactly what flaws were deliberate, to be unafraid to have one's actual character challenged and questioned without weaselling or dodging. You could say I like a literary variant of Three Chords and the Truth.

I need to work on my parsing skills. This is the third time I fail to fully understand what it is you're trying to say.

On the second part, I agree 100%, and it's my main objection to the usual derivations towards literal pornography and eroticism in fanart; it usually feels hollow and unmemorable, and deviates attention from works that have more staying power to them.

But that's an "if you want to X, you need to Y" proposition. Not everyone wants lasting power. Not everyone wants to make quality work. I feel that I'm not entitled to impose my standards on people, to tell them what they should be enjoying and spending time on.

Back to Yudkowsky's thing, he did try, very hard, to make good stuff, but he's a very flawed man, and his flaws shine through all the starker given how earnest and hortative his story is. He tried to jump very, very high, and he very noticeably hit the bar. But I'd say he still did jump pretty damned high, still wrote a very worthy, memorable story, one that's worth reading and recommending, and one that will stay with you long after you finish it.

edited 22nd May '15 12:40:55 PM by TheHandle

I would just dispute Night's original premise: In arguing that enlightenment values, taken seriously and sincerely, are incompatible with justifications for rape: He was right, they are.

Yeah, sure, the values of an 18th century movement itself deny 18th century behavior. The Enlightenment and what's being mocked are in fact directly related to each other, in that the original scholars who created it belonged to that class and thought nothing of being classist, racist, sexist, and even slave-holding while espousing its philosophies earnestly to all who would listen.

Pull the other one. The human mind is so much larger in room to hold ideas than you want it to be. You can no more offer adequate reason for this than the story did which reality will not quickly contradict. Even your statement here is a straight No True Scotsman, managing to imply a circular argument about why the philosophical originators don't count.

You pull the other one too. Arguing that people did not set out to create quality? Nobody starts writing thinking "my work is going to be trash!" They may not aim for the top, but no one aims as low as EY managed to go there either.

Your argument is doubly ridiculous applied to the author at hand, trying to write what is at its core a foolproof argument for converting to their chosen philosophy.

edited 23rd May '15 10:25:30 AM by Night

There are things I set out to writing, with the intent that "this will be garbage".

Of course, those projects are written in such a frame of mind to ensure that I, the author, will not take them seriously either.

And even the people who set out to make crap don't do it for the purpose of creating crap. There's always some other motive.

For instance, I'm pretty sure Uwe Boll's movies are terrible completely on purpose. And this is explained by him exploiting laws to make him money when his movies bomb.

You set out to write something that will be enjoyable. When you set out to write something which you know is a bad idea, you tend to at least try to make it So Bad, It's Good.

After all, if you weren't trying to make it enjoyable for others, you would just keep it in your hard drive.

edited 23rd May '15 10:42:06 AM by IAmNotCreativeEnough

Oh, of course I try to make my garbage something that'll crack a smile on somebody's face. If I weren't doing that, I wouldn't have bothered writing it in the first place.