(no subject)
So, I was thinking, not the most unusual occurance. However, it may not have been the best pursuit in my 27th hour without sleep. Nonetheless, I have a few character related thoughts I would like to share relating to Post-Hogwarts fic.
What is OOC when you are writing your characters years after the last cannon glimps we've been given? At the end of book six, Harry is sixteen, and most of our other teen characters are seventeen. How are we to know what their reactions to the coming years will be?
When I was sixteen, eight years ago, I presided over the youth council at my church, carried a bottle of anointing oil to school, and requested to leave class if secular music was being played. I am hardly that person anymore.
In fact, at this point, I curse like a sailor, smoke two packs a day and haven't regularly attended any house of worship in over five years. Not to say that pieces of the person I was aren't still in evidence. My family and personal set of beliefs are still very important to me. I was and am a bit of an intellectual snob, something that I believe I will always be battling to change about myself. Though, I suppose part of the point of this post is that I don't know that.
The same is true for every one of my friends and both of my brothers. Even my father has changed a great deal in the past eight years. In the past half decade, my older brother has gone from being arrested protesting outside of the School of the Americas to selling loans and lecturing me on the inadvisibility of driving five hours to a protest when it would force me to eat ramen for the next week. My father banned the Simpson's in our home and insisted that only christian music find its way to our cd players. Yet, now, he glares down anyone who thinks of uttering a homosexual slur in his presence. I could go on, but I'm certain that all of you have similar stories. You knew a bad girl who's now the Sunday morning hypocrit or the shy girl who became the clubber.
Everyone mentions being almost unable to recognize the person they were in high school. I wonder, why do we deny this change to the characters we love so much? It's rare to find a fic with any great change to a character's personality that doesn't have a list of comments occusing the author of making said character OOC.
In my mind, it's more out of character to remain stagnant. It's inhuman.
But then, I haven't slept in over a day. It's entirely possible that it's the sleep deprivation talking. Therefore, I pose the question to you. How much change is too much? Does this even matter to anyone else, or am I doing my exhausted rambling thing again?:)
What is OOC when you are writing your characters years after the last cannon glimps we've been given? At the end of book six, Harry is sixteen, and most of our other teen characters are seventeen. How are we to know what their reactions to the coming years will be?
When I was sixteen, eight years ago, I presided over the youth council at my church, carried a bottle of anointing oil to school, and requested to leave class if secular music was being played. I am hardly that person anymore.
In fact, at this point, I curse like a sailor, smoke two packs a day and haven't regularly attended any house of worship in over five years. Not to say that pieces of the person I was aren't still in evidence. My family and personal set of beliefs are still very important to me. I was and am a bit of an intellectual snob, something that I believe I will always be battling to change about myself. Though, I suppose part of the point of this post is that I don't know that.
The same is true for every one of my friends and both of my brothers. Even my father has changed a great deal in the past eight years. In the past half decade, my older brother has gone from being arrested protesting outside of the School of the Americas to selling loans and lecturing me on the inadvisibility of driving five hours to a protest when it would force me to eat ramen for the next week. My father banned the Simpson's in our home and insisted that only christian music find its way to our cd players. Yet, now, he glares down anyone who thinks of uttering a homosexual slur in his presence. I could go on, but I'm certain that all of you have similar stories. You knew a bad girl who's now the Sunday morning hypocrit or the shy girl who became the clubber.
Everyone mentions being almost unable to recognize the person they were in high school. I wonder, why do we deny this change to the characters we love so much? It's rare to find a fic with any great change to a character's personality that doesn't have a list of comments occusing the author of making said character OOC.
In my mind, it's more out of character to remain stagnant. It's inhuman.
But then, I haven't slept in over a day. It's entirely possible that it's the sleep deprivation talking. Therefore, I pose the question to you. How much change is too much? Does this even matter to anyone else, or am I doing my exhausted rambling thing again?:)