Article on HP fandom and its future

[wasureneba]

What do y'all think of this article on HP fandom? It's not exactly new -- it was published in November -- but I'm just running across it and I definitely have some of the feelings described in here, though perhaps not all.

Comments

[mmailliw]

I'm not sure there's anything in that article that I really disagree with, to be honest.

The release event for Cursed Child was a major disappointment (waiting in line to fight through crowds in a bookstore, only to be kicked out the moment our books were in our hand) that matched the disappointment of the entire play (though I'm told it's better as a play than a book)... as well as the disappointment of the entire year (2016)!

[wasureneba]

Your Cursed Child event sounded particularly crappy -- the one in our town had a massive line, for sure; you actually had to have tickets -- but once you were inside it was a nice time of wandering around and doing scavenger hunts, etc.

The play was definitely not my jam, at least in script form.

[bergeronprocess]

Yeah I didn't even know any release parties went on for Cursed Child in my area. Probably Barnes and Noble did something, but I just didn't go. I think I ordered it from Amazon. How unceremonious, haha.

Also man that last bit about 2016 being disappointing overall is SO REAL.

[bergeronprocess]

I feel like the only person in the world who actually enjoyed Cursed Child lol. I'd love to see it on stage someday--maybe eventually it'll come to Atlanta with a touring cast. (I haven't seen Fantastic Beasts yet--I'll hit it up once it gets on Netflix or Amazon.) The Ilvermorny stuff I've mostly ignored, mainly due to the Native appropriation issues and partially due to the fact that for some reason I just could not follow the ins and outs of the Ilvermorny backstory when it was released! Plus, with a country as large as America, I feel like there's no way there is only one school of magic to serve the whole country anyway. (Even with swift methods of transport, it's still quite a long trip from, say, California to Massachusetts.) There would probably be smaller, more regional ones with more regional flair but Ilvermorny might be seen as a sort of Harvard-like school in terms of prestige. But that's just my headcanon lol

[ellisbell]

Regional schools would have been a great idea! America is much larger than the UK. The tenor of the universities here vary greatly depending on where they are (Texas A&M vs. Mizzou, for example). The canon schools other than Hogwarts are really specialized with very specific 'personalities'; stands to reason there should be the same here in the US, esp. when you take square miles/population into account.

[bergeronprocess]

Exactly! I don't know how many UKs would fit inside the US if you were to do that exercise, but I feel like it's uh MORE THAN A FEW haha. As a result, surely (I know, don't call me Shirley) groups of magical people in various places would congregate to found a school with a regional flavor. Like I'm imagining ones in the South (Spanish moss-laden trees!), ones in the Southwest (desert magic!), the Pacific Northwest (MOUNTAINS), the Midwest...Some might focus on one specific kind of magic, maybe, something like that...it's fun to think about, anyway!

[wasureneba]

^^All of this. There's so much ripe and interesting stuff there -- if she had made numerous regional schools, imagine the fanficcing that would happen with them!

[j_okay]

I'm definitely one of the exhausted fans the article talks about. I'll likely go see the remaining Fantastic Beasts movies - I'm still interested in seeing what this new franchise is about and forming a valid opinion - but I'm weary at the thought of it. This age of "un-death" in media is too much for me. Like, I'M tired of Spiderman and The Fast and The Furious and I don't even watch those movies. I'm not pleased to see this happening with one of my fandoms. The fatigue is real.

I found the suggestion about JKR mentoring other writers interesting, though. Maybe I wouldn't be so fatigued if the content were better and more in line with what the fans want - but then again, fanservice often doesn't get executed well. At this point the only respectable thing to do is to hang it up and let us fans carry on with the content we have.

[wasureneba]

I'm feeling the same way with the eternally redone movies. I enjoy superhero films a lot, but oh my GOD we didn't need three different Spiderman series in a decade and a half. It's a little bit better for me with the Fantastic Beasts films, because the characters and era are new, at least.

I also found that suggestion interesting.

At some point it's going to go from "stop milking this tired old cow" to "stop milking this dead cow" and I'm not sure when that's going to be....

[bergeronprocess]

I can't believe they're trying to stretch Fantastic Beasts to FIVE major motion pictures, oh my god. The Hobbit being unnecessarily stretched to three movies seemed like too much but yo, five movies is Way Too Much. (And I haven't even seen the first one yet!)

The great irony is that I feel like these stretches of books into one or two too many movies (*coughs in a way that sounds like Hunger Games*) began with Harry Potter. But Deathly Hallows had enough material to be two movies--the first is a classic 'on the lam/attempted mystery solving' movie and the second is a 'war' movie. These others are usually just an attempt to cash grab.

And yes omg I'm so over Spiderman too--I remember when that first "reboot" one came out in the early 2000s and now they've like? Rebooted it twice? I don't know. I'm not really into comic movies lol

[j_okay]

When you see the first movie, I guarantee you will be even MORE in disbelief as to how this can stretch to five movies. Haha.

Yeah, I think you're right. I'm not sure about the timeline for when Deathly Hallows / Hobbit / Hunger Games came out, but the stretching of books into multiple films definitely seems like a more recent thing.

re: comic movies: me either, and I always get confused with them. I can't remember what is Marvel and what is DC, and I think to some people that's as bad as mixing up Star Wars and Star Trek. x_x

[ellisbell]

This article gave voice to some feelings I guess I didn't realize I had; or at least, hadn't spent much time trying to articulate to myself. It's true I'm tired, but I'm not as angst-y as the overall vibe of the article, at least, not about the specifics they focus on. (But I did I wind up writing a comment so long and so tangent-y I decided to just post about it in my journal instead.) ;)

[wasureneba]

I don't think I'm so angsty about it either (although lol also looking at my comment threads in here...). But I am definitely feeling tired. I love this fandom so much, and so much of the new material feels as if it's trying to push and control the direction of the fandom.

[ellisbell]

I hope it didn't sound like I thought you were angsty; I didn't think you were. :)

I love this fandom so much, and so much of the new material feels as if it's trying to push and control the direction of the fandom.

This is a good way to put it.

[wasureneba]

Oh jeez, no, no worries about that! That was me comparing my feelings to the ones you'd expressed.

Fans: not people who like to get pushed around, it generally seems.