(no subject)
Oct. 8th, 2010 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferrethttp://tzikeh.livejournal.com/599872.html
Ugh. Just ugh. There are apparently lunatics who think that etymology is destiny, that if 'pre' means 'before' than any arbitrary prefoo must mean, literally, 'before foo'. These people want to seize control of my language, and it makes me rage.
I want to go up to them and say, "Does prefix mean 'before fix'?" But then my better angels seize me and tell me that getting involved with a flamewar over preslash isn't the kind of thing I should be doing with my time.
In happier fandom news, OMG In Loco Parentis OMG. Harry Potter, Hermione POV, Hermione/Harry and Harry/Snape. But mostly Hermione/Adult Political Awakening. 80,000+ Words. I um... stayed up until 1:30 last night reading it, because intelligent politics in fic is one of my kryptonites.
It's... well, an argument can certainly be mounted that the characterizations of Hermione and Harry are wrong. Rowling's Hermione could probably never have these epiphanies. It's an AU, a world where Books 6 and 7 didn't happen and instead the events of "In Loco Parentis" happened. But I think the thesis I'd prefer to develop is that the Hermione of this novel, and many other characters, are less the characters in an epic struggle between good and evil and more the type of characters who struggle to make a difference in the world against the forces of banality and indifference. It's not the fight that drew people into the Harry Potter universe, and it dodges the insistence that a single flash of a wand can save the day (Skewering it actually, with Hestia Jones's doomed urge to duel. In "In Loco Parentis", a wizard duel is just one more opportunity to change a single person's mind.).
But look. A hero quest novel that ends with a democratic election victory is exactly the tonic I needed in the current political landscape. Soctt's made fun of me about this for years, I know, but my belief that the Constitution and the democratic political process, in the end, will produce better results for more people than any other system is quasi-religious. And the rhetoric of the Tea Party is demoralizing from that perspective (Not their victories, which are of course part of the process itself, but their rhetoric, their repeated claims that they are somehow the silent unrepresented majority. I'm not one for lowest common denominator populism from either party.). This election is going to bring people into office who are preaching an incoherent message of arbitrary and meaningless change, and that depresses me, but "In Loco Parentis" reminds me that democracy is a process, and it requires us to be part of systems even when they depress us.
It's also, not at all tangentially, a story about the inherent cultural conservatism of the Potterverse. The dogmatic insistence on wizard clothing, the dependence on traditional family structure, the antagonism to even the positive advances of the non-wizard world. I've seen good fic about this before, but nothing tying it into the need for remedies as effectively. The story goes into some pretty depressing territory (Warning: The story features an illicit abortion), in effective, non-gratuitous ways.
But on the other hand, cultural conservatism isn't only a force for evil, and I think the story misses that dynamic a lot. Cultural conservatism can protect social order, protect people from uncertainty, give us valuable models for our social behavior. Ron Weasley could have been a statement of that theme, and by miring his plot in personal disappointment I think an opportunity was lost to further complicate the story, to muddy the one clear villain in the piece. I couldn't help but suspect, given the dynamics of HP fandom, that ship politics damage the story there.
Other highlights: Snape's Jewish Wedding!!!! Drunken Snape! Hermione learning about Bowie, learning about rock and roll as a music of revolution. Every appearance of Marietta Edgecombe. Every appearance of Hestia Jones.
And in life news, third place in trivia is depressing, but music identification has always been our Achilles heel, and there were twice as many music IDs as usual.
And New York Comic Con is this weekend!teal_deer is coming down from Bostonland. And it will be awesome. Or else it won't. I promise you that.
Ugh. Just ugh. There are apparently lunatics who think that etymology is destiny, that if 'pre' means 'before' than any arbitrary prefoo must mean, literally, 'before foo'. These people want to seize control of my language, and it makes me rage.
I want to go up to them and say, "Does prefix mean 'before fix'?" But then my better angels seize me and tell me that getting involved with a flamewar over preslash isn't the kind of thing I should be doing with my time.
In happier fandom news, OMG In Loco Parentis OMG. Harry Potter, Hermione POV, Hermione/Harry and Harry/Snape. But mostly Hermione/Adult Political Awakening. 80,000+ Words. I um... stayed up until 1:30 last night reading it, because intelligent politics in fic is one of my kryptonites.
It's... well, an argument can certainly be mounted that the characterizations of Hermione and Harry are wrong. Rowling's Hermione could probably never have these epiphanies. It's an AU, a world where Books 6 and 7 didn't happen and instead the events of "In Loco Parentis" happened. But I think the thesis I'd prefer to develop is that the Hermione of this novel, and many other characters, are less the characters in an epic struggle between good and evil and more the type of characters who struggle to make a difference in the world against the forces of banality and indifference. It's not the fight that drew people into the Harry Potter universe, and it dodges the insistence that a single flash of a wand can save the day (Skewering it actually, with Hestia Jones's doomed urge to duel. In "In Loco Parentis", a wizard duel is just one more opportunity to change a single person's mind.).
But look. A hero quest novel that ends with a democratic election victory is exactly the tonic I needed in the current political landscape. Soctt's made fun of me about this for years, I know, but my belief that the Constitution and the democratic political process, in the end, will produce better results for more people than any other system is quasi-religious. And the rhetoric of the Tea Party is demoralizing from that perspective (Not their victories, which are of course part of the process itself, but their rhetoric, their repeated claims that they are somehow the silent unrepresented majority. I'm not one for lowest common denominator populism from either party.). This election is going to bring people into office who are preaching an incoherent message of arbitrary and meaningless change, and that depresses me, but "In Loco Parentis" reminds me that democracy is a process, and it requires us to be part of systems even when they depress us.
It's also, not at all tangentially, a story about the inherent cultural conservatism of the Potterverse. The dogmatic insistence on wizard clothing, the dependence on traditional family structure, the antagonism to even the positive advances of the non-wizard world. I've seen good fic about this before, but nothing tying it into the need for remedies as effectively. The story goes into some pretty depressing territory (Warning: The story features an illicit abortion), in effective, non-gratuitous ways.
But on the other hand, cultural conservatism isn't only a force for evil, and I think the story misses that dynamic a lot. Cultural conservatism can protect social order, protect people from uncertainty, give us valuable models for our social behavior. Ron Weasley could have been a statement of that theme, and by miring his plot in personal disappointment I think an opportunity was lost to further complicate the story, to muddy the one clear villain in the piece. I couldn't help but suspect, given the dynamics of HP fandom, that ship politics damage the story there.
Other highlights: Snape's Jewish Wedding!!!! Drunken Snape! Hermione learning about Bowie, learning about rock and roll as a music of revolution. Every appearance of Marietta Edgecombe. Every appearance of Hestia Jones.
And in life news, third place in trivia is depressing, but music identification has always been our Achilles heel, and there were twice as many music IDs as usual.
And New York Comic Con is this weekend!
teal_deer is coming down from Bostonland. And it will be awesome. Or else it won't. I promise you that.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-08 02:59 pm (UTC)Also wtf with this 'pre' slash bullshit. I've written slash that has no sex at all, it's just. Two people in love. Granted some folk have called this 'fluff' but I'm like... it's... still slash. they just don't bone each other.
:\ stop inventing idiotic terms fandom
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-08 03:41 pm (UTC)I said I wasn't going to get involved in the flame war, but I couldn't disagree more. Preheating is a qualitatively different process from heating and it serves a different function. Thus, it's not a crime to give it a different name, even if you could use a few more words and live without it. And I think pre-slash serves a similar function. It positions the fiction within a tradition, even as it alerts the readers to the way it defies the conventions of the tradition.
But then, I'm never opposed to the English language having more words. The more words, the merrier.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-08 11:26 pm (UTC)The fandom convention used to drive me insane is the misuse of the exclamation mark. I see things like (re: the latest Trek movie) old!Spock and new!Spock.
DAMMIT AN EXCLAMATION MARK INDICATES "NOT". Both old Spock and new Spock are, in fact, Spock and not Nurse Chapel.
Then I realized that I should just avoid fandom discussions and things were better. :P
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-11 03:28 pm (UTC)As you note, Old!Spock is a fannish convention and it's no less valid than any other system's conventional notation. It's a useful fannish convention because of the activity of mashup culture in fandom. Old!Spock and New!Spock are reasonably useful, concise clarifications, but the notation is needed much more for things like Detective!Teal'c or Spy!Mohinder.