Why no Harry Potter, eh?

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

So I looked at ONTD's "Ten of the most Epidemically Overrated Books," and was incensed to find that books like On the Road and The Great Gatsby made the list but the Harry Potter series didn't (though at least the Twilight series did). I mean really, Harry Potter is the epitome of an overrated book series, given that there are people seriously making the point that it's so deep and meaningful and needs to be read in AP English classes. Never mind that it's a children's book series!

Well, these were the people who said that a bunch of authors besides Rowling disliked the idea of fanfiction without bothering to consider WHY they might feel that way (specifically, that Rowling is the only one who's all that fandom savvy because she's modern in a way that the others aren't). Maybe they just think Rowling is their darling author too, and you can't say anything bad about her.

Comments

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

There's also the ugly fact that some fans are just mentally and/or emotionally disturbed. They turn a particular fandom into their religion, and act just as crazy as any other religious nut when their beliefs are threatened. (I define a religion as anything you love so much and believe in so strongly that you can't be entirely rational about it and get hostile and defensive when you perceive it as being threatened.)

For example, I belonged to the Dresden Files TV show fandom, and tried to bring to it same kind of mentality found in the SH fandom and here at DTCL. Specifically, I said the backstory of one of the characters didn't make sense and proposed an elaborate rewrite of his history that was, frankly, a whole lot more interesting and exciting than show canon. This one woman, a self-appointed guardian of the show, characters, and actors, just went totally ballistic. She called me every foul name in the book, followed me around the Internet attacking me, and trashed my ideas to other people who didn't know me. No attempts on my part to have a reasonable discussion worked with her. The last straw was when she stole five pages of my words and put them into her fanfic! When I politely pointed out what she'd done and asked for co-author credit, she went even crazier, "diagnosing" me with all kinds of mental illnesses I've never had, but which, coincidentally, just happened to apply really well to her. (I'm not suggesting I didn't get angry during this fight, but I never descended to personal attacks or her kind of viciousness.) Some of those really hateful HP fans are just unstable, like this woman.

You can't fix stupid, and you can't fix crazy. You can just do your best to avoid them.

[kahran042]

You can just do your best to avoid them.


Unfortunately, that's often one of those things that's easier said than done. I speak from bitter experience here.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, I know. See my comments above about that crazy woman following me around and slandering me all over the Internet.