I really loved him in book 3. In fact, I distinctly remember reading book 3 and thinking throughout: "This guy is so interesting, and totally my type. Oh, I so hope there's a twist and he's not really a horrible bad guy." Naturally, I was very happy with the conclusion of that one. :)
I really liked how much characterization he got in book 5. She made him more complicated and ambiguous, which is *wonderful* and made me like him even more--I don't get at all why that would make someone like him less. No character should be perfect--the ones with dark sides are much more interesting. I love my characters complicated and grey and conflicted and fucked up (but with basically good hearts underneath). The whole time I was thinking "This could totally be my new fandom; please don't let him die." Stupid JKR.
Here is this complex and ambiguous character but most fans were ignoring him to whine that Draco wasn't being made complex and ambiguous--that there was no character with those qualities--when JKR had delivered us one in the last few books.
Yes, exactly! It's like saying you want a character with a dark side, but then when he does something dark, saying you dislike him for it. You can't have it both ways--to be ambiguous, a character has to do negative as well as positive things.
To me, it would be boring to be a Remus fan. He's too nice. Sirius, OTOH, is fascinating. So many layers and complications.
You're totally right that OotP seemed to be starting an arc for him, but then didn't finish it. Set it up perfectly and then cut it off, which is what makes his death even more horrible, because he had so much growing to do, and he was a good and well-meaning person underneath, and he should have had that chance to become the person that I knew he could be (*sob*).
That was the thing that really surprised me with his death--he's so interesting and fucked up, there's so much to explore here--let's kill him instead??? HUH??? Why not kill, say, Hagrid, who has no interesting complications to explore but could get a similar emotional reaction? It's terrible to cut off such an interesting story. It's like how ME kept refusing to explore all the interesting stuff going on with Spike and Willow in S7, and focused instead on Dawn and the potentials. WTF?
Oh, I'm glad you'll be at Dragoncon. Go to some of the Harry Potter panels! It would be great it we met up at some point. I'm actually not going to know that many people there: jaydk, elizard100, and rockgoddes are the only ones so far.
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Date: 2004-07-21 08:50 am (UTC)I really liked how much characterization he got in book 5. She made him more complicated and ambiguous, which is *wonderful* and made me like him even more--I don't get at all why that would make someone like him less. No character should be perfect--the ones with dark sides are much more interesting. I love my characters complicated and grey and conflicted and fucked up (but with basically good hearts underneath). The whole time I was thinking "This could totally be my new fandom; please don't let him die." Stupid JKR.
Here is this complex and ambiguous character but most fans were ignoring him to whine that Draco wasn't being made complex and ambiguous--that there was no character with those qualities--when JKR had delivered us one in the last few books.
Yes, exactly! It's like saying you want a character with a dark side, but then when he does something dark, saying you dislike him for it. You can't have it both ways--to be ambiguous, a character has to do negative as well as positive things.
To me, it would be boring to be a Remus fan. He's too nice. Sirius, OTOH, is fascinating. So many layers and complications.
You're totally right that OotP seemed to be starting an arc for him, but then didn't finish it. Set it up perfectly and then cut it off, which is what makes his death even more horrible, because he had so much growing to do, and he was a good and well-meaning person underneath, and he should have had that chance to become the person that I knew he could be (*sob*).
That was the thing that really surprised me with his death--he's so interesting and fucked up, there's so much to explore here--let's kill him instead??? HUH??? Why not kill, say, Hagrid, who has no interesting complications to explore but could get a similar emotional reaction? It's terrible to cut off such an interesting story. It's like how ME kept refusing to explore all the interesting stuff going on with Spike and Willow in S7, and focused instead on Dawn and the potentials. WTF?
Oh, I'm glad you'll be at Dragoncon. Go to some of the Harry Potter panels! It would be great it we met up at some point. I'm actually not going to know that many people there: jaydk, elizard100, and rockgoddes are the only ones so far.