The term IC/OOC in H/D post-Hogwarts long stories
wayfairer's post of recs pushed me to thinking in an unexpected direction.
She recommended fearlessdiva 's Tissue of Silver ("ToS is one of the best full-length fics in the fandom despite its rough state, and the new rewrites have turned it from a purely skilled, romantic fic to an absolutely incredible work. Go. Read. And then go fangirl her on the Armchair. :D") and Taratext's The Goddness of Their Hearts. But the latter was recced with certain limitations ("The other primary detriment is that the fic is completely devoid of canon in any way shape or form, except for a wildly OOC Harry and an all-grown-up Draco.").
A thought occurred to me, that in this case, from my point of view, we could say 'wildly OOC' about the characters of both these stories. In ToS Draco is more Out-OC, in GoTH both Harry and Draco are.
Then I recalled a couple of more texts.
So now I'll give links to four H/D post-Hogwarts/post-war novel-length stories (or just long enough novellas) with short summaries:
Fearlessdiva's Tissue of Silver.
Several years after Voldemort's defeat. Draco developed an unexpected gift - he's a Seer, and now he is at the side of Light. Somebody is trying to kill him and Harry as a super-Auror is appointed to protect him and investigate.
Taratext's The Goddness of Their Hearts.
Mirroring plot. Somebody tries to kill Harry - now the star-seeker, and Draco who has his own security company is appointed to protect him and investigate.
Animus by Isolde13, WIP, 9 chapters.
"Harry has defeated Voldemort but he did not come out of the war unscathed. Into his life comes Draco, who is working as a prostitute in Muggle London." Harry is violent, depressed and has issues. Draco is beaten constantly, and also has issues.
The Lodger by Mad Martha
Harry is depressed, Draco is depressed and hunted for; both have issues.
I think, when we look at long stories, which explore relationships of the grown-up characters, which were still children in canon (I suppose it's easier to write future-fics about Snape or Lupin in this respect), we shouldn't think of them in terms 'in character'/'out of character'. Because usually an author suggests a suitable background for the changes they forced into the characters. Maybe we should speak about the credibility of the changes and/or about the sufficiency of the suggested covering story for the time that has passed since the canon years? Because I suppose we have rather big a scale of possible developments of Draco's or Harry's character.
So, what do you think? Can we or can we not apply the term IC/OOC to such fiction? And how do we evaluate the credibility of the stories of this type?
She recommended fearlessdiva 's Tissue of Silver ("ToS is one of the best full-length fics in the fandom despite its rough state, and the new rewrites have turned it from a purely skilled, romantic fic to an absolutely incredible work. Go. Read. And then go fangirl her on the Armchair. :D") and Taratext's The Goddness of Their Hearts. But the latter was recced with certain limitations ("The other primary detriment is that the fic is completely devoid of canon in any way shape or form, except for a wildly OOC Harry and an all-grown-up Draco.").
A thought occurred to me, that in this case, from my point of view, we could say 'wildly OOC' about the characters of both these stories. In ToS Draco is more Out-OC, in GoTH both Harry and Draco are.
Then I recalled a couple of more texts.
So now I'll give links to four H/D post-Hogwarts/post-war novel-length stories (or just long enough novellas) with short summaries:
Fearlessdiva's Tissue of Silver.
Several years after Voldemort's defeat. Draco developed an unexpected gift - he's a Seer, and now he is at the side of Light. Somebody is trying to kill him and Harry as a super-Auror is appointed to protect him and investigate.
Taratext's The Goddness of Their Hearts.
Mirroring plot. Somebody tries to kill Harry - now the star-seeker, and Draco who has his own security company is appointed to protect him and investigate.
Animus by Isolde13, WIP, 9 chapters.
"Harry has defeated Voldemort but he did not come out of the war unscathed. Into his life comes Draco, who is working as a prostitute in Muggle London." Harry is violent, depressed and has issues. Draco is beaten constantly, and also has issues.
The Lodger by Mad Martha
Harry is depressed, Draco is depressed and hunted for; both have issues.
I think, when we look at long stories, which explore relationships of the grown-up characters, which were still children in canon (I suppose it's easier to write future-fics about Snape or Lupin in this respect), we shouldn't think of them in terms 'in character'/'out of character'. Because usually an author suggests a suitable background for the changes they forced into the characters. Maybe we should speak about the credibility of the changes and/or about the sufficiency of the suggested covering story for the time that has passed since the canon years? Because I suppose we have rather big a scale of possible developments of Draco's or Harry's character.
So, what do you think? Can we or can we not apply the term IC/OOC to such fiction? And how do we evaluate the credibility of the stories of this type?