Deathly Hallows and Ficcing Thoughts
So far, I have no fic ideas actually based on Deathly Hallows. I have a vague thought that Ron's joking about it is a hint that Rose Weasley will after all marry Scorpius Malfoy, but it doesn't go so far as to have a plot.
I do wish she'd left Remus and Tonks alive. I'd rather have imagined the universe going on with them alive in it, and I admit it seems like it wasn't strictly necessary, and it seems to have devastated some of my favorite fanficcers who don't believe in writing fic around or against authorial intent as they perceive it.
I enjoyed the canon story for Dumbledore, but I would also have enjoyed believing him more noble... I had become resigned to not seeing any more of one favorite fic if the author didn't get around to it, but am still working on being resigned to not seeing it due to the possibility that Dumbledore's characterization doesn't mesh with the point the story was supposed to make.
I find that I do want to finish "Something Better Than This" and am oddly inclined to go back to Time's Riddle, though I don't know if or when either is going to happen because I seem to be very bad at finishing stories lately. Or perhaps that's not just lately. *glances over shoulder at assorted unfinished tales* I can hold them in my head and "believe" them as other worlds, other versions, other ways the story might have been, even though they never crossed JKR's mind. And I like them.
I like my Tom Riddle who was a decent kid once and succumbed to the temptations of pride and power and cruelty, even if in some ways the way I imagined his fall resembled Dumbledore's more than Voldemort's... well, the canonical Voldemort never seems to have been high enough up to fall, so it would have to. I like the version who has been warned off and gotten part of Harry in him and is trying to do better, and I'm suddenly laughing because of what Alan and I had planned to do with Voldemort's wand. I like the version of Voldemort's parents that turns up in Stepbrothers and was going to be in Time's Riddle.
In the case of SBTT, aside from a few convergences I was going somewhere so different with the plot (well, and to be blunt, so much simpler and less scary with fewer things drawn back in *mumble*) that it's actually not very difficult to keep things straight and go on with minimal changes. And after the canonical ending, I kind of want to go play in my comparatively light and fluffy version! That's one of the critiques I got when I was first getting started with it -- that it was too cheerful and straightforward, like the earlier books. But, you know, I got into the series based on the earlier books. I didn't fall for POA and GOF the way some people did. It was PS and CoS -- and, okay, I completely got it wrong where she was going with Tom Riddle, but darn it, I still don't think it was unreasonable at that point to look at the comments about choices and parallels to Harry and Slytherin features of Harry, and go "I think Tom Riddle might have been a decent kid once and then given in to temptation and chosen to go wrong."
Oddly, I feel vaguely guilty about some of this. Because I've tended to like the books reasonably well and wanted to like them, I've tended to float around the "canon-thumper" crowd. And the part of fandom that really enjoys the books has a fairly heavy overlap with people who have a... a stricter attitude toward fanfic than I have. Some get into the appreciation/appropriation discussion I've seen going around lately. Some view anything but perfectly canon-compliant fanfic as a claim that the story should have been different. Some are wary of fanfiction in case it somehow ruins their enjoyment of the books.
Which it does for some people. I've seen plenty of people complaining about parts of the book because fanficcers or even just discussion boards had done or predicted some of the same things. And some have gotten more attached to one character or idea through either means or both, and find it hard to enjoy canon that contradicts that, at least unalloyedly; I freely admit I've experienced that myself.
But I do not share all the same principles as above. I think that when a story is released over time, a certain amount of speculation and theorizing and, yes, getting attached to what you would like to see and hoping the story is of a kind you especially like... all of these are to be expected. I enjoy the story for what it is, but my initial idea of what she would do with Tom Riddle (for instance) was also something I would have enjoyed. I do think I would enjoy it more if Tonks and Remus had lived, and am not really sure why I'm more upset about them than Fred aside from perhaps the fic thing, but maybe she wanted that effect.
As I child, I would read stories and sometimes want to see them from the other characters' points of view, or I would rewrite the ending in my head to something more cheerful. Now, during my junior year of high school, studying The Scarlet Letter and reading the script for the movie with Demi Moore in it convinced me that there were times a happy ending really didn't work well for the story. Writing my own also forced me to admit that sometimes it didn't fit or wasn't what you wanted to do. My attitude toward fanfic was largely formed in the X-Men comic book fandom, where it was pretty common to feel that the pros had some good concepts (or why would we want to play with them?) but also some really dreadful ones and some poor executions, and still consider yourself a fan, and where even in canon there were a multitude of contradictory timelines and alternate futures and alternate pasts and other dimensions and at least a few independent restarts of the story. I realize that with a single-author source material the situation isn't necessarily the same.
But I have decided that, all things considered, I do not want and I do not choose to feel bad about enjoying my own timelines and disproved speculations and obsoleted fics alongside canon. I fully and entirely acknowledge the author's right to construct her story as she sees fit, and do not pretend that my imaginings affect the reality of the story -- and I still think that where my imagination spiraled off in another direction, and still gave me pleasure, I will play.
I do not choose to feel guilty if, when I imagine the world in my own head or even if I write it into stories, I decide to pretend Padmé used one last (artificial this time) decoy or that Tonks and Remus were cursed to resemble death or that Filch is a little more like Ozma's version of him. (Come to think of it, I'd really, really like to do something with him and Jakinda, but I can't for the life of me figure out what.) I do not choose to feel guilty if I write Young Wizards plotbunnies in which the Redeemed Lone Power (not to be confused with the Hesper) drops by and Dairine punches him in the stomach and then later they end up hanging out in the planetarium, even though I cannot for the life of me figure out any point when this would fit into the timeline. I do not choose to feel guilty about either playing with portions of the Star Wars EU -- even when they contradict what I think Lucas probably intended -- or about ignoring or rejecting other portions.
I think I can even manage not to feel bad if it confuses my own readers when I incorporate a piece of canon in one set of stories and not in another. You'll probably end up figuring me out anyway; I tend to be predictable. ;)
In the meantime... now that everything's over, I find myself wanting to play with the obsoleted stuff anyway. I also notice that some things weren't obsoleted. There's actually still room for most of my versions of the Founders (there are several in my head!) although some of them would probably need some tweaking since there's at least one version of Salazar who would be unlikely to own jewelry. (Others I really can't think how to make them fit the last few books, but might be amusing anyway.) I might go back and finish that absurd fic about Voldemort lounging in the park that was inspired by one of the FictionAlley header images, and there's as much room as there ever was for a fic about Snape in that "time gap" in OotP that some people were so intrigued with and that I personally think JKR didn't notice any more than I did until people kept pointing it out.
Hm. This ended up being a lot ramblier than I had actually intended, with a lot of stuff about my attitude toward fanfic and how I've been letting other people's attitudes toward it affect me, and how I want to play with my speculations and obsoleted fic ideas without feeling that I'm being disrespectful to the real author. I suppose what it boils down to (without the spoilers) is that some of my HP fics have been obsoleted over the course of the past few books, some have not, and I enjoyed the canon but am currently more inclined to play with the obsoleted ideas than inspired with anything new.
...Actually, I'm fine without any new plotbunnies right now, honestly. I kind of want to pay attention to the ones I've already got, and the newborn ones always have awfully sharp nippers. So I kind of hope this state of affairs actually lasts!
Well, not the part where I have random moments of not feeling any of my stories are worth the energy. But I think that's a sort of standard insecure nitwittery. Once I get into writing them I generally enjoy it. And while I rather wish I had kept up on SBTT and actually finished it before the real seventh book, I suppose there's some freedom in feeling it makes little difference what I decide to finish off next.