Meditation on the Ethics of NC-17 HP FanFic

[rhetoretician]

This may be a little provocative...

First, two personal notes:  (1)  I have no objection to reading erotica generally (no matter how explicit), although (a) I think that Porn Without Plot is generally a waste of time, and (b) brutality and cruelty is always a turn-off for me.  (2) I probably never will write anything NC-17 myself, in any genre,

Comments

[rosathome]

I didn't know she'd said that either. I just thought she'd vaguely acknowledged the existence of fanfic and indicated that she didn't plan on suing anyone.

So, I'm not a lawyer and I'm sure you're right about what the situation ought to be. This is just my waffling about characters and imagination and writing fanfic.

For me, the distinction comes between those pieces I think of as real stories, which just happen to use characters and settings from another work; and those which are just the sort of imaginings that any good work of fiction will leave the reader with. The latter (imo) should never really need to be published at all, and if people want to have their own NC-17 imaginations at work, no one can legislate against that. But the former - well, now that's tricky. Because although they are JKR's characters and settings, once they appear in a work like the New Zealand Chronicles (for instance) they sort of become St Margarets' too. Or in your stories, Ken. And sometimes those stories do become darker, or more sexually explicit. And I've never had a problem reading stories like that. Especially if they feature adult versions of the characters. One of the features of the HP books is the way that as the characters have aged so has the nature of the storytelling. So maybe that's partly why it feels right for them to be continued into adult literature.

Hmm. I don't know really.

This is probably now going way off topic, but I remember seeing Philip Pullman interviewed once and he was asked about the underage sex in his books, which are also aimed at the YA audience. He claimed he 'hadn't let his imagination go there'. The problem I had believing that, was that he actually has a place in his book where one of the characters is explaining how she'd got some information. She says that she went to Lord Asriel's room. And then the narrator tells us that she didn't say any more because all the adults listening knew exactly what happened next and none of the children did. Anyway, my point in that, is that sometimes content is determined by the reader. And I wonder what JKR's comments would say to that? If she as an adult understands something to be going on which a younger reader wouldn't, is that appropriate or not?

[rhetoretician]

Hi, Ros. (Why aren't you revising?) ;)

I sort of tried to keep the "lawyer" part of me out of the conversation. I couldn't help bringing up copyright, just for the sake of pointing out that the ethical argument would exist even if the law were different.

When Mary gets explicit she does it for very good thematic or character reasons, and it's beautiful. And as I've said before, if marriage is her topic then sex must be one of her devices; no way 'round it. The question for me is whether JKR's wishes matter in this regard, especially when the use of HP characters and settings is a creative choice that is truly optional. (Roger and Lisa, I think you agree, needn't have been fan fiction at all; it was essentially entirely original. The same, I think, is true of about 80% of NZC.)

The last question you raise is an interesting one, and of course there are clearly scenes in GoF, OotP and HBP where more is going on sexually than the text tells us. But the point is, she doesn't tell us. And as for Pullman -- wait, isn't there a moment in the third book where they are obviously having sex?

[rosathome]

Well, I think it's obvious but he denies it. And I don't think JKR goes as far as Pullman does, certainly. But her books can be read differently by adults as compared to children. Which, I think, gives a certain amount of scope to the fic writer.