Hummers and Potters

[sartorias]

Why is it (she grumped) that one can be standing at the sink washing dishes and look out to see all kinds of hummers being enchanting around the feeder, and occasionally the yellow and black bird stoking up, but as SOON as one races upstairs for the cell phone cam, they all vanish for hours

Comments

[sholio]

in the books, Malfoy, for example, is one dimensional, always rotten except for a line or so in a late book, but the films gave him a beautiful face, and as a consequence there are so many angsty-but-beautiful bad boys with pale blond hair in YA stories written by the Potter generation

It wasn't specifically the movies making Malfoy pretty that did it; I'm fairly sure the "Malfoy as redeemable bad boy" thing took hold in the Harry Potter fandom before the movies started coming out. Though I'm sure it didn't hurt at all. (Side note: I've been watching The Flash, which includes Tom Felton -- Malfoy's actor -- as a character who basically amounts to a grownup version of the redeemable fandom version of Draco; it's fascinating and kind of weird

[sartorias]

Same here. Interesting to watch that happen!

[marfisa]

Perhaps some of the writers you're thinking of were also influenced by Spike on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," who was also attractive, had pale blond hair, and spent much of the series as a villain before beginning to help out the good guys (initially reluctantly). Even before the unwanted restoration of his soul forced him to belatedly grapple with guilt over all the atrocities he'd committed as a vampire, Spike was intermittently angsty over his relationship with his mentally unstable vampire girlfriend Drusilla. As shown in flashbacks, Drusilla had been turned into a vampire by Angel back during his original evil Angelus phase and was Angelus' girlfriend first, with Spike as a sort of smitten tagalong member of their pack (or whatever the show's term for a clique of vampires was). Even decades of separation later, whenever Angel reverted to Angelus and started coming around again, Dru tended to more or less forget that her supposed current squeeze Spike was even there, which was obviously upsetting for him. In fact, Spike was pretty

[sartorias]

That is an excellent observation about Buffy and Spike. The influence is certainly all OVER Cassie Claire's fan work.

[whswhs]

A friend of ours coined the phrase "ironic magic," though her example was lighting a cigarette to make the bus arrive.

[sartorias]

Heh. Akin to washing the car to make it rain?

[whswhs]

You've got it, exactly!

[anna_wing]

People, whether real or fictional, tend to be much more easily forgiven if they are good-looking.

[sartorias]

Yup.

[a_d_medievalist]

I think it would be a fun thesis, at least!