*snerks, amused*
Jun. 22nd, 2006 11:00 am![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cthulhuchanSummary of a recent review of In Principia:
Great story (thanks)! Love how you handled homophobia! People so rarely deal with intolerant!Wizarding-world (not entirely true, but it is pretty rare). Your Snape was cool, what with being good but not nice (Thanks, that was what I was going for). Only, Ron wouldn't have done that, he's always so very loyal to Harry (you must have read a different GoF than I did)! Oh, noes! And why would the Wizarding World be intolerant anyway, since for Muggles it's all based in religion? (I was under the impression you liked having a non-tolerant Wizarding World, make up your mind)? Why didn't you explain that (I was unaware I had to do 20,000 words of backstory to explain anything in a fic)?
It's funny, the few people who complain about characterizations of In Principa always focus on OMG! Ron would NEVER do that.
Aside from obvious issues of who else in the story would drive the point of such gibbering, mindless hatred home, it betrays a failure, either in myself as a writer or in them as readers. I tend to lean toward them since most people seem to have understood what I was trying to portray.
The whole point of Ron's reaction is that he loves Harry, is generally loyal to Harry -- but when confronted with something so very deep seated in in upbringing behaves with a knee-jerk reaction. It's a condemnation of the society that Ron would react like that. Not a condemnation of Ron, himself. It's about how unthinking and stupid and horrifying such prejudices are, and what they can do. It's about my friend who told his parents -- who, before that moment loved him unequivically -- and was left with a father who won't acknowledge him and a mother who dances between "I accept you" and "You're going to hell!" Love and loyalty do not inherently stand a chance against the dictates of social reality in which you are raised.
*shakes head, torn between amusement and sadness*
It's hard to tell if, when people are so fixated on "You were mean to my favorite character!" that they actually completely miss the point of a sotry, I should laugh at them or despair for humanity.
Great story (thanks)! Love how you handled homophobia! People so rarely deal with intolerant!Wizarding-world (not entirely true, but it is pretty rare). Your Snape was cool, what with being good but not nice (Thanks, that was what I was going for). Only, Ron wouldn't have done that, he's always so very loyal to Harry (you must have read a different GoF than I did)! Oh, noes! And why would the Wizarding World be intolerant anyway, since for Muggles it's all based in religion? (I was under the impression you liked having a non-tolerant Wizarding World, make up your mind)? Why didn't you explain that (I was unaware I had to do 20,000 words of backstory to explain anything in a fic)?
It's funny, the few people who complain about characterizations of In Principa always focus on OMG! Ron would NEVER do that.
Aside from obvious issues of who else in the story would drive the point of such gibbering, mindless hatred home, it betrays a failure, either in myself as a writer or in them as readers. I tend to lean toward them since most people seem to have understood what I was trying to portray.
The whole point of Ron's reaction is that he loves Harry, is generally loyal to Harry -- but when confronted with something so very deep seated in in upbringing behaves with a knee-jerk reaction. It's a condemnation of the society that Ron would react like that. Not a condemnation of Ron, himself. It's about how unthinking and stupid and horrifying such prejudices are, and what they can do. It's about my friend who told his parents -- who, before that moment loved him unequivically -- and was left with a father who won't acknowledge him and a mother who dances between "I accept you" and "You're going to hell!" Love and loyalty do not inherently stand a chance against the dictates of social reality in which you are raised.
*shakes head, torn between amusement and sadness*
It's hard to tell if, when people are so fixated on "You were mean to my favorite character!" that they actually completely miss the point of a sotry, I should laugh at them or despair for humanity.
