Oh, and BTW...
May. 24th, 2006 01:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flyingskullI wish a LOT of Harry/Draco shippers would read, memorise and fucking FOLLOW this advice.
especially point 4. Actually I'm reprinting point 4:
4) Don’t let a Designated Love Interest with different goals and principles subordinate them easily to the protagonist’s goals and principles. One way that authors sometimes try to stir up tension is by setting the protagonist and the Designated Love Interest up on opposite sides of a war, or making them rivals in a particular profession or quest. Will they fall in love against the odds?
Of course they will. You know why? Because the author values the protagonist over the Designated Love Interest, and the moment that they come into serious conflict, the Designated Love Interest capitulates—often with no experience or even persuasive argument to convince him or her—and takes the protagonist’s side.
This is disgusting.
I find it especially disgusting because, so often, the Designated Love Interest is represented as “selfish” for having different goals or principles. Her side (it’s most often a her) is the wrong one, so obviously and laughably so that no one sane or halfway intelligent would stick with that side for a moment. So it’s up to the author to convince me that she has deep, maybe irrational, personal reasons for sticking with that side.
The author doesn’t. Instead, she gives the heroine a short sharp shake for ever wanting anything other than to follow at the hero’s side like a panting dog, and sets her down in the “proper” place.
I can’t suggest a fix for this one other than making the difference or the rivalry real, because it makes me so sick to my stomach to see a character labeled “Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!” without any recourse. It’s not as though they could help it, you fucking stupid author. You were the one who chose to make them this way, to write this damn story. Now stop punishing the automaton and go write me a real set of rivals or differently principled people who have true, legitimate grievances with each other.
Sounds familiar? Poor Draco! I could worship at limyaael 's feet for this. Of course she's right in any kind of story about designated love interests but WHOOOOO is she right about poor Draco in tons and tons of H/D fics. Even some well-written ones.
Never could have said it better, or, let's be frank and open and whatnot, equally as well.
especially point 4. Actually I'm reprinting point 4:
4) Don’t let a Designated Love Interest with different goals and principles subordinate them easily to the protagonist’s goals and principles. One way that authors sometimes try to stir up tension is by setting the protagonist and the Designated Love Interest up on opposite sides of a war, or making them rivals in a particular profession or quest. Will they fall in love against the odds?
Of course they will. You know why? Because the author values the protagonist over the Designated Love Interest, and the moment that they come into serious conflict, the Designated Love Interest capitulates—often with no experience or even persuasive argument to convince him or her—and takes the protagonist’s side.
This is disgusting.
I find it especially disgusting because, so often, the Designated Love Interest is represented as “selfish” for having different goals or principles. Her side (it’s most often a her) is the wrong one, so obviously and laughably so that no one sane or halfway intelligent would stick with that side for a moment. So it’s up to the author to convince me that she has deep, maybe irrational, personal reasons for sticking with that side.
The author doesn’t. Instead, she gives the heroine a short sharp shake for ever wanting anything other than to follow at the hero’s side like a panting dog, and sets her down in the “proper” place.
I can’t suggest a fix for this one other than making the difference or the rivalry real, because it makes me so sick to my stomach to see a character labeled “Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!” without any recourse. It’s not as though they could help it, you fucking stupid author. You were the one who chose to make them this way, to write this damn story. Now stop punishing the automaton and go write me a real set of rivals or differently principled people who have true, legitimate grievances with each other.
Sounds familiar? Poor Draco! I could worship at limyaael 's feet for this. Of course she's right in any kind of story about designated love interests but WHOOOOO is she right about poor Draco in tons and tons of H/D fics. Even some well-written ones.
Never could have said it better, or, let's be frank and open and whatnot, equally as well.
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-24 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-25 12:29 am (UTC)But. being me, I suspect she preaches better than she practices. Right I am a suspicous, cynical bitch. Always was.
As for John Constantine, well spit in me eyes, but I don't have any idea of who he is except for a vague memory about he being kicked out of hell and doing anti-hell thingies in human world.
What struck me is that this is exactly what tons of authors, including Lightning do to Draco. They don't wan't him to be a real person, they have a kind of vague 'he's blond so let's pair him with Harry' with the basic thinking going 'Harry is jesus God so Draco has to deny all he is to be worthy'
YARCK BLEECH UGH
no subject
Date: 2006-05-25 02:51 pm (UTC)> Right I am a suspicous, cynical bitch. Always was.
Hehe, can't fault you there. Cynicism is the natural reaction to the way the world works, and as for suspicion, I have gone straight through it to reach unexplored vistas of paranoia on the other side. =]
But Limyaael really does live up to her own demands, at least reasonably well. The only thing I've really found to complain about is that her Light and Destiny argues like Slytherins - ie, it's obvious that the author doesn't agree with them and doesn't expect the readers to. But then, her Light and Destiny are parodies on divine powers in bad amateur fantasy. Their arguments are supposed to be cheesy.
> As for John Constantine, well spit in me eyes, but I don't have any
> idea of who he is except for a vague memory about he being kicked out
> of hell and doing anti-hell thingies in human world.
Uhm... I didn't mean to cause offense?
John Constantine is a modern magician, prone to sticking his nose where it doesn't belong. He detests "undeserved authority" in every form, including that of Heaven and Hell, and spends most of his time involved in one scheme or another to make the little guy come out on top for once. At the same time, he's notorious for doing extremely underhanded things to innocent people, if he thinks that will help him give the bastards he's fighting what's coming to them. And he hates himself for it, but in the end, when the only alternative is letting the angels/demons/crime lords/corrupt officials win, he'll play the traitor again, just because he can't help himself. He's like Granny Weatherwax, he doesn't know how to lose, but unlike her he can rarely win while keeping his hands clean.
He's followed by the ghosts of every friend who's ever died because of him. There's quite a few of them at this point. =]
Needless to say, I love Constantine. He's sometimes a vicious bastard, and sometimes a pathetic loser, and sometimes, rarely, a hero. The only thing he never is is a victim.
> They don't wan't him to be a real person, they have a kind of
> vague 'he's blond so let's pair him with Harry' with the basic
> thinking going 'Harry is jesus God so Draco has to deny all he is to
> be worthy'
I don't normally read fanfiction, but I don't really need to do recognise this one. I just have to look at some of my own early stories. Gaah, the shame. ^_^;
Writing love as complete surrender (especially when only one party is doing the surrendering, of course =]) is just lazy. It gets really interesting when you have two fleshed-out characters and have to figure out how they fit together, where they work well together, where they have to compromise and how, and so forth.