Fanfic and JKR's work, spoiler version!!!

[azurelunatic]

I find that reading fanfic has made my experience with this book much smoother. JKR's writing is on par with the decent-but-not-brilliant fanfic writers out there, and this is a very smooth work with close attention to canon and characterization.

I can happily and safely ignore anything I do not like about it, because my brain does not sort it as OMG CANON. It sorts it as "fic I'd recommend".

Spoilered discussion belongs in the comments here.

Comments

[bekijane.livejournal.com]

Yes. JKR has been heavily influenced by the fanfic. It screams out all the way through.

I still say this is the best book yet, perhaps because of that influence, but I can't help feeling just a little let down and I can't yet put a finger on why. Perhaps it was the pointed way the pairings were chopped into the story. Oh so pointed. And we're supposed to be hating Snape the "bad guy" who's run of with Draco so no, we're not supposed to even think about shipping them.

It'll probably take a reread to work out why the discontentment.

[azurelunatic]

Ron calling Ginny a slut is a serious mark of badfic.

[wibbble]

Given the ages they're supposed to be (16 and... umm, what? 14?), and the time it's supposed to be set, that use of language isn't unrealistic, depending on context.

[azurelunatic]

Not unrealistic given the setting, the ages, and the characters, but considering the audience it's written for, I find it unacceptable used in that context. (I do not have an issue with the Gaunts, Voldemort's trashy kin, using it.)

Ron is one of the characters who is supposed to be good and noble. He may not actually be good and noble, but he is supposed to be a half-decent role model. Ron saying this to Ginny, even though he is very upset, may well put "slut" on the mental List Of Words You Yell At Your Sister When You're Having A Row. I really can't support that.

The Gaunts are disgusting. While someone (either father or brother, I can't remember which) calls the girl who will be Voldemort's mother a slut, it is not portrayed in such a way as to make the larger part of the audience identify with it. There's enough other verbal abuse that "slut" slides by as part of the assorted ickiness.

[wibbble]

There could be cultural issues there, too. The difference between writing primarily for an American or British audience.

There's also an issue of if it's the job of the book to be 'setting good examples' - isn't the purpose of the book to entertain? Especially since many people continually claim that these aren't 'children's books'...

[azurelunatic]

Job of the book, no.

Something I'd have to think hard about before sharing with an eight-year-old? Yes.