Oh, your username is from McGonagall! I love that!
Being let down by the later books in a series: in that way, I actually feel lucky that even though I was a Harry Potter fan from early on, I didn't find fandom and fic until later, after the series was complete. Because I know so many people who were already writing fic during the series (e.g. during the wait between GoF and OotP, or OotP and HBP) and then the later books came along and crushed headcanons, or outright killed off favorite characters (ahem). Since I was writing fic later, I was working with a complete canon (at least until JKR started churning out all this new stuff, which we don't talk about!) Canon was set, and I could work with it or against it, but I didn't have to watch what-we-thought-might-become-canon being destroyed. I'm grateful for that! I know it can be really fun to write speculatively while a canon is still unfolding, but it can also be really crushing (I've since had that experience - canons that were not yet complete when I was writing (e.g. BBC Sherlock) - and it's no fun at all, at least if the creators end up destroying what the fans had thought the point of the show was. Anyway. I digress!)
You're right about some of the themes that maybe didn't get addressed enough in HP... I mean, I love everything JKR does in the series about tolerance and fighting bigotry, but there are definitely ways she's too black and white about it (all Slytherins are evil?) and there's a sense at the end, especially in the epilogue, that the underlying attitudes may not have changed all that much. A lot of my post-canon fic seems to circle back to that, how things aren't all fixed just because there was a war, and the work people have to put in to build a better society.
ANYWAY. Yes, I love how Harry Potter fandom keeps sprouting new parts and fests and interests, even after all this time. It really seems like a fandom that need never end, no matter how much time passes since publication, because there's always more to ponder.
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Being let down by the later books in a series: in that way, I actually feel lucky that even though I was a Harry Potter fan from early on, I didn't find fandom and fic until later, after the series was complete. Because I know so many people who were already writing fic during the series (e.g. during the wait between GoF and OotP, or OotP and HBP) and then the later books came along and crushed headcanons, or outright killed off favorite characters (ahem). Since I was writing fic later, I was working with a complete canon (at least until JKR started churning out all this new stuff, which we don't talk about!) Canon was set, and I could work with it or against it, but I didn't have to watch what-we-thought-might-become-canon being destroyed. I'm grateful for that! I know it can be really fun to write speculatively while a canon is still unfolding, but it can also be really crushing (I've since had that experience - canons that were not yet complete when I was writing (e.g. BBC Sherlock) - and it's no fun at all, at least if the creators end up destroying what the fans had thought the point of the show was. Anyway. I digress!)
You're right about some of the themes that maybe didn't get addressed enough in HP... I mean, I love everything JKR does in the series about tolerance and fighting bigotry, but there are definitely ways she's too black and white about it (all Slytherins are evil?) and there's a sense at the end, especially in the epilogue, that the underlying attitudes may not have changed all that much. A lot of my post-canon fic seems to circle back to that, how things aren't all fixed just because there was a war, and the work people have to put in to build a better society.
ANYWAY. Yes, I love how Harry Potter fandom keeps sprouting new parts and fests and interests, even after all this time. It really seems like a fandom that need never end, no matter how much time passes since publication, because there's always more to ponder.