![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A rant I did not post at /r/HPfanfiction
Jun. 22nd, 2023 05:48 pmSeriously. Any discussion of HP characters that involves Snape gets people piling on saying he's irredeemable, he's evil, no one would like him, any sympathetic depictions of him are OOC, and so on. People can write Bellatrix Lestrange adopting Hermione Granger, and that's fine. People write Voldemort mentoring Harry, and that's fine. But writing Severitus or other fics where Snape has reason to rethink his stupid grudge is somehow just wrong and OOC. Did you read the same books I did? I saw a tragic character that danced on the knife edge of overcoming his old grudge and feeling sympathy for Harry Potter--but ultimately made the tragic choice to hang onto his grudge. He could easily have gone the other way, and a fanfic AU where he did is quite plausible.
This is all very weird to me, because I come from fandoms where the biggest villains are also the most popular ships and characters to write interesting stories about. Villains who make Voldemort look like That Guy at the office who steals from the fridge--villains who commit mass genocide, and who have never repented of their deeds or goals. (Though they may have stopped committing genocide.) People who think Drarry is disgusting because you think Draco (a teenager under duress) is an irredeemable villain who should be in a human-rights-violating prison for life... have you heard of the Hannibal fandom?
This is all very weird to me, because I come from fandoms where the biggest villains are also the most popular ships and characters to write interesting stories about. Villains who make Voldemort look like That Guy at the office who steals from the fridge--villains who commit mass genocide, and who have never repented of their deeds or goals. (Though they may have stopped committing genocide.) People who think Drarry is disgusting because you think Draco (a teenager under duress) is an irredeemable villain who should be in a human-rights-violating prison for life... have you heard of the Hannibal fandom?
