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Joss Whedon - Created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which lasted for seven seasons. Seventh season was not well received by the fans, but it didn't exactly kill affection for the show as a whole. Four years later: Whedon starts writing Buffy stories again. No one (that I can find) says anything to the effect that Whedon should just let it go and not mess with the fans' precious Buffyverse more than he already has.
Spielberg and Lucas - Made Raiders of the Lost Ark, an extremely popular film that spawned two very popular (though widely acknowledged as inferior) sequels. Nineteen years later: Speilberg and Lucas make another Indy film. Fans don't complain about this, except that they want it to be a worthy addition to the franchise. No one says "Ugh, not ANOTHER Indy story!"
Fans had their complaints about the Star Wars prequels, as everyone knows, but I never heard anyone complaining that there were going to BE prequels.
Did Tolkien fans complain when The Silmarillion came out because they didn't want new stories from Middle Earth?
Then WHY do so-called Harry Potter fans complain when there's apparently new canon to be enjoyed very shortly? I mean ... I think we all know why that is. But it's just amusing to me that the whiners don't seem to realize how ridiculous they sound complaining that there's going to be another story to enjoy.
Of course, I could be totally wrong about complaints in those other fandoms, not being as involved in them as I have been in HP, but it strikes me as a bizarre fannish anomaly nonetheless.
Spielberg and Lucas - Made Raiders of the Lost Ark, an extremely popular film that spawned two very popular (though widely acknowledged as inferior) sequels. Nineteen years later: Speilberg and Lucas make another Indy film. Fans don't complain about this, except that they want it to be a worthy addition to the franchise. No one says "Ugh, not ANOTHER Indy story!"
Fans had their complaints about the Star Wars prequels, as everyone knows, but I never heard anyone complaining that there were going to BE prequels.
Did Tolkien fans complain when The Silmarillion came out because they didn't want new stories from Middle Earth?
Then WHY do so-called Harry Potter fans complain when there's apparently new canon to be enjoyed very shortly? I mean ... I think we all know why that is. But it's just amusing to me that the whiners don't seem to realize how ridiculous they sound complaining that there's going to be another story to enjoy.
Of course, I could be totally wrong about complaints in those other fandoms, not being as involved in them as I have been in HP, but it strikes me as a bizarre fannish anomaly nonetheless.
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I dunno. I've heard a fair amount of "Couldn't they have left well enough alone?" (I'm pretty sure that wouldn't have been the reaction if it weren't for the Star Wars prequels, but who knows?)
This happens a lot in Star Trek, too, but there's a lot more canon there, of wildly varying quality, so people have gotten phaser-shy.
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I've never been involved in any other fandom, so I can't speak to how they are, but I do think that the HP fandom was the first of its kind. It was so completely massive that you could always find someone who shared your view of the series, whether it was H/Hr, Snape-centric, or whatever, you could surround yourself with like minded people. These groups of like minded people would reinforce their ideas in themselves over and over and over until they were all convinced that they were right. So, when the new canon proved them wrong, they all were deeply insulted over their own wrongness. I wonder if the fandom had been smaller, if there wouldn't have been so many little groups convinced of their own ideas. I also wonder if some of these people had simply read the books and never got into the online fandom if they would still behave this way. Somehow, I doubt it.
I think that the various whiners have decided to ignore/explain away/whatever the canon they hate (which seems to be most of it), but for some odd reason whenever Jo decides to put out new info, they can't ignore that. I don't know why. If there was something that I knew was probably going to piss me off, I'd just not expose myself to it. But that's just me.
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Enjoy? How could any self-respecting HP fan enjoy another story since we all know it isn't going to include Snape teh Hero, or Slytherfen aristocratic orgies, or slashy puppy porn, or Harry and Hermione declaring their true love to each other, or Ron getting squashed by a troll, or Ginny dying of syphillis?
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I think that all fandoms have a sense of "don't mess with THIS part of what I love" -- HP may seem more notable than most because it is an enormous and yet varied fandom where people are interested in protecting their vision of the characters. That's entitlement, I'd agree.
However, if that's entitlement, I'm probably an example of an entitled fan. I was horrified, yesterday, to read rumours that they're casting a new love interest for Superman in the next Superman movie. You can't supplant Lois, in my books!
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I hope they're casting a new actress for Lois though because Kate was so blah. I hated her being engaged, and her and Clark's son being raised by another man. That's not Lois! Lois is not Mary Jane Watson: she's actually Clark's partner and wife and not the elusive love interest. Superman Returns was such a disappointment: they should have started a new movie continuity (not the ones with Chris Reeves) and they should have followed the comics. They really needed a movie like Batman Begins.
That being said, we're lucky that we have JKR in control of her story and the original characters, because we know she won't mess with her characters and that the story will fit with the rest of her books. I trust JKR more than a lot of other sequel and prequel whores out there, so I can't wait!
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I want to read: the Tales of Beedle the Bard (I was thrilled she wrote those), her Dictionary (or whatever she decides to call it), and the postcard. To me, Rowling's writing on her creation always seems 100X more authentic and vibrant than any fanfiction.
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While I do think other fandoms have their complainers, I agree that nothing can quite match Harry Potter. It all comes down to the richness and the vibrancy of the world and the characters that JKR created.
Unlike for example LotR, the HP world is enough like ours that we can imagine ourselves being in it, and the school and the Houses and the sorting all seem to inspire people even more to emotionally identify with her universe. And then the characters are so varied and memorable, and some people pick just one or two that really resonates for them and get emotionally wrapped up in them. And you end up with people not just liking the books, but very personally emotionally involved in some individual character or relationship.
When you think about it, isn't it amazing that Snapefen and Harmonians and Loonies and so on are even inspired by the same books? The things about Snape that one person becomes attached to are so far apart from the Harmonian view of Hermione, say, that it's almost unrecognizable that people are talking about the same series.
And at the end of the day, people realize that the fragments of the books they have latched onto emotionally are not the same things that are important to the author. She doesn't value what they value and so she isn't likely to respect what their wishes would be. So they know that anything further she produces is unlikely to bring them any pleasure. And so they complain.
So that's my thesis: people get mad at JKR not because she's a lousy writer, but because she's a good writer. She was good enough to suck them in and make them care about a character even though they probably don't like her, her personality or worldview or final storyline. And she sucked some people in with Snape and others with Remus and others with Hermione and others with Luna and others with Draco. When you think about it, it's pretty amazing.
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Oh look! A prequel essay by Jo! *bzzzzzzzzzzzz* The story was done! Why couldn't she just leave it alone? who cares about anothercharitythatwillmakealotofmoneyoffthisauction. *I* want it to end! Done. Epilogue finit!
How quickly people forget about The Scottish Book. and the fact that she wants to include everything she couldn't fit in the series regarding everyone's backstories, histories and new places and things.
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Oh, and they don't want the encyclopedia. Then everything will be out there, and there won't be any room left to speculate at all. Some people are already saying that the encyclopedia won't be true canon, 'cause it's not an actual work of fiction.
Some people aren't happy unless they have something to complain about.
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Entitlement or not, I think that the canon status of the encyclopedia is somewhat different from the novels. As far as I've understood it, it will contain four kinds of information, namely a. things that have been clearly stated in the novels (e.g. Harry's patronus takes the shape of a stag), b. things that have been hinted, but not clearly stated in the novels (e.g. Teddy Lupin is not a werewolf), c. things that haven't been mentioned in the novels but doesn't contradict them (e.g. the Trio's and Ginny's post-Hogwarts careers) and d. things that were once meant to be in the novels but ended up being excluded/changed (e.g. Arthur dying in OotP or Ron's cousin Mafalda starting Hogwarts in GoF).
I think that a. and b. are clearly canon, d. is clearly not, and c. is...kind of difficult. I do think of it as more canonical than a contradictory theory from random fan X, but if Rowling ever writes a proper sequel, and decides that Luna marrying Rolf Scamander[?] and having two sons doesn't fit into the story, and Luna having a daughter with Dean Thomas does, I'm guessing that Rolf and the boys would go the way of cousin Mafalda.
And I wouldn't call JKR a dirty liar who can't bother to remember her own canon if that happened. (Er, I'm not trying to imply that you would, either. Sorry about the rambling.)
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Or maybe I should just go to JKR.com myself and see if there's something there about it....
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here via random surfing
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crapficmasterpiece! The HORROR!(mystery)
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Because people always like to do what they're good at. And complaining/whining seems to be what they excel at.
I think its the timing.
I'm a fan of her books but I would never argue ownership of her characters the way some do. It astonishes me that people are so arrogant as to think they should or can dictate the artistic vision of another. If you don't want to know anything beyond the 7 novels its really quite simple, don't read further interviews. No one is to blame but the individual who chooses to spoil himself. Certainly Jo Rowling isn't. The only one she is creatively responsible to is herself.
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I always wonder if people find it avaricious for Jo to keep CHARITY, so the only moderately sensible argument in other cases really isn't a factor in these.
*shrug* I think people just like complaining.