Still boggling after all these years.

[connielane]

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.

Comments

[trude.livejournal.com]

Some people are already saying that the encyclopedia won't be true canon, 'cause it's not an actual work of fiction.

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.)