I'm not crazy! You're the one who's crazy!

[jlh]

Hey, still bored, especially now that I don't have school work to be doing, so I thought I'd make one of the posts in that poll from a little bit ago. Disclaimer: This is in no way a response to the recent Ginny kerfuffle; rather, it reminded me that I needed to make this post. The three posts that seviet linked to yesterday, which are the only ones I've read and also the only way that I heard about the recent dustup, didn't make this mistake. Just making that clear. Also? Once again, so glad that I have SANE H/H shippers on my flist. Sheesh.

As I've said many times, I firmly believe in the right of a reader to like or dislike a character regardless of their function in the narrative. I get to dislike Molly Weasley even though she's a positive figure. I get to like Draco Malfoy even though he's been a mainly negative figure. It's a personal preference. It isn't a perversion of the books. Folks will have different readings. It's a big fandom. Debate nicely or don't do it. (That includes, by the way, calling characters nasty, loaded names, which shuts down rather than opens up debate and just makes you look stupid anyway.) Readers can have conflicting interpretations of a book without one of them having to be stupid, unbalanced or reading the book "wrong." There is no wrong or right here. If you can support it in the text, rock on.

However, in the rebuttal-posts I've often seen a wish to explain "why" someone might hate or strongly dislike a character and I'm not sure how that is germane. I don't think someone can speculate on why another person disagrees with them without sounding condescending. And this is certainly true if Person A decides that Person B could only possibly hate Character Q because they had a bad relationship with their mother/were unpopular in high school/haven't had sex yet. It's obnoxious and unnecessary. I have a perfectly fine relationship with my mother, who is really nothing like Molly Weasley, and even if I didn't it's not only none of your business, but it isn't a reason to dismiss what I think about Molly. It leads to ad hominem attacks, which lead to wank, and do we need more wank? That would be no.

Comments

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It drives me so crazy when people do this--and not even just because most of the times I hear it applied to me it's completely off, just as it is with you and Molly. It confuses me that anybody would even think they should do this.

I mean, occasionally you will be in a conversation with someone where you feel like they're unintentionally revealing some of their own issues to you in the argument. But even then I have to really stop myself from saying that because really it doesn't matter why someone doesn't like the person. That's just a personal reaction. The only thing you can really argue is how you see the character functioning, how you think things happen in canon. If you were to say, "I don't like Molly because she's a bad mother and make all her children hate her" someone could argue with evidence that canonically her children don't hate her, but they can't argue your reaction to her as a character.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

It's understandable for folks to be looking for systems, but when the systems are personal, or are made into "issues," that's when I get nervous. The whole, slashers are like THIS, Ginny lovers are like THAT, thing just, I dunno. I don't think "why" is a particularly relevant or interesting or even answerable question, since we're talking about personal preference. All you get is what we have, the cacophany of individuals who often can't answer "why" for themselves, let alone a group of people.

[adjudicated.livejournal.com]

I agree with what you've written here.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[weatherby.livejournal.com]

Totally off topic, but do you recall - is the new Phil on Celebrity Poker Phil Hellmuth? I have tried to imdb this but they only have information for the last season.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it is, yeah. I feel he does not have the dorky-overbite cuteness of old!Phil. Also Dave lost the goatee. So I dunno how much I'll be watchin'. I'll rely on you to tell me which eps I should catch.

[weatherby.livejournal.com]

Phil Hellmuth is an asshole, so I don't know if I will watch either!

[jlh.livejournal.com]

In an only sort-of lame tie in, Phil and some of his buddies appeared on Bravo's Top Chef. They had a segment where the three finalists, who were now in Vegas (made sense; Vegas really is becoming not a food capital but where the food stars go), had to fill some typical Vegas room service orders. One was for some high rollers, one was for some Cirque de Soleil performers, and one was for some poker players, which were Phil and his buddies. And he did seem like sort of a jerk.

[weatherby.livejournal.com]

He was the youngest world champion of poker, and he was this big egomaniac about it, bashing all the other poker players when he won and throwing tantrums when he lost. His nickname is Poker Brat, and he wrote a book of the same title. Though, I've read a couple articles he's written where he wasn't a dick in them. So who knows. Maybe he won't be too obnoxious.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I saw the last 15 minutes of the new season of Celebrity Poker last night and he was okay-ish. Jovial, good with Dave, much less laid back than old!Phil. More like a sports announcer in the way he would sort of get excited. However, I still don't like Dave's clean-shaven face, and I miss the weirdo slashy vibe that Dave and old!Phil would joke about.

[ziggy1278.livejournal.com]

Um... buy this.

http://www.glarkware.com/securestore/c188252p16715729.2.html