Canon and Fanon: Figuring Out Fandom at Lumos 2006

Ok, as Pauli said ... many posts on their way. This is just a quickie though as far as my sort of "learning curve" at Lumos this year. The ladies who I ran into from Le Moyne College in Syracuse NY (Dr. Cathy Leogrande and Sarah Fleming) were really helpful in helping me get a "birds eye view" of HP fandom as it was represented at Lumos. I'm only going to go into one pair of terms, the two that sort of define the major lines of the HP "fandom" (well, the term "fandom" itself, from what I can gather, applies more specifically to the fanfic side, but it seems to me that it should cover all who are fans of the works). Many who read this may already know this material, I'm just throwing it out there really quickly in case any are like me, who was not really familiar with it until Lumos. The "canon" obviously refers to Jo's work, the actual Harry Potter books, and I'm guessing the two schoolbooks fall into this but maybe people have a subcategory for them. The "fanon" is the ever-growing body of "fanfic," which appears to be quite sizeable. As "secondary writers" like Pauli and myself and John Granger, I don't think we have an "official" status or term, except something general like "commentators" on the canon. John's work obviously falls under the heading of "people who are actually published and making some well deserved money on it because they are really good scholars and writers". I would guess that Jo's interview comments fall along the same line, although obviously much higher authority (although also more mysterious and ambiguous because she is not trying to give anything away) ... falling somewhere between the academic categories of "primary text" and "secondary resource", although closer to the former. According to the Le Moyne ladies, last year's conference, the Witching Hour, appropriately held in Salem, MA, had a much higher percentage of "fanon" people. They said this year there were probably the same number of fanon people but with the increased size of the conference I would guess that brought the fanon percentage down to around 50. Of the remaining 50 percent I would guess that it was split roughly about in half between people writing mainly on educational issues and those writing on literary analysis of the content ... that's just my rough guess of the breakdown though. Then, I would add in what I call the "facilitators." This crowd seems to me to be the "backbone" structure of "fandom" as such. Mugglenet and Leaky Cauldron seem to be the two biggest, and combined as the "Leaky Mug" they had a HUGE draw at Lumos. They seem to me, in what they actually produce, to stick mainly to pieces on the material details of the canon and what might be predictable from those said details, such as Mugglenet putting up the piece of the theory that Slughorn stood in for Dumbledore, etc. They also facilitate the "fanon" side of fandom with links to the bigger fanfic network pages etc, but in what they actually put up on their site (aside from the message boards and discussion groups they run, which are pretty huge in themselves), sticking to the basics seems to best allow them to sort of service the largest amount of the "fandom." I would put Steve Vander Ark in this category too because of the focus of his work on filling in the "encyclopedia gaps" left when you experience the world in a story, like an actual visual map of Hogwarts before she put one out, and his matched hers almost exactly when she did put it out, and compiling info together from throughout the work. His is a work that can be, and is, used by all parts of fandom: Pauli and I checking on facts to see if our philosophical/religious readings jive with the physical facts (which is a core tenet of an "incarnational approach" and not becoming gnostic about it); people like Felicity working on really good theories and predictions use it for research; and I imagine fanfic writers use it for consistency and details in their stories, i.e. helpful in keeping the "fanon" materially congruent with the "canon". Anyway, that is my "bird's eye view" of Harry Potter "fandom" as I kind of got it at Lumos. There are other breakdowns within the "fanon" that I learned about which I won't go into here ... some for time consideration and some for appropriateness for our audience ... but also wanting to be helpful, I'll say that if you have kids and do not know what the terms "slash" and "het" mean [as I did not, and wondered when one of the talks was titled "slash vs het"] - just email me at the address I have here and I'll tell you what I know - always interested in helping people be informed, especially parents), and how it was represented at Lumos - so hopefully it is helpful to some ... I know it was helpful and educational to me learning it this weekend and I was grateful to Cathy and Sarah for taking the time to fill it in for me and some of the history of how the dynamic has been in the history of the conferences. The whole thing is a pretty interesting phenomenon on the sociological level. Post Script I just wanted to throw this in here because I forgot to before, and since I mention Felicity in this post I figure it would be a good place. One of the reasons I really like her theory on the Horcruxes being at Hogwarts is that it would keep the book, as a series culmination focused on the school (which represents the world we live in as a whole, with the 4 houses and 4 elements and all ... which makes it really important). Like I said in the comments of the "It's All Right Ma, I'm Only Bleeding" post (responding to Pauli's comment about Dylan's album "Bringing It All Back Home" in general) ... I think Book 7 will revolve around a series of "homecomings" (or "sorts of homecomings" ... I use that phrase for Jo2: in highschool one of my fave songs was "A Sort of Homecoming," both the "Unforgettable Fire" version and the "Wide Awake in America" one) - I think Privet Drive and Hogwarts will be 2 major ones and I like Felicity's theory that places a central part of the battle there (I think the Burrow and the Old Riddle House may be in there as "parallel homes" for Harry and Voldy. I also think that the MOM will be there in a central conflict between The Love Room and the Death Room). Felicity's post is a good example of what I spoke of above as the importance of the "incarnational." When Pauli and I work on the side we work on, it is so cool to see somebody like Felicity working the detective angle in a way that, if she's right, goes along with some of these "deeper meanings" people like Granger discover, and shows how important it is for such "deeper meanings" to have congruity with the physical side of the equation ... the two are meant to work together, and there is a unique dignity to the physicality. Anyway, I promise more Lumos material forthrightly. :)