Building off my post about a "Harry Potter" pairing that unfortunately Rowling herself supports, I thought I'd start a thread on the other reason (besides the mere fact Rowling supports it) even those who are otherwise adamantly against that pairing defend it. I refer, of course, to the child Rowling foisted upon Remus and Tonks when that whole "I'm suddenly madly in love with you to the point I lost my abilities and everything else about me from the previous book except my name and gender and I'll die if you don't date me" "I'm not interested and have valid reasons not to be now f*** off" "I'm not either of your mothers but I demand that you date anyway" in the sixth book wasn't enough. With the kid now existing in an actual book as opposed to just some fic written by a fanbrat R/T shipper (though Rowling herself may very well be one), it's all supposed to be okay because the kid is sooooo awesome or sooooo adorable.

Except that, well, it's all mentioned here (yes, I'm linking that forum and thread again- evidence of a fanbrat abusing the "report thread" feature notwithstanding, it's the only place people don't readily defend that pweshious, innocent widdle kid).

However, the child in question is far from the only throwaway character (yes, he is a throwaway character) fanbrats glorify. Pretty much any character in HP who did not exist prior to the last book falls into that category. In fact, many fanbrats are using these new characters to vicariously ship the non-Rowling-approved pairings they preferred, and "next-gen" as it's called, seems to be all anyone in that fandom writes anymore. Never mind that each and every one of those characters might as well just be an OC. I don't want to read about them (in fact I want to forget they even exist); I want to read about Harry, Ron, Hermione, Sirius, Remus, the twins, etc.- the characters I knew and loved from the first five books.

I'm sure there are other characters in other fandoms whom the fanbrats over-glorify, I just can't think of them right now.

ETA: Wait, I thought of one- Lila from "Criminal Minds". If you don't remember a Lila on that show, either you missed the one and only episode where she appeared or you haven't been in the fandom very long if at all. She was a victim of a stalker and like 99% of all victims on that show (whether they survive or not) made no further appearances beyond her "debut" episode. Yet here she is in so many fics- pretty much if Reid isn't paired with JJ, Morgan, Hotch, Prentiss, that awful canon Sue from this past season, or the author's own Sue, he's paired with her.

I couldn't get past the ridiculous acronyms in the article you linked.

I know a fanbrat in the Titanic fandom who utterly worships the character of Fabrizio di Rossi, going way past the point of lolwut and and straight into WTF.

Conrad Verner from Mass Effect.

He was a hopeless fan boy in ME. Then an insane twerp impersonating Shepard in ME2 and I doubt he will play any part other than the comical suicide by Reaper.

I call it.

He is no hero. Stop writing him as one.

...

And no, he will not be a love interest for Shepard. Just no.

Yeah, I'm sick of all the Lila-worship in the CM fandom myself. People, she's not coming back, and whatever there was between her and Reid is long over! And if you're gonna use the fact that Will, the local cop who worked with the team in New Orleans that one time and flirted with JJ, was brought back and is now a recurring character as an excuse, you'd do well to remember why they did so. Somehow I highly doubt that Matthew Gray Gubler is gonna get pregnant thus the need to bring back a previous on-screen love interest to be the... er, other parent (and how the hell would they explain how a woman got a man pregnant when it's supposed to be the other way around).

I'm going to go with new James T. Kirk. While Old!Kirk may have been pretty Sue-ish, I think New!Kirk is far worse by being just as beloved and successful without being the slightest bit competent.
Seriously,

Rose Tyler in Dr. Who. Admittedly, a good deal of this can be blamed on the writers setting her and Ten up to be OMG SOULMATES 4 EVER, but the fact of the matter is, she was never really that interesting a character. She mostly just enabled Ten with his scenery chewing, following along meekly, never questioning that maybe his decision making could use some work. Both Martha and Donna were vastly preferable as far as companions went-Martha was an actual adult, a physician, and spent a year walking the Earth to save humanity (for which she got absolutely no praise or respect from the Doctor), and Donna refused to fall into the rut of being madly in love with a Time Lord who only noticed she was there if it the plot called for him to.

Ten is long gone, we're well into 11's second season, and the fantwits are STILL writing stories in which Rose miraculously comes back and pushed Amy and Rory completely off the screen because apparently, if Ten was besotted with her, then 11 must be as well. Never mind the whole business with The Doctor's Wife and River Song. Underneath it all, he's pining for Rose Tyler's return.

Regarding the OP: I am 100% solid that JKR did this on purpose. But not just for the book series as a whole. Unlike Anne Rice, and the rest of the list of authors who don't allow fan-based works, JKR LOVES fanfiction. She has stated in interviews that she fully encourages young readers and writers. She knows that her characters are beloved by kids and teens all over the world. She knows that millions of fanfiction stories have been written about Harry 'n the gang, but she also knows that she set their relationships in stone. So, there are no possible future canonical Harry / Hermione possibilities.

JKR gave young writers these blank character templates on purpose as, "Come on. I dare you. Write what happens next." It doesn't matter that the stories produced by 14-year-old nitwits are terrible, what matters is that in an age where literacy is crumbling to text and twitter-speak, children are writing. Of their own volition, no less! No one is forcing them to!

She made sure to stock the end of her last book with blank characters as a favour to young writers. There are limitless posibilities with these kids, and really, you can't make mistakes or call them OOC because they are made to be written. (Unless you, y'know, fuck their ages up)

Personally, I would have liked a bit more backstory on the kids, but I think as an unmentioned literacy project, she's given kids a great start to becoming better writers.

Oh, I love these threads so much. I'm very happy people keep bumping them.

I.V. VonBischoffs wrote:

And can we stay on topic, please? The topic being characters (...)Not how good or bad a linked article is.

Ah, it makes me smile every time.

Granted, it's bittersweet; I had great hopes for the wank potential of this person, only to see them leave. But oh, the patronizing, the stick up the ass. It was a glorious glimpse at what could have been.

Murder Your Darlings, you mean?

What Sakurelf said, plus you have to remember Rowling's age demographic. These are mostly young kids that are probably just starting to write on their own, and probably haven't written anything resembling a narrative before. Their writing skills are not developed enough to be able to have fun with established characters. The point is to inspire them to get their feet wet, no matter how bad the result is, because presumably they'll get better. You don't start learning calculus by doing double integrals, and you don't start learning to write with complex storylines and three-dimensional characters.

Oh, it's murder, not kill, thanks for correcting me!

I think that, at this point, all discussion about JKR's characters is a matter of taste. You are not going to convince me that this has been done on purpose, or that it's skillful, because to me, it isn't.

Likewise, I won't convince you that she just isn't that good, that her views on good and evil are downright moronic and that most of her characters are cardboardy and two-dimensional, and that she just wrote them that way because she can't do better (Ginny Weasley has all the personality of an inflatable doll imo).

Viewpoint or no, you don't need loads and loads of exposition in order to make background people look belieavable. If they only appear for one or two scenes, don't give them names. If they don't have enough reason to exist, murder them.

Matter of taste. I used to like the books when I was younger, but now, there's too much stuff in them that annoys my philological mind, and arguments aren't going to change that.

It's like someone trying to convince me that Stephen King isn't awesome. They have tried. They have all failed.

If you're a fan of something, you will be determined to defend its awesomeness. If you don't like it, you'll criticise it. I think both sides have good arguments, and it's not simply a matter of "I like it, because".

Ah, the classic "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" argument.

I don't agree it was intentional on Rowling's part to encourage fanfiction writers, but I agree on the POV subject. The whole book is told in a third-person narrative, but not omniscient. We're only shown how Harry lived through the events. There are things that Rowling leaves out on purpose, because the books take a lot from mystery stories. We're never told what anybody other than Harry is thinking. We never got a Snape or Dumbledore POV chapter, so they keep on being enigmas for us, just like they are for Harry. We don't get to see what certain important characters are doing far away from Harry, just so we get surprised at the same time he does.

With the choice of perspective Rowling did, the lack of development for certain characters is a direct consequence of the writing style.