fandom thoughts-- how much do you care about the minor characters?

[timepiececlock]

So, I've been reading and skimming past fanfic in the HP fandom for a few months now, as well as going to the huge general HP forum Fictionalley.org. And something continues to baffle me about HP fandom that I haven't noticed in Bufffy fandom, or the various anime fandoms I'm familiar with. What I'm talking about is the extreme and wide-spread familiarity with the very minor, minor characters of canon.

There are stories I've seen written-- often romance-- about Harry Potter characters that appeared once in the books, or were throw-away names, or had a single line three books ago. Characters whose name I didn't even remember reading, they were so minor. And then you have the people who write fics about Harry's parents as teenagers, characters we know very little about, and only witnessed one real scene of (through Snape's slanted perspective) in the last book. And yet the fanfic authors run with it, inventing wildly different characterizations that eventually combine to turn into a sort of fanon idea of what these people were, that has nothing to do with the actual books or films.

Now, this is not a bad thing. But it is kind of amazing to me. It'd be the Buffy equivalent of writing a 35,000 word romance between the blond girl eating breakfast in Buffy's kitchen in Storyteller and the boy who exploded at school for not getting that foot massage.

You have the main characters in a show (I'm leaving out most of the villians).
In BtVS, that was Buffy, Dawn, Willow, Xander, Spike, Giles, and Anya.
In HP that's Harry, Hermione, and Ron.

Then you have the important sub-characters.
In BtVS that's Tara (arguably a main character), Riley, Robin, Kennedy, Andrew, Faith, Joyce, Oz, Cordelia (she got demoted after season 3);
in HP that's Dumbledore, Sirius, Snape, Draco, Hagrid, Neville, Ginny, the Weasely family, and now Luna.

Then you get into the signficant minor characters that have some role in supporting/definining the other characters or plot.
BtVS: Jonathon, Ethan Rayne, Amy the Rat, Harmony, Drusilla, Halfrek, Ben, Amanda, Rona, Travers, Snyder, Clem, Jenny Calendar, the First Slayer.
For HP: Lupin, Lucius, Crabbe & Goyle, Cho, McGonagall, Trewlaney (sp?), Cedric, Harry's cousin/family, Dobby.
(I know Lupin is a popular character, but he is less significant than Sirius, so I put him on this level for now.)

Then you stat to get into the even more minor characters:
BtVS: Forrest, Graham, Nancy, D'Hoffren, Rack, Doc, Chloe, Cecily, Holden Webster, Jessy, Percy, Olivia, Nikki the NY Slayer, Glory's minions, the Knights.
HP: real!Moody, Tonks, Harry's parents, Moaning Myrtle, Fudge, Viktor, Percy Weasley, what's-his-name that wanders Hogwarts at night with his malicious cat, Umbridge, Headless Nick, the Centaur who becomes a Professor, Peeves, the beetle-lady reporter, Kreature.

Then we get to the one-liner characters, or names we only hear but never see. The ones that make one scene, or one episode. I can't even remember all of those, and I won't try to list them. Yet, they're often characters I seen written about for HP. (I'm sure I forgot some; I'm hardly a connesieur of HP canon)

I wonder why they have so much interest, when they're hardly there? Is it just that they provide a forum for Self-Insertions? Or is it more like writing original fiction, since you have to basically make up the personality/motivations since its not given in the book? Why is there such a wealth of these fics about minor characters in HP fandom, whereas a fandom like Buffy rarely focuses on them? Not that they never do-- there's definitely fics about Ethan Rayne, or Nikki, or the monks who made Dawn. But overall, they're few and far between. What's different about the fandoms?

Comments

[sabrinanymph.livejournal.com]

I hadn't really thought about that before, but you've made a good point. While you'll read about some minor characters in Buffy-verse, you read about them all the time in the Potter-verse. I know my interest in several of the minor characters has perked up a bit since I started RPing at diagonally, but obviously some people felt an interest before that.

Possibly, it's at least partially just the difference between books and television. In TV minor characters get screentime, but very little. In a book, although a minor character may not get many lines about them, perhaps there's something about the medium that draws them in more.

Possibly also, it's Rowling herself. I think that the chapter in OotP that discusses Sirius' family history is an excellent example of how closely all of the wizarding world is related although we may not be aware of it as readers until this point. Who would have guessed that he was related to the Malfoys? Also, Rowling is very likely to throw something in way ahead of when it is relevant and what is a minor, very minor character in one book (for example the mention of Sirius Black and his motorcycle in the first chapter of book one) becomes hugely important in following books (we later learn Sirius is Harry's godfather in PoA).

Personally I'm very curious about Mark Evans, who is possibly a throw away name in the first chapter of OotP, but seeing as how that's Lily's maiden name and that he was mentioned specifically... my guess is it isn't!

Interesting stuff... I'm going to have to ponder this a bit.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I think that the chapter in OotP that discusses Sirius' family history is an excellent example of how closely all of the wizarding world is related although we may not be aware of it as readers until this point.

Yeah. But just to counter that for argument's sake, Sirius is a secondary character, with a lot more development than, say, Padma Patil, who I've seen fics written about but can barely dredge up a a memory of from canon.

Personally I'm very curious about Mark Evans, who is possibly a throw away name in the first chapter of OotP, but seeing as how that's Lily's maiden name and that he was mentioned specifically... my guess is it isn't!

I'm curious about that too, though I didn't notice it until someone in fandom pointed it out.