Harry Potter fandom

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Because students in the novels board the train to Hogwarts at Platform 9¾ at King's Cross railway station in London, the real King's Cross has erected a sign at a wall between tracks 9 and 10 to commemorate this.

The Harry Potter fandom is a large international and informal community drawn together by J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. The fandom works through the use of many different forms of media, including web sites, fan fiction, podcasts, fan art and songvids, and a distinct genre of music, referred to as Wizard Rock. Harry Potter fan fiction, stories based on the series but written by fans and distributed online, is the most searched-for subject of all fan fiction on the web, surpassing even those in the Star Trek fandom, or Trekdom.^[1] However, the fandom not only interacts online in Internet forums, but also gathers at scholarly fan conventions, tours of iconic landmarks relevant to the books and production of the films, and parties held for the midnight release of each book and film.

By the fourth Harry Potter book, the legions of Harry Potter fans had grown so large that considerable security measures were taken to ensure that no book was purchased before the official release date^[2] Studies on the fandom have shown that both children and adults are fans,^[3]^[4] despite Rowling's original marketing of the books towards children aged nine to twelve.^[5]

[edit] Pottermania

Potter fans wait in lines outside a Borders bookstore for their copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Pottermania is an informal term first used around 1999 describing the craze Harry Potter fans have had over the series.^[6] Fans held midnight parties to celebrate the release of the final four books at bookstores which stayed open on the night leading into the date of the release.^[7] In 2005, Entertainment Weekly listed the midnight release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as one of "Entertainment's Top Moments" of the previous 25 years.^[8]

The craze over the series was parodied in Lauren Weisberger's 2003 novel The Devil Wears Prada as well as its 2006 film adaptation. In the story, the protagonist Andrea Sachs is ordered to retrieve two copies of the next installment in the series for her boss's twins as soon as they are published (in the film, before they are published) so that they can be privately flown to France, where the twins and their mother are on holiday.^[9]

The series has come with its share of criticism as well. Besides negative reviews of the books, allegations of witchcraft and the Occult found in the text, and legal disputes, one doctor coined the term "Hogwarts headache" in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine shortly after the release of Order of the Phoenix, the longest book in the series, at 768 pages in the UK edition, 870 pages in the US edition, and over 250,000 words.^[10]^[11] He described it as a mild condition, a tension headache possibly accompanied by neck or wrist pains, caused by unhealthily long reading sessions of Harry Potter. The "symptoms" resolve themselves within days of finishing the book. His prescription of taking reading breaks was rejected by two of the patients on which he discovered this headache.^[12] On a similar note, researchers in Oxford found that the admission rate of children with traumatic injuries to the city's ERs plummeted on the publication weekends of both Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince.^[13]

[edit] Fan sites

There are many fan web sites about Harry Potter on the Internet, the oldest ones dating to about 1997 or 1998.^[14]^[15]^[16] J. K. Rowling has an open relationship with her fan base, and since 2004 periodically hands out a "fan site award" on her official web site.^[17] The first site to receive the award was Immeritus, a fan site mostly devoted to Sirius Black, and about which Rowling wrote, "I am so proud of the fact that a character, whom I always liked very much, though he never appeared as much more than a brooding presence in the books, has gained a passionate fan-club."^[18]

In 2004, after Immeritus, Rowling bestowed the honor upon four sites. The first was Godric's Hollow;^[19] strangely, the site's domain name is occupied by advertisers and its content is lost,^[20] and there is no further record on Rowling's site that Godric's Hollow ever received the award.^[17] The next site was the Harry Potter Lexicon, an online encyclopedia Rowling has admitted to visiting while writing away from home rather than buying a copy of her books in a store. She called it "for the dangerously obsessive; my natural home."^[21] The third site of 2004 was MuggleNet, a web site featuring the latest news in the Potter world, among editorials, forums, and a podcast. Rowling wrote when giving the award, "It's high time I paid homage to the mighty MuggleNet," and listed all the features she loved, including "the pretty-much-exhaustive information on all books and films."^[22] The last site was HPANA, the first fan site Rowling ever visited, "faster off the mark with Harry Potter news than any other site" Rowling knows, and "fantastically user-friendly."^[23]

In 2005, only The Leaky Cauldron was honored. In Rowling's words, "it is about the worst kept secret on this website that I am a huge fan of The Leaky Cauldron," which she calls a "wonderfully well designed mine of accurate information on all things Harry Potter."^[24] On another occasion, Rowling has called the Leaky Cauldron her "favorite fan site."^[25] In 2006, the Brazilian website Potterish was the only site honored, in recognition of its "style, [its] Potter-expertise and [its] responsible reporting."^[26] It is the only non-English language website to be awarded.

In May 2007, Harry Potter Fan Zone received the award. Rowling recognized the insightful editorials as well as praised the site for its young and dedicated staff.^[27] In December 2007, the award went to The Harry Potter Alliance, a campaign that seeks to end discrimination, genocide, poverty, AIDS, global warming, and other "real-world Dark Arts", relating these problems to the books. Rowling called the project "extraordinary" and "most inspirational", and paralleled its mission to "the values for which Dumbledore's Army fought in the books".^[28] In an article about her in Time, Rowling expressed her gratefulness at the site's successful work raising awareness and sign-up levels among antigenocide coalitions.^[29]

At one time, Warner Bros., which owns the rights to Harry Potter and its affiliates, tried to shut down the sites. The unsuccessful attempt eventually led to their inviting the webmasters of the top sites to premieres of the films and tours of the film sets, because of their close connection with the fans. Warner Bros. executives have acknowledged that many fans are disappointed that certain elements of the books are left out, but not trying to avoid criticism, "bringing the fan sites into the process is what we feel is really important."^[16]

These fan sites contain news updates into the world of the books, films, and film cast members through the use of forums, image galleries, or video galleries.^[30] They also host user-submitted creations, such as fan art or fan fiction (see below).^[31] Some YouTube member pages devoted to fan videos, which are typically in the form of anime music videos or songvids.

[edit] Podcasts

A podcast is a media file that is distributed by unpaid subscription over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers.^[32] The Harry Potter fandom has embraced podcasts as a regular, often weekly, insight to the latest discussion in the fandom. Apple Inc. has featured two of the podcasts, MuggleCast and PotterCast.^[33] Both have reached the top spot of iTunes podcast rankings and have been polled one of the top 50 favorite podcasts.^[34] At the 2006 Podcast Awards, when MuggleCast and PotterCast each received two nominations for the same two categories, the two podcasts teamed up and requested listeners vote for PotterCast in the Best Entertainment category and MuggleCast in the People's Choice category. Both podcasts won these respective categories.^[35]^[36]

MuggleCast, hosted by MuggleNet staffers, was created in August 2005, not long after the release of Half-Blood Prince.^[37] Topics of the first show focused on Horcruxes, "R.A.B.", the Goblet of Fire film, which was due for release two months later, and the website DumbledoreIsNotDead.com.^[38] Since then, MuggleCast has held chapter-by-chapter discussions, character analyses, and a discussion on a "theory of the week." MuggleCast has also added humor to their podcast with segments like "Spy on Spartz," where the hosts would call MuggleNet webmaster Emerson Spartz and reveal his current location or activity with the listening audience. British staff member Jamie Lawrence tells a British joke of the week, and host Andrew Sims reads an email sent to MuggleNet with a strange request or incoherent talk (dubbed "Huh?! Email of the Week").^[39]. MuggleCast is currently the highest rated Harry Potter Podcast on the Internet.

PotterCast was released less than two weeks after MuggleCast's first episode. Produced by The Leaky Cauldron, it differed from MuggleCast with a more structured program, including various segments and involvement of more people on the Leaky Cauldron staff compared to MuggleCast. It also was the first and is still the only Potter podcast to produce regular interviews with people directly involved with the books and films. The first show featured interviews with Stuart Craig, art director of the films, as well as Bonnie Wright, who plays Ginny Weasley. PotterCast has also interviewed Matthew Lewis (the actor who portrays Neville Longbottom), Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood), Jamie Waylett (Vincent Crabbe), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley), Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuarón, Mike Newell (directors of the first four films), Arthur A. Levine & Cheryl Klein (editors of the books at Scholastic), and even the author of the book series, J.K. Rowling .^[40]

The two sites are friendly rivals and have aired several combined episodes, which they call "The Leaky Mug", a separate podcast released on a separate feed from time to time. Live joint podcasts have been held in New York City, Las Vegas, and California. From time to time, hosts on one podcast will appear on their counterpart.^[40]

In addition there have been podcasts solely based on a particular character, such as Snapecast which previously focused on determining the loyalty of Severus Snape.

[edit] Fan fiction

Rowling has backed fan fiction stories on the Internet, stories written by fans that involve Harry Potter or other characters in the books.^[41] A March 2007 study showed that "Harry Potter" is the most searched-for fan fiction subject online.^[1] Some fans will use canon established in the books to write stories of past and future events in the Harry Potter world; others write stories that have little relation to the books other than the characters' names and the settings in which the fan fiction takes place. On FanFiction.Net, what has been referred to as the "granddaddy of fan-fiction sites", there are over 355,000 stories on Harry Potter.^[42] There are numerous websites devoted solely to Harry Potter fan fiction. Of these, FictionAlley.org has grown to be one of the largest: it hosts over 80,000 stories and 20,000 works of fan art.^[43] A well-known work of fan fiction is The Shoebox Project, created by two LiveJournal users. Over 5000 people subscribe to the story so that they are alerted when new posts update the story. The authors' works, including this project, were featured in an article in the The Wall Street Journal discussing the growth in popularity of fandoms.^[44]

Rowling has said, "I find it very flattering that people love the characters that much." She has adopted a positive position on fan fiction, unlike authors such as Anne McCaffrey or Anne Rice who discourage fans from writing about their books and have asked sites like FanFiction.Net to remove all stories of their works, requests honored by the site.^[41] However, Rowling has been "alarmed by pornographic or sexually explicit material clearly not meant for kids," according to Neil Blair, an attorney for her publisher. The attorneys have sent cease and desist letters to sites that host adult material.^[45]

Potter fan fiction also has a large following in the slash fiction genre, stories which feature homosexuality that does not exist in the books.^[46]^[47] Famous pairings include Harry with Draco Malfoy or Severus Snape, and Remus Lupin with Sirius Black.^[47]^[48] Harry Potter slash has eroded some of the antipathy towards underage sexuality in the wider slash fandom.^[49]

In the fall of 2006, Jason Isaacs, who plays Lucius Malfoy in the Potter films, said that he had read fan fiction about his character and gets "a huge kick out of the more far-out stuff."^[50]

[edit] Conventions

Fan conventions have been another way that the fandom have congregated. The conferences have maintained an academic emphasis, hosting professional keynote speakers. They have featured members of the fandom such as Steve Vander Ark, webmaster of the Harry Potter Lexicon (he spoke at Accio, a conference held in July 2005 at the University of Reading in Reading, Berkshire,^[51], Lumos, held in July 2006 in Las Vegas, Nevada.^[52], Patronus 2006 held at Copenhagen University in Copenhagen, Denmark, Sectus 2007^[53] in London, an adults-only convention, and Prophecy 2007 in Toronto); Jennie Levine, owner of SugarQuill.net (Phoenix Rising, 2007); Melissa Anelli, current webmaster of The Leaky Cauldron (Phoenix Rising, 2007); Sue Upton, Senior Editor of the Leaky Cauldron (Prophecy, 2007); Heidi Tandy, founder of Fiction Alley (Prophecy, 2007), and Paul DeGeorge, guitarist of the wizard rock band Harry and the Potters (see below) (Prophecy, 2007).^[54] Still, the conventions try to attract the fandom with other activities, often more interactive, such as wizarding chess, water Quidditch, the watching of Harry Potter films,^[55] or local cultural immersions. Sometimes live podcasts have been held at conventions.^[55]

[edit] "'Ship debates"

Further information: Shipping (fandom)#Harry Potter fandom

In the fandom the word "'ship" and its derivatives like "'shipping" or "'shipper" are commonly used as shorthand for the word "relationship." According to Emerson Spartz, webmaster of MuggleNet, "Romance in the books is the most prominent source of debate in the online fandom, where many of the fans border on obsessive, but casual readers will never understand what the big deal is."^[56]

[edit] After Half-Blood Prince

At the end of Half-Blood Prince, after building up since Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Rowling tells the reader that Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley were meant to be in a relationship, and Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger in another.^[57] This caused great disappointment among those fans who favored a relation between Harry and Hermione,^[56] and the hate was fueled when Spartz and Melissa Anelli, webmistress of The Leaky Cauldron, interviewed Rowling after the publication of the book. Spartz said, "We thought it was clearer than ever that Harry and Ginny are an item and Ron and Hermione—although we think you made it painfully obvious in the first five books[.]" Rowling agreed, and Spartz joked that Harry and Hermione partisans were "delusional." Though Rowling said immediately she still valued their readership, she established straightforwardly that "we do know now that it's Ron and Hermione," and added, "I do feel that I have dropped heavy hints. Anvil-sized, actually, hints, prior to this point. I certainly think even if subtle clues hadn't been picked up by the end of Azkaban, that by the time we hit [Viktor] Krum in Goblet..."^[57]

Once the interview was published online, fans of a Harry/Hermione relationship were furious, one writing in an online message board, "That woman [Rowling] has completely destroyed my faith in ever having a real relationship."^[56] Petitions were made, one asking Rowling to "immediately apologize for her remarks, … in particular the following words: 'Yes, we do now know that it's Ron and Hermione.'" It also demanded of Rowling to "rectify the situation in Book 7, clearing up any questions the few Ron/Hermione shippers (the truly 'delusional' ones) floating around might have about the one true romantic relationship that matters in the Harry Potter books, that of Harry and Hermione."^[58] Spartz later apologized, admitting "delusional" might have been too harsh a word, but explained:^[59]

“

My comments weren't directed at the shippers who acknowledged that Harry/Hermione was a long shot but loved the idea of them together. It was directed at the "militant" shippers who insisted that there was overwhelming canon proof and that everyone else was too blind to see it. You were delusional; you saw what you wanted to see and you have no one to blame for that but yourselves.

”

He also requested that they not "lash out on" Rowling: "the creator herself has laid down the law, it's time for you to lick your wounds and move on."^[59] However, Harry/Hermione proponents continued to complain. On one message board, posters decided to unite against Spartz, Anelli and Rowling, writing that the new purpose of the forum was to "express your views and show why the evidence was there for the [Harry/Hermione] ship, even if Ms. Rowling, unfortunately, did not see it," and to "let her know the way you feel about her comments, or point out how, why and where she went wrong in her development of the characters, or simply discuss how she will have missed a golden opportunity to tell one of the greatest love stories ever told."^[60]

[edit] Other relationships

On a less intense scale, other relationships have been doted upon in the fandom from suggestive hints or explicit statements throughout canon, such as those between Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson, Rubeus Hagrid and Olympe Maxime, or Percy Weasley and Penelope Clearwater.^[61] A potential relationship between Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood was originally dispelled by Rowling,^[62] though she later retracted this and said she noticed a slight attraction between them in Deathly Hallows.^[63] Some couples, besides Harry and Ginny and Ron and Hermione, have been explicitly stated in the series: Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour are married in Deathly Hallows after dating throughout Half-Blood Prince.^[64] In Half-Blood Prince, Nymphadora Tonks keeps her feelings for Remus Lupin to herself, but remains depressed when he refuses her advances; he feels that his being a werewolf would not create a safe relationship.^[65] Tonks professes her love for him at the end of the book, and she and Lupin have been married by the beginning of Deathly Hallows and have a son 'Teddy' later in the book.^[66] Other couples, such as Harry and Draco or Lupin and Sirius Black, are favorites among fans who read fan fiction about them.^[47]^[48]

[edit] Roleplaying games

Millikin University students at their biannual Muggle Quidditch tournament, a form of live action roleplay.

Roleplaying is a central feature of the Harry Potter fandom. There are two primary forms: internet-based roleplay and live-action roleplay, or LARP.

LARPing often involves re-enacting or creating an original Quidditch team. Match rules and style of play vary among fandom events, but they are generally kept as close as possible to the sport envisioned by Rowling. The 2006 Lumos symposium included a Quidditch tournament played in water.^[67] More common are ground-based games such as the handball style developed by USA Team Handball and featured at the MuggleNet-sponsored Spellbound event, as well as the Muggle Quidditch style played intramurally at Millikin University (at left).^[68]

Internet-based roleplay tries to simulate the Hogwarts experience. Most sites are forum-based, which usually emphasise taking classes taught by staff members in order for the players to earn points for their respective houses. Some internet-based roleplay sites go more in depth into canon and storylines, and do not specifically rely on posting as the only method for gaining house points. Numerous sites have cropped up that are set in the Harry Potter world, but not at Hogwarts, giving the opportunity for more creativity as authors roleplay at schools outside of those mentioned in the books. While these schools follow canon, the extent to which they do so varies from school to school. Examples include Hogwarts New Zealand,PotterPlay, The Next Great Adventure, Rocky Mountain International School for Magical Enlightenment and Pennsylvania State University of the Art of Magic. While these two are both schools for first through seventh years, as Hogwarts is, wizarding colleges have sprung up on the internet as well.

Other sites use modified versions of phpBB that allow for a certain level of interactive roleplaying and are what is commonly referred to as "forum-based roleplaying". Interactive gaming can include player versus player features, a form of currency for making purchases in stores, and non-player characters such as monsters that must be fought to gain levels and experience points. However, these features are more prevalent in games that are not forum-based. Advancement in such games is usually dependent on live chat, multiplayer cooperation, and fighting as opposed to taking classes or simply posting to earn points for one's "house"; like at Hogwarts, players in forum-based games are sometimes sorted into a different group distinguishing different values within a person.

One main Role-playing site is a branch of MuggleNet, Mugglenet Interactive. On this site there are many forums for taking classes that earn you Galleons, Sickles and Knuts, and discussion boards about the books, among other things. The role playing on this site allows you to create a character which you can make storylines for and interact with other members. There are several landscapes on this site, including Diagon Alley, St. Mungo's Hospital, Hogsmeade, Hogwarts, and other wizarding places. A main forum board is that of the Gryffindor Common Room, where many players go to meet other characters and become involved in the daily drama that occurs there.

[edit] Wizard rock

Harry and the Potters perform at the Horace Mann School in Riverdale, Bronx, New York.

Wizard rock (sometimes shorthanded as "WRock") is a musical movement dating from 2002 that consists of at least 450 bands (including Harry and the Potters, Draco and the Malfoys, The Moaning Myrtles, the Whomping Willows, the Remus Lupins, Ministry of Magic, the Parselmouths, and many others), made up of young musicians, playing songs about Harry Potter.^[69]^[70] The movement started in Massachusetts with Harry and the Potters, though it has grown internationally.^[71]^[72] However, most wizard rock bands are based in the United States. The lyrics are usually humorous and simple, and many bands write songs from the point of view of a particular character in the books, usually the character who features in the band's name. If they are performing live, they may also cosplay, or dress as, that character.^[73] Though most fans of the music are previous fans of Harry Potter, some bands have attracted listeners outside of the Harry Potter fanbase.^[74]

In contrast to mainstream bands that have some songs incorporating literary references among a wider repertoire of music (notably Led Zeppelin to The Lord of the Rings),^[75] wizard rock bands take their inspiration entirely from the Harry Potter universe.^[73] In preserving the promotion of reading, too, bands like to perform in libraries, bookstores and schools.^[76] The bands have also performed at the fan conventions.^[77]

A full-length feature film project documenting the wizard rock movement, The Wizard Rockumentary: A Movie About Rocking and Rowling [1], has been completed and premiered on April 11, 2008 at the Garland Theatre in Spokane, Washington.^[78]^[69] There are planned screenings for the upcoming Florida Supercon in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, as well as the Portus and Terminus Harry Potter fan conventions in Chicago, Illinois and Dallas, Texas. Additionally, the documentary will be shown alongside a parody of the film entitled The Wizard Schlockumentary [2] at the Indiana University South Bend Independent Video and Filmmakers Festival.^[79]

[edit] Iconic landmarks tours

The Glenfinnan viaduct, which the Hogwarts Express passes over when it travels to Hogwarts in the films.

Some travel agencies have organized a subdivision to create tours specifically highlighting iconic landmarks in the world of Harry Potter. HP Fan Trips, offered by Beyond Boundaries Travel since 2004 in conjunction with fan site HPANA,^[80]^[81] was designed by and for fans of the series, and tours noteworthy Potter-related locations in the United Kingdom, including Scotland.^[82] Since 2004, they have exclusively chartered steam locomotive #5972 Olton Hall, the train used in the films as the Hogwarts Express, as well as the carriages labeled as such and seen in the movies.^[83] The travel agency Your Man in Europe began hosting Magical Tours in 2006, in conjunction with fan site MuggleNet.^[84] They offer four different tours through England and Scotland.

Alnwick Castle, the castle used for filming exterior shots of Hogwarts in the Potter films.

These tours primarily feature locations used for shooting in the films, though some trips include a Chinese restaurant in Edinburgh, which was once Nicholson's Cafe, where Rowling wrote much of the manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and Edinburgh Castle, where Rowling read from the sixth book on the night of its release to an audience of children.^[85]^[81] Filming locations visited include Alnwick Castle, where some exterior locations of Hogwarts are shot, places in Fort William, Scotland; Glen Nevis, Scotland; the Glenfinnan viaduct; and Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford.^[81]^[86]