All right, so I'm doing a pretty terrible job of staying on schedule here. But I completely and wholeheartedly do not care right now because FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM.
If you haven't already heard that J.K. Rowling is writing the screenplay for a new movie based on a Hogwarts textbook, then kindly locate the exit to this blog. Unless of course you have a legitimate reason. Like your internet was down. Or you were off mountain-climbing. Or scuba-diving. Or-
No, there really aren't any other excuses.
This is the biggest news to hit the Potter fandom since we found out that Jo had written The Cuckoo's Calling under all of our noses. In fact, it's bigger than that. Although the shock value of that revelation was high, since the book had been out for months already, this is so much more important.
This is our world - the place where we learned to imagine, where we learned to be brave, loyal, ambitious and wise, and where we learned to be passionate and unabashedly enthusiastic about the things that we love, and to stand up for what we believe in.
And we're going to go back. Which, on the surface, is a strange thing to be jumping-up-and-down-in-our-chairs excited about. Because ... we never really left. Everyone who owns the books or DVDs, or has access to a library or the internet, can plunge back into Harry's world and revisit the stories anytime they like. Heck, we've been doing it since the minute we finished Book 7.
But this is new content, a new story, a new part of the Wizarding world, not just about Harry - which is what makes it so exciting, right? Well, as long as we have had fan fiction, fan art and wizard rock, we've had new content. We've been exploring new facets of Harry's universe since before Jo even finished writing the series. I'm sure, if you dig deep enough, there is wizarding fan fiction set in New York City in the roaring twenties. Maybe even a fic or two about Newt Scamander.
The difference, of course, is that this movie will be written by Jo herself, so it is 100% canon. Unlike fanfic, it's "what really happened"...within a completely made-up story. Uh. Right.
Here's my thing: Potter fans have done things with the HP universe that were utterly unprecedented in literature. (The only distant comparison would be the ways people have interpreted and used the Bible over the centuries.) We don't just enjoy this world - we live in it. We roleplay and write and sing and do ALL the things within the wizarding universe. We have created new characters and completely rewritten the Harry Potter books from different viewpoints. So, I mean, ... how much does it really matter what is canon and what isn't?
At this point, doesn't this universe belong more to us than it does to J.K. Rowling?
Collectively, we have certainly written more words, plotted more stories, and spent more time in it than she has. Of course, it would not exist without her original creation. But then, the myths of the world had to have been thought up by someone at some point too, right? And would we deny that the people of a certain culture are the owners of their respective myths - and have a right to retell and interpret their myths freely? If Harry Potter is our mythology, then I say we have just as much a right as Jo to tell Newt Scamander's story - or any other wizarding story, for that matter.
Of course, this doesn't mean we can't be excited for the Fantastic Beasts movie. I think at least half of what's making it so exciting is the excitement - the nostalgic feeling of anticipating something that we will all get to experience together. The speculation and countdowns and trailers and midnight premieres. After all, it is a retelling, a new myth, and if nothing else, is just as valid as any fan fic. Obviously, it will be a very beautifully produced and cinematically spectacular story, and I think it is completely deserving of our enthusiasm.
So while I am just as uncontrollably excited about the movie as anyone else, I think it's an opportunity to really think about how we relate to the Potter 'verse. Because it's so fantastically different from the way we think about just about any other fandom.
I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts about this, so please feed the comment box!
Goodnight, bloglings
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