All shall love me and despair...

[rj_anderson]

This is an interesting review of my HP fic(s). lizbee has already made a couple of comments on one remark she felt was misleading; but it was another part of the review that particularly baffled me.

Here's the remark in question:

I was really hoping that Maud would redeem her MS qualities or something... but no-- she's the tortured girl that everyone can't help but love.

This is the second negative LJ review to make this accusation, and I am sincerely perplexed by it. "Everyone" loves Maud? I stated quite plainly in the story that she had few friends at Durmstrang and even fewer at Hogwarts, and the only students who even attempt to befriend her are the Weasley twins. Her roommate Muriel beats her up and her other roommates spread malicious gossip about her. Draco regards her with supercilious contempt. Even in the later fics, Maud's dealings with other students are merely civil at best (as when she meets Hermione in the library in PR), and at worst downright adversarial. She doesn't acquire a single friend apart from George Weasley until she leaves Hogwarts. So who is this mysterious "everyone"?

Maybe the reviewer really means that all the adults in the fic love Maud. Well, there are only four of those in TPMA. Mad-Eye raised Maud and she's his niece, so I guess he has to like her. (I should mention, for those thinking of writing fic, that heaven forbid your OC should be related to any canon character, even a lesser canon character; that automatically makes her Special, and therefore a Mary Sue. And here I just thought it would be a good excuse for having lots of Mad-Eye Moody in the story.)

Moody's got a reasonable excuse, that leaves Snape, Dumbledore and McGonagall. I think my logic behind having Snape treat Maud with considerably more decency and respect than he does Harry & co. is explained in the fic. Obviously the reviewer doesn't agree that Snape could or would treat anyone with civility or respect, much less love or be loved by anyone, so that aspect of the trilogy doesn't work for her. Fine, I can live with that. Personally I don't think even JKR takes that extreme a view of Snape's character, for all that she enjoys playing up his negative qualities through Harry's eyes. But I guess only time and canon will tell.

So back to the supposed Maud Moody love-in. McGonagall, for her part, does nothing but politely guide Maud to a meeting with the Headmaster. Unless that counts as "love" in some strange subtextual way, we're left with only Dumbledore. Who, as we know from canon, is kind and generous and benignly meddling with all his students, so... where is this "loved by all" stuff coming from again?

I don't mind having my work reviewed critically. Some of my favorite reviewers have been quite direct in pointing out flaws, as well as being honest about things they personally don't like to see in stories (Oi! for instance, never gave a fig for Snape and didn't particularly warm to Maud either, and I still loved her reviews). I can even think of some pretty severe criticisms myself (for the record, those include wobbly characterization of Maud in the first story; a number of embarrassing continuity gaffes involving numbers, dates, and architectural layouts; a really cringe-worthy bit of dialogue in the first chapter of IWS; and too much schmoop in Snape's letters, among others).

But I do object to the reviewer misrepresenting the content of my fics and disparaging faults of which they are not in fact guilty. As lizbee pointed out, that's not a valid form of criticism.

Comments

[shellebelle93.livejournal.com]

Didn't read the books? *doingggg* Oooookay?

Yes, my husband and I have talked about this and we agree there is more to Snape than just a nasty old b*******. There's a whole "redemption" thing going on there, and we are both interested to see how it pans out.