Bittersweet Symphony

“We’re in this strange holding pattern,” Vander Ark says. “On July 21 we enter a new era — never again will we wonder how it will all end. “There’s a sadness,” he says. “Because it’s been fun. It’s fun to speculate, to wonder. Part of the delight of the books is wonder.” [ source]

If you have been fortunate enough to listen to him speak at a symposium (or will listen to him this weekend at Sectus), you know that when he speaks of being in this magical place of wonder and speculation, you wholeheartedly agree and understand that it is special and no one will ever enjoy it like you did. Future generations of readers will be able to swallow all seven books in just a few weeks (days even) if they want to. The ending will most likely become a pop culture factoid like “Darth Vader is Luke’s father” or “It was Earth all along”. It might end up being called a “Potter ending”, something else to throw out there along with the Hamlet one.

It will be a different sort of magic that comes after this. Different discussions. It will be the cloudy sort of speculation that poets and literary experts do, the kind that is difficult to refute because the author won’t write something new to yay or nay it.

No, I don’t think the fandom will die. I don’t think that it will even change that much – initially. It’ll happen slowly. It’ll surprise you one day how long it’s been that Deathly Hallows came out and put an end to the speculation about how the series closes. It’ll make you feel old, like listening to your favorite song pop up on the oldie station, or a flashback lunch mix. So yeah, like most of you, I feel sad. Not a little bit either. It is really bittersweet. We will finally know how it ends.

We will know how it ends. And there is no going back from that.

But it also gives us a freedom. JK won’t be adding more canon right? So now I can comfortably theorize without ever worrying about being proven wrong. You can write ff without having to worry about it becoming AU. It either is or isn’t at that point.

That is, until she comes out with her encyclopedia/Potterworld Volume. I really do think that she will really miss it and go back to it one day. Just can’t imagine when. I hope it takes years.

So yeah. I wanted to jot down how I felt right now. How I am feeling this week as one half of the fandom implodes and the other goes to hide in its mega-sized dark corner. Newspapers and news casts seem to be publishing spoilers under the veil of “hey look, these are floating around the internet”, and then of course there is the fact that somewhere, there probably really is a legit copy floating around. It really does just seem easier to go sit in that corner.

But we all know I won’t. :p