I saw an interesting article somewhere, once, about the phases of an actor's engagement with fandom which starts out with a kind of puppy-dog excitement and ends up either in jaded disgust or a kind of highly professional polite distance. I think we've just seen the end of JM's puppy-dog phase. But I think its a shame that happens because the puppy-dog ones are a pleasure to interact with and its nearly always the fans who drive them away.
Although I've been in and out of fandom a long time, it still amazes me that fans can assume a writer did something like killing off a character entirely to spite said fans. I can understand not wanting to watch a show any more because the characters or aspects that interested you have gone and that's well within our rights as viewers. And I'm entirely happy with thinking that such decisions are ill thought out, or even stupid at a creative level. But the idea that the writers of a show have some obligation not to make changes or, more astoundingly, have made them deliberately to upset the fans never fails to amaze me.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-13 01:04 pm (UTC)Although I've been in and out of fandom a long time, it still amazes me that fans can assume a writer did something like killing off a character entirely to spite said fans. I can understand not wanting to watch a show any more because the characters or aspects that interested you have gone and that's well within our rights as viewers. And I'm entirely happy with thinking that such decisions are ill thought out, or even stupid at a creative level. But the idea that the writers of a show have some obligation not to make changes or, more astoundingly, have made them deliberately to upset the fans never fails to amaze me.