Always.

Posted by Manda(rific) on June 22, 2011 in Assorted Ramblings, Ramble | 0 comments

So, tomorrow, J.K. Rowling is supposed to announce something “big” for the Harry Potter fandom.

Hopefully it will put to rest all the negative comments I’ve been hearing for the past few weeks about the series ending.

For those of you who are new here, it’s no secret that I’m extremely involved in the Harry Potter fandom community – I’ve been running a Potter play-by-post RPG for about ten years now, I’ve been a MuggleNet Fan of the Week, I traveled to Florida last summer to speak at a Potter conference. For over ten years, I’ve attended midnight showings of the movies, midnight releases of the books, stayed up all night reading, dressed in dozens of costumes, rattled off hundreds of quotes. It’s with this experience that I can tell you, one hundred percent – we aren’t going anywhere.

I get the sadness behind the last movie ending – it will be one great big chapter of life ending. We’ve watched these kids grow up, we’ve grown up with them, we’ve watched all the movies. For ten years now, this has been going on – and we’re closing the book on it. Done. Movies over.

But the movies aren’t the whole fandom. In fact, does anyone remember the last Lord of the Rings movie? We didn’t say “Oh noooooo! It’s over! No more Middle Earth!”

Hell no! We said “I can’t wait for the Hobbit!” or “I wonder what will make it to the extended cut” and “Maybe we should go play some D&D?”

I suppose that’s the good thing about “Pottermore” – sure, we don’t know what it is yet (though I’ve got a pretty good hunch) – but no matter what it turns out to be, more than anything it’s a sign from Jo Rowling that we aren’t going anywhere – that the ending of the last movie isn’t going to suddenly make the books get shelved where we’ll never see them anymore or the DVD’s be unwatchable or the theme park just drop off the face of the planet.

The point isn’t to mourn it’s passing – the point is to enjoy it, every minute. Every minute of holding on to those ticket stubs, waiting impatiently in line for hours; every minute of sitting in the theatre staring at a blank screen, every second of the movie as it plays, and every last bit of life as a Harry Potter fan that follows after. We’ll be here when the DVD is released, when the theme park is expanded, when Pottermore comes to life, and when the movies get remade in ten or twenty years – and we’re not going anywhere.

Besides, Albus Dumbledore put it best – “Of course it’s happening in your head, Harry – but why on earth should that mean it isn’t real?”