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Date Posted: Tuesday, June 27, 08:52:53am
Author: Nell
Subject: Tuesday Roundup (why? Its Tuesday of course!)

Like many others, I spent most of last week boggling at the MsScribe saga in HP fandom - but that seems to be lessening in intensity, so this new post in metafandom caught my attention.

Nostalgia wrote on the way fandom can change the way you see and react to characters. As I am deep into watching S3 again, this had a lot of resonance for me.

As many of you may already know(!) I have, well, issues, with Operations. ;-)

Also - I didn't really have them during the run of the show, my issues all developed later, even after I got more involved with the fandom and started writing fanfic - Paul is in one of my earliest stories and I had no problem writing him there.

Listening to myself as I watch Paul in action in S3, I realized that part of my problem with Paul is that he exhibitis many - even most - of the same qualities (impatience, impulsivness, self righteousness, arrogance, whinnyness, attachments to others, ignoring the rules and the bigger picture whenever it suits him, insisting that others play by rules he won't follow himself, not doing as those who care about him ask him to do, taking advantage of others feelings for him) for which my gal Nikita got roundly criticized by many fans.

Now, I do realize that many who didn't like Nikita also didn't like Paul - and for the same reasons, so I'm NOT holding any particular individual or set of individuls as 'the cause for my dislike of Paul.' Rather, in responding to "fandom as a whole" - with a general admiration for Paul (when he isn't being turned into a uesful cartoon villain - though that role usually goes to Madeline) and dissing of my gal Nikita, and especially in S4/S5 the fairly regular pronouncements that Niktia would *never* be as effective at running Section as Paul was....... has given me this incredibly huge barrier to liking Paul as I watch the show now.

Because I'm having this constant running monologue in my head as I watch Paul in action:

"Whoa Nellie! That was an inconsistent and impulsive choice - just like Nikita!" "You big whiner - just like Nikita!" "You just broke your own rule - just like Nikita!" "You self-righteous bastard - just like Nikita!" "You self-satisfied SOB - just like - no wait, not really!"

So - it isn't really Paul that bugs me, necessarily, seeing as how these qualities in Nikita clearly don't bug me - the tarbaby I'm arguing with is the great amorphous "LFN-fandom-taken-together-as-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts-take-on-Paul." I'm obviously never going to 'win.'

Now I just have to figure out how to let it go! *g*

Nell

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