It has been almost three years since J.K.Rowling published the last novel in the Harry Potter series and gave fans around the world the answers and explanations they had been asking for since Dumbledore got a twinkle in his eye in the fourth installment.
Having been given the answers to all the ‘big’ questions (yes, Snape was ultimately a ‘goodie’, no Harry doesn’t die) and having had a few details flushed out by Rowling, from Dumbledore’s sexuality to the names of Harry’s children, it would be fair to assume that the constant flow of online discussion surrounding the novels, from character analysis to clue hunting, would have come to an end by now. One would be forgiven for assuming that a website such as the 'Harry Potter Lexicon' , an online encyclopaedia created by Harry Potter fans collectively (and so extensive and detailed that even J.K. Rowling herself admitted to using the site to check facts when writing the later novels) would be completed and no new information added. The collective projects of HP fans in understanding and predicting what would happen and why (see this forum for detailed discussions relating to practical questions of magic) should be over, with the excruciating and unnecessary details of Rowling’s epilogue closing down “avenues of speculation”, as Jenkins would put it.
However, such assumptions in the online world of Harry Potter fandom would be wrong.
Whilst Harry Potter was originally just a book series, he has now become a phenomenon spanning a range of media. The films, the video games, the fan fiction, the podcasts, the forums, all contributed to the creation of his magical world whilst the novels were being released, and now are allowing the franchise to live on and in many ways continue to grow.
A look at 'Leaky', one of the leading Harry Potter fan sites, opened my eyes to how there has been no decline in the level of discussion relating to the books, a passion probably kept alive by the upcoming release of the final film instalments. The site has a book club, where users sign up to re-read the books in the series and discuss them in relation to what they know happens later on. They also speculate on what changes will be made in the films, and they are continuing art contributions from users in the galleries. A strange phenomenon when Henry Jenkins has argued that “transmedia texts have...tended to disappoint when they reach their conclusion”. It would appear that so much time has been invested in the transmedia components of Harry Potter by the fans, not just the media companies, that they don’t want the fun to stop simply because the original series is over.
The continued interest in creating Harry Potter fan fiction is also surprising. If we took Jenkins view the epilogue of the final Harry Potter book would have closed off any speculation about what the characters go on to do in life. However, the diehard fans of Harry have clearly seen the characters mentioned in the epilogue as a source of new speculation and ideas for new magical adventures. Most notably when browsing fan fiction sites I noticed how most of the new stories involve the children of Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione, whose names were only briefly mentioned in the epilogue. One site sports the slogan ‘the story continues’, some label stories as “next generation” and one site even thanks Rowling “for creating characters and locales which enable our imaginations to run wild”. Another trend in newer fan fiction are ‘fluff’ stories, filling out the back stories of characters that were only briefly mentioned, but grounded in the canon ‘facts’ that are catalogued by fans all over the internet.
So why are Jenkins aesthetics of transmedia so wrong when it comes to Harry Potter? It could be as simple as Harry Potter fans just being beyond the usual level of fanatical and wanting to continue to enjoy the story through any means possible. I think part of the continued interest is down to the fact that much of the content is created by the fans, rather than the media companies. In an era of collective intelligence much of the enjoyment that fans get from such texts is working together to create them, and nothing emphasises this as much as the Harry Potter Lexicon, which has now taken to listing details from the films and video games, branching out from its original goal and continuing to expand.
Despite the fans keeping the story alive we have to ask what will happen when the movies are all released and their synergised products, because it is only the somewhat obsessive fans that use the sites and write the stories, not the regular Joe’s who just pay for the cinema ticket or read for leisure. It seems that the big media companies behind the Harry Potter franchise are a step ahead here, with the latest Harry Potter product being a video game aimed at 1-4 year olds and with the characters appearing as LEGO. Targeting such a young age group is a very smart move. They won’t have read the books yet but they will no doubt be drawn into Harry’s magical world, and refresh the franchise for a new generation of ‘Potheads’. As a self confessed ‘Harry Potter geek’ I can only hope so.
by Hannah Wilkes.
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