Eastercon: Darker than Potter
Monday, March 24th, 2008 12:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranthI'm writing up and posting, separately, notes on each panel that I attended at Eastercon. They're date-stamped with the date of the actual panel. I'll post an entry with links to all of 'em once I've finished writing up notes.
Monday 15:00 Darker than Potter: The Disturbing Side of Children's Fiction. The later Harry Potter books include frequent deaths, a dark tone and adult themes. Are the books still suitable for children? Is children's fantasy filled with
dark and disturbing themes, or is this really a new trend? (Holly Black, Neil Gaiman, Ruth O'Reilly, Sarah Singleton, Steve
Vander Ark).
SS: The dark disturbing side is not new: folktales also dark.
Children are more interested in justice: adults, in mercy (from an Angela Carter talk)
NG: there wasn't the market for dark nasties in 1990: hard to get Coraline published, because horror for kids was out unless contemporary / urban.
HB: post-Potter, adults are more aware of children's literature.
NG: teen fiction that's misery porn: take one female protagonist and inflict horrors upon her.
HB: formulaic tragedies of teen fiction
SvA: where's the dividing line between adult and child? varies from child to child.
NG: the things that are 'obviously' horrible from adult POV aren't the things that terrify children.
HS: was terrified of vampires so turned her Barbie dolls into vampires to protect her against the other vampires.
NG: kids have more faith that the protagonist will survive.
SvA: children more constantly scared: of bullies, adults, school etc: fear is normal.
HB: child readers were upset, thought she'd crossed a line, when a goblin ate a cat in one of her books: human deaths were unremarkable.
Audience to Neil re film of Stardust -- witch genocide?
NG: The film is intended for a slightly younger audience -- the book was fun to write because the reader knows more about the situation than the characters do. Stardust won the GLAD (Gay and Lesbian Anti-Discrimination) Award ...
Early versions of Grimm were deemed unsuitable for children, so some changes were made: they kept the violence and cannibalism, but got rid of sex (Rapunzel pregnant) and changed all mothers to step-mothers.
HB: sex is the sticking point, not violence.
SS: tendency towards moral ambiguity, shades of grey in modern YA fiction. Moral complexity.
SvA: fairytales exist to teach a lesson.
NG: but Grimm's tales are light on lessons: the (male) heroes are simply lucky. (The girls are smart, victimised, have to escape, but the boys aren't especially bright or moral. "Hansel and Gretel you can reduce to 'don't eat strangers' houses."
Monday 15:00 Darker than Potter: The Disturbing Side of Children's Fiction. The later Harry Potter books include frequent deaths, a dark tone and adult themes. Are the books still suitable for children? Is children's fantasy filled with
dark and disturbing themes, or is this really a new trend? (Holly Black, Neil Gaiman, Ruth O'Reilly, Sarah Singleton, Steve
Vander Ark).
SS: The dark disturbing side is not new: folktales also dark.
Children are more interested in justice: adults, in mercy (from an Angela Carter talk)
NG: there wasn't the market for dark nasties in 1990: hard to get Coraline published, because horror for kids was out unless contemporary / urban.
HB: post-Potter, adults are more aware of children's literature.
NG: teen fiction that's misery porn: take one female protagonist and inflict horrors upon her.
HB: formulaic tragedies of teen fiction
SvA: where's the dividing line between adult and child? varies from child to child.
NG: the things that are 'obviously' horrible from adult POV aren't the things that terrify children.
HS: was terrified of vampires so turned her Barbie dolls into vampires to protect her against the other vampires.
NG: kids have more faith that the protagonist will survive.
SvA: children more constantly scared: of bullies, adults, school etc: fear is normal.
HB: child readers were upset, thought she'd crossed a line, when a goblin ate a cat in one of her books: human deaths were unremarkable.
Audience to Neil re film of Stardust -- witch genocide?
NG: The film is intended for a slightly younger audience -- the book was fun to write because the reader knows more about the situation than the characters do. Stardust won the GLAD (Gay and Lesbian Anti-Discrimination) Award ...
Early versions of Grimm were deemed unsuitable for children, so some changes were made: they kept the violence and cannibalism, but got rid of sex (Rapunzel pregnant) and changed all mothers to step-mothers.
HB: sex is the sticking point, not violence.
SS: tendency towards moral ambiguity, shades of grey in modern YA fiction. Moral complexity.
SvA: fairytales exist to teach a lesson.
NG: but Grimm's tales are light on lessons: the (male) heroes are simply lucky. (The girls are smart, victimised, have to escape, but the boys aren't especially bright or moral. "Hansel and Gretel you can reduce to 'don't eat strangers' houses."
