On closed and open canons. That's fandom canon, btw.

[owl]

The 'things I do not want to happen in Book #7' meme, gakked from everyone:

1. Dead Harry. We've spent six years of his time and...what...nine of ours? with this boy. I want to think of him happy and alive after all he's gone through.

2. Dead Ginny, Ron or Hermione. I don't want to see Harry have to go through that.

3. Voldemort defeated by the power of luuuurrrve. I didn't like it when the Harmaniacs* came up with the theory, and I still don't like it with added Ginny.

4. Resurrected!Everyone. I could buy the return of Dumbledore, as his demise whiffed vaguely of cod, but not James/Lily/Sirius.

5. Dead Remus or dead Tonks. Hasn't the poor guy suffered enough?

6. Evil!Snape. I'm a soft touch. Or, at least, I don't want it to be, 'He was working for Voldemort all along, fooled everyone!' It's too facile.

.....

7-111. Dead!characters, apart from Voldemort and co.

This is a problem with an open-canon fandom. You get attatched to these characters and you don't know what's going to happen to them. Especially in TV series, because then there's the actor's plans as well as those of the writer(s). I don't know how anyone can get fannish for soap operas or hospital dramas, where the characters and relationships are like revolving doors—and that's all the story is about—and your favourite character's actor decides, 'ok, I've had it with pretending to be an East End barmaid 5 days a week'. At least with my skiffy series there is a plot as well. Mostly.
Closed canons: Antonia Forest's novels, Hornblower books, Aubrey/Maturin books, probably several other historical novels. Admittedly, a lot of these canons are only closed because the pen was pried away from the author's cold, dead fingers, but I don't fan anything that you could point to and say it was incomplete.
Confusing canons: Star Wars. I came in during the PT. I always where Anakin was going, just not how he got there. The only major character whose fate was in doubt was Padmé, and I wasn't pleased with what it eventually turned out to be.
Open canons I have fanned: Harry Potter, BSG, PotC, the Vorkosigan novels, Doctor Who (Sort of. Yes, companions die or leave and the Doctor regenerates. It's still always the Doctor and his Companion(s) in the TARDIS with the lead piping week after week after week.
In all of these the authors have been threatening character deaths and other horrors, and I've been going...'no..no...no....don't kill my babies...don't kill my 'ship'....and occasionally dreaming that all the worst has happened in my currently predominant fandom.

* as opposed to the sane H/Hr shippers

Comments

[ravenclaw-devi.livejournal.com]

Oh, Voldemort will be defeated by the power of love - that is, love for friends, love for the world... The point where the Harmaniacs (hah!) go wrong is thinking that it has to mean romantic love. No, Voldemort will not be defeated by the power of Harry's and Hermione's (or even Harry's and Ginny's) Holy Boinking.

[shipaholic.livejournal.com]

Harmaniacs

...

That is the best word ever.

[owl]

Yeah, everyone seems to like that one. Have I invented a new catchphrase?

[owl]

Yes, that's exactly what I meant.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

Closed canons can also include any historical fiction that focusses on real characters. Maurice Druon broke down into a paragraph of anguished upper case when he reached the point in history when his favourite character died.

[manicwriter1271.livejournal.com]

I mostly agree with you, although Voldemort being defeated by love wouldn't bother me at all, nor would a resurrected Sirius (I just like Sirius).

But no dead trio, no evil Snape (let's not make such a fool out of Dumbledore, please), and I'll add, no no no dead Fred and George.

[owl]

Oh, yes, that's a good point.

[owl]

Well, I did say luuuurrrve not love ;D