“I haven’t written any crack theories in a while,” I said to myself.
This is what my brain responded with.
And slowly, somehow, this idea turned from crack into something I’m legitimately starting to think is the case.
The Teacher.
This theory hinges on one thing and one thing alone— the Teacher. We know he’s told Mikhail he can bring the dead back to life, and he seems to have saved Mikhail from the verge of death in the past (it’s even possible that Mikhail actually did die, and the Teacher brought him back). If the Teacher can actually bring Luna back after they turned to dust, it’s very very likely that he might have been able to do the same with Louis.
It follows to wonder… is this something that the Teacher would actually do?
For a while now I’ve considered the Teacher’s… er… disposal of Louis to be the natural conclusion of a finished experiment, but I’m starting to realize that Louis’s continued existence actually does hold some value to the Teacher. His experiment on Louis is complete, but whatever he’s got planned for Noé (and potentially Domi as well) is absolutely not over, and Louis would be a very high value piece to have on the board when it comes to those two. If the Teacher actually can bring people back from the dead, wouldn’t it be wasteful of him to just toss Louis’s ashes away rather than attempting to bring him back?
With that, we have the very first piece of this messy, insane puzzle. The chances that the Teacher just disposed of Louis’s corpse when he could potentially use it to manipulate or observe Noé and Dominique in the future seem very very slim.
So now let’s try to fit some more puzzle pieces together.
The Timeline
We’ve established that the chances of Louis not being… entirely… dead are, while maybe not high, definitely existent. But what’s all this talk about him being No.70?
First and foremost! If Louis isn’t dead, but the Teacher wants Domi and Noé to fully believe he’s dead, he’s gonna need somewhere far away from the two of them to store the kid until he can use him again. If Ruthven has access to those magic Jeanne clone pods the Teacher must too, right? Couldn’t he just shut Louis into one of those for a little while? But that kinda doesn’t feel like the Teacher’s style— why should he stash Louis in a pod when he could be performing yet another experiment?
We know that the Teacher has a great interest in the Blue Moon clan. He sends an Archiviste out to find Vanitas in Paris, he brings Mikhail back from the dead, the cat he potentially ran experiments on has one copper sulfate blue colored eye [link to a discussion on that at the bottom of this post]… it feels like almost all of his experiments revolve around either Naenia or Luna. So it follows to assume… if a human scientist somehow got access to a vial of Luna’s blood and multiple Books of the Blue Moon, the Teacher would be the first to notice, and he’d be absolutely fascinated by what was going on there.
Come to think of it, it might actually be possible that the Teacher was the reason why Moreau acquired those objects in the first place. Out of all the characters we know of in the series so far, the only one who I could logically see somehow acquiring the Books and Luna’s blood (short of Luna themself, and they’d absolutely never give those things to Moreau) is the Teacher. The Teacher sounds genuinely excited about the mere existence of a Book of the Blue Moon back in his letter to Noé in chapter 1, but I think this could absolutely just be him faking excitement as a way of maintaining his persona and staying in line with who he wants Noé to see him as.
With that, let’s start building a timeline here.
The Teacher has a few Books of the Blue Moon, and some of Luna’s blood, and he’s messed with both items a bit, but his experiments keep coming up short. He can’t open the Books, as he isn’t a Kin of the Blue Moon. He also has a newly reincarnated Louis lying around somewhere, hidden from Domi and Noé. And now he hears about this human scientist who’s running strange experiments on humans, trying to turn them into vampires.
Isn’t that just perfectly serendipitous?
Maybe the Teacher decides to pay Doctor Moreau a visit. He flatters Moreau, tells him he’ll give him the Books of Vanitas and Luna’s blood for his experiments. He’ll even throw in a vampire kid for free— all Moreau has to do is not kill the kid, and he can do whatever he wants with the rest.
No.70
So there’s a lot of parts of this theory that make sense. The Teacher reviving Louis? Makes sense. The Teacher giving Moreau Luna’s books and blood? Absolutely horrifying, disturbing, I hate it so, so much… but also makes sense. The only thing that doesn’t quite fit is the idea that No.70 is Louis. Wouldn’t it make so much more sense if No.70 was Astolfo’s younger sister Louisette, or some other random kid?
Let’s start with what we know about No.70. They arrived at the lab after Vanitas, but before Mikhail. Their gender isn’t specified, and Vanitas never says if they’re a human or a vampire. Vanitas speculates that something horrible happened to them in the past. We never see their neck or head. Oh, and they can’t speak.
This definitely all seems like stuff that could point to No.70 being Louisette. However, all of this evidence could also indicate that No.70 is Louis.
We know that while the Teacher seems to be able to bring people back from the dead, he can’t fix what’s already broken about them. He can’t repair Mikhail’s missing arm. And if, hypothetically, someone’s vocal chords were damaged when their head got cut off… maybe the Teacher couldn’t fix them.
No.70 also seems to be given some level of special treatment at the lab. Unlike Vanitas and Mikhail, they’re able to wander around freely at night. They’re clearly still being torturously experimented on, but they seem to have a modicum of freedom that the other test subjects don’t get.
It would also make a lot of sense for the Teacher to want to place Louis at the lab as an observer. One of my theories on Murr (again, linked at the bottom of this theory) is that the Teacher is somehow able to see what Murr sees out of one of Murr’s eyes, using the cat as a sort of living alchemical bug he can observe Noé through.
If the Teacher could do that to Murr, the Teacher could probably do that to Louis as well. If the Teacher was going to give Moreau the Books of Vanitas and Luna’s blood, he’d want to be able to observe what was going on there at all times, right? Sure, he could probably shapeshift into a mouse or a fly and sneak into the lab without any trouble, but that would take up a lot of time and effort. It would be so much easier to just have an observer wandering the lab at all times, someone he could check in on at a moment’s notice.
The Teacher needs somewhere to put the newly revived Louis. The Teacher wants to give Moreau some little presents for a horrifying and deeply disturbing experiment. The Teacher wants to observe this experiment.
The solution is clear.
Whew! So! I think we’ve established some things! I think I’ve made an actually shockingly half decent case for Louis being No.70! It follows to wonder… what happened to him after the destruction of the lab? The Teacher wouldn’t have just brought Louis back to the castle, where he could run into Noé or Domi at any time. The Teacher wouldn’t have just left Louis to the Chasseurs, either, as they likely would’ve killed him for a) being a vampire and b) being proof of Moreau’s crimes. No, actually, I think something else happened.
We’ve established that Louis can’t speak. There’s a character in VnC who only seems to be able to speak when they’re using a voice box.
We’ve established that Louis is connected to Moreau. There’s a character in VnC who seems to frequently appear around Moreau.
We’ve seen Louis fight before. There’s a character in VnC who uses the same melee style slashing attacks.
Hell.They’re even introduced in the same chapter.
If I was going to make a guess, I think Louis becomes
Monsieur Spider.
I was expecting this section to be crack. Hell, I was expecting this whole theory to be crack.
But once you start seeing the parallels, you really can’t stop.
They clearly have similar fighting styles. Monsieur Spider seems to speaks with a voice box (all of his dialogue uses a blocky, mechanical lettering rather than normal text). There’s the purposeful parallels in framing and composition between the two (as seen in the panels above). When Noé hallucinates a man inviting him to Charlatan during the Gévaudan arc, the man (sitting in a very Louislike pose, and saying something quite in line with Louis’s philosophy as a child) has horns— just like Monsieur Spider.
Y’know who else is associated with horns in VnC? Dominique, who wears them during the Bal Masqué. Dominique, Louis’s twin sister.
Of course, there’s a problem with this theory. Monsieur Spider doesn’t seem to like Noé very much. As a matter of fact, he seems very interested in killing Noé. He’s angry when Noé gets in his way at the Bal Masqué and seems genuinely upset when Ruthven fails to murder Noé in the cafe. This doesn’t seem in character for Louis, does it?
But look a little closer, and you’ll start to see it.
Monsieur Spider refuses to call Noé by his name when he tells Ruthven about his interruption at the Bal Masqué, despite almost definitely knowing it. In fact, he flinches when Ruthven says Noé’s name. He seems almost unnecessarily emotional whenever Noé is thrown into the equation, especially when compared to the cold and blank way he discusses Moreau. He has to desperately hold himself back from interacting with Noé when he helps Moreau escape from the lab.
Whenever Monsieur Spider shows emotion, it’s always because of Noé.
Now that sounds very in line with the Louis we know.
I think it’s very likely that Louis, just like our other reincarnated boy wonder Mikhail, has some level of amnesia when it comes to the past (specifically when it comes to how he died). It’s possible that his memories were damaged by his head getting chopped off (along with the whole reincarnation thing), or maybe the Teacher messed with his memories on purpose. Either way, I don’t think Louis remembers any specifics about Noé and Dominique (and if he does, they’re probably buried very deep under layers of suffering and hatred). All he knows is that he feels something when he’s around Noé, and he desperately wants to get rid of that feeling.
Hence the whole killing Noé thing.
And with that, I think our timeline is complete! Louis died and was brought back by the Teacher, who took him to Moreau’s lab along with Luna’s blood and the Books of Vanitas. Louis then spent some time as Teacher’s observer in the lab as No.70, and escaped from the lab with Moreau after the Teacher’s experiment reached its conclusion and Vanitas and Mikhail were saved by Luna. Louis then likely stayed with Moreau, and eventually became Monsieur Spider.
The Storytelling Angle
Whoof. I feel like there’s some very stronk proof here. But if you need a lil more evidence to convince you that these three very different seeming characters are actually one and the same, this section is for you.
First and foremost…. Mochijun has actually done something somewhat similar to this before (albeit in a way more obvious fashion) in Pandora Hearts.
When Oz comes back from the Abyss in Book 1, he and the readers both believe that only a short amount of time has passed since he was thrown into the Abyss. Mochijun capitalizes on this by introducing the readers to Raven, a character with a striking resemblance to Oz’s childhood friend Gilbert, but who is established as a different character both age and personality wise to build up to the big reveal. A few chapters later we get the emotional reveal that Raven is indeed Gilbert, and ten years have gone by.
I can’t help but feel like something similar is happening with Noé and Louis in VnC, just in a very different way. One of the most obvious clues as to Raven being Gilbert in PH (besides his physical appearance) was his strangely intense attachment to Oz, despite seeming to have only met him a few days ago. We see something very similar going on with Monsieur Spider when it comes to Noé (just in a very negative sense of “intense attachment” rather than a positive one).
In addition to this, and focusing more on VnC as a story… I can’t help but feel like Louis being alive would throw an absolutely delightful wrecking ball into the story.
Even though a lot of insane batshit crazy stuff has gone down during the Exposition Universalle arc, I can’t help but feel like after it’s all over, our characters will genuinely come out of it as stronger people with stronger relationships with each other (and with themselves @/ Dominique).
Noé and Vanitas have withstood the ultimate test of their friendship, culminating in what’s basically their equivalent of a love confession (and Vanitas sobbing into Noé’s chest, and Noé finally bloodying his hands to protect Vanitas, and them both desperately trying to save each other’s lives but refusing to abandon each other, and—). Dominique and Vanitas, Dominique and Jeanne, Dominique and Noé, and Jeanne and Noé all have some great moments where they rely on each other, learn from each other, and save each other while facing off against Mikhail.
Dominique in particular has absolutely transformed throughout the arc, finally starting to deal with her repressed self hatred and her intense survivor’s guilt. Hell, I’m actually able to picture Dominique confessing her love to Noé with a smile on her face, telling him she knows he doesn’t feel that way about her, and accepting that this doesn’t mean she’s inferior to Jeanne (or Vanitas). It feels like like Domi is truly on the road to becoming the best version of herself and she’s absolutely stunning and beautiful and Jeanne’s in love with her and so am I.
But this is Mochijun we’re talking about. Mochijun, queen of suffering and angst.
Wouldn’t it just be perfectly in line with her writing style if, in this moment where it seems like Dominique has truly grown and become stronger, all of it came crashing down with the reveal that Louis isn’t actually dead?
Wouldn’t it be fantastically painful if, in this moment where Vanitas and Noé seem to be connecting more than ever, their bond growing stronger than ever… Louis came and threw a wrench in it?
The End (for now)
And with that I think it’s high time we wrap it all up!!
Before we get to the very end of this post I do want to mention— there’s actually a solid bit more I want to talk about when it comes to this theory, but this post is already way longer than I wanted it to be. So!! There may or may not be a part two coming in the future. I will try my absolute best to get part 2 out… uhh… in the next…. uhh… increment of time or so!!
As always, please take this theory with a massive massive grain of salt. There is a compelling case out there for Monsieur Spider being Johann. While I do not consider the anime canon to the manga, it’s extremely likely that the anime version of Monsieur Spider is indeed Johann (which bodes quite ill for this theory). I do still have a lot of faith in the evidence I’ve presented but the simple fact that Johann Spider is (90% likely to be) canon in the anime knocks the wind out of my sails a bit. This post has a Lot of speculation and it’s very very possible that I’m completely wrong on all accounts here!
Thank you so much for reading this theory/ meta/ analysis/ insane rambling thing!
I’ve been part of the anime community for the last 6 years and I have experienced many forms of emotions. Out of all of those my most dear ones were with the Tokyo Ghoul and 5 toubun no hanayome. I share my experience with you in the hopes that it may remind you of the good days of when you were passionately following the series or of right now if you are following any anime or manga Just like I did with Quintessential Quintuplets and Tokyo Ghoul.
As we all know… Clint stopped Wanda from fear controlling him in Avengers:AOU
But what the hell would he have imagined, if Wanda got to him?
I’m really interested of how that story line would have went…
Would his vision have connected to his childhood (with his parents or the carnies) and what the comics had showed us or would have it been completely irrelevant and something we would have never expected?
I WANT TO KNOW…
What are your thoughts guys?
(I also wish Clint was more based off the comics ughhhhh)
I, like so many of us, have Theories about why Ed kept Jim of all people on his ship. My three personal frontrunners are:
Jim is the only other crewmember we know can canonically read and write. With Lucius gone, someone needs to write Blackbeard’s epic “I’m very into murder now” manifesto.
So far as we know, Jim is the only trained assassin among the crew. Considering his overall emotional state, Blackbeard may be loading the dice and planning his own suicide by cop justifiably angry NB with zero fucks to give.
Stede abandoned Ed – Ed killed Lucius – and all together that meant there was only one couple left on the Revenge. Edward “I Will Destroy All Love” Teach decided to… correct that.
Exclusive Interview: Fandom Veteran Hillnerd Discusses how the Fandom has Changed
Fan artist Hillnerd (@hillnerd on Tumblr) has begun to step into a new role. She’s an artist, to be sure, with her “giant binder of all the different characters [from] Harry Potter, [including] the animals from it,” but lately, she’s taken the mantle of “fandom veteran” in stride to give us all a dose of fandom history. When her page-long meta-analyses of various fandom ships came across my Tumblr dash, I knew I had to know more. I sat down for a chat with Hillnerd, and she took me on a journey through fandom, ships, and controversial characters that younger fans might be unfamiliar with.
On the First Fan Theories
Hillnerd explained what it was like to be in the fandom when there were so many mysteries to explore. As the books were published, fan theories abounded, particularly about Harry’s eyes. The prevailing theory that has largely been forgotten in contemporary fandom spaces was that Harry’s green eyes would reveal a power that would allow him to defeat Voldemort. “This is before we knew about Horcruxes,” Hillnerd said.
There was a lot of speculation that somehow Harry had some sort of superpower that was going to [defeat Voldemort], that it would be his green eyes [and] that somehow his green eyes are special.
Harry James Potter
On Female Characters
According to Hillnerd, characters like Hermione, Lavender, and Ginny, used to be treated very differently than they are today. Though Hermione is now often criticized for her treatment of Umbdrige and her attack on Ron in the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, according to Hillnerd:
But back in the day, Hermione was the one everyone wanted to ship with everybody. She was a self-insert character for a lot of people because so many of us who are invested in Harry Potter are nerdy girls who love to read and have strong opinions.
With Hermione being held in such high regard, it came as no surprise when Hillnerd recounted the controversy that arose when Lavender Brown became Ron’s girlfriend. “Man,” she said, “there was a huge meltdown [about] that. It was intense.” Ginny Weasley also faced backlash when she was introduced as a love interest for Harry:
Ginny was a nonentity for most people until the fifth book […] Then, [after] the sixth book [came] the meltdown. Poor Ginny has been drug through the mud.
Hermione Granger
On Snape
Another notable evolution in fandom has been the view on Snape: “Alan Rickman made more and more people think Snape was hot,” she said. She later explained: “But back in the day, his bullying wasn’t as much of an issue.” This hasn’t changed, but Hillnerd believes that nowadays:
We are a little bit more nuanced, sometimes, with our analysis of his childhood. But he’s always been one that people never seem to be neutral about. When it comes to Snape, people have strong emotions.
Severus Snape
On Dumbledore
According to Hillnerd, back in the day, Dumbledore was most associated with the fan theory that he and Ron were the same person. But now, “there’s more vitriol towards Dumbledore as an authority figure and as a teacher than there ever was back in the day.” As Hillnerd explained:
It wasn’t until after the seventh book had come out and people had marinated on it for a long time that we started seeing more of that interpretation of Dumbledore as a shady guy in some ways.
Albus Dumbledore
On Queer Characters
Though the Harry Potter fandom is now marked by queer ships like Wolfstar and Drarry, expressing queerness in fandom faced many obstacles in early internet spaces. According to Hillnerd:
In general, queer ships weren’t as popular then as they are now. ‘Slash fiction’ is what it used to be called. It did not have as many safe places, just because different places would associate anything queer with being more mature. Over time, as more queer spaces were more open to [fan fiction], you’d see a little bit more of it as well. So over time, we see Harry and Draco become a more popular thing with LiveJournal. That’s when it really took off. And then Sirius and Remus became really popular. That was a popular one. But over time, it became very popular. Then LiveJournal went and cut away a lot of queer content. Did you see how on Tumblr they did that for a little bit, where they banned a lot of different tags? It was very similar to that with LiveJournal, only it was much more extreme. That’s when you saw the founding of AO3. AO3, at first, when it was founded, was almost entirely queer content because [it was] all the content that hadn’t been able to safely stay on LiveJournal. Some journals were just literally deleted off the Internet without any warning whatsoever, just because they had queer content. And people were like, ‘This is really good content,’ and they would ship it more and more. Now it’s hugely popular.
Full Transcript with Hillnerd, Saturday, April 2, 2022
Transcribed by Jo Moses and Marissa Osman
Jo Moses: Tell me your story. How did you get involved in the Harry Potter fandom in the first place?
Hillnerd: I got into the books around the time the fourth book had come out. I was babysitting, and I had nothing to do, so I decided to go ahead and pick up this book. I got really hooked after the third one and went online to see what was going on there. That’s when I found Fiction Alley. Have you heard of Fiction Alley?
Jo: I don’t think I’ve heard of that, no.
Hillnerd: Okay, it’s an old one. This is back when there wasn’t a lot of social media all over the place. This is probably back in the early 2000s, [maybe] 2002. It was a forum [similar to] Reddit, and you [would] go in there and there were all these different threads. It finally went away about a year ago. No one had been on there for about five years [at that point]. But back then? Oh, it was thriving! People were posting all sorts of stuff. There were all sorts of debates happening and different threads where people would go off about things. There was a post limit as well. I wrote fan fiction, [but] I was more known as being a fan artist. That’s where I got started, I guess.
Jo: How’d you start drawing?
Hillnerd: I’ve always been an artist at heart. I have just been a professional artist for the past 12 years, actually. Back when I was a teenager, I loved to draw characters. I had a giant binder of all the different characters [from] Harry Potter, [including] the animals from it. I have not really stopped drawing those things, to be honest.
Jo: That is amazing. It’s pretty special. I’m someone who also really loves to draw. We draw the way we imagine a character, and we carry that image with us into adulthood, you know? It’s what makes every fan artist unique in a way.
Hillnerd: I love being able to do that and portray the characters at different ages, but still have it be the same character. That’s one of my favorite things about Harry Potter. When it comes to fan artists, you get to explore so many different emotions, as well as just the breadth of ages there. You can draw anyone from when they’re a kid or when they’re older. And then there are all [the] headcanons you can do. What if Ron decided to grow a beard, and he and Hermione have the cutest kids in the world? Let’s draw this stuff! It’s really fun. And people love to interact with them as well.
Jo: You were saying earlier about how [Fiction Alley] would have threads with different ships. When did you make the jump from reading the books to getting interested in it to finding ships that you’re invested in? What was your first ship?
Hillnerd: Lots of people thought, “Harry and Ginny? That would never happen. That’s ridiculous. It’s gonna be Harry and Hermione.”
Jo: It’s definitely really interesting to get the hear the perspective from someone who was in a position to really see the long game with the plot. Where did you think things were going with the Harry Potter ships? You can go broader [with your answer], I just feel like a lot of the main fandom conflict is about ships. Where did you think everything was going?
Hillnerd: I thought endgame was basically what we saw. I thought it was going to be Ron and Hermione. I felt that was pretty obvious from the first book. From about the second book, I was like, “Oh, it’d be Harry and Ginny. Eventually. They’re doing this narrative thing, the fairy tale of the man [saving] the damsel in distress - only they’re 12 - and then flipping it on its head.” That’s how I saw it happening. I didn’t know exactly how it happened. I definitely thought Ron and Hermione would get together sooner, as did everyone else. When the sixth book came out, [we were] like, “Really? The whole Ron/Lavender thing? We have to wait for a whole other book?” But at least they really got together. Man, there was a huge meltdown [about] that. It was intense, but that was the speculation. And I was very satisfied with it. It was nice.
Jo: I want to go back to something you said about Ron and Lavender. I feel like in the fandom spaces - at least that I’m in - the view towards Lavender has become a lot more favorable. People are even shipping her with Pavarti. What was the attitude towards Lavender [when the book came out]? Were people pissed?
Hillnerd: Yes. A lot of people were highly irritated that it happened at all. A lot of people were not very kind toward her character. I was just annoyed that the plot twist happened, that Ron and Lavender got together. But I never had anything against Lavender. I actually thought she was a pretty supportive girlfriend and really nice to Ron. I liked her and [so did] a few people. But she was eviscerated as a character for nothing, which was pretty unfair. I think she was just a teenage girl trying to have her first boyfriend and getting a little silly [about] things. It was one of the things that made me write a fan fiction a while back because I was like, “You know what? We need something that shows Lavender as a good girlfriend.” People were not very kind.
Jo: What was your experience with female characters in the [early years of the] fandom? Because, obviously, I don’t know a lot about it. But it seems to me that the way they have been treated has changed a lot. What would you say are some examples of that, or how has that gone?
Hillnerd: In some ways, things have changed [but in other ways, things have] stayed the same. Hermione used to be much more put on a pedestal. Now there’s a bit of a shift there, where she is more humanized. There’s even some discernment and criticism about what she’s done. But back in the day, Hermione was the one everyone wanted to ship with everybody. She was a self-insert character for a lot of people because so many of us who are invested in Harry Potter are nerdy girls who love to read and have strong opinions. It was very easy for that to happen. And then the movies and later books accentuated that as well. Ginny was a nonentity for most people until the fifth book, when people started realizing, “Oh, she’s changed a little. She’s more open.” And suddenly, “This is ridiculous.” Then, [after] the sixth book [came] the meltdown. Poor Ginny has been drug through the mud and called a Mary Sue, which, to me, never made sense. Ginny got bashed pretty harshly. And that happens still; a lot of people just don’t much care for her, which I don’t get. I love her. She was always a great character; one of my favorites. Luna, for the most part, has always been beloved. I don’t think that changed much. Molly Weasley got bashed a lot. The Weasleys, in general, get the short end of the stick with the fandom. As ships would get exploded by a Weasley, People would get pretty bad.
Jo: How, if at all, has the view on Snape changed? Because I feel like now, he’s very polarizing, there are a lot of people who think, “He’s a terrible teacher. He’s a bully.” And then there’s a lot of people who are like, “He’s just misunderstood.” And then [there are the people who] think he’s really hot. What was it like back in the day?
Hillnerd: Alan Rickman made more and more people think Snape was hot. There was something about the way he would say his lines that would draw people in, and Snape has always been a character that had people [disagreeing]. What are his motives? Is he actually evil? We are a little bit more nuanced, sometimes, with our analysis of his childhood. But he’s always been one that people never seem to be neutral about. When it comes to Snape, people have strong emotions, which I get. He is a character that is controversial in the way that he treats his students. I’m a teacher and I just cannot imagine having that kind of vitriol towards a child, ever. But back in the day, his bullying wasn’t as much of an issue.
Jo: I guess this is a little along the same lines: Were people still more people skeptical of Dumbledore as you kept learning more information? Because I know a lot of the discourse now is like, “He was such a bad guy - a selfish guy - for not revealing these things to Harry.” And some people think he was just doing his best, he didn’t know… I feel like when I first read the books, I was very enamored and taken in.
Hillnerd: There’s more vitriol towards Dumbledore as an authority figure and as a teacher than there ever was back in the day. Some of the things that people were trying to figure out were [interesting]. There was even one speculation that maybe Dumbledore and Ron are the same person. It wasn’t until after the seventh book had come out and people had marinated on it for a long time that we started seeing more of that interpretation of Dumbledore as a shady guy in some ways. It took a while for that to come in. But for the longest time, Dumbledore was pretty much beloved by almost everybody.
Jo: What were your favorite fan theories from when the books were coming out?
Hillnerd: Favorite fan theories? Oh, my goodness. I’m going to have to think back. Let’s see… Well, I remember back before the fifth book came out that almost no one really realized that Sirius was pure-blood. I don’t know if this was really a fan theory or not, but it was interesting. We were all trying to figure out how he would get his freedom. There were some great ideas. [One was that] there will be a trial, he’s going to get his day in court, it’s going to be amazing. And the fifth book exploded a lot of cannon ideas. That one was a heartbreaker. There was a lot of speculation that somehow Harry had some sort of superpower that was going to [defeat Voldemort], that it would be his green eyes [and] that somehow his green eyes are special. This is before we knew about Horcruxes.
Jo: Yeah! This isn’t related to the books per se, but I feel like a lot of people today just think the movies are crap. What [was the attitude] back then? I imagine there was a lot of excitement about the movies, to see these characters come to life on screen. But were expectations met when the movies came out?
Hillnerd: For the first movie? Most definitely. Everybody was so pleased with the first one. Then the second one came out and people were a little bit less pleased. And the third one? I personally love that movie [but] after that, the fandom got angrier with each film. Sometimes they would be excited about certain things, but then the casting of certain characters would come out and there’d be a lot of controversies. Some of it was really pointed and horribly unfair, especially whenever a new woman was cast. Basically, every time a new woman was cast in the movies - like Cho Chang - she got a lot of flack from random people on the internet. So sometimes it could be not so great. But in general, people were excited every time. They were like, “This time they’re going to get it. I just know.” And then if it didn’t happen, they [would be] like, “Next time, guys! We’re gonna get it next time!” [There was] a lot of that.
Jo: What would you say were the biggest conflicts in fandom when you entered into it?
Hillnerd: It was shipping. It was always shipping. It was called “shipping wars” for a reason, and it was intense. Harry and Hermione [was called] “Harmony.” It had a special ship name. Each ship had its own special name. “Orange Crush” was Harry and Ginny. “Harmony” was Harry and Hermione, because they get along so well. Have you ever heard of “Sugar Quill?” “Sugar Quill” was specifically a Romione-centric place. There was another one called “Checkmated”. There were all sorts of things. And back then Harry and Draco weren’t shipped quite as hard. That didn’t really happen till the LiveJournal days in general, but yes, it’s shipping, it’s shipping. Everyone wanted it to be a romance even though the books are not about romance.
Jo: Could you take us on a journey of “Drarry?” What happened?
Hillnerd: Back in the day, Harry and Draco were shipped in some places, but the big ship with Draco was actually “Dramione.” Hermione was the one that people were shipping with everybody. [“Dramione”] was an incredibly popular ship. Then there was that meme [with] Draco and leather pants. Like, “Oh, he’s a sexy bad boy.” And [people would discuss how he] would have a dungeon where he’ll take Hermione. There were all sorts of things like that. It was the thing [to put] Draco on a pedestal.
Jo: With “Drarry,” how has that developed?
Hillnerd: In general, queer ships weren’t as popular then as they are now. “Slash fiction” is what it used to be called. It did not have as many safe places, just because different places would associate anything queer with being more mature. Over time, as more queer spaces were more open to [fan fiction], you’d see a little bit more of it as well. So over time, we see Harry and Draco become a more popular thing with LiveJournal. That’s when it really took off. And then Sirius and Remus became really popular. That was a popular one. But over time, it became very popular. Then LiveJournal went and cut away a lot of queer content. Did you see how on Tumblr they did that for a little bit, where they banned a lot of different tags? It was very similar to that with LiveJournal, only it was much more extreme. That’s when you saw the founding of AO3. AO3, at first, when it was founded, was almost entirely queer content because [it was] all the content that hadn’t been able to safely stay on LiveJournal. Some journals were just literally deleted off the Internet without any warning whatsoever, just because they had queer content. And people were like, “This is really good content,” and they would ship it more and more. Now it’s hugely popular.
Jo: What do you think are the most important ways that the fandom has changed since the books were written?
Hillnerd: I think that the emphasis on diversity has been much stronger over the years, and I love that about it. I feel like we’re so much more nuanced now when it comes to how we interpret our characters. It’s not just about what’s going to happen in the books; we know now what happens in the books. Now it’s more about building our own ideas and making sure different identities are represented in our fiction and our work. And that, to me, was such an important and good thing about how our fandom changed. In some ways, the fandom has become more global, in general. We used to [only] have this forum. Iy was the main one, [as well as] those couple of websites, and that’s about it. It was all about the books. But then, as the movies came out and [then] the plays and everything else in the world of Harry Potter expanded, we saw how there were just so many different interpretations of, “What should Hermione actually look like,” for example. “How do you see yourself in these characters?” It’s been incredible to watch it grow from speculating about things like, “Who’s going to date who? What’s going to happen? How will Harry defeat Voldemort,” to, “How do we feel like queer identity intersects with this? How does disability work within the Harry Potter world?” We’re also a lot [more] hurt now by [J. K. Rowling] and with all [that] she’s been doing. So in some ways, it’s hard to be in the fandom. It’s something that meant so much to you and you created so many community memories and so much content about this series. In some ways, it’s a little bit difficult to be part of the fandom. But in other ways, it’s pretty incredible. You can’t come across almost anybody who hasn’t had at least a little bit of knowledge about it. [You can say,] “I’m totally a Hufflepuff,” and they’re like, “Oh, that’s so cool.” I’ve had students that are like, “I love Harry Potter,” and they’ve only seen the movies. It can be such a great connector for people. So I think that’s my favorite thing about fandom that hasn’t changed. It’s that it connects people. And I’ve gotten to meet so many people in real life. I went to a Harry Potter convention with people from LiveJournal ten years ago. And then this last year, with the pandemic, I [went on Zoom] and started a Harry Potter book club [where] I would have people from all over the world come in, and we’d get to talk and be brought together. That’s the best thing about this, even if the author might do things that are just so disappointing and so hurtful. It does not take away how many beautiful relationships we’ve been able to form.
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Are you ready to get spooked? You just might have to prepare yourself with this cartoon theory that has crossed many minds for years now. Before we dive into the dark theorizations, I must make an important disclaimer that this article will contain some talk about death and some stuff that may be too macabre for those sensitive to such topics. Also, keep in mind that a theory is a theory. Whether…
