Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Playing [With] Multiple Roles: Readers, Authors, And Characters In "Who Is Blaise Zabini?", Anne Collins Smith

Faculty Publications

Fans who produce fan works in genres such as fiction, music, and music video take on dual roles in the process, as readers of the original canon and as creators of their own products. These roles -and more- are creatively explored in the Parselmouths' wizard rock composition "Who Is Blaise Zabini?". Like many works of fan fiction, the Parselmouths' songs move beyond a reader's ordinary role, taking on an authorial role to generate new characters and events in the Harry Potter universe. What makes this particular work unusual is that at the same time that they are adopting the roles …