The End?

As a fandom that evolved with the release of each book and was hinged on theorizing and debating with each other between books and helping each other fill the void created by finishing the last sentence of the current books at our disposal, we wondered if the fandom would end with the release of Deathly Hallows, and it was only natural.

I mean, what really held us together? We were a group of relative strangers gathered online, most of whom hadn't met in real life or for more than five minutes in between activities at HP conventions.

But we survived.

We discovered what truly held us, as a fandom, together: our love for the works. It didn't matter that there wasn't another release to look forward to. It didn't matter that many of the mysteries we'd spent countless hours pondering alone, in chat rooms, on forums, on skype, etc. had been resolved in the final book. It didn't matter that we still didn't always have faces to put with the handles and avatars on forums for those we called “friends”. We were bonded by going through the HP experience together.

We experienced love, loss, and victory, not just with Harry and the other fictional people we'd come to love, but, by extension, with every true HP fan around the world who had read the words that drew us in so much. We went through Post-Potter Depression together after the tears had long since dried from our eyes.

And we survived.

Maybe deep inside many of us there was a tiny part that was saying “there's always a few more movies to look forward to”. And maybe that got us through.

But now we face the last movie release, and we are again wondering if we, as a fandom, will cease to exist.

If you are to honestly ask yourself if every “true fan” (by which I mean those that listen to wrock, go to conventions, dress up for releases, hold HP parties, host HP discussion groups, play Quidditch, etc.) will simply give up their love for HP upon seeing the last movie, what is your answer? I'd bet my broomstick it's a “no”.

There will still be conventions, fansites, and all the friendships we've forged through this fandom to hold us together. The fandom will not die.

Is that to say that I don't foresee a day when HP conventions are no longer held regularly or at all? No. Do I foresee a day when HP discussion groups are all but extinct? Yes. Do I foresee a day when wizard rockers don't tour anymore? Yes. But do I foresee a day when the forums that were a-buzz when HP news are completely gone and every HP fan I've met looks back at the HP phenomenon as a fad, a passing fancy, a youthful delight? No.

The fandom will live on as long as there are true fans out there re-reading the series, listening to wrock, going to wrock concerts, reading and sharing the series with others, discussing theories, making fanvids and parodies, and generally loving the heck out of these books.

"I shall never truly be gone unless none here are loyal to me."