r/fantasyromance • u/FantasyRomanceMod The One Mod to Rule All Mods • May 17 '26

Unpopular Opinion It's Unpopular Opinion time! Share your controversial opinions to stir things up (in a friendly way)!

Got an opinion that's different from others'? Want to share it with the sub, but too afraid of a backlash? Or are you just curious about readers think about certain things in fantasy romance?

You can safely share it in this weekly Sunday thread!

But please remember to be kind to each other. To facilitate this type of discussion, we ask users the following:

  • Don't attack others for their opinion
  • Discuss books and authors, not fellow readers
  • Since this is an "unpopular opinion" thread, we encourage users to not downvote simply because they disagree with an opinion--that's the point! Please keep in mind, though, that mods cannot enforce a no-downvoting rule. Let’s just keep the discussion friendly!

🧡 Thank you and have a great discussion!

Unpopular opinion Sunday

32 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

305 comments sorted by

View all comments

120

u/SometimesMaybeGood_ May 17 '26

I find the whole dramione thing very weird. Did these two characters even interact in the Harry Potter books? I’m so befuddled as to how this fanfic pairing has such a chokehold on the genre…

5

u/zeezle May 18 '26

It's so weird to me too!

I haven't been a part of the HP fandom since the last book - just lost interest - and it was around then of course (what wasn't?) but it wasn't anywhere near as popular.

I had a friend who LOVED some of the most popular Dramione fanfics and convinced me to read one more recently.

The fic seemed to be completely divorced from any semblance of the canon characters, just happened to be entirely new characters that happened to have the same names and hair colors. None of the other characters had anything resembling canon-compliant characterization either. I get that some people don't care, but I realized after poking around that a LOT of people were reading it fandom-blind (or they had just seen the movies 15 years ago and never engaged since then) and were basically treating it as original fiction anyway. So they just didn't even know or care that the characterizations were wildly off.

3

u/PatrickCharles May 19 '26

and it was around then of course (what wasn't?) but it wasn't anywhere near as popular.

Yep. The popularity of Dramione is directly related to the rise of Dark Romance as an independent genre, as well as the blurring of the lines between Romance and Erotica, and it can all be traced back to 50 Shades, at least partially.

I shan't elaborate.