paragonish @ August 21 2004, 07:47:48 UTC

KJFLKAJD I don't know what to say. I play Neville as well and I aspire to be as supremely awesome as you are. So, er, I just have one question. Did you ever think Nocturne Alley was going to be as big as it was?

Oh yeah, and since I'm gathering a steady harem of wives and husbands...marry me?

a_player @ August 21 2004, 21:52:55 UTC

Thanks!

Did you ever think Nocturne Alley was going to be as big as it was? Well, the fact is, I was the second Neville, and Nocturne Alley was already pretty big by the time that I joined. I started with the game shortly after Harry was outed, and the first big group event I was involved with was Remus' and Sirius' wedding.

I had never been in a role-playing group before. I had never considered being in a role-playing group before. What happened was this: I'm actually a professional writer, and I have let's keep the number vague, but it's more than one novel published. One thing I like to do is to mentor up and coming writers. Because other writers have mentored me in the past, I consider it sort of a karmic responsibility. I have occasionally sought out what seemed to me to be talented amateur writers I've found on the Internet, and sent them an e-mail, something along the lines of You're writing good stuff, you might think about doing this professionally.

Anyway, I became aware of nocturne_alley because I love Harry Potter, and it seemed that everyone on my friends list was talking about it. After reading the outing thread, I e-mailed someone I suspected might be a player and told her, Please pass on to the players that I think they're really good, and that this pro writer would like to hear they're working on original stuff. And in the postscript, I mentioned as an afterthought that gee, it looked like fun, and I wish I'd known about it when the game was getting started because I would have liked to have tried it.

It turns out she was a player, and when she passed my message on to the mods, they said, well, would you like to do it? Well . . . yeah! I was offered several parts, but I picked Neville without hesitation. He has always been a favorite.

As for your proposal, I must blush and say thanks but decline, as I'm already taken!

hgranger13 @ Deleted Deleted

Deleted

a_player @ August 21 2004, 22:00:50 UTC

Neville did a superb job on his herbology NEWT and did well enough on potions (ugh!) and charms to land the job he had hoepd to have at St. Mungo's, doing magical botanical/pharmaceutical research. He will build a nice little career breeding and developing new magical plants that can be used to treat magical illnesses and injury.

Yes, Neville will certainly date Sara--he is very much in love with her--and there is a very strong possibility that they will marry. I think they will become deeply enough involved that he will eventually tell her he is a wizard. As to what she will decide when he proposes to her--I can't say for certain, but I have a hunch she will say yes. Gran will be a little doubtful at first that a Muggle girl will be right for her darling boy, but she will eventually be charmed by Sara, too, and will in the end be all in favour of the match.

portkey @ August 21 2004, 09:36:28 UTC

I'm beyond exhausted and heading toward Just Barely Alive at this point, but I'm full of the Neville love and had to ask something, no matter how sucky my question is.

So. What did you think of the whole nEVILle talk? Actually, on that note, I'm curious; as a player, how much did you pay attention to nraged? Often, every once in a while, only when a fellow player pointed something out specifically to you..?

Thanks for writing such a cool Neville. I have and always have had a strong connection with him, both in canon and NA.. so rarely does fandom do him justice, in my opinion, whether it be making him too competent or not competent enough, and I always loved that your Neville was imperfect but always with good intentions. Thank you.

portkey @ August 21 2004, 09:43:15 UTC

Er, I feel like I should clarify by "too competent".. meaning, you know, when a character is portrayed in fanon as Superhero of Light, and way more perfect than any person realistically can be and certainly much more than they are in canon.

Erm. I'm probably rambling (way too tired to even tell, ergh), so, yeah. I'll stop now.

a_player @ August 22 2004, 01:07:45 UTC

Thanks! Well, as I explained in an answer above, I actually wasn't with Nocturne Alley from the beginning, and I was totally new to role-playing when I started. But nraged had already been developing rather elaborate theories about nEVILle for awhile by that point. I remember that my first couple of posts were pretty innocuous, something about cleaning up the potions classroom, where Snape was asleep with his head on the cauldron. I told different details in the two different entries because one was to the nocturne_alley journal--more public you understand--and one was in Neville's own journal, sort of his more private thoughts about seeing Snape asleep. I was interested in exploring the slight differences, you see, in Neville as he comes across "publicly" and Neville in his own private, more personal reactions.

But of course, nraged, in the full hue and cry of their elaborate nEVILle theories, started throwing around cheerful theories about how Neville had mixed the spilled potions ingredients deliberately to knock Snape out, maybe kill him. And my whole reaction was, wtf? I'm just starting out here! Who is this evil Neville of whom you speak?

So to me, the whole thing was sort of, this is kind of amusing, but rather surreal. But it meant that, right from the very start, I just had to take nraged with a grain of salt, because my Neville wasn't evil. I'm sorry, notapipe, he just wasn't. And so I couldn't always pay very close attention to what they were saying about my Neville, because I quickly realized that I would never convince the nEVILle theorists otherwise because they were having too much fun imagining Neville as evil. And if that was their basic supposition about his motivation (totally wrong, from my point of view), it just didn't make sense for me to "play to the gallery" of nraged watchers at all. They were reacting to a totally different character, one that they had made up in their own minds. But he wasn't the character I was writing at all.

I think the point that I watched nraged's reaction the most closely was the night I blew up the library, because I KNEW that I was handing the nEVILle theorists terrific fodder to say, "See? See? We told you so!"

hezzabeth @ August 23 2004, 10:28:31 UTC

I KNEW IT, IN YOUR FACE PIPE!!!

jheaton @ August 21 2004, 14:21:06 UTC

First of all, I have to admit that I was somewhat selfishly disappointed when Neville decided not to take the job at Heaton Hall. Oh well.

So, a few questions:

1) What was said in the letter Neville sent to Sara in June?
2) Neville's posts frequently went uncommented on. Was this a deliberate decision on the part of the players or something that developed over time?
3) Nev and Padma were sort of chummy for a while... anything happen there?
4) What did Nev do to earn a month of detentions from Professor Snape? I assume it was something more than just falling asleep in class.

That should do it for now, I guess.

luna_lg @ August 21 2004, 16:46:47 UTC

I can answer the last one--he tried brewing his own Sleeping Potion, but came close to creating the Draft of Sleeping Death; I think that's what it was called. Anyway, that's what caused Snape--who saw Neville as a near-failure at Potions--to get VERY angry at him.

a_player @ August 22 2004, 01:09:06 UTC

Yes, exactly!

a_player @ August 22 2004, 01:44:25 UTC

1) The letter was meant to be sort of an opening gambit, to say, "Hi, I've been thinking a lot about you this past year. I sure hope we could maybe get together some time this summer." He was very hopeful, because he really did love her, and Mr. Takakura was certainly doing all he could to signal "Your way is clear now. Go for it." And it worked!

2) Yes, they were frequently not commented on. The other players and I never really discussed it, but it definitely became a part of his characterization. You'll note that Neville more or less said that what attracted him to Sara was that she paid attention to him and found him worth talking to. Neville was very humble about himself and fully aware that he was definitely not the most popular kid around. And he thought he didn't deserve anything more. To have a girl like Sara actually pay attention to him seemed like a minor miracle to him, and it was entirely natural that he would respond to it gratefully and end up falling in love.

I think the no-comments-to-Neville partly happened maybe because it seemed natural to everyone that Neville would be more or less ignored. He's the somewhat geeky kid in the group, and I think Seamus' player put it very astutely when he remarked that he was never quite in on the joke. And it doesn't help your social standing very much to be seen as being best buddies with Neville.

Partly, too, I started with the game late, and so the other players had established comfortable ways of having their characters interact. I had to sort of scratch around the edges, trying to find a niche.

Another factor, perhaps, was that a lot of the energy of the game revolved around potterstinks and the interactions he had with others. But potterstinks thought Neville was mostly beneath his notice and so never deliberately talked to him, unless it was to bully him. And though he never talked about it or did much to call attention to it, Neville hated Draco with a quiet passion, especially after what he did to Trevor. Unlike Ron, or Seamus or Harry, he never willingly talked to Draco. That also put a barrier between him and Harry, the other major pole of the game, because although he liked Harry and had no objection to having gay roommates, he just couldn't fathom why Harry could possibly like a guy who was so cruel.

I did find it rather frustrating to me, as a player, that so few people commented on Neville's entries. You can do so much more to get information across naturally, when it's done as a dialogue, rather than as a monologue. It also made me doubt myself as a player sometimes ("How can I be doing this right if no one talks to me")

Unfortunately, I had to resort to non-naturalistic techniques, like having Neville report conversations, as with Sara, Uncle Algie and Gran. This was perhaps more suited to the sort of narrative style you might use in a novel than in a supposedly natural, off-the-cuff journal kept by a sixteen year old boy. And, particularly by the end, it gave Neville's entries sort of a faux talking-to-myself way about them which I think began to skew his characterization a bit, and not in a helful way. I realized by the end that I really wished that I could make entries that were understood to be "private" entries, not seen by the other characters, because it wasn't quite realistic to believe that Neville would be talking quite so fluently and intimately to/about himself if everyone was reading what he was saying. I got rather frustrated, because I felt I had no choice: because no one was talking to me. How else could I get information across?

(more in next comment)

jheaton @ August 22 2004, 03:12:10 UTC

Thank you for the very detailed response to my questions! And pursuant to your comments above about how Nevile related to Harry and Draco, let me say that I loved NA in spite of its preoccupation with Harry and Draco's relationship, and it was the characters like Neville, whose lives and thoughts were not so tightly wound up in those of Harry and Draco, that made the game worth following. So thank you for giving me and other readers like me (assuming there were any other readers like me) something to look forward to.

a_player @ August 22 2004, 01:54:27 UTC

3) Nev and Padma were sort of chummy for a while... anything happen there? Well, we tried to do something. Partly it was Neville trying rather half-heartedly to find a girl, particularly a wizard girl, to help him get over Sara. He wasn't looking for a girlfriend, you understand, at least not right away, but for someone to just fill that companionship niche that he and Sara had. In the back of his mind, mostly unexamined, was the thought that maybe it would be best for him to stick to witches, since having a relationship with a Muggle girl was fraught with complications. He and Padma just mostly played chess and ran together in the mornings--until the mods nixed having Neville following an exercise program! They thought it would be too OOC for Neville to get too buff and studly! Which both frustrated me a little and made me laugh. I could see their point, although I did want Neville to have some positive changes in his life.

The whole relationship also partly developed out of my frustration as a player that no one was talking to me (Neville). Padma's player and I both got really busy for awhile there, though, and we didn't have to many more ideas for interaction, and the whole story line sort of eventually petered away.

cottons @ August 21 2004, 15:28:27 UTC

YOU ARE SO EVIL, AREN'T YOU??

a_player @ August 22 2004, 01:56:59 UTC

*laughs* See my answer above.

dahlia_777 @ Deleted Deleted

Deleted

a_player @ August 22 2004, 02:54:37 UTC

*Lavender and Neville*: They were dating in a casual way when I started with the game, back in April of 2003, and you're right, they did break up because of Lavender's anorexia. Lavender couldn't forgive him for pushing to try to get her help, and he didn't feel it was right to be with her as long as she was refusing to face reality. He's a very honest person, and felt it would be criminally negligent, maybe even life-threatening, for him to help her to pretend that everything was all right. He eventually regretfully decided he had to let her go until she was willing to get help. He always felt a friendly interest in her, and would be willing to be friends with her if/once she would let him, but by the time she was forced to face the truth about her eating disorder, he had really moved on emotionally to Sara.

*The Gryffindor boys, and the no commenting business* I talked about that a bit up above here. Yes, I think that the roommates as a whole were good friends with each other for the most part, but it did seem to me that it was a Harry-Ron dyad, a Seamus-Dean dyad, and then Neville sort of by himself. It was part of Neville's core humility and cheerful optimism that he just accepted it and did his best to make the best of it. He would never have dreamed of tasking any of his roommates or friends by saying, "How come you don't like me enough or talk to me very often?" He just quietly assumed he wasn't particularly of much interest to people, but he always responded well and gratefully to any sign of sympathetic interest, as was shown to him by Hermione, Sara, and to a lesser extent, Padma.

I think I was more frustrated, as his player, on his behalf than he was himself.

(more in next comment)

a_player @ August 22 2004, 02:55:31 UTC

*playing a less popular character* I was grateful for the opportunity to play in a game as good and popular as nocturne_alley at all. This was my first role-playing experience, and I learned a lot and had the great opportunity to work in a fun new way with other talented writers I really respected. I did get very many nice and insightful comments from nraged members at various points throughout the game, that made me feel really good. It was a very new and heady and different experience than my experience of having my novels published. When you send your novels out into the world, it's sometimes like dropping a stone down the well and waiting and waiting vainly for the splash. With nocturne_alley, through nraged I got instant, often adoring feedback, and that was great fun.

But the last two or three of weeks of the game, I must say, were extremely difficult, probably the toughest of all. All the players, of course, were really sincerely mourning the end of the game. But for me, it was more than that. I became convinced that the techniques I had been using to try to get across information without dialogue (treating Neville's wheresmyfrog journal as a faux-private space, as if we were all pretending that no one else was reading these entries) ceased to work well with the end of the game storyline. Or possibly at all. What fractured it open was Neville's (very rare, in the context of the game) interactions with Draco at the end of the game. nraged, of course, adores [Unknown LJ tag], as well they should, because he's dazzlingly well-written. I admire potterstinks's player's work tremendously. But here we really saw the effect of the difference between potterstinks and petitemillicent's popularity as characters and wheresmytoad. nraged discussed at great length what Neville had said when he reported the attack, the tactlessness of his remark that he pitied Malfoy, and whether or not he should have commented at all in Millicent's journal. I had meant for Neville to be bumbling and "out of synch" when it came to timing and tact. It was more scalding to read comments to the effect that Draco was so adorable (when he had just handed Neville his head), that Neville had written his report of the attack and said he'd pitied Malfoy and talked about the students he'd helped nurse just to be self-aggrandizing, and he was really just a jerk who showboated because he wanted to be seen as heroic.

I became convinced during the last week of the game that the methods I'd been forced to use to get information across (treating the public entry as faux-private and reporting conversation because few other playres directly interacted with me) weren't working anymore. But since the game was ending, it was too late to fix things. And I felt pretty badly about that, because it seemed to me that through my own inept clumsiness as a writer (as well as my intentional use of Neville's clumsiness) I seemed to have turned a significant number of people against Neville, when I had only wanted to do him proud.

*Future relations with Draco* Neville will quietly but steadfastly avoid any future encounters or interactions with Draco for the rest of his life.

Thanks for your kind words and your questions.

heavenscalyx @ August 24 2004, 21:31:05 UTC

Alas, I've been unable to come up with any questions for the players. I came into reading N_A late, and have recently been reading through it from the beginning -- I've only just gotten past the Veritaserum piece. I got started reading N_A entirely for the quality of the writing and characterization, because I've never read the canon books.

I just wanted to say that I thought that Neville's entries, especially in the last weeks of the game, were some of the most thoughtful explorations of character and events I've seen. I came to look forward to his posts and comments.

Being a veteran of many roleplaying games in many different media, I also want to reassure you that... well, I don't think you did anything wrong. In practically every game, there's a Neville with whom other characters just don't connect. As far as I can tell, there's nothing in particular that the player does differently, there's just a... hiccough in the dynamics.

Perhaps there always has to be the person on the outside looking in.

aome @ August 21 2004, 16:46:07 UTC

The wonderful Neville! Favourite memorable moments in my mind were when he blew up on the Veritaserum-laden punch, and his romance with Muggle Sara. Also very much enjoyed his relationship with the Japanese gardener. Neville had insightful things to say, and was just charming, sometimes bumbling, but always well-intentioned, which I think suited him perfectly.

My question: Was it ever revealed (because, if so, I can't think what it was) - WHAT exactly he remembered, which caused him to wig out? Why had it been put under Memory Charm? What did he do to try to access it? I remember Snape being a bit harsh with Neville, but doing so in a rather backhanded-complimentary way, incidating he believed Neville *could* work it out for himself, the hard way.

What is your favourite Neville moment? What is your favourite NA moment overall? What do you envision happened to him post-game, in the years ahead?

a_player @ August 22 2004, 03:46:41 UTC

Argh. Wrote a long reply and Livejournal ate it. I'll try again.

I loved the veritaserum story line. It was hilariously fun for us to do. Neville finally got to BLOW UP AT SNAPE! Afterwards, he was horrified and contrite, but deep down inside (and he'd never admit it) he was secretly a tiny bit pleased. He certainly thought that Snape deserved it.

You had to sort of piece together, through rather cryptic remarks and over several months, the memory block story. Of course, what was under the memory block was the memory of the night his parents were tortured, which Neville witnessed. Neville was bright enough to suspect that. What troubled him the most, however, and what caused him to wig out, was the question, who put the block on him? The answer was (and he learned it when his memories of that night were retrieved when the block was removed) that his Gran did it. And she lied about it, denying that she knew anything about it. She did that to protect him, because she never wanted him to be able to retrieve those memories. St. Mungo's knew nothing about it, so they denied having anything to do with it.

This only left Neville with the logical conclusion that the Deatheaters did it. Combined with Snape's accusation that Neville was the source of all evil (a plotline development which was of course partly suggested by nraged's nEVILle obsession) this possibility frightened Neville deeply. If the people who tortured his parents messed with his mind, did they have control of him now? Could Snape be right about him? And the idea that he could be unwitting tool in the hand of his parents' torturers was horrible to him. This was why he was so angry at Gran and refused to talk with her at all after the block was removed until he finally had it out with when he went home again. Basically, he told her he was all grown up now and she just had to accept him taking responsibility for his own life.

You'll have to talk with Snape's player about Snape's motivations, but I talked with Snape's player at length about this, and as I understood it, Snape's chief fear was that Neville had the potential to become this generation's Peter Pettigrew. He worried that if someone offered Neville with power to keep himself from being bullied, Neville might actually be tempted to go for it. Of course, something about Neville brought out the worst in Snape, because Snape perceived him as weak, which Snape despised. But partly Snape was prodding Neville, trying to force him to examine his underlying motivations.

Favorite Neville moment? Oh, so many! Lots of those little moments with Sara, and the Veritaserum storyline, and the business where the Gryff boys were trying to come up with a method to determine who got to stay in the tent. Blowing up the library. Telling Remus that he was Neville's favourite teacher, right before Remus died. As for Neville's future, I made some speculations in an answer above.

aome @ August 22 2004, 13:08:25 UTC

and the business where the Gryff boys were trying to come up with a method to determine who got to stay in the tent

Oh, I LOVED that thread. That was so funny. I think my favourite standout moment there was when Neville, Seamus and Dean (I think those three?) all answered Harry with the exact same line, something along the lines of "Hell no. O_o ". I wondered how spontaneous that decision had been, because it really stood out as being particularly hilarious to me.

And yay! I'd like to think of NA!Neville as finding long-term happiness with Sara. I think he'd be quite comfortable with a blended Muggle/Wizard life.

luna_lg @ August 21 2004, 16:51:09 UTC

Neville, as one of my fellow nragers have stated earlier, have turned into one of the most well-developed characters of NA, and I personally approve of that; Rowling doesn't even DO much with him until recently, which is kinda disappointing.

But I digress... I have a few questions for ya: How did Neville feel about Seamus/Dean, or about Harry being gay in general? Did he ever find out that Harry was with Draco, and if so, how did he feel about it?

On a personal note--much love to both Neville and his player.

a_player @ August 22 2004, 04:01:26 UTC

Neville didn't object to his roommates being gay at all, because as someone who has been frequently bullied, he had a great deal of sympathy for people who were ostracized for something about themselves that they can't help, that is innate in them. And he liked Sean and Dean Harry all very much.

However, he absolutely loathed Malfoy, and he just couldn't see what Harry saw in him. He was also baffled by why Seamus was friendly with him when Neville had experienced Malfoy's ingenuity at cruelty in so many ways. Neville in general is cheerful and optimisc. In his darkest moments, however, he wondered gloomily how on earth a cruel jerk like Malfoy could seem so popular, while he (Neville), who never intentionally hurt anyone, was so ignored, even by people who said they were his friends.

Harry was very cagey about his relationship with Malfoy, and Neville certainly wasn't the first to know. But he did find out eventually. He did his best to not say anything against it for Harry's sake, because he liked Harry, but this was only possible if he stayed strictly and entirely away from any interaction with Malfoy at all. Malfoy and Neville actually had very little interaction together in the game. Malfoy, as you know, killed Trevor, and that, as well as his cruelty to Hermione and Lavender and just the bullying in general, is why Neville will always hate him. He will handle this by doing his best to avoid ever being in the same roome with him ever again.

hezzabeth @ August 23 2004, 10:48:43 UTC

I admire his maturity!

black_dog @ August 21 2004, 22:54:18 UTC

Hi Neville's player! I really liked your take on Neville, and how subtly you characterized him.

Just a couple of questions. First, I want to echo aome's question about the memory-charm subplot. When last we heard, Sirius I think was going to work with him on unblocking it, and it seemed like there was a powerful revelation to come -- but then, nothing! Except that his rage did seem to go away. Did you all have any revelation planned? Was there any reason not to go with that story line? I wondered if it was even a sort of meta-joke on the way Neville dropped off of people's radar screens?

I wonder if you could comment a little bit on the quirks and mannerisms that you gave Neville to make his characterization so subtle and effective -- particularly on the contrast between his really decent nature and the reasons he tended to get brushed off. I really admired the way you delved into his awkwardness, the way that, for all his virtues and decency, he really did have a knack for saying things that were subtly inappropriate, or a downer, or just quietly clashed with the general mood. (I'm thinking for example of the interhouse quidditch pickup game, where Neville sort of chimes in and says, hey, if you're not serious about the game, I'll play too.) I thought your Neville was just a wonderful study of the way little awkwardnesses, little infelicities of manner and tone, can make such a difference in a person's social happiness or unhappiness. That may just be my obsession, but was it part of your conception of the character, too?

Can you talk about the backstory relationships between Neville and the other Gryffindor boys? I sometimes thought, based on commenting patterns, that Ron and Neville were conspicuously not close, and wondered if Ron sort of stigmatized Neville because he himself feared being the odd man out. I wonder, also, if Neville ever resented any of the brush-offs he tended to get, particularly the time Harry snapped at him for typing in little letters about Remus.

Thanks again for playing such a great Neville, and for taking the time for questions like these!

a_player @ August 22 2004, 04:21:52 UTC

I talked at length about the memory subplot here. My big handicap with this story line was the problem I struggled with throughout the entirety of the game. Neville is really a rather private person and so shouldn't reveal all his innermost thoughts in a public journal. This was really all he could reveal publicly and still stay in character as his stoical, private self. As I mentioned, I really wish that we had a "private entry" option, so Neville could make entries that the readers could read but the other players ostensibly couldn't. How else could I get information across about him if no one elicits the information by commenting back and forth with him?

That entry took place in October. The other "piece" of the memory didn't really fall into place until you read about Neville's fight with Gran the following January here. That's where you learn that Gran was behind the spell. The gap in time was necessary, because although Neville his Gran had done the memory block from October on, he (very wisely) refused to thrash it out with her until he saw her in person, at the Christmas holiday.

Re: Neville and his relationship with others. Seamus's player put it quite well, by remarking that compared to his roommates, Neville was never quite in on the joke. Yes, I deliberately made him awkward and at times a little dense. He was always last to hear the gossip, irritated even his friends with his forgetfulness and awkwardness. He was a terrible dancer. Among his roommates, he always sort of ended up as the odd man out, because Harry bonded with Ron, and Seamus with Dean. But I made him humble and well-intentioned (despite what notapipe says!) And he never intentionally tried to hurt anyone. Even Malfoy. I think he was a thoroughly decent human being, and with all his faults, I was proud to play him.

sistermagpie @ August 21 2004, 23:34:16 UTC

Hi Neville's player!

B_D has asked a lot of the questions I wanted to ask that hadn't already been asked, but I'm also very interested in Neville's response at times when, for instance, Harry snapped at him for his asking about Remus.

I'd also love to hear about Neville's relationship with his Gran, particularly after the stroke. With his whole family, actually. I thought you did a great job of hinting at a full life for Neville with his family--I remember feeling like I could really imagine that room where he and Gran and Sara had tea. What was it like for Neville when he was dealing with his whole family together, like when Gran was n the hospital?

How did Neville react to his being, as Seamus put it, "never in on the joke?" Specifically, what did he make of the gradual acceptance of ps? How did Neville think the other boys felt about ps?

Did Neville produce a Patronus? If so, what was it? (Or what will it be?)

Did Neville's private lessons with Sirius give him any sort of relationship with Sirius? Did Sirius help him through whatever he remembered?

Finally, was there anything going on with Neville that we all completely missed? For instance, did he have a larger reaction to any events that we didn't see? Or any reactions to things that happened that would surprise us...?

a_player @ August 22 2004, 05:02:02 UTC

Neville did get snapped at a fair amount, didn't he? Whenever someone did so, he would tend to just quietly accept it, thinking that he probably deserved it. He knew that he often said the wrong thing without meaning to, and he was very humble about his own ineptness in human interaction.

Neville's relationship with his Gran changed quite a bit after her stroke. He had always worried privately about her health, because she is elderly, but Gran is a veritable dragon, as tough as they come, and although Neville doesn't know it, she's got decades left in her yet.

But the stroke did make her helpless for awhile, and dependent on others, including Neville, in a way Neville had never seen before. This occurred during the same year that Neville really came into his manhood.

The other really major piece in their relationship occurred over the past Christmas holiday. If anything, that may be the biggest thing in Neville's storyline that I'm afraid most people missed. I never saw discussion on nraged about the entry, but as I explained here, Neville went home and had a huge fight with his Gran because he had discovered that she had lied to him. She was the one behind the mysterious memory block, although she had denied knowing anything about it. He told her that he was an adult now, and he expected her to tell him the truth now about himself and his history, and that it wasn't her job to protect him anymore. This conversation came as a huge and unwelcome surprise to Gran. She was abashed to be caught in the lie and flabbergasted to be faced by a Neville who talked to her with such firm, uncharacteristically adult determination. But it was good, in the end, for their relationship.

The other big thing that will rock their relationship in the future will come when Gran discovers that Neville is dead serious about Sara. Again, his firmness in the face of her strenuous objections will eventually win her respect, and Sara's charm will bring her around in the end.

I've talked at length about Neville's relationships with his roommates and reactions to potterstinks and what Neville thought about his friends liking Malfoy up above. See here, here, and here.

He had a friendly relationship with Sirius, because he was genuinely grateful for Sirius's help, and yes, Sirius was a help in talking it through afterwards, particularly because Sirius could tell him, "I know what it's like being falsely accused of practicing dark arts."

I've given a lot of thought to what Neville's patronus might be. I've finally decided that my best guess is that it would be an armadillo. Not native to the UK, and Neville is, after all, very English, but it feels right. Sort of strange and clumsy-looking, but with hidden strength and with incredible tough armored plates, and when it curls up to protect itself, ain't nothing you can do to get at it.

Thanks for your comments and questions!

sistermagpie @ August 22 2004, 14:23:16 UTC

Thanks! An armadillo--that's great even if it's not English!

Also, I just wanted to say re: Neville's lj enteries, I didn't think it was too jarring for his to seem more private since people didn't tend to comment. It seems like that's very natural on lj--if you're not getting feedback it seems like no one's listening and it's very easy to slip into acting like you're just talking to yourself. (I've seen people post things publically and then say, "But nobody reads my journal!" when they're picked up by others, for instance.) It seemed very Neville to react to people no speaking to him by just saying, "Well, then what can I get out of this journal for myself?" and using it to work through his own thoughts or remember important moments for him made sense to me.

susan_voight @ August 22 2004, 14:28:07 UTC

Yes, exactly what you said.

jheaton @ August 22 2004, 20:15:08 UTC

I've given a lot of thought to what Neville's patronus might be. I've finally decided that my best guess is that it would be an armadillo.

You are now officially my favorite person ever.

susan_voight @ August 22 2004, 14:26:57 UTC

Hi Neville's player! I really had a soft spot for Neville and used to get very exercised on his behalf that people were ignoring him--even though it was very in-character. Thanks for doing this.

A lot of the things I was asking players, and would have wanted to ask you, have already been answered. (As far as Neville's personal journal and whether that was working--my opinion is that you're being a little hard on yourself, because I just don't see what else a player could have done with the character given those constraints. [It's like what happened with Colin, in a way.] And he wasn't misinterpreted by *everyone*.)

One thing I'm curious about--this was your first RPG. Did the experience teach you anything that you think you might be able to apply to your fiction?

a_player @ August 23 2004, 00:02:56 UTC

Hmm, good question. Well, I made some interesting discoveries, by working in a different medium than I usually use.

I discovered how much I depend on dialogue as a medium for conveying information.

I discovered that nasty characters really exert an incredible fascination for readers, much more, I think, than nice and moral characters.

I did a lot of thinking about point of view and character voice while writing Neville. It's not as if I had never thought about these issues before, but writing in the RP medium was a different "take" on the problems of keeping character voice consistent.

I thought a lot about how characters can be foils for one another. By this I mean, certain characters can have characteristics that are exactly the same as other characters, whereas other characteristics are different. How does this work in a story? And how do those similarities and differences affect character interations and story arc? This became especially clear to me after Order of the Phoenix came out, where Neville had such an expanded heroic role and we learned about how Neville might have been the other possibility for the fulfillment of the prophecy, and I really sat down and thought hard for the first time about how similar Neville's story was to Harry's. He had parents who were killed by Voldemort, he was raised by another relative, he has latent talent that was revealed late, he is ostracized by his peers, he is exceptionally brave, Draco Malfoy has it in for him. Why are we reading the Harry Potter books and not the Neville Longbottom books? How does a character become the hero of a story?

It was not the first time I was involved in a writing project where I was not in control of the entire story, as I did attempt a novel collaboration with another author (although we never finished it). But it was a very interesting look at the process of collaboration, because I was working with more than one person; I was working with many people. It was also the first writing project I was involved with that included a real element of time. You didn't sit down and write the whole Nocturne Alley story in one sitting. You had to wait for days to pass for other characters to put in their input and you sometimes set up stories that didn't pay off until months later.

So you see, despite my years of writing experience, Nocturne Alley did really have a lot to teach me, and in the process, this old dog did learned a lot of new trickes.

notapipe @ August 23 2004, 08:29:52 UTC

Yo.

So I know you touched on the nEVILle above, but I have a question or two you didn't answer (and I'm too tired to come up with good questions that aren't about nEVILle):
What was your emotional reaction to nEVILle theories? Were you amused? Irritated?

Did you think that people actually believed that Neville was evil, or were you pretty sure that it was just for fun? Did you get pissed off at anyone for it? *cough*

Did you ever want to make Neville evil, despite the betrayal of his actual character that might have been?

a_player @ August 24 2004, 03:46:52 UTC

I figured it was all just in fun. And yeah, it was sort of fun to read, too. And as I explained, it did suggest some plot points. It also made me give some thought to the whole issue of reputation, which is a big theme in the books, and how stuck you can be when you're forced to try to prove a negative, which is, after all, impossible.

(I blew the library up just for you, notapipe!

goth_the_goat @ August 23 2004, 10:56:53 UTC

OMG NEVILLE I LOVE YOU. <33333333333333

What was the most hysterical moment you have in N_A? The saddest? What is your favorite non-Neville post?

By the way, you said you published a book . . .what do you write about, exactly? Do you write drama, mystery, fantasy, horror, or anything of the like?

a_player @ August 24 2004, 15:10:37 UTC

I remember when we were doing the Veritaserum story, I literally had tears of laughter running down my face.

I loved it when Arthur single-handedly destroyed an office (was it Remus's office? Can't remember.) And Love Your Neighbor week was great fun, too.

The saddest? George's death, or some of the posts from the last battle, maybe.

I have written science fiction and fantasy short stories and my novels so far have been fantasy. Um, I can't be much more specific, because we've been asked not to reveal our Secret Identities to nraged.

(But there is one clue to my identity in the game itself. And that is that Sirius once mentioned sleeping with someone who is actually a character from one of my novels.)

bookofjude @ August 26 2004, 14:36:55 UTC

I NEVER THOUGHT NEVILLE WAS EVIL HAHAHA. And, do you like bonsai?

a_player @ August 31 2004, 11:57:57 UTC

Sorry about the delay in answering. Yes, I do like bonsai quite a bit, and I did have one, but I'm afraid I don't have quite the green thumb Neville does, and mine died! I thought it would be a good hobby for Neville to have.

tabiji @ September 23 2004, 10:52:22 UTC

Hi Neville's player!

For the NA t-shirts, what are your favorite quotes from your own character, and any other NA characters?

Thankyou! <3