How Much Is Too Much?

Sometimes I think too much. It tends to get me into trouble, but it isn't really something I can avoid doing. I know, I've tried. I guess I just have too much time on my hands or something, because I'll be reading a book, or chatting on the internet, or cooking dinner, or washing dishes and my mind will wander. I ponder some of the strangest things during these times.

So, last night I was laying on the couch, reading a book and I glanced up at my bookshelf (which I plan on posting pictures of later, just FYI) and saw Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series. I started thinking about the little world she created, and how intricate her website is, and how rabid her fans can be and I started wondering, when do authors go too far with their characters? Or do they at all?

Take SK. If you go check out her site, you'll see profiles for each of her characters, journal entries from Ash, live chats with the characters. If you check out her Yahoo!Spoilers Group, on any given day, you'll see no less than 15 different speculations about what's to come and who belongs with who and what character is really what and so on and so forth. And I started wondering, has she taken her characters so far that people honestly believe their real?

With the amount of not-so-balanced people in the world, it seems highly unlikely that not one person has fancied themself a Dark Hunter, or a Squire or...whatever. I've seen Rabid Fangirls lash out at other readers for stating an unflattering opinion of the stories or characters and I even watched someone get banned from the Spoilers Group because she had the nerve to state - in an open thread *gasp* - that the books were just fiction and so why did it matter.

Now, I'm not trying to start up a big bad fight with SK or anything. I'm just using her as an example, you understand. But did she take it too far? Creating her own little world was one thing, but was it too much that she then created her site and had live chats with FICTIONAL characters and etc.?

She's not the only one, of course. J.R. Ward has something similar going on with her site and Message Boards. Personally, I like the idea. I think it's fun. But interviews with characters? Is that too much? What about the Harry Potter Crazy? Do you suppose J.K. Rowling intended for little girls to threaten to kill themselves if Harry Potter dies in the last book? Do you think, creating a Hogwarts online and Muggle webites and etc has taken it too far?


So, I'm asking, Dear Readers, how much is too much? Are the Rabid Fans solely responsible, or did the authors go too far?