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Speaking from beyond the grave
So, the Hermione/Ron stuff. I’m too behind on my flist to have read your posts yet, but I’m sure it’s all been covered. Still, allow me to share a laugh with my fellow fandom oldbies. Ah, the flashbacks. Hopefully any veterans of the shipwars aren’t feeling the trauma today :)
I think it’s incredibly telling and somewhat irritating that not being sure Hermione should’ve ended up with Ron has been headlined as SHE SHOULD’VE ENDED UP WITH HARRY. Particularly given that rivalry only ever existed in Ron’s mind. It’s nice, at least, to get vindication on the “she blatantly wrote the epilogue way before and was determined to keep DH following a plan that maybe didn’t fit properly any more” theory.
I am… well. My own automatic assumption re: the canon was that Hermione and Ron would end up having an ugly divorce, although over years find their way back to deep friendship. But I don’t feel remotely validated by this and I am tired already, because I love Ron, and I think a lot of the received wisdom about him in fandom isn’t backed up by the canon, and I suspect I’ll read some posts that will bother me. Especially since I find the idea that because Ron isn’t as brilliant as Hermione or as hardworking, he doesn’t deserve her… contrary to my understanding and experience of the way love actually works.
Idk, so much of the dislike around Hermione/Ron seems rooted in an idea that it wouldn’t work because he isn’t as special as she is. Leaving aside the fact that I don’t accept that premise, and leaving aside the gendered baggage of it (special men with less special women seems to cause a lot less difficulty) I just… that’s not how love works. Compatibility is important, and there’s a reason all my friends are more intelligent than the average bear, but since when do people not fall in love with each other because they’re not both at the same level of Special? He doesn’t “deserve” her because he’s not as clever as she is?? Like geniuses only fall in love with people as intelligent as they are. Like the world would be better if they did.
Otherwise: the author is dead, guys. JKR is a great storyteller and I’m grateful for what she created - my life without the friends I met through fandom would be immeasurably poorer. But I think reading is a conversation with the text, not with the author; everything we know about the characters, the world, is on the page. Harry Potter is not a character in JKR’s head who we seek to understand through her writings and pronouncements; he’s a character who exists in the words that create him and the minds of those who read about him. Reading is a collaborative act, between the text and the reader. The author’s job finishes long before that. If William Golding said Lord of the Flies was about the corrupting influence of nature, we wouldn’t think that was “secretly” or “really” what it was about. If Shakespeare had left a letter saying Romeo and Juliet was about the importance of listening to your elders, he’d be WRONG. Daphne du Maurier saying the second Mrs de Winter was arrogant wouldn’t make it so.
Dumbledore’s not gay, either.
I think it’s incredibly telling and somewhat irritating that not being sure Hermione should’ve ended up with Ron has been headlined as SHE SHOULD’VE ENDED UP WITH HARRY. Particularly given that rivalry only ever existed in Ron’s mind. It’s nice, at least, to get vindication on the “she blatantly wrote the epilogue way before and was determined to keep DH following a plan that maybe didn’t fit properly any more” theory.
I am… well. My own automatic assumption re: the canon was that Hermione and Ron would end up having an ugly divorce, although over years find their way back to deep friendship. But I don’t feel remotely validated by this and I am tired already, because I love Ron, and I think a lot of the received wisdom about him in fandom isn’t backed up by the canon, and I suspect I’ll read some posts that will bother me. Especially since I find the idea that because Ron isn’t as brilliant as Hermione or as hardworking, he doesn’t deserve her… contrary to my understanding and experience of the way love actually works.
Idk, so much of the dislike around Hermione/Ron seems rooted in an idea that it wouldn’t work because he isn’t as special as she is. Leaving aside the fact that I don’t accept that premise, and leaving aside the gendered baggage of it (special men with less special women seems to cause a lot less difficulty) I just… that’s not how love works. Compatibility is important, and there’s a reason all my friends are more intelligent than the average bear, but since when do people not fall in love with each other because they’re not both at the same level of Special? He doesn’t “deserve” her because he’s not as clever as she is?? Like geniuses only fall in love with people as intelligent as they are. Like the world would be better if they did.
Otherwise: the author is dead, guys. JKR is a great storyteller and I’m grateful for what she created - my life without the friends I met through fandom would be immeasurably poorer. But I think reading is a conversation with the text, not with the author; everything we know about the characters, the world, is on the page. Harry Potter is not a character in JKR’s head who we seek to understand through her writings and pronouncements; he’s a character who exists in the words that create him and the minds of those who read about him. Reading is a collaborative act, between the text and the reader. The author’s job finishes long before that. If William Golding said Lord of the Flies was about the corrupting influence of nature, we wouldn’t think that was “secretly” or “really” what it was about. If Shakespeare had left a letter saying Romeo and Juliet was about the importance of listening to your elders, he’d be WRONG. Daphne du Maurier saying the second Mrs de Winter was arrogant wouldn’t make it so.
Dumbledore’s not gay, either.
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In any case, fanfic trumps *everything* - at least for the duration of the fic. I'm seriously considering running a 'take that JKR' fic fest...
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I'm rather more concerned by the continued hatred for Slytherin House than who got married to whom.
FOR REAL. Given the emphasis in HP on a generational cycle of pain and vengeance, that factor is really grim and tragic. I mean, remember back in GoF when Harry identifies the mob's hatred of those who tortured the Longbottoms as every much Voldemort's handiwork as the torture itself? :(
Haha.