Post-Wonderland Interview: Both sides of the shipping debates are winners

An open letter to the Harry Potter fandom:

The full Wonderland interview conducted by actress Emma Watson with J.K. Rowling has been published and its contents can be read on various websites including Hypable.  This was published a week after a teaser article in The Sunday Times had the eye grabbing headline of:

JK admits Harry should have wed Hermione

This set off a firestorm in the Harry Potter fandom as more and more news outlets worldwide reprinted the conclusions of that Sunday Times article.

Did J.K. Rowling actually use the term "regret" anywhere in that interview? No, she did not.

Is it a fair conclusion that her comments in that interview indicate that she now regrets pairing her characters Ron and Hermione together? Yes, it is.

During the interview, Emma asked Jo Rowling if she had a new perspective on Hermione. It was an open-ended question, one where Rowling could have gone in a myriad of directions, and she chose to bring up the romantic pairing of Hermione with Ron. She said their relationship was written as "wish fulfillment," she was "clinging to the plot as I first imagined it" and the choice was made for "very personal reasons, not for reasons of credibility."

Ouch.

That implies that the Ron/Hermione relationship is not credible.

Rowling went on further to say that there was too much "fundamental incompatibility" and that "in some ways Harry and Hermione are a better fit".

Those phrases are what I think led to Claudia Croft's conclusions in the Sunday Times article that Jo Rowling admitted she should have paired Hermione with Harry.

Rowling and Watson had seemed a bit nervous once the discussion dealt with incompatibility of Hermione and Ron. 

Jo then said,

"I know, I'm sorry, I can hear the rage and fury it might cause some fans, but if I'm absolutely honest, distance has given me perspective on that. It was a choice I made for very personal reasons, not for reasons of credibility. Am I breaking people's hearts by saying this? I hope not."

and

"I can't believe we are saying all of this – this is Potter heresy!"

Jo and Emma went on to discuss the tent scene in Deathly Hallows:

JKR: ...I'll tell you something very strange. When I wrote Hallows, I felt this quite strongly when I had Hermione and Harry together in the tent! I hadn't told [Steve] Kloves that and when he wrote the script he felt exactly the same thing at exactly the same point.Emma: That is just so interesting because when I was doing the scene I said to David [Heyman]: "This isn't in the book, she didn't write this". I'm not sure I am comfortable insinuating something however subtle it is!JKR: Yes, but David and Steve – they felt what I felt when writing it.
Emma: That is so strange.
JKR: And actually I liked that scene in the film, because it was articulating something I hadn't said but I had felt. I really liked it and I thought that it was right. I think you do feel the ghost of what could have been in that scene.

At the end of Watson's interview, Rowling attempted backtracking by saying that perhaps Ron and Hermione would "be alright with a bit of counseling."

Wow. Now that's a ringing endorsement.

They also discussed Ron's self esteem issues and Hermione's "weakness for a funny man."

This allows a shadow of a fig leaf for the Ron/Hermione shippers to cover themselves and feel confident after having the author and the actress who portrayed Hermione in the films discuss the romantic pairing in unflattering terms. Jo did not come out and say "I should have written things differently" nor did she say "I am thinking of re-writing the last book with an alternate ending." Therefore, we can assume she was just being honest in an interview, but does not currently plan on changing anything.

The websites for Mugglenet and The Leaky Cauldron were quick to provide their own interpretation of the full interview in an attempt to reassure nervous Ron/Hermione shippers that there was nothing to worry about. 

Mugglenet gave the headline "The TRUTH behind the J.K. Rowling 'Wonderland' interview."

With this as their end analysis:

"WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? Well, in our view, all J.K. Rowling has admitted was to feeling that the scene in the tent was a shared vulnerable moment between two characters that revealed an intriguing degree of compatibility between each of them, emotionally. In saying that Ron needed to get over his self-doubt, Rowling is mentioning a key component that readers would agree could certainly cause some trouble in an adult relationship. However, by the article's end, Rowling and Watson have both found a value in Ron that Harry doesn't possess: Ron's humor and his ability to level Hermione's character. Thus, for all of this talk, the result is that the characters end up safely nestled where they were before, inside the canon of the Potter books."

Similarly The Leaky Cauldron's article was titled: "Full 'Wonderland' Interview Reveals Ron/Hermione Shippers Can Relax."

"The full text of the Wonderland issue that caused a Ron/Hermione vs. Harry/Hermione shipping riot this week is now out, and rumors of the death of the canon pairing have been greatly exaggerated. J.K. Rowling repeats previously made comments that there are certain characteristics between Harry and Hermione that may have them better suited, but does not indicate a wish to pair them off or any regret over how she wrote the books. Emma Watson and J.K. Rowling simply discuss the hypothetical post-Hogwarts world and what Ron and Hermione's relationship might have looked like."Rowling said that regardless of their issues, Ron and Hermione "would probably be fine."

 and 

An excerpt of the interview published in The Sunday Times on Feb. 1 caused a controversy when Rowling said she "wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment.""For reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it, Hermione ended up with Ron," Rowling said.Many fans took this to mean that Rowling had changed her mind and would have preferred Harry and Hermione as a pairing. It resulted in shipping wars intense enough to give some of us flashbacks to 2005."

I have a little quibble with that analysis, and will cite in part a subsequent interview Melissa Anelli had with Jo Rowling that was published in her book Harry, a History. 

"I tried very hard to soften it, I suppose," Jo said. "Just because someone had a view on Harry/Hermione didn't mean they weren't genuine, or that they were necessarily misguided...Steve Kloves...after he read book seven he said to me, 'You know, I thought something was going to happen between Harry and Hermione, and I didn't know whether I wanted it to or not.'...There are two moments when [Harry and Hermione] touch, which are charged moments. One, when she touches his hair as he sits on the hilltop after reading about Dumbledore and Grindlewald, and [two] the moment when they walk out of the graveyard with their arms around each other...

"Now, the fact is that Hermione shares moments with Harry that Ron will never be able to participate in. He walked out. She shared something very intense with Harry.

"So, I think it could have gone that way."(snipped for length)

The difference is that Jo Rowling pointed out two different scenes to Melissa that she felt were charged H/Hr moments and neither were the tent scene that she discussed with Emma Watson. Jo Rowling has now admitted three separate charged moments in book 7 where Harry and Hermione were pulled to one another. That means that the Wonderland interview wasn't just repeating previous comments, but instead it represents an extension and revision to her previous remarks on the subject where she concluded "it could have gone that way."

I now want to analyze the major differences between the 2014 interview and the one in 2005 performed by those two websites Mugglenet and The Leaky Cauldron. Emma Watson's interview was civil and polite. Jo Rowling was candid and was not in an atmosphere colored by partisan fandom politics. Watson is without vested interest in making herself seem "right" and others be "wrong." Back in 2005, Emerson Spartz and Melissa Anelli were hand selected by Jo Rowling to be representatives of the Harry Potter fandom and to ask her questions after the publication of her sixth novel Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

That interview caused a lot of heartache for fans of the series. Here is a link to my analysis of that online interview and why I felt insulted by it.

While I did not appreciate being called delusional, the biggest insult for me was being told by Jo Rowling to go back and re-read the books because I must have missed clues. I hadn't missed clues, I had studied the text so well I was seeing sub-text and evaluating clues that weren't intended by the author to be clues.

That off-hand remark made me step away from the fandom that I had enjoyed for several years, and I have only read the sixth and seventh book once whereas the first five books I know forward and backward.

After reading that 2005 interview where Jo Rowling categorically stated she was going to write Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione as the love pairings in Book 7, I wrote my concession messages on a few boards. I also abandoned the writing project I had been working on which was detailing the arguments used in the Harry Potter Shipping Wars. I was partnered with a R/Hr and H/G friend, who had served as a beta reader for my novel length fifth year fanfic. We were putting the common arguments into a manner that was easy to navigate for newbies while trying to make it as free of invective as possible. The project was rendered moot not by the content of the sixth or seventh book, but by an interview.

The aspect that bothered me the most was the tone of that interview and how it made the author look bad. I feel J.K. Rowling was done a disservice by the fandom representatives she chose. They knew that shipping was the most controversial and divisive issue in the fandom. They could have tried to make peace in the fandom by trying to metaphorically put baking soda on a stove-top fire, instead they threw gasoline on it and watched the flames scorch the ceiling.

Four years after that interview I was a speaker at the Azkatraz convention held in San Francisco. I live in Northern California so getting to San Francisco is a day trip. I decided to dip my feet once again in fandom waters, if for no other reason than to meet up with some friends I hadn't seen in a few years. 
A few days before the symposium, I sent a message to Melissa Anelli and asked to meet with her. I wanted to give her my thoughts in person about that controversial interview.

I wasn't just a random run of the mill Harry/Hermione shipper asking the webmaster of a major Harry Potter fansite for a few minutes of her time. No, she knew who I was and we had met, albeit briefly, at the first HP symposium in Orlando in 2003. I had participated in a live ship debate and was the second chair of the Harry/Hermione side. She even mentioned me in her book.

Here I am giving a speech at the 2003 Nimbus Symposium supporting the Harry/Hermione ship.

I honestly thought I would have only about ten minutes (at most!) to tell her my thoughts on the matter, that she would nod, listen and then make me feel as if I had been heard. I was surprised when she engaged with me on the topic. We talked for about an hour and I felt at the end that nothing I said could make her recognize how her actions as a R/Hr partisan in the interview did not serve the needs of the fandom as a whole, and especially how hurtful it was reading her editorial comments inserted into the text such as: [All laugh; Melissa doubles over, hysterical, and may have died.] 

I felt that they were laughing at the expense of others. It was akin to gloating or spiking the football and doing a dance in the end zone.

She was a professional journalist and I had expected more from her. I had expected her to be an ambassador from the whole fandom and not as a partisan shipper. I compared it to reporters covering political candidates and trying to keep their personal political opinions out of their news coverage, unless they are writing editorials.

She did not like that analogy because she thought the difference was reporters inserting their opinions in electoral politics might have an impact on elections and that her interview covered fiction and what had been written. So it wasn't going to influence anything. Therefore, yes she had her opinions and to not mention them in the transcript would have been dishonest.

She considered the transcript she compiled as an accurate chronicle of the interview, and Jo Rowling approved the transcript before it went online. Therefore it was fine. She also felt that it wouldn't have mattered what was said because Harry/Hermione shippers were going to be mad because their side lost. I disagree with that opinion. I was mentally prepared prior to the 2005 interview to be told by JKR that she was planning on the R/Hr and H/G pairings, but I was not prepared to have my shipmates ridiculed in the manner that we were. 

My conversation with Melissa was cordial, and we left on good terms, but I continue to feel that Jo Rowling would have been better served if she had chosen different fandom ambassadors for such an important interview. 

Here is proof that we spoke at that conference.

Me and Melissa Anelli after we spoke at Azkatraz in San Francisco, July 2009.

Now, nine years later after the interview by The Leaky Cauldron and Mugglenet, we have the same fandom members who interviewed JKR in 2005 having found themselves in the uncomfortable and unexpected position as to worrying for a few days about what Jo Rowling said in an interview regarding shipping and whether or not she has changed her mind. After the full interview was made public, they have chosen to only focus on certain aspects of it and try to minimize or ignore others. 
It now appears JKR recognizes and acknowledges that the Harry/Hermione pairing had canon support and possibly, quite possibly, could have been a better fit for her heroine.

Yes, in the full Wonderland interview, Jo refers to Hermione as her heroine.

"I know that Hermione is incredibly recognisable to a lot of readers and yet you don't see a lot of Hermiones in film or on TV except to be laughed at. I mean that the intense, clever, in some ways not terribly self-aware, girl is rarely the heroine and I really wanted her to be the heroine."

Hermione was not referred to as a side-kick or as a best friend, but the heroine of the series. Pairing the hero and the heroine of a series is not an unusual or delusional pairing by any means.

I would like to see, nine years after the interview that caused so many hard feelings in the fandom, a joint statement of recognition written by someone on the staff of The Leaky Cauldron and/or Mugglenet. I would like it to read something like this:

"We recognize that Harry/Hermione shippers are loyal fans in the Harry Potter fandom who have provided spirited support for their ship before and after the publication of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  Now, seven years after the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Jo Rowling admits she might have followed another direction if she followed her muse, but she stuck with her original plot line. So recognizing that we were all right in some aspects of this series, we should put aside our differences and embrace our common interests, namely our love of the Potterverse. Those who prefer H/Hr might be inspired by this latest interview to write more fanfic with their favorite ship, and we shall hopefully put this divisive topic behind us. We want to take this opportunity to apologize if our celebratory actions in 2005 made you feel alienated from the larger fandom."

Instead it seems both websites' analysis of the full Wonderland interview was designed more to maintain the position that the only thing that matters is the Ron/Hermione ship sailed and the Harry/Hermione ship sank. I do not think it would hurt their credibility in the full fandom to show a little respect for those with an alternate point of view and say, "as it turns out, your opinion had some merit."

 In the grand scheme of world and life events, betting on the wrong couple in the Hogwarts Love Sweepstakes isn't a catastrophe. It is good however, when people can be civil with one another. We should not be casting aspersions about people's intellect or morality because they came up with a different interpretation while reading literature. Especially when those romantic pairings are validated by the author. Ron/Hermione and Harry/Ginny were what J.K. Rowling planned and wrote. Now that J.K. Rowling has had time to reflect on her series, it appears that Harry/Hermione might be what she wishes she had written. That means both sides of the most divisive topic in the fandom can claim to have merit to their position.

My last point, in 2012, J.K. Rowling was quoted as saying that she would like to go back and re-write two of her books.  Imagine if she were to really regret pairing Ron and Hermione, she might decide to change more than just syntax and sentence structure to please her inner critic. I'm sure Bloomsbury and Scholastic would be willing to have new releases in the HP franchise and bookstores would love to have the Harry Potter money pipeline turned back on as well. Should she choose to change her romantic pairings then the H/Hr shippers wouldn't just have to settle for alternate universe fanfics, it could actually be "new canon."
I asked my teenaged son if he would be interested in reading a new Harry Potter book if it was re-written by J.K. Rowling. Without hesitation he replied, "Hells yeah!" I imagine that there would be many fans of the series who would also be interested in buying any new canon if it were written and published.

So please R/Hr shippers, take this opportunity to make peace with us, since we all profess to love the series and we can all claim to have support by the author. In other words: both sides won.

After the Nimbus live ship debate, the two ships were smiling for the camera. 
Proof that we can all get along.

Sincerely,

Linda C. McCabe AKA Pallas Athena (or just Athena)

Second chair for the Harry/Hermione ship debate in Nimbus 2003.

Yeah, eleven years ago I debated this subject in person in front of a ballroom full of people!
Author of the First Readers' Choice Award on Portkey.org for the novel length fifth year fic, Secrets, Lies and the Daily Prophet as well as a few H/Hr themed short stories.
Author of an epic historic fantasy set in the time of Charlemagne, Quest of the Warrior Maiden, including flying hippogriffs. Yes, it was inspired during my ship debating research days.

http://lcmccabe.blogspot.com/2014/02/post-wonderland-interview-both-sides-of.html

J.K. Rowling talks, people listen...

I am going to pause from posting about my trip to France and weigh in ony my thoughts to recent remarks by J.K. Rowling.

So if you have come here to read about France you can find those posts here, posts about the business and craft of writing can be found here. If you are a fan of the Harry Potter series and have read all seven books - keep reading. Otherwise, back away now lest ye be spoiled.

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That should be enough blank space to prevent people from reading things they do not want to learn about prematurely.

J.K. Rowling is on a publicity tour of the U.S. and has revealed things about her completed series that she had been coy about before.

First revelation:

She spoke about her series having Christian themes.

"To me [the religious parallels have] always been obvious," she said. "But I never wanted to talk too openly about it because I thought it might show people who just wanted the story where we were going."

Yup, I knew that. I knew that shortly after joining the fandom and reading a post on HPfGU's regarding an article in The American Prospect which in turn had quoted from an article published in the Vancouver Sun. Here's that quote:

Is she a Christian?

''Yes, I am,'' she says. ''Which seems to offend the religious right far worse than if I said I thought there was no God. Every time I've been asked if I believe in God, I've said yes, because I do, but no one ever really has gone any more deeply into it than that, and I have to say that does suit me, because if I talk too freely about that I think the intelligent reader, whether 10 or 60, will be able to guess what's coming in the books.''

Seeing that quote led to my longfelt belief that Harry Potter would have to be willing to sacrifice himself for the good of the Wizarding world.

I knew he was going to die.

It was only after Book 5 and the mention of the permanently locked door (containing the Power of Love) that I started thinking that he might be Resurrected to Life.

My friend John Granger author of Looking for God in Harry Potter can run a victory lap around Harry-haters such as Richard Abanes who wrote books claiming that the books were a bad influence on children. The Harry Potter series is in fact a great influence for children because it is great storytelling and has had an incredible impact on literacy. So take that Mr. Abanes - you were wrong!

Second Revelation:

Dumbledore was gay.

Did Dumbledore, who believed in the prevailing power of love, ever fall in love himself?
JKR: My truthful answer to you... I always thought of Dumbledore as gay. [ovation.] ... Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, and that that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was. To an extent, do we say it excused Dumbledore a little more because falling in love can blind us to an extent? But, he met someone as brilliant as he was, and rather like Bellatrix he was very drawn to this brilliant person, and horribly, terribly let down by him. Yeah, that's how i always saw Dumbledore. In fact, recently I was in a script read through for the sixth film, and they had Dumbledore saying a line to Harry early in the script saying I knew a girl once, whose hair... [laughter]. I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter, "Dumbledore's gay!" [laughter] "If I'd known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!"

Jo also said after revelation: "You needed something to keep you going for the next 10 years! ...Oh, my god, the fan fiction now, eh?"


My reaction: Hmmm, I missed the boat on that one. Of course, I had not spent much time contemplating Dumbledore's love life or lack thereof. The most was an inchoate idea that perhaps he and Minerva McGonagall had a covert relationship. I considered that they might be secretly married and for appearances sake, they kept it under wraps. Or they could have just been a couple but without marital ties. Guess I was wrong on that score.

Dumbledore was gay and had been in love with Gellert Grindelwald. That will stir up a lot of plot bunnies and I am sure that within a month Fiction Alley will be filled with fanfic dedicated to Dumbledore/Grindlewald scenes from their younger years as well as their infamous duel. Whether or not they were lovers at one time was not specifically stated by Rowling.

I am sure that relationship will be explored in a myriad of ways. It also adds another layer of meaning to the lines in book 7 in the Daily Prophet interview with Rita Skeeter (p. 26, Scholastic hardcover edition):

"Very dirty business indeed. All I'll say is don't be so sure that there really was the spectacular duel of legend. After they've read my book, people may be foreced to conclude that Grindelwald simply conjured a white handkerchief from the end of his wand and came quietly!"



I predict that there will also be Dumbledore/Doge fanfic soon flooding the internet.

Honestly, there were only three characters that I really considered as showing outwardly gay characteristics in the series.

First was Gilderoy Lockhart with his shocking pink robes, penchant for using peacock quills, and a stated fondness for the color lilac. Then again, possibly Lockhart only had eyes for himself. Ye old Lockhart/Lockhart ship.

Second was Professor Grubbly-Plank. With her pipe smoking ways and her brush cut, it seemed to be waving a rainbow colored flag to say, "she's a lesbian."

Third was Rita Skeeter. Although I cannot say exactly what her sexuality was - because the idea of Skeeter engaged in any sexual activity is not something I wish to consider at all. However, with her "thick fingers" "heavy-jawed face," "surprisingly strong grip"(all from page 303 Scholastic paperback edition) and "large mannish hands" (p. 307) I was led to believe "That's a man, baby!"

Now onto the last revelation which is actually more of J.K. Rowling's authorial intent which many articles seem to focus on the idea that Rowling announced that she married a man like Harry Potter.

Questions about love were also directed at Rowling herself. When asked by an 18-year-old 12th grader, "Which of the Potter characters would you marry?," Rowling giggled. "The truth is, in my younger days, I dated Ron more than once," she admitted, giving an inside look at why Hermione (the closest character to Rowling's younger self) might be attracted to Harry's best friend. "He's fun to write, but not so much fun to date." And once she had learned her lesson, Rowling said, "I married Harry Potter," referring to her second husband, Neil Murray. "He's up there [in the wings]. I just mortified him," she laughed. "But he looks like Harry would look like, at a certain age. I married a very good person and a gutsy person. And that's who Harry is."

Fans might think that's even more reason why Hermione should end up with Harry — but Rowling said she always knew that Ron and Hermione were meant to be together, just as she thought Harry and Ginny were meant to be together. "I thought it was obvious, but apparently there are Internet wars about this," she said. "And they get very vicious." Rowling said she was unaware of the shipping wars for years, until someone suggested she take a look at the fan sites. "It was scary!" So many readers wanted Hermione and Harry to be a couple, Rowling said, that "I got hate mail ... from adults! Not people your age. You at least understood."

And for those who didn't, she explained. "Harry and Ginny are real soul mates," she said. "They're both very strong and very passionate. That's their connection, and they're remarkable together. Ron and Hermione, however, are drawn to each other because they balance each other out. Hermione's got the sensitivity and maturity that's been left out of Ron, and Ron loosens up Hermione a bit, gets her to have some fun. They love each other and they bicker a bit, but they enjoy bickering, so we shouldn't worry about it."

Yup, the shipping wars got vicious.

I am sorry that she received hate mail from adults. I am. I wrote to her and tried to be as diplomatic and forthright as possible in explaining the phenomenon of shipping.

I do not know if she ever saw my letter.

However, she has her own part in fanning the flames of the situation and turning what she knew was a heated situation into an inferno. I am referring to the Interview From Hell that I wrote about previously. I will just reiterate that it is not advisable for authors to tease your fans and then insult them. I did not appreciate her telling fans like myself to go back and re-read her books because we must have missed things. I lost my enthusiasm for the series in one quick quip. I am now a recovering Harry Potter addict. I have not eschewed the series altogether, but I do not have the same interest or passion on the subject.

However, the larger issue for discussion here was that the shipping wars demonstrated the passion that she created between the fans of her books with those characters she created. However, it still does not appear that she truly understands the phenomenon. Even after all the letters she will have received.

:wipes brow:

It seems she still does not understand why many fans wanted to see her hero become romantically linked with his best friend. Hermione was the most fleshed out female character in the series and one that readers grew to love - bushy hair, bucked teeth, and all. Those readers who were bookish females (like myself) found themselves identifying with Hermione.

A large part of the debate centered on which boy - Harry or Ron - would be better suited for her. Or which one it appeared that she preferred.

I thought Harry was better for her. I also thought she was demonstrated a devotion to him bordering on obsession. I did not see that same level of commitment from Hermione towards Ron.

We also knew that Jo Rowling on many occasions said that she patterned Hermione's character after herself. So the idea that Jo dated a Ron-like person, but chose as her husbnad a Harry-like character is not unlike some of the shipping debate rounds.

Many of the shipping debate rounds.

I also wish to state for the record that one of the reasons I did not like the Ron/Hermione interactions in the books (at least the first five when I was ship debating) was due to the bickering.

It annoyed me.

I did not find it to be anything that I would consider to be bantering. Not at all. Sniping, barking, and snarling, yes. Playful banter? No.

The statement that "they enjoy bickering" is something I dislike intensely.

There are times that my husband and I bicker, but it is never something that I enjoy.

I dislike watching people bicker. My in-laws remind me at times of two chihuahuas barking at one another.

It is not the same as playful banter. Not at all.

Bantering is fun. It is pleasant to engage in and enjoyable to watch.

So Jo thinks they like to bicker. :shudders: If you say so Jo, you are the author afterall.

I must say however, that there was something in which I can say "I Was Right!"

I knew deep in my bones that in order for Hermione and Ron to be a couple that he would have to respect her political thoughts regarding house-elves. It was, in fact, my first post on the infamous H/Hr vs. R/Hr Debate Thread on Fiction Alley: The Politics of House-elves.

Feel free to read it. I had summed up my argument with:

(U)ntil Ron recognizes that he is propping up an unjust system he cannot be someone that I think would be romantically suited for Hermione.

and


Ron needs to See The Light. Until he does, I can’t see any future with him and Hermione.

I felt really good when Ron and Hermione's first full on kiss on the mouth was after Ron said that they should make sure that the house-elves were safe from the final battle. At that point Hermione gave him a bone-crushing hug and smooch.

Huzzah!

I was right about that. He evolved as a character to the point where his political opinions matched hers.

I may have been wrong on other accounts in where the books were going, but I knew some things.

I knew they were based on Christian and Alchemical themes.

I knew Harry had to be willing to sacrifice himself.

I also knew that in order for Ron and Hermione to be a romantic couple they would have to see eye-to-eye on The Politics of House-Elves.

I pounded on that subject time and time again. That it all came down to politics.

And I was right. :-)

Linda

In Defense of L.O.O.N.ish-ness and problems I have with the Harry Potter books

In trying to think of a good title for my blog that was different from others, I harkened to the term League Of Obsessive Nitpickers from the Harry Potter for Grown Ups (HPfGU’s) list serv.

Last night I was talking on the phone with a local high school student whom I agreed to mentor in her senior writing project. In the course of our conversation, she brought up the subject of the Harry Potter series and asked if I was familiar with it. There was this awkward silence when I tried to figure out how to politely say, “yeah, in fact I’m in recovery from having overdosed in Harry Potter fandom politics.”

Yes, I will read the seventh book, but I’m not as excited as others to read the final installment. Because I’ve been greatly disappointed with the last two books. I admit that it is due to my own unreasonable expectations.

I haven’t spent anytime yet on this blog telling about my not so secret obsession with the Potterverse. Many of you who have stopped by and read my blog have come from my dear friend John Granger’s website where he does an amazing job of analyzing aspects of the HP books with a particular emphasis on alchemy and Christian symbolism.

First off, I want to stress that I adore the Harry Potter series. I do. I was floored when I first read the books to realize that the plot lines were intricately woven not only in each volume, but between the volumes. I had never read a series where things that were introduced in a previous book were clues laid for subsequent books.

I had initially read the books in November 2001 when the first movie came out. Having had experience in trying my hand at writing and adapting screenplays, I actually enjoy reading books and then seeing how a screenwriter condenses the plot, characters, etc. to fit the running time for a movie. I had read the first two books and was about halfway through Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban when I saw the movie.

I remember sitting in the movie theatre and watching as Hagrid fell out of the sky in the flying motorcycle and then feeling floored. I remembered then that he had said that the motorcycle belonged to young Sirius Black. A character briefly mentioned in the first chapter of the first book and then never again until book three where he was the titular character.

I went home and confirmed that indeed he was mentioned in the first chapter, in a throw off manner. As if it wasn’t really important. Just an amusing aside, except it wasn’t an aside at all. It was a clue for future plot points.

I was impressed.

I finished reading the third and fourth books (the series was only 4/7^th completed at the time), then I began reading again from the beginning. I was so impressed that I began analyzing the plot structure. It was during my third or fourth read of the series and that I began dissecting things. I made lists of all the characters, all the potions, all the animals, etc. I didn’t realize that I was reinventing Steve Vander Ark’s wheel. I could have saved myself the trouble and merely looked at his website. However, it was good practice for me and honing my analytical skills.

After doing that, I started talking with others whom I knew had read the books. None seemed to share my intense interest in examining the evidence for clues of future plot points. I started to feel a little weird. Then I went online and discovered the global online HP fandom.

It was then I found my niche with the HPfGU list, which led to my writing online fan fiction at Fiction Alley, Portkey, Fanfiction.net and becoming a prominent ship debater. (Ship is slang for relation-ship and an immense amount of bandwidth was/is consumed with people arguing for various romantic pairings of fictional characters.) I spent a lot of time arguing why I felt the Harry/Hermione ship was the ultimate romantic pairing of the series. For those who are wondering, in the online community I am known as either Athena or Pallas Athena, and yes, I did represent the H/Hr ship at the Nimbus Symposium in Orlando in 2003.

My nerdy fandom creds are showing.

Back to L.O.O.N.s…I spent about eight solid months reading the HPfGU’s list and was fascinated by the level of discourse and intense scrutiny of the text (AKA canon.) People would ask a question and if they didn’t have a solid grasp of canon then others would chime in and cite from the books showing that their premise was wrong due to X,Y and Z in chapter 12 of the Chamber of Secrets (Cos). People were polishing their imaginary League Of Obsessive Nitpicker badges, and since I had taken the time to create my own schematic of the series I felt like I was one of their kindred spirits.

I wrote my own fifth year fic based on different theories I happened to favor that were spun on the HPfGU’s list, and one that was truly my original theory. Most have been totally eviscerated by new canon, but a few other minor points still might come true.

Thing is, I spent a lot of time considering where I thought canon was going to go in book 5. There are a few aspects that I didn’t know where Jo Rowling was going to go and so I consciously decided not to explore them. I expected that she would deal with it, but she didn’t and to me it is a gaping plot hole.

Most people don’t even recognize that there are things missing that bother me intensely. It is only when I point them out do they realize their omissions. The things that bother me the most were sins of omission and not sins of commission.

In my talk last night with the high school senior, she said how much she like Half-Blood Prince (HBP) and I felt guilty to say that I didn’t like it. Then I told her a few of the reasons why and afterwards she felt like she should have noticed these things as well.

Okay, here’s a list of what bothered me:

Barty Crouch, Jr.’s soulless body.

What happened to it? Here we have prima facie evidence that something grossly wrong had occurred. This man had been declared dead and buried at Azkaban prison years ago, and yet his living body is found at Hogwarts after the death of a student in the TriWizard Tournament. What? No investigation? And where did this zombie-like thing go? Is it hooked up to feeding tubes in St. Mungo’s?

Lack of penalty for assaults on students.

At the end of Goblet of Fire (GoF) and Order of the Phoenix (OotP), Harry and his friends attacked Draco Malfoy and his gang of Slytherins. They were left on the floor of the Hogwarts Express with footprints on them, or they were stuffed into an overhead bin.

So, why wasn’t there any disciplinary action taken after these assaults? I tell you I if went to the train station to pick up my child after a year of being in a boarding school and he didn’t come off the train safe and sound, I would hold the school accountable. If I had to go onto the train and I found my child unconscious after being attacked, I’d be livid.

I’d want to see those responsible punished. Severely.

I actually worked that into my fifth year fic, and I was critical in my reviews of others fifth year fics for not including something which I felt would naturally follow in the continuing narrative.

Jo didn’t see it the way I did. She not only forgot to have that in the beginning of the school year in OotP, but again in HBP.

No punishment followed Harry and friend’s physical punishments of the bad boys. What kind of message does that send to children? If you are favored by the headmaster you can do anything you like?

As a parent, I don’t like that at all.

Lack of respect for Sirius Black.

Okay, I’ll admit that I adored the fictional character of Sirius Black. I was just a sucker for a handsome man who was wrongly accused and imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit. I felt sorry for him having to live in Azkaban for 12 years, live in the Forbidden Forest for another year, and then subsist on rats and live in a cave for another.

I wanted so much more for his character. I wanted him to be safe, warm, well fed, have a romantic partner, and yes, I wanted him to be exonerated.

My fate for his character arc was so much different than Jo Rowling’s. She made him suffer, suffer, and suffer.

Then she killed him.

Then she really made me mad. Killing him was one thing, but her treatment of Sirius’s character after his death is what really infuriates me.

No funeral.

No memorial service.

No formal anything for Harry to grieve, or for anyone else to grieve the loss of Sirius Black.

Now, if there’s no body, it makes it hard to have a funeral, but you can gather people together to talk about that person’s life and what they meant to you.

She didn’t do that. Jo did have a funeral for Albus Dumbledore, which she needed to do.

Jo also had Hagrid blubber over the death of Aragog. Harry attended the service that his friend had for a monstrous man-eating spider.

Nice. Yet, no one could do the same thing for Harry’s godfather.

And what really bothers me the most about this is that I know that Jo knows better. She was asked after Goblet of Fire about bringing Cedric’s corpse back.

Saving Cedric's body reminded me of the Hector Patroclus Achilles triangle in the Iliad.

JKR: That's where it came from. That really, really, REALLY moved me when I read that when I was 19. The idea of the desecration of a body, a very ancient idea... I was thinking of that when Harry saved Cedric's body.

--

So Jo drew upon the classical poem the Iliad for Cedric, and yet she did nothing for Sirius after killing him off.

There is still a question in my mind as to whether or not Sirius was fully exonerated by the Ministry of Magic.

I Don’t Know The Answer. And it bugs me.

Okay, that’s all the time I have today to state the problems I had with the last two books. There are more, but that’s enough for people to chew on right now. If you’d like to share your thoughts with me, please feel free.