![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkabefore-ootp: everything is h/d. post-ootp: everything is h/d, except it's also ootp. sigh. i'm out of hiding, and i can't shut up. don't expect anyone to discuss with me or anything (though that'd be nice), it's just i have so much to respond to, and i feel nothing more is to be gained by abstaining from seeing others' views. so.
this is in response to ivy's excellent post about post-ootp shipping and the relevance of canon to shipping in general, and i suppose harry/ginny in particular.
i only said "yeay harry/ginny is dead" not because it -has- to be dead or because it's not -better- this way, but because i'm almost certain most people would -feel- it were dead and not -ship- it anymore, which is pleasant for me, 'cause most harry/ginny shippers are um... well... a bit er... yah. juvenile, i guess. or something. and this way it's more mature, if it were to happen. but jkr isn't that subtle about 'ships. to me it was always pretty much obvious h/g was never happening in canon, just predicting based on jkr's tendencies. i mean, she -will- write r/hr-- if anything, there are such similarities between that and lily/james. *squees a little* i realize i'm rather biased, but i think i'm actually picking up on what the writer -wants- me to pick up on. i'm usually rather direct and shallow in that way-- i don't tend to bring my own agenda to books-- fanfic, yes, but not books.
so. i'm easily convinced of a book's own slant-- which is why even with my great and t00by love for draco in all shapes and sizes, i was beginning to get pissy with him in ootp, just 'cause he was so stubbornly not fabulous enough for dear harry. sigh. *thwaps self* naturally, he's fabulous in his own nasty-little-git sort of way (and i adore him), but i want -harry- to adore him, and you know. not happening too easily, in ootp, so since i identify with harry as i read, there are issues there.
but yes. canon shipping is about the books-- a reaction to the books. it's not a lack of imagination necessarily, just a less fandomish response.
for instance-- most people, when they read a book, don't really invent different, unrelated scenarios for the characters-- they just grab what's there and see whether they like it or not. so it's not even a difference between slash shipping & het shipping. it's a difference between a fanfic writers' shipping and a normal reader response-- a type of bonding with the characters.
i've seen a few people (i've not looked much, but i'm projecting, too), mention harry/sirius as a pairing, which seems both preposterous and yet it makes sense. ootp created new fodder for previously rather airy ships, simply because it added more emotion to the mix. the readers' sudden interest is a direct product of the emotional build-up in the books. i mean, for instance-- no one's talking about this-- but the one great emotional oomph for harry & draco in this whole book wasn't the glass dropping! come ON, people! i mean, that was all draco, that wasn't harry/draco. yes, there were adorable, brilliant moments-- malfoy mouthing "remedial potions?", malfoy's hand scrabbling against harry's for the snitch, malfoy saying, "i don't like you", and so on. draco is still cute. but the parts that were harry/draco were depressing from a shipper's pov, because harry is totally seeming to be beyond draco, mostly, and draco seems to just be angry all the time for no good reason (well, no really good reason except that's just the way he is). except. EXCEPT.
i'm not one of those people who thinks that you can ship totally -against- canon. subtext is what one needs to go on. text is nice, but optional. subtext, i think, is ESSENTIAL, otherwise you're writing -fiction- or shared-universe fiction, not really fanfiction, because if you're using spells and character names and locations but not -emotional arcs-, then you're really leaving out a great deal from the meat of what the books -are-.
anyway, as i keep hinting, there -is- hope for h/d subtext in ootp. oh yes, my pretties. OH YES. and it ain't the glass shattering. though the glass is nice, it's just draco being overcome with rage at the very mention of harry, which is nothing new. (and btw, this is amusing, actually, since this tendency of draco's to lose it when it comes to harry is so essential, i think, to h/d's hopes as a ship, and yet icy-and-unconcerned!draco is oh-so-popular in fanfic. isn't that funny? you're all taking away the one thing you've always had going for you by making draco an ice prince-- his complete, extreme, towering temper and obsessive inability to pretend harry doesn't get to him. ahahahaah.)
so.
so yeah. the fight. HARRY PUNCHES HIM!!!! again, and again, and again-and-again-and-again-and-again. come ON! HE WANTS HIM BAD!! um. well. i mean. to pervy people like me, that's blazingly clear, much more so than with the glass shattering, for instance. we -know- draco wants harry (er... well... dead and/or humiliated, true, but anyway). what matters is what -harry's- development is, as far as h/d goes, isn't that obvious?
that's why the harry/ginny development is actually good-- now harry & ginny are on equal ground, emotionally. they're able to understand each other more since their feelings are more mutual, more reflective of one another-- they have a roughly equal amount of affection for each other now, which makes them much more compatible, i think. of course you can ship one-sided romances, but you can't really expect them to actually -happen- in any traditional way, which is why pre-book-5!harry/ginny has always annoyed me (and okay, i'm very very indulgent of harry, so i wanted him to have cho, just to get it out of his system, but that's just the harry-fancier in me talking). it's such a crock to ship something because one of the characters has a one-sided crush. and before anyone says it, i never thought harry/draco was about draco's one-sided crush, and if i did, i'd never ship it.
so that's why i can see why people would even mention the atrocity that is harry/sirius-- obviously, there's a mutual regard there, a mutual intense emotion. similarly with harry/snape in ootp, even though it's not at all romantic-- they have equally intense reactions to each other-- it seems like snape MATTERS to harry, at least, that his opinion and actions are something he -thinks- about, even if only to resent. and sure, you can write fic where harry -attains-, out of the blue, some kind of reason to care about malfoy's words and actions, but without canon to back you up at all, it's just... i dunno. an intellectual exercise, without any life other than what you give it. so it depends how real it is to -you-, and most people's imaginations aren't powerful enough to completely create this world where h/d work in spite of everything they have in canon going against them, even though it's a popular ship. same goes for harry/ginny. people's imaginations need fuel, and if you mean fandom to be feeding of canon, well then the relationship of the ship to canon (its possible importance, possible symbolic value, and so on) is rather important.
with h/d, the possible symbolic value is rather high, based on harry's own needs and the potential draco has. but harry/ginny was always based on general romanticism based on a schoolgirl crush-- no great symbolic potential, really. so yah. i dunno what my point is, except the whole, "people ship differently" thing and that influences how canon factors in. some people's ships can die because they're held outside them, some people's ships are held inside them-- but the mark of a truly lively ship is when it draws strength both from inside and from outside. naturally.
so i was reading aja's post on draco's (lack of) development and loving draco anyway, and the irrelevance of jkr's interpretations when it comes to fannish faith.... and much as i spent all this time saying something that may seem contradictory, i totally feel this. YES. i too, cannot be shaken, i too will always see -my- vision, will always be convinced that it's simply -right- for some things to happen. draco -does- deserve more, and he deserves to be someone harry can respect, slytherins -should- be shown in some light other than bad, awful, and simply disgusting.
yes. i tried to say that in my last entry, that it -should- be true even if it isn't. i too, am certain she's wrong, and frustrated at the way draco was, angry with him and jkr and of course, i still love him, and i still love harry (probably more), and .......
i think to get malfoy and the slytherins to have development, there'd have to be huge changes in harry-- because while he can observe ginny & luna & neville, there was nothing stopping it, there -is- something stopping him paying attention to malfoy, since it's hard for them to have an actual conversation. harry & snape got that, because they have an excuse-- at least snape has something to teach him-- but malfoy doesn't have a very good link to harry, at this point. so there wasn't really a chance, in a harry-centric fic, to say anything about draco without specifically getting harry to follow draco somewhere or something. i dunno. it's not that slytherins are all bad, it's just that all of harry's enemies are all bad and shallow. like umbridge, the dursleys, all except snape-- who's actually on harry's side, btw-- and voldemort (arguably).
but anyway. yes. i'm glad i stayed away from the fandom while reading. harry/draco being dead is just laughable. and i won't say she's wrong (quite) before book 7 is over, really (since it was shaw's -ending- that was wrong in `pygmalion', right, and the hp books haven't -got- an ending yet). i mean... harry is still in the process. he has this large gaping hole in his heart i think draco should fill, but if-- IF-- she finds an equally suitable replacement-- somehow, someway-- hey, people -do- write great one-book romances-- i may be mollified. because he needs SOMEONE, not just draco. someone LIKE draco, with draco's potential. and -i- think draco has loads of potential, and i love him, will always love him, but i also adore harry (possibly more) and think he should be happy, and he can't be happy with a draco who's not equal to himself, no matter how much i adore him.
and well... canon!draco right now is on the verge of being... i dunno... sad. pathetic. mostly 'cause he gets defeated all the time, so -completely-, and yet of course he always gets up and pastes on that sneer and i love him for it, but as far as from -harry's- point of view, it's not a good thing that it's so easy for him. draco, i can understand, but just not necessarily -as harry- would. or something. you know? and since i want canonish!draco (or at least, unredeemed!draco in the way that he doesn't become soft and weepy and ashamed)... well... while draco hasn't changed necessarily, -harry has-, which is what bothers people i suppose.
i guess i accept that it's not necessarily the -books'- fault that the slytherins keep getting shafted. it's harry's, and the whole system's fault. he can't be fairly expected to act any other way, really. draco -is- a huge big prat, completely without any moral fibre except for tiny hints that he's not really the Big Bad, he just likes the perks. which makes him cowardly and greedy and everything harry detests. great. so he's not evil. but harry is -already- having this issue with being better, being stronger-- than ron, for instance. it bothers him, but he can't escape it-- he needs to feel equal to his friends and those he loves, or he totally gets confused. that's what happened with cho-- she showed she wasn't like harry, she was -just a girl-, not "a good seeker", not "a popular beautiful unattainable girl who harry can admire from afar". she is not his equal, and that's not something harry can tolerate.
so yah, that's what's holding the slytherins back-- the system that doesn't favor them. since so many of them are associated with power and yet harry thinks little of both the ministry and purebloods, not to mention death eaters, harry's ability to constantly come out on top and his lack of respect for their particular set of ethics combine to make them stuck on repeat, in terms of development. that's why i'm convinced harry has to change before the slytherins get in any way "redeemed".
silvia's post on the parallels between buffy's arc and harry's in ootp totally, totally struck a chord in me. especially since i'm a big hero's quest arc fanatic, and i think a descent into darkness and arrogance and despair and solitude are inevitable parts of that.
i just think that this idea that a hero's job is to be sympathetic and nice is complete hogwash. that's why i thought ootp was brilliant-- much as it may have shortchanged the possible glory of other characters (draco, ron, hermione, even cho) or shown harry as prejudiced or insensitive, i thought that was its strength. harry is alone, even as he's more and more a part of a movement. he needs to make these distinctions-- himself and Them, the enemy, the friends, the allies, the teachers, the unknowns-- in order to keep going, in order to feel like he knows -anything-, because otherwise he may well feel he knows nothing, that he can -do- nothing.
i also think that like in buffy and spike, harry would fight tooth and nail against true emotional disclosure (to himself) regarding anyone he'd once conceived of as an enemy. it will never be safe enough, it will never really become -different- enough. there's the past and the present, and they're cut by a line that says, "before i was chosen" and "after i was chosen". and until they can make the CHOICE themselves, until they can feel in control of who they are, until they allow themselves to be only who they are-- human, fallible-- they can't really be anything but alone.
...apparently, i like angst and darkfic and bleakness more than i thought, considering how much i love ootp. but no, no, see, harry isn't bleak-- i mean, his situation is, his outlook may be, but -he- is very alive, very visceral, it seems to me. so that's what draws me in, really.
sigh.
oh, and kristi's idea about sirius-as-persephone and harry-as-antihero is just -delicious-. because -yes-, YES, that's what he's becoming, both hero and antihero at once. wah. swooning, here.
EDIT - well, this -is- one of my favorite things about ootp-- sirius' past being developed-- and then![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
penelope_z wrote this, and i actually -thought- about why it fits....
as far as sirius-- 'cause while we did get -some- snape, we got a whole -load- of sirius, and ootp just... gives him so much more depth. i always was a little lopsided in my sirius/remus shipping and general interest in them, 'cause while i love remus, sirius seemed your general archetypical brooding bad-boy with A Past. now that we know more of his past, the brooding, at least, seems not just tragic but kind of... natural, a flip-side to the charm and mischievousness and i suppose-- the popularity-- that's more like malfoy than snape. so it makes sense that -sirius- was the aristocrat-- he's the popular one, even if he's a gryffindor. i mean, the malfoys are still popular even if they're slytherin (among slytherins and apparently the ministry & most purebloods at large), yet snape was always a target. he -had- to be missing something.
possibly, sirius and james were actually acting like typical purebloods, taunting snape just for "existing", besides the added slytherin-scum antipathy....? since they didn't taunt malfoy, who was well-connected-- whom sirius was related to by marriage, and such.
so it makes complete sense, really.
as for why sirius wasn't a -complete- prat or a death eater... yes, most likely his intense bond with james from an early age (i mean, they seemed rather joined at the hip, moreso than him and remus, didn't they?) also, his need for more warmth and friendship-based interaction than his distant, anger-ridden family-life provided. his mother verbally abused him, obviously, and unlike draco, sirius has too much arrogance and pride to play by the rules of a family which doesn't treat him with the glowing admiration he wants.
also swooning at mawaridi's ootp art, as well ascoell's emotional-recluse!harry <3333
the sirius-and-lily here just killed me. i dunno WHY and i've now seen people saying that -lily-, not james, is the ass in that scene (only bothering 'cause she doesn't like james, not because she cares what happens to severus), which is unfair. i think they're ALL asses, just like sirius said. but i love them anyway. gah. i love lily/james, man. LOVE IT. for the same reason i love ron/hermione, i guess, and think ootp was like -so- r/hr-- not because there was romance, but because of their dynamic, strong and bitchy as ever. bitchy=love, you know. yes.
oh, and ali's ootp art.... gaaaaahhhhhhhhh..... *CRIES* iloveyouharry *wibble*
oh god... i know i've been saying harry HAS to find out what the veil really is, has to figure out what the voices are.... so maybe he'll see sirius again... but i've been in denial just like everyone else, haven't i. i mean, i accepted he's dead but not really... completely... and then i read this quote by jkr... and he's really dead..... oh god... he's..... really dead. waaaaahhhhh, haaaaaaaryyyyy.....
~~
P.P.S.... all else aside, cassie claire's post on the meaning of death & harry's journey as a hero during and after ootp basically said everything i wanted to and didn't, about the book. wah. yes.
this is in response to ivy's excellent post about post-ootp shipping and the relevance of canon to shipping in general, and i suppose harry/ginny in particular.
i only said "yeay harry/ginny is dead" not because it -has- to be dead or because it's not -better- this way, but because i'm almost certain most people would -feel- it were dead and not -ship- it anymore, which is pleasant for me, 'cause most harry/ginny shippers are um... well... a bit er... yah. juvenile, i guess. or something. and this way it's more mature, if it were to happen. but jkr isn't that subtle about 'ships. to me it was always pretty much obvious h/g was never happening in canon, just predicting based on jkr's tendencies. i mean, she -will- write r/hr-- if anything, there are such similarities between that and lily/james. *squees a little* i realize i'm rather biased, but i think i'm actually picking up on what the writer -wants- me to pick up on. i'm usually rather direct and shallow in that way-- i don't tend to bring my own agenda to books-- fanfic, yes, but not books.
so. i'm easily convinced of a book's own slant-- which is why even with my great and t00by love for draco in all shapes and sizes, i was beginning to get pissy with him in ootp, just 'cause he was so stubbornly not fabulous enough for dear harry. sigh. *thwaps self* naturally, he's fabulous in his own nasty-little-git sort of way (and i adore him), but i want -harry- to adore him, and you know. not happening too easily, in ootp, so since i identify with harry as i read, there are issues there.
but yes. canon shipping is about the books-- a reaction to the books. it's not a lack of imagination necessarily, just a less fandomish response.
for instance-- most people, when they read a book, don't really invent different, unrelated scenarios for the characters-- they just grab what's there and see whether they like it or not. so it's not even a difference between slash shipping & het shipping. it's a difference between a fanfic writers' shipping and a normal reader response-- a type of bonding with the characters.
i've seen a few people (i've not looked much, but i'm projecting, too), mention harry/sirius as a pairing, which seems both preposterous and yet it makes sense. ootp created new fodder for previously rather airy ships, simply because it added more emotion to the mix. the readers' sudden interest is a direct product of the emotional build-up in the books. i mean, for instance-- no one's talking about this-- but the one great emotional oomph for harry & draco in this whole book wasn't the glass dropping! come ON, people! i mean, that was all draco, that wasn't harry/draco. yes, there were adorable, brilliant moments-- malfoy mouthing "remedial potions?", malfoy's hand scrabbling against harry's for the snitch, malfoy saying, "i don't like you", and so on. draco is still cute. but the parts that were harry/draco were depressing from a shipper's pov, because harry is totally seeming to be beyond draco, mostly, and draco seems to just be angry all the time for no good reason (well, no really good reason except that's just the way he is). except. EXCEPT.
i'm not one of those people who thinks that you can ship totally -against- canon. subtext is what one needs to go on. text is nice, but optional. subtext, i think, is ESSENTIAL, otherwise you're writing -fiction- or shared-universe fiction, not really fanfiction, because if you're using spells and character names and locations but not -emotional arcs-, then you're really leaving out a great deal from the meat of what the books -are-.
anyway, as i keep hinting, there -is- hope for h/d subtext in ootp. oh yes, my pretties. OH YES. and it ain't the glass shattering. though the glass is nice, it's just draco being overcome with rage at the very mention of harry, which is nothing new. (and btw, this is amusing, actually, since this tendency of draco's to lose it when it comes to harry is so essential, i think, to h/d's hopes as a ship, and yet icy-and-unconcerned!draco is oh-so-popular in fanfic. isn't that funny? you're all taking away the one thing you've always had going for you by making draco an ice prince-- his complete, extreme, towering temper and obsessive inability to pretend harry doesn't get to him. ahahahaah.)
so.
so yeah. the fight. HARRY PUNCHES HIM!!!! again, and again, and again-and-again-and-again-and-again. come ON! HE WANTS HIM BAD!! um. well. i mean. to pervy people like me, that's blazingly clear, much more so than with the glass shattering, for instance. we -know- draco wants harry (er... well... dead and/or humiliated, true, but anyway). what matters is what -harry's- development is, as far as h/d goes, isn't that obvious?
that's why the harry/ginny development is actually good-- now harry & ginny are on equal ground, emotionally. they're able to understand each other more since their feelings are more mutual, more reflective of one another-- they have a roughly equal amount of affection for each other now, which makes them much more compatible, i think. of course you can ship one-sided romances, but you can't really expect them to actually -happen- in any traditional way, which is why pre-book-5!harry/ginny has always annoyed me (and okay, i'm very very indulgent of harry, so i wanted him to have cho, just to get it out of his system, but that's just the harry-fancier in me talking). it's such a crock to ship something because one of the characters has a one-sided crush. and before anyone says it, i never thought harry/draco was about draco's one-sided crush, and if i did, i'd never ship it.
so that's why i can see why people would even mention the atrocity that is harry/sirius-- obviously, there's a mutual regard there, a mutual intense emotion. similarly with harry/snape in ootp, even though it's not at all romantic-- they have equally intense reactions to each other-- it seems like snape MATTERS to harry, at least, that his opinion and actions are something he -thinks- about, even if only to resent. and sure, you can write fic where harry -attains-, out of the blue, some kind of reason to care about malfoy's words and actions, but without canon to back you up at all, it's just... i dunno. an intellectual exercise, without any life other than what you give it. so it depends how real it is to -you-, and most people's imaginations aren't powerful enough to completely create this world where h/d work in spite of everything they have in canon going against them, even though it's a popular ship. same goes for harry/ginny. people's imaginations need fuel, and if you mean fandom to be feeding of canon, well then the relationship of the ship to canon (its possible importance, possible symbolic value, and so on) is rather important.
with h/d, the possible symbolic value is rather high, based on harry's own needs and the potential draco has. but harry/ginny was always based on general romanticism based on a schoolgirl crush-- no great symbolic potential, really. so yah. i dunno what my point is, except the whole, "people ship differently" thing and that influences how canon factors in. some people's ships can die because they're held outside them, some people's ships are held inside them-- but the mark of a truly lively ship is when it draws strength both from inside and from outside. naturally.
so i was reading aja's post on draco's (lack of) development and loving draco anyway, and the irrelevance of jkr's interpretations when it comes to fannish faith.... and much as i spent all this time saying something that may seem contradictory, i totally feel this. YES. i too, cannot be shaken, i too will always see -my- vision, will always be convinced that it's simply -right- for some things to happen. draco -does- deserve more, and he deserves to be someone harry can respect, slytherins -should- be shown in some light other than bad, awful, and simply disgusting.
yes. i tried to say that in my last entry, that it -should- be true even if it isn't. i too, am certain she's wrong, and frustrated at the way draco was, angry with him and jkr and of course, i still love him, and i still love harry (probably more), and .......
i think to get malfoy and the slytherins to have development, there'd have to be huge changes in harry-- because while he can observe ginny & luna & neville, there was nothing stopping it, there -is- something stopping him paying attention to malfoy, since it's hard for them to have an actual conversation. harry & snape got that, because they have an excuse-- at least snape has something to teach him-- but malfoy doesn't have a very good link to harry, at this point. so there wasn't really a chance, in a harry-centric fic, to say anything about draco without specifically getting harry to follow draco somewhere or something. i dunno. it's not that slytherins are all bad, it's just that all of harry's enemies are all bad and shallow. like umbridge, the dursleys, all except snape-- who's actually on harry's side, btw-- and voldemort (arguably).
but anyway. yes. i'm glad i stayed away from the fandom while reading. harry/draco being dead is just laughable. and i won't say she's wrong (quite) before book 7 is over, really (since it was shaw's -ending- that was wrong in `pygmalion', right, and the hp books haven't -got- an ending yet). i mean... harry is still in the process. he has this large gaping hole in his heart i think draco should fill, but if-- IF-- she finds an equally suitable replacement-- somehow, someway-- hey, people -do- write great one-book romances-- i may be mollified. because he needs SOMEONE, not just draco. someone LIKE draco, with draco's potential. and -i- think draco has loads of potential, and i love him, will always love him, but i also adore harry (possibly more) and think he should be happy, and he can't be happy with a draco who's not equal to himself, no matter how much i adore him.
and well... canon!draco right now is on the verge of being... i dunno... sad. pathetic. mostly 'cause he gets defeated all the time, so -completely-, and yet of course he always gets up and pastes on that sneer and i love him for it, but as far as from -harry's- point of view, it's not a good thing that it's so easy for him. draco, i can understand, but just not necessarily -as harry- would. or something. you know? and since i want canonish!draco (or at least, unredeemed!draco in the way that he doesn't become soft and weepy and ashamed)... well... while draco hasn't changed necessarily, -harry has-, which is what bothers people i suppose.
i guess i accept that it's not necessarily the -books'- fault that the slytherins keep getting shafted. it's harry's, and the whole system's fault. he can't be fairly expected to act any other way, really. draco -is- a huge big prat, completely without any moral fibre except for tiny hints that he's not really the Big Bad, he just likes the perks. which makes him cowardly and greedy and everything harry detests. great. so he's not evil. but harry is -already- having this issue with being better, being stronger-- than ron, for instance. it bothers him, but he can't escape it-- he needs to feel equal to his friends and those he loves, or he totally gets confused. that's what happened with cho-- she showed she wasn't like harry, she was -just a girl-, not "a good seeker", not "a popular beautiful unattainable girl who harry can admire from afar". she is not his equal, and that's not something harry can tolerate.
so yah, that's what's holding the slytherins back-- the system that doesn't favor them. since so many of them are associated with power and yet harry thinks little of both the ministry and purebloods, not to mention death eaters, harry's ability to constantly come out on top and his lack of respect for their particular set of ethics combine to make them stuck on repeat, in terms of development. that's why i'm convinced harry has to change before the slytherins get in any way "redeemed".
silvia's post on the parallels between buffy's arc and harry's in ootp totally, totally struck a chord in me. especially since i'm a big hero's quest arc fanatic, and i think a descent into darkness and arrogance and despair and solitude are inevitable parts of that.
i just think that this idea that a hero's job is to be sympathetic and nice is complete hogwash. that's why i thought ootp was brilliant-- much as it may have shortchanged the possible glory of other characters (draco, ron, hermione, even cho) or shown harry as prejudiced or insensitive, i thought that was its strength. harry is alone, even as he's more and more a part of a movement. he needs to make these distinctions-- himself and Them, the enemy, the friends, the allies, the teachers, the unknowns-- in order to keep going, in order to feel like he knows -anything-, because otherwise he may well feel he knows nothing, that he can -do- nothing.
i also think that like in buffy and spike, harry would fight tooth and nail against true emotional disclosure (to himself) regarding anyone he'd once conceived of as an enemy. it will never be safe enough, it will never really become -different- enough. there's the past and the present, and they're cut by a line that says, "before i was chosen" and "after i was chosen". and until they can make the CHOICE themselves, until they can feel in control of who they are, until they allow themselves to be only who they are-- human, fallible-- they can't really be anything but alone.
...apparently, i like angst and darkfic and bleakness more than i thought, considering how much i love ootp. but no, no, see, harry isn't bleak-- i mean, his situation is, his outlook may be, but -he- is very alive, very visceral, it seems to me. so that's what draws me in, really.
sigh.
oh, and kristi's idea about sirius-as-persephone and harry-as-antihero is just -delicious-. because -yes-, YES, that's what he's becoming, both hero and antihero at once. wah. swooning, here.
EDIT - well, this -is- one of my favorite things about ootp-- sirius' past being developed-- and then
penelope_z wrote this, and i actually -thought- about why it fits....as far as sirius-- 'cause while we did get -some- snape, we got a whole -load- of sirius, and ootp just... gives him so much more depth. i always was a little lopsided in my sirius/remus shipping and general interest in them, 'cause while i love remus, sirius seemed your general archetypical brooding bad-boy with A Past. now that we know more of his past, the brooding, at least, seems not just tragic but kind of... natural, a flip-side to the charm and mischievousness and i suppose-- the popularity-- that's more like malfoy than snape. so it makes sense that -sirius- was the aristocrat-- he's the popular one, even if he's a gryffindor. i mean, the malfoys are still popular even if they're slytherin (among slytherins and apparently the ministry & most purebloods at large), yet snape was always a target. he -had- to be missing something.
possibly, sirius and james were actually acting like typical purebloods, taunting snape just for "existing", besides the added slytherin-scum antipathy....? since they didn't taunt malfoy, who was well-connected-- whom sirius was related to by marriage, and such.
so it makes complete sense, really.
as for why sirius wasn't a -complete- prat or a death eater... yes, most likely his intense bond with james from an early age (i mean, they seemed rather joined at the hip, moreso than him and remus, didn't they?) also, his need for more warmth and friendship-based interaction than his distant, anger-ridden family-life provided. his mother verbally abused him, obviously, and unlike draco, sirius has too much arrogance and pride to play by the rules of a family which doesn't treat him with the glowing admiration he wants.
also swooning at mawaridi's ootp art, as well as
coell's emotional-recluse!harry <3333the sirius-and-lily here just killed me. i dunno WHY and i've now seen people saying that -lily-, not james, is the ass in that scene (only bothering 'cause she doesn't like james, not because she cares what happens to severus), which is unfair. i think they're ALL asses, just like sirius said. but i love them anyway. gah. i love lily/james, man. LOVE IT. for the same reason i love ron/hermione, i guess, and think ootp was like -so- r/hr-- not because there was romance, but because of their dynamic, strong and bitchy as ever. bitchy=love, you know. yes.
oh, and ali's ootp art.... gaaaaahhhhhhhhh..... *CRIES* iloveyouharry *wibble*
oh god... i know i've been saying harry HAS to find out what the veil really is, has to figure out what the voices are.... so maybe he'll see sirius again... but i've been in denial just like everyone else, haven't i. i mean, i accepted he's dead but not really... completely... and then i read this quote by jkr... and he's really dead..... oh god... he's..... really dead. waaaaahhhhh, haaaaaaaryyyyy.....
~~
P.P.S.... all else aside, cassie claire's post on the meaning of death & harry's journey as a hero during and after ootp basically said everything i wanted to and didn't, about the book. wah. yes.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-06-26 11:49 am (UTC)And the whole Ron arc in OotP was all about his lack of confidence. I honestly can't see a single thing connecting the two pairings.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-26 12:04 pm (UTC)but i mean... lily -bothers- with james, doesn't she... i dunno. i think it's both cute and exasperating and horrible and james is a prick and yet. you know. they all are. i think it's perfectly possible that lily can't stand him and yet that attracts her. i don't really know how far that is into their acquaintance... since the present-day r/hr is pretty far along in their knowledge of each other, really.
and 2 years later, in seventh year, apparently james gets rather more influenced (possibly by lily) and becomes less wild. i mean, we have the foreknowledge that they -do- have chemistry and it -is- two-way. and i doubt lily only liked him after he changed, since i don't think he changed that much (considering he still hexed snape, just not in front of lily).
it's not a perfect parallel or anything, just a sort of, squabbling-couples thing. i just got the feeling, as soon as i saw lily with james, that james had met his match, so to speak. and of course, lily thinks he's reprehensible-- that is such a common route in romance novels it almost doesn't register as "oh, well, this is serious, she's really having issues here", because it's all so mixed up in courtship show-offishness on james' part. and it's just a matter of time before lily realizes it. and she -does- fall for it, we know that. so yeah.
as far as ron... well yah, he isn't show-offish or proud as far as hermione goes, but they certainly squabble a lot and hermione is always trying to rein him in (largely unsuccessfully). it's not so much the specifics that seem alike as the general model of yin-yang tension and your general `pride and prejudice' shtick, i guess.
i admit i generalize and associate in my head to the point of actual unrecognizability sometimes, but in this case i think the squabbling is just typical married-couple-to-be behavior in jkr-land (molly & arthur go in this category too, actually. heh.) but i can certainly see their substantial differences too, of course~:)
no subject
Date: 2003-06-27 12:26 pm (UTC)To me, the James/Lily is nothing short of chilling, and I both pity and am very disappointed in Lily for the choice she made. James’ bastardy is central to the James/Lily that we see in this book. So I don’t see how you can compare it to Ron/Hermione in the slightest, when Ron and Hermione are both good people. (By this I don’t mean to say that James is evil or anything; but while Ron and Hermione may be unsuited, they are not unworthy of one another. James is unworthy of Lily, her lack of real concern for Severus notwithstanding.
So, if Hermione ‘forgives’ Ron for his little peccadilloes, and they go out, it will not, in my opinion, be anything remotely similar to Lily’s self-deception, even within your ‘generalisation to unrecognisability’. The two pairings could almost be contrasted, in my view. If Ron/Hermione was similar to James/Lily, actually, do you really think that would be a sign of it happening, when James/Lily was such a bad pairing? I would feel intensely sorry for Ron and Hermione if it were.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-27 12:45 pm (UTC)it's that dislike for james thing at work. i just wrote (http://www.livejournal.com/users/epicyclical/147483.html?replyto=5388571) a bit in response to cassie claire's question about james, and well... he'd acted like a prick, of course, but... it's not that sirius or remus or severus-- or harry or ron-- are pure either. they're all rather brutal to their enemies and insanely loyal to their friends and foolish and insensitive to their female love interests. what if you wanted to judge ron, for instance, by how he acts towards malfoy? or even -harry- on how he acts towards malfoy or snape or umbridge or what have you?
sure, harry & ron have excuses, 'cause they're picked on at least as much as they pick on the others, but that's circumstance, i think, as much as personal predisposition.
remus & sirius pick on snape too, and they're over 30. snape picks on harry ruthlessly, and harry is a -child-.
they're all kind of jerks, in their own ways, i guess.
but i think it's still clear that jkr didn't mean to make the marauders not good people. they were just... you know... hot-blooded and stupid and 15 and they didn't know when to stop. i'm certain that if ron had the opportunity and he hated the person as much as they hated snape, he wouldn't balk at any level of humiliation-- he was having a really really good day when moody turned malfoy into a ferret and bounced him around, wasn't he. we don't know what -snape- would do if he had the chance anyway, do we.
i think lily was of course horrified-- as a lot of girls (oh, the gentler, fairer sex, heh) would be. but that doesn't mean she'd have to have her arm twisted to fancy james.
he really does fancy her-- and he's charming and arrogant and not stupid, really, and that can be sexy as well as horrid. lily wasn't really "pure", i don't think, she just had a conscience and an outsider's perspective, but that's not to say -james- didn't have a conscience-- he's a gryffindor and he was firmly against the dark lord (unlike snape). and sure, he was verbally obnoxious-- but snape would've given as good as he got, and he actually -cut- james, didn't he. it's not very clear-cut, i don't think. they were 15. i remember high school, you know. 75% of everyone were like james-- if not more. they were just not popular enough to get away with it.
but i can see where you're coming from, with the complete dishonorableness of his behavior not being something you can forgive, whereas i'm much more lax with those sorts of things.
i actually -like- the arrogance and obnoxiousness in small doses, even as i roll my eyes. i'm sort of like remus that way, i guess. *laughs*