I think what bothers me the most about the ship wank is the argument "but this isn't what I see as love" and going further, 'what I do see as love is Twue Wuv, while JKR and whoever likes that other stuff must be a bunch of idiots who don't know what Twue Wuv (and/or a workable relationship) is'. It doesn't even matter whether I agree about the quality of JKR's writing or not, it still bothers me because I am much more invested in the question of what love is than I will ever be in HP or, indeed, most other subjects. So when people are edging into purely subjective, philosophical territory and acting as if it's all obvious and objective and why the hell doesn't JKR agree-- well, I get argumentative.
On the one hand... I do understand where most people are coming from in terms of sheer analysis, but on the other hand, people thinking that only -their- favorite love ideal would work for fictional characters bothers me, because.... People are different, right? They want different things from relationships depending on who they are; they have a higher or lower tolerance to certain kinds of "unhealthy" behavior, like for example cheating. There are some people (say... me) who would pretty much literally string their SO up by their tie if they were discovered cheating, and there are people who'd go 'oh, well... tell me next time-- or better yet, let me tag along'.
I mean, I see lots of different things as love-- lots of unhealthy and destructive and creative and beautiful things, because love has many facets, and there are many ideals to choose from. Just because you-the-reader disagrees with a particular book's vision of love is in no way a bad thing, naturally-- it's just that I feel that in speaking of future canon developments, it's unproductive to project your own ideal onto the text, especially when the relationships in said text are already very archetypal and/or idealized rather than simply realistically rendered.
(And naturally, where you have archetypal love, you have moi, in my natural habitat.)
( Vaguely spoilery from this point on. )
On the one hand... I do understand where most people are coming from in terms of sheer analysis, but on the other hand, people thinking that only -their- favorite love ideal would work for fictional characters bothers me, because.... People are different, right? They want different things from relationships depending on who they are; they have a higher or lower tolerance to certain kinds of "unhealthy" behavior, like for example cheating. There are some people (say... me) who would pretty much literally string their SO up by their tie if they were discovered cheating, and there are people who'd go 'oh, well... tell me next time-- or better yet, let me tag along'.
I mean, I see lots of different things as love-- lots of unhealthy and destructive and creative and beautiful things, because love has many facets, and there are many ideals to choose from. Just because you-the-reader disagrees with a particular book's vision of love is in no way a bad thing, naturally-- it's just that I feel that in speaking of future canon developments, it's unproductive to project your own ideal onto the text, especially when the relationships in said text are already very archetypal and/or idealized rather than simply realistically rendered.
(And naturally, where you have archetypal love, you have moi, in my natural habitat.)
( Vaguely spoilery from this point on. )
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