reenka

I keep thinking about shipping preferences in regard to canon vs. fanon, especially in regard to why I feel I have far less in common with the people who saw H/Hr subtext in canon than the people who see R/Hr subtext in canon (even though I think of myself as a largely 'fanon'-type shipper as I tend to go for slash anyway), forget shipping preferences for a moment.

I've read the H/Hr-er's group letter to JKR and nearly all of them kept saying that 'this is how the books should be because this is how True Love is'-- and that is the base fallacy as I see it. I believe that a good story isn't about reaching some abstract ideal you admire or think is hot or whatever-- it's not about where you end up. It's about how you get there, and the internal integrity of that progression most of all. The end should be dependent on what all came previous & thusly make sense, not the other way around.

As soon as you-the-shipper starts saying 'this is what the characters should want' for whatever reason (even the best of reasons, like 'this is what's Really Love'), you stop talking about the rhyme & reason of Story and start talking about the rhyme & reason of Fantasy (as in, wank fantasy, not the fiction genre). And while Story and Wank Fantasy do often coexist, I believe the nature of a good story is that it basically tells itself: you-the-writer listen to what your characters want, and then compare it to what -you- want them to do, and try to work out a compromise that makes everyone happy. Not in happy-ending way, either-- happy in a self-realization way.

It's that same 'character first, emotional preference second' predisposition, I think, and it explains why even though I mostly read/write slash, I don't actually go through many pairings. It's just that most things don't seem plausible to me from an extrapolative standpoint, and it doesn't even occur to me to ask, 'but would I like this to happen' if I don't think it ever would for that character. That's my version of canon respect. I don't think Harry would even register Hermione on his sexual radar in any universe, 'cause she's just not his -type-, whereas I feel Draco is close to Harry's type (the pairing's not that archetypally different from H/G), and it's just that circumstances would never allow it to happen in canon reality.

This 'plausible but technically impossible' thing tends to be what I really enjoy about my slash pairings in general-- though it depends on whether I feel the canon relationship is missing something or not. For instance, I feel Harry & Ron's or Kirk & Spock's friendship in their respective canon is pretty fully realized and complete, so it doesn't -need- to be sexualized. It wouldn't benefit from it; therefore, H/R and K/S slash may be enjoyable but ultimately feels wrong-headed to me, as if it's missing the point of the pre-existing relationship.

What I'm trying to say with all this talk of 'types' is that I ship any two characters based on their romantic preferences first & mine second, and that's the basic gulf in pairing logic that separates me from H/Hr shippers rather than any disagreement on the ideal of Agape-type friendship-turned-love that's behind their pairing preference.
I mean, sure, I love R/Hr as much not just because it's plausible in canon but because I also adore bickering/snarky couples and that whole romantic trope, yes. Otherwise I'd just skip on blithely by any mention I see. It's because I want Ron to be with Hermione that they make me happy-- but it's because I think Ron himself wants to be with Hermione (and vice versa) that I go down that path in the first place. Character first, reader second, that's my shipper's credo.

I think this is what most people mean by the difference between fanon vs. canon-centric shippers, except that I don't care whether or not a pairing is actually in canon or if it's slash or not, if I think it would fit the characters as they already exist or could plausibly be shown to become. Therefore, I may ship Harry with a somewhat matured Draco, but it's still canon Draco, just a little further down the timeline. This is why I want fanon-- I want development beyond the text-- I just want it to still feel like canon if the fic aims to be a realistic love-story rather than pure crack. And yeah, beyond any respect I show canon or any particular fanfic, I take the plausibility and internal validity of Story itself most seriously of all. A fic relationship has to work both on paper and in my head before I'm really interested in seeing it developed; it has to come alive and take canon with it, dammit.

That's why I think I clash in terms of ideology with people who're either flippant about pairings (as in, focus entirely on the hotness or their own mood or whatever) or who project their own ideal relationship type onto the characters. In a way, both things are emotionally based projection onto the text, and while I find that utterly normal (I think most people do it to some extent), I do think that in the end, forcing the characters to behave a certain way because the writer just wants the end-result amounts to sloppy, most likely inconsistent storytelling.

And even fics existing for porn... I can't seem to find any interest in that unless it's for a pairing I'd also read some genfic or at least full-fledged romance fic for. The characters should at least be interesting together, or like-- remain themselves (thusly needing some psychological reason to suddenly fuck), otherwise... I'll just sit there asking, BUT WHY WOULD THEY WANT TO??!

And no one ever got off while asking WHY??! and running around in circles. Well, probably.
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PS. For non-spoilery proof of both R/Hr and H/G in canon, this essay by