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reenkaI 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.)
I will, at this point, admit that I instinctively enjoyed and noticed JKR's nods at a certain type of opposites-attract relationship with many of her couples (Molly/Arthur, James/Lily, and yeah, I definitely saw hints of it with Ron/Hermione even in book 1... she even provides subtext in that same direction with Sirius/Remus, just because she seems to construct relationships-- even friendships-- with that dynamic in mind a lot of times). It worked more in terms of the implied (and possible) chemistry than actual execution, but what was there was still cute to me. And it's fine to judge that's a realistically unworkable dynamic (though I never knew 'workable longterm' was now the major determining factor in romance-- I always thought people said things like 'romance itself is fleeting' and so on). I'm just saying that archetype (love/hate, opposites-attract, the sparkly light-hearted romantic comedy trope) is pretty much everywhere in HP. That's partly why H/D seems to fit so well in my head, as the Gryffindor/Slytherin thing feels like an extension rather than a subversion of JKR's modus operandi so far.
It's just... what's really driven me up the wall with fandom recently isn't that we all disagree rabidly (I always knew that), but that everyone seemed to continuously project their own values and reactions onto the characters. Like, if -they- wouldn't like Ron's awkward idiotic fumblings, of course Hermione wouldn't, because Hermione's not that kind of girl; she has to take it the same way you the reader do. This is the same type of heavily biased thinking that often leads people to say a character is OOC in canon-- meaning, you can only get away with saying that if your complaint isn't 'but they're not acting how I wanted and expected them to act'-- because if it's merely circumstances, then, you know, people show different sides of themselves that weren't obvious before.
This ties into the whole 'projection onto the text' issue that I'm always grappling with (it's nearly impossible to avoid, but I believe it remains possible to be self-aware when doing it). In other words, if you want or don't want something to happen in a book not because it wouldn't fit, but because it doesn't fit your preferences or interest, then you're projecting and most likely wrong, yeah, though you could just get lucky.
I still don't know exactly where I stand on this issue. I'm not calling anyone names, obviously, I am just thinking that this is an issue of different types of readings, perhaps, and a certain kind being more conducive to understanding JKR's intent (which seems to be the clincher in this case).
I'm thinking, specifically, that a 'realistic' reading is much less suitable to overall understanding of the direction of the HP books than an archetypal reading that looks less at minor clues and more at overarching themes (and the typical fantasy arcs like the Hero's Journey), especially when it comes to characterization issues. I mean, she's sort of writing a social parody in many ways and using broad strokes with a lot of the minor characters, like say, the Dursleys or Fleur or Mrs. Weasley, and even Snape is very much a variation on a (Gothic) type. So if you're talking about what to expect in general terms, it probably helps to look at the character's most general characteristics; though a plot development may require them to act one way or another, I don't think this would apply to romance development, since the focus in on Ron, Hermione & Harry, and their friendship (which is largely why none of them are really paired up at the end of HBP).
Bottom line, it doesn't make sense to me to project an ideal relationship onto characters that appear to have their own minds, as good characters should; this is the same brain-strain that occurs when I try to understand why the Brian/Michael shippers are so insistent that Brian doesn't really want Justin or that they're not good for each other on QaF. I mean, you may disagree with it all you like, but, y'know, Brian does want Justin and not Michael; I don't really know what else one can say, except 'go write some fanfic, you'll feel better'.
It's in a similar fashion that the ship wars boggle my mind in HP. You can go on and on about how Hermione shouldn't want Ron 'cause he abuses her (leaving aside my personal feeling that he doesn't), and you won't change that Hermione doesn't feel that way, and there was never really any clue that she did. She wanted him to wake up and smell the coffee (like in GoF and the Yule Ball), sure, but she was never like, 'oh Ron, you loser' even when she got angry with him (in a way she never did with Harry, sure, but then you forgive more when you're not romantically invested... or maybe that's just me *whistles*). That was all reader projection, pure and simple.
I don't really know what my 'point' is, in the end. I'm feel a little offended by the idea that I don't know what love is just because I see many possible facets of it, many of which wouldn't be right for me personally. I also don't think there's such a thing as a 'cliche' or overdone relationship type (unless you mean to point at them all), but then I don't want to get into a debate about the value of originality vs. cliche (which seems to be common argument against opposites-attract type pairings).
I do feel this is all a losing battle; most people will never really care about at least trying to see characters they don't empathize with semi-objectively, merely out of respect for the character's self-validity.
Also, people have always projected their own desires onto fiction-- that's part of the fun of reading, really. It's only when people try to mix personal pleasure as a reader and analysis that things appear to go wrong. This all leads me to believe the wise thing to do would be to avoid much current fandom discourse, and so I will do.
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.)
I will, at this point, admit that I instinctively enjoyed and noticed JKR's nods at a certain type of opposites-attract relationship with many of her couples (Molly/Arthur, James/Lily, and yeah, I definitely saw hints of it with Ron/Hermione even in book 1... she even provides subtext in that same direction with Sirius/Remus, just because she seems to construct relationships-- even friendships-- with that dynamic in mind a lot of times). It worked more in terms of the implied (and possible) chemistry than actual execution, but what was there was still cute to me. And it's fine to judge that's a realistically unworkable dynamic (though I never knew 'workable longterm' was now the major determining factor in romance-- I always thought people said things like 'romance itself is fleeting' and so on). I'm just saying that archetype (love/hate, opposites-attract, the sparkly light-hearted romantic comedy trope) is pretty much everywhere in HP. That's partly why H/D seems to fit so well in my head, as the Gryffindor/Slytherin thing feels like an extension rather than a subversion of JKR's modus operandi so far.
It's just... what's really driven me up the wall with fandom recently isn't that we all disagree rabidly (I always knew that), but that everyone seemed to continuously project their own values and reactions onto the characters. Like, if -they- wouldn't like Ron's awkward idiotic fumblings, of course Hermione wouldn't, because Hermione's not that kind of girl; she has to take it the same way you the reader do. This is the same type of heavily biased thinking that often leads people to say a character is OOC in canon-- meaning, you can only get away with saying that if your complaint isn't 'but they're not acting how I wanted and expected them to act'-- because if it's merely circumstances, then, you know, people show different sides of themselves that weren't obvious before.
This ties into the whole 'projection onto the text' issue that I'm always grappling with (it's nearly impossible to avoid, but I believe it remains possible to be self-aware when doing it). In other words, if you want or don't want something to happen in a book not because it wouldn't fit, but because it doesn't fit your preferences or interest, then you're projecting and most likely wrong, yeah, though you could just get lucky.
I still don't know exactly where I stand on this issue. I'm not calling anyone names, obviously, I am just thinking that this is an issue of different types of readings, perhaps, and a certain kind being more conducive to understanding JKR's intent (which seems to be the clincher in this case).
I'm thinking, specifically, that a 'realistic' reading is much less suitable to overall understanding of the direction of the HP books than an archetypal reading that looks less at minor clues and more at overarching themes (and the typical fantasy arcs like the Hero's Journey), especially when it comes to characterization issues. I mean, she's sort of writing a social parody in many ways and using broad strokes with a lot of the minor characters, like say, the Dursleys or Fleur or Mrs. Weasley, and even Snape is very much a variation on a (Gothic) type. So if you're talking about what to expect in general terms, it probably helps to look at the character's most general characteristics; though a plot development may require them to act one way or another, I don't think this would apply to romance development, since the focus in on Ron, Hermione & Harry, and their friendship (which is largely why none of them are really paired up at the end of HBP).
Bottom line, it doesn't make sense to me to project an ideal relationship onto characters that appear to have their own minds, as good characters should; this is the same brain-strain that occurs when I try to understand why the Brian/Michael shippers are so insistent that Brian doesn't really want Justin or that they're not good for each other on QaF. I mean, you may disagree with it all you like, but, y'know, Brian does want Justin and not Michael; I don't really know what else one can say, except 'go write some fanfic, you'll feel better'.
It's in a similar fashion that the ship wars boggle my mind in HP. You can go on and on about how Hermione shouldn't want Ron 'cause he abuses her (leaving aside my personal feeling that he doesn't), and you won't change that Hermione doesn't feel that way, and there was never really any clue that she did. She wanted him to wake up and smell the coffee (like in GoF and the Yule Ball), sure, but she was never like, 'oh Ron, you loser' even when she got angry with him (in a way she never did with Harry, sure, but then you forgive more when you're not romantically invested... or maybe that's just me *whistles*). That was all reader projection, pure and simple.
I don't really know what my 'point' is, in the end. I'm feel a little offended by the idea that I don't know what love is just because I see many possible facets of it, many of which wouldn't be right for me personally. I also don't think there's such a thing as a 'cliche' or overdone relationship type (unless you mean to point at them all), but then I don't want to get into a debate about the value of originality vs. cliche (which seems to be common argument against opposites-attract type pairings).
I do feel this is all a losing battle; most people will never really care about at least trying to see characters they don't empathize with semi-objectively, merely out of respect for the character's self-validity.
Also, people have always projected their own desires onto fiction-- that's part of the fun of reading, really. It's only when people try to mix personal pleasure as a reader and analysis that things appear to go wrong. This all leads me to believe the wise thing to do would be to avoid much current fandom discourse, and so I will do.
