A Choice I Made For Very Personal Reasons
In my recent post about reconsidering JK Rowling's writing of romance in the Harry Potter series in light of the additional information from her later works, I declared myself puzzled by the following words of Rowling's:
What I will say is that I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment.
I wrote:
And it is not quite clear ( Read more... )
What I will say is that I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment.
I wrote:
And it is not quite clear ( Read more... )
I'm not saying the answer is "no" but I'm not sure the answer is "yes" either. And I imagine Rowling would be thinking less of "what would make Hermione happy?" and more of "what would make a good story?" That's where I think she mentioned the words "very little to do with literature"---she probably was realizing that probably some of her critics had a point when saying that the romance of Harry and Ginny was a bit pasted on (because it wasn't as well-integrated into the adventure action as it could have been) and the romance of Ron and Hermione also suffered from not having a point-of-view window into either character and forcing all their interactions to be either in Harry's presence or with Harry unwittingly eavesdropping. (I also think she dragged out their "getting together" unrealistically, somewhat muting its impact, but I don't think Rowling sees it that way.)
YES to all of this. Even the last bit.
I think truly good "from agitation to true love" storylines aren't dragged out. Because after a while, you realize they'd just give up. I mean, on one hand, I don't think Hermione marrying a guy she dated in her fourth year was realistic. OTOH, it really could've just been settled in HBP. I actually thought they were a couple at the end of HBP, because they're shown by the lake embracing. Harry and Ginny made a little more sense - they did break up, but only because Harry was worried for her safety.
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