The Geometry of Romance: Introduction
This is sort of a continuation of this post I wrote a couple of years ago, using the new information from Jo Rowling's post-Potter works to reflect back on her writing of romance in the Harry Potter series. I want to return to Rowling's comments in her 2014 interview with Emma Watson:
What I will say is that I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment. That’s how it was conceived, really. For reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it, Hermione with Ron.
...
I know, I’m sorry, I can hear the rage and fury it might cause some fans, but if I’m absolutely honest, distance has given me perspective on that. It was a choice I made for very personal reasons, not for reasons of credibility. Am I breaking people’s hearts by saying this? I hope not.
I have already taken my best shot at explaining what I think she meant by "I wrote [it] as a form of wish fulfillment." What I want to talk about now is the bolded part and I want to incorporate the new information that has become available since I wrote those two posts, namely the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and the movie Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (plus whatever hints we have about the sequel The Crimes of Grindelwald).
Ha! Now that I have lured you into clicking on the cut with Harry Potter I will digress (as I am so wont to do) into a discussion of a brilliant romance novelist, Georgette Heyer.
“I Believe There Are Two Ways of Writing Novels. One Is Making a Sort of Musical Comedy Without Music...”
My favorite Heyer book, and in my opinion her masterpiece, is called Cotillion. It is named after a dance that (according to Wikipedia) is:
a social dance, popular in 18th-century Europe and America. Originally for four couples in square formation, it was a courtly version of an English country dance, the forerunner of the quadrille and, in the United States, the square dance.
In this novel, sure enough, there are four male characters and four female characters in a complicated "dance" of romance. Our heroine Kitty is in love with Jack, fake-engaged to Freddie, and courted by Camille and Dolph. Jack intends to marry Kitty in the future but right now he is engaged in a flirtation with Freddie's married sister Meg and trying to seduce Kitty's friend Olivia. Fortune hunter Camille courts the heiress Kitty, more seriously courts another heiress off-stage, and falls in love with Olivia. Dolph is forced by his mother to court Kitty, but is in love with Hannah, whom Kitty also befriends. Also, Jack, Freddie, and Dolph are all second cousins and Kitty must marry one of them to inherit her fortune. And Kitty and Camille are first cousins.
When the music stops at the end of the book and the changing of partners ends, three happy marriages are suddenly arranged--over significant obstacles--all on the same day. At the same time we find out about an important offstage engagement, so we have four marriages in all, as is proper. I know it sounds ridiculous but it is perfectly-executed and satisfying and exhilarating to read.
Georgette Heyer was a master of romance writing at the top of her form and I wouldn't recommend any novice writer--which Rowling definitely is in comparison--to jump right into an octet geometry with this much crossing of hands. I suspect that this elaborate of a geometric design only really fits in a pure romance novel. Jane Austen, for instance, often approaches this degree of complexity. Think of Emma, for instance, with Emma, Harriet, Jane, and Augusta (Mrs. Elton) lined up to dance with Mr. Martin, Mr. Knightley, Frank Churchill, and Mr. Elton. Pride and Prejudice has Elizabeth, Jane, Charlotte, and Lydia ending up with Darcy, Bingley, Mr. Collins, and Wickham. Mansfield Park has just as many potential couples, though not as many actual marriages at the end. None of these, however, has everything happening in a simultaneous climax as Cotillion does (though Emma comes pretty close).
I've tried to think of a non-romance novel that has this kind of ambitious geometry and the closest I've come is Lois Bujold's A Civil Campaign which has five couples matched at the end (though with not nearly as much cross-courting), and is only about, oh, 85% romance. A Midsummer's Night Dream has four couples, but it's pretty much 100% romance and only two of the couples cross hands.
My point--and yes, I do have one--is that the geometric patterns that an author attempts are a major determinant in the emotional effect that a fictional romance will have on its readers or viewers. Rowling seems to be indicating, in the interview I quoted above and in a different interview1 that she had with Melissa Anelli after Deathly Hallows was published in 2007, that she has had some qualms or second thoughts about her writing of the Ron/Hermione romance plot, and certainly she has received plenty of criticism about it. She has received plenty of criticism about her Harry/Ginny romance plot as well, but I haven't seen her express any self-doubt about that one. As best I can understand from what she said, she definitely has doubts about the compatibility of Ron and Hermione as people ("I think the attraction itself is plausible but the combative side of it ... there was too much fundamental incompatibility") but she also hints that it is partly a structural, literary issue ("for reasons that have very little to do with literature").
I've mentioned before that Ron and Hermione aren't real people. If Rowling came to believe that they had "too much fundamental incompatibility" to be happy together, she had the absolute power to adjust their personalities to be less combative and more compatible. It seems, though, that this doubt about their compatibility did not occur to her until she was pretty far along in writing the seventh book and I will admit there was not much she could do about it at that point. Also, it seems clear to me that these second thoughts of hers were absolutely influenced by her knowledge of the ferocious disagreements between Harry/Hermione shippers and Ron/Hermione shippers among her fans, and that's why in both interviews she places her new perspective in the context of moments between Harry and Hermione that happen when they're pursuing Horcruxes without Ron. In fact, both times she actually mentions the happy and unhappy fans. So her doubts and fan unhappiness both arose in the context of the geometry of her trio of protagonists.
We can see this clearly if we consider two counterfactuals:
1 - Imagine that there was no trio in the Harry Potter books, but only a duo. Let's imagine a hero who is in Harry's situation and has a lot of Harry's personality but with Ron's outgoing impulsiveness and argumentativeness. This hero and Hermione are mutually attracted from very early. They meet on the train, strike sparks from the beginning, he makes her cry, defeats the troll in the bathroom and saves her, and they go on through the books doing all the Ron/Hermione bickering, Yule Ball jealousy, etc. but also all the problem-solving and hero stuff together. I strongly--very strongly--suspect that in this case there would have been NO serious debate about whether or not Harryron and Hermione would end up together. Some people would have disliked the romance, but probably not that many. The pairing would have been widely loved and there would have been no ship debates.
2 - Imagine the trio exactly as we had it, keep Ron's and Hermione's longtime mutual attraction, but take away their combativeness. Instead of bickering lovers let's make them shy lovers instead, much like Newt and Tina in Fantastic Beasts. The trio become friends in a different way, there is no Cat/Rat fight, Ron only quietly sticks by Harry during the Firebolt fight, their mutual Yule-Ball-related hurt and jealousy is expressed by quiet sadness and self-doubt rather than anger, and they are kept apart by awkwardness and misunderstanding rather than than by any kind of conflict. Neither of them tells Harry that they fancy the other; the reader has to figure it out from the pattern of blushing, sighs, and various awkward moments. Harry still fights with both of them just much as he does in the actual books, but they don't fight with each other or bicker incessantly. Would there still have been a whole bunch of vehement Harry/Hermione shippers? HELL YES THERE WOULD!
Harry's and Hermione's close loving friendship, cooperation on important Voldemort-related projects, and all the other elements so persuasive to H/Hr shippers would still have existed. Hermione would still have been the most important and "best" girl in the books. It still would have been extremely easy for people to overlook or misinterpret all the behavioral clues of Ron's and Hermione's mutual interest and decide that Ron was disloyal, disposable, and unworthy of the "heroine," especially in comparison to Harry. I maintain that the debates would have been just as vociferous and long-lasting as they were in our timeline. Oh, there might have been somewhat different people debating. For instance, I probably wouldn't have gotten all hot and bothered about R/Hr so I might never have been interested enough to find and join the debate. And of course the specific arguments would have been different. But I am sure the debates would have been just as contentious and intractable.
Because the problem was never personality. The problem was geometry.
Note:
1 - Because I haven't found the text of this comment anywhere online I will copy it here from Melissa's book:
[after mentioning Emerson and his "delusional" comment] "I tried very hard to soften it, I suppose, during the interview inasmuch as just because someone had a view on Harry/Hermione didn't mean they weren't genuine or that they were necessarily misguided.
"In fact, I will say this. Steve Kloves, who has been the scriptwriter up until four, wasn't on five, and is back for six and seven, who is enormously insightful on the series and a very good friend--after he read book seven he said to me, 'You know, I thought something was going to happen between Harry and Hermione, and I didn't know whether I wanted it to or not.' But there was--he felt--a certain pull between them at that point. And I think he's right. There are two moments when they touch, which are charged moments. One when she touches his hair as he sits on the hilltop after reading about Dumbledore and Grindelwald, and the moment when they walk out of the graveyard with their arms around each other.
"Now, the fact is that Hermione at that point shares moments with Harry that Ron will never be able to participate in. He walked out. She shared something very intense with Harry. So, I think it could have gone that way, but I had always planned that Harry's true soul mate, which I stand by, is Ginny, and that Ron and Hermione have this combative but mutual attraction. They will always bicker, there will always be rough edges there, but they are pulled together--each has something the other needs."--Anelli, Melissa, Harry, A History Revised Edition, (New York: Pocket Books, 2008), "The J.K. Rowling Interview".
--
Part Two: Pairs
Part Three: Quartets and More
Part Four: Trios
Part Five: Conclusion
What I will say is that I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment. That’s how it was conceived, really. For reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it, Hermione with Ron.
...
I know, I’m sorry, I can hear the rage and fury it might cause some fans, but if I’m absolutely honest, distance has given me perspective on that. It was a choice I made for very personal reasons, not for reasons of credibility. Am I breaking people’s hearts by saying this? I hope not.
I have already taken my best shot at explaining what I think she meant by "I wrote [it] as a form of wish fulfillment." What I want to talk about now is the bolded part and I want to incorporate the new information that has become available since I wrote those two posts, namely the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and the movie Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (plus whatever hints we have about the sequel The Crimes of Grindelwald).
Ha! Now that I have lured you into clicking on the cut with Harry Potter I will digress (as I am so wont to do) into a discussion of a brilliant romance novelist, Georgette Heyer.
“I Believe There Are Two Ways of Writing Novels. One Is Making a Sort of Musical Comedy Without Music...”
My favorite Heyer book, and in my opinion her masterpiece, is called Cotillion. It is named after a dance that (according to Wikipedia) is:
a social dance, popular in 18th-century Europe and America. Originally for four couples in square formation, it was a courtly version of an English country dance, the forerunner of the quadrille and, in the United States, the square dance.
In this novel, sure enough, there are four male characters and four female characters in a complicated "dance" of romance. Our heroine Kitty is in love with Jack, fake-engaged to Freddie, and courted by Camille and Dolph. Jack intends to marry Kitty in the future but right now he is engaged in a flirtation with Freddie's married sister Meg and trying to seduce Kitty's friend Olivia. Fortune hunter Camille courts the heiress Kitty, more seriously courts another heiress off-stage, and falls in love with Olivia. Dolph is forced by his mother to court Kitty, but is in love with Hannah, whom Kitty also befriends. Also, Jack, Freddie, and Dolph are all second cousins and Kitty must marry one of them to inherit her fortune. And Kitty and Camille are first cousins.
When the music stops at the end of the book and the changing of partners ends, three happy marriages are suddenly arranged--over significant obstacles--all on the same day. At the same time we find out about an important offstage engagement, so we have four marriages in all, as is proper. I know it sounds ridiculous but it is perfectly-executed and satisfying and exhilarating to read.
Georgette Heyer was a master of romance writing at the top of her form and I wouldn't recommend any novice writer--which Rowling definitely is in comparison--to jump right into an octet geometry with this much crossing of hands. I suspect that this elaborate of a geometric design only really fits in a pure romance novel. Jane Austen, for instance, often approaches this degree of complexity. Think of Emma, for instance, with Emma, Harriet, Jane, and Augusta (Mrs. Elton) lined up to dance with Mr. Martin, Mr. Knightley, Frank Churchill, and Mr. Elton. Pride and Prejudice has Elizabeth, Jane, Charlotte, and Lydia ending up with Darcy, Bingley, Mr. Collins, and Wickham. Mansfield Park has just as many potential couples, though not as many actual marriages at the end. None of these, however, has everything happening in a simultaneous climax as Cotillion does (though Emma comes pretty close).
I've tried to think of a non-romance novel that has this kind of ambitious geometry and the closest I've come is Lois Bujold's A Civil Campaign which has five couples matched at the end (though with not nearly as much cross-courting), and is only about, oh, 85% romance. A Midsummer's Night Dream has four couples, but it's pretty much 100% romance and only two of the couples cross hands.
My point--and yes, I do have one--is that the geometric patterns that an author attempts are a major determinant in the emotional effect that a fictional romance will have on its readers or viewers. Rowling seems to be indicating, in the interview I quoted above and in a different interview1 that she had with Melissa Anelli after Deathly Hallows was published in 2007, that she has had some qualms or second thoughts about her writing of the Ron/Hermione romance plot, and certainly she has received plenty of criticism about it. She has received plenty of criticism about her Harry/Ginny romance plot as well, but I haven't seen her express any self-doubt about that one. As best I can understand from what she said, she definitely has doubts about the compatibility of Ron and Hermione as people ("I think the attraction itself is plausible but the combative side of it ... there was too much fundamental incompatibility") but she also hints that it is partly a structural, literary issue ("for reasons that have very little to do with literature").
I've mentioned before that Ron and Hermione aren't real people. If Rowling came to believe that they had "too much fundamental incompatibility" to be happy together, she had the absolute power to adjust their personalities to be less combative and more compatible. It seems, though, that this doubt about their compatibility did not occur to her until she was pretty far along in writing the seventh book and I will admit there was not much she could do about it at that point. Also, it seems clear to me that these second thoughts of hers were absolutely influenced by her knowledge of the ferocious disagreements between Harry/Hermione shippers and Ron/Hermione shippers among her fans, and that's why in both interviews she places her new perspective in the context of moments between Harry and Hermione that happen when they're pursuing Horcruxes without Ron. In fact, both times she actually mentions the happy and unhappy fans. So her doubts and fan unhappiness both arose in the context of the geometry of her trio of protagonists.
We can see this clearly if we consider two counterfactuals:
1 - Imagine that there was no trio in the Harry Potter books, but only a duo. Let's imagine a hero who is in Harry's situation and has a lot of Harry's personality but with Ron's outgoing impulsiveness and argumentativeness. This hero and Hermione are mutually attracted from very early. They meet on the train, strike sparks from the beginning, he makes her cry, defeats the troll in the bathroom and saves her, and they go on through the books doing all the Ron/Hermione bickering, Yule Ball jealousy, etc. but also all the problem-solving and hero stuff together. I strongly--very strongly--suspect that in this case there would have been NO serious debate about whether or not Harryron and Hermione would end up together. Some people would have disliked the romance, but probably not that many. The pairing would have been widely loved and there would have been no ship debates.
2 - Imagine the trio exactly as we had it, keep Ron's and Hermione's longtime mutual attraction, but take away their combativeness. Instead of bickering lovers let's make them shy lovers instead, much like Newt and Tina in Fantastic Beasts. The trio become friends in a different way, there is no Cat/Rat fight, Ron only quietly sticks by Harry during the Firebolt fight, their mutual Yule-Ball-related hurt and jealousy is expressed by quiet sadness and self-doubt rather than anger, and they are kept apart by awkwardness and misunderstanding rather than than by any kind of conflict. Neither of them tells Harry that they fancy the other; the reader has to figure it out from the pattern of blushing, sighs, and various awkward moments. Harry still fights with both of them just much as he does in the actual books, but they don't fight with each other or bicker incessantly. Would there still have been a whole bunch of vehement Harry/Hermione shippers? HELL YES THERE WOULD!
Harry's and Hermione's close loving friendship, cooperation on important Voldemort-related projects, and all the other elements so persuasive to H/Hr shippers would still have existed. Hermione would still have been the most important and "best" girl in the books. It still would have been extremely easy for people to overlook or misinterpret all the behavioral clues of Ron's and Hermione's mutual interest and decide that Ron was disloyal, disposable, and unworthy of the "heroine," especially in comparison to Harry. I maintain that the debates would have been just as vociferous and long-lasting as they were in our timeline. Oh, there might have been somewhat different people debating. For instance, I probably wouldn't have gotten all hot and bothered about R/Hr so I might never have been interested enough to find and join the debate. And of course the specific arguments would have been different. But I am sure the debates would have been just as contentious and intractable.
Because the problem was never personality. The problem was geometry.
Note:
1 - Because I haven't found the text of this comment anywhere online I will copy it here from Melissa's book:
[after mentioning Emerson and his "delusional" comment] "I tried very hard to soften it, I suppose, during the interview inasmuch as just because someone had a view on Harry/Hermione didn't mean they weren't genuine or that they were necessarily misguided.
"In fact, I will say this. Steve Kloves, who has been the scriptwriter up until four, wasn't on five, and is back for six and seven, who is enormously insightful on the series and a very good friend--after he read book seven he said to me, 'You know, I thought something was going to happen between Harry and Hermione, and I didn't know whether I wanted it to or not.' But there was--he felt--a certain pull between them at that point. And I think he's right. There are two moments when they touch, which are charged moments. One when she touches his hair as he sits on the hilltop after reading about Dumbledore and Grindelwald, and the moment when they walk out of the graveyard with their arms around each other.
"Now, the fact is that Hermione at that point shares moments with Harry that Ron will never be able to participate in. He walked out. She shared something very intense with Harry. So, I think it could have gone that way, but I had always planned that Harry's true soul mate, which I stand by, is Ginny, and that Ron and Hermione have this combative but mutual attraction. They will always bicker, there will always be rough edges there, but they are pulled together--each has something the other needs."--Anelli, Melissa, Harry, A History Revised Edition, (New York: Pocket Books, 2008), "The J.K. Rowling Interview".
--
Part Two: Pairs
Part Three: Quartets and More
Part Four: Trios
Part Five: Conclusion