Community plug, overanalysis
Note: I cleared the plug with one of the mods
I'm trying to start up an essay exchange. It works the same as a fic or art exchange. You give a prompt for someone else to write an essay off of. You write an essay based on someone's prompt. Anyone can join. The community is essay_exchange, intro post here.
I bring an old essay to go along with this plug:
Over analysis is usually considered a weakness of an argument, reading way too much into it, getting further from the actual source text, but self-aware overanalysis can usually lead to some conclusions that fit quite well into the text
Hermione's instant dislike of a Fleur is a big clue as to how Hermione really feels. Why dislike a total stranger? Unless you're trying to cover up socially inappropriate feelings? Hermione can't like Fleur, not in the wizarding world which is obviously traditional and therefore heterocentirc. Added to that, Fleur is a knockout, and therefore totally out of Hermione's league. Hermione knows that she doesn't have shot with this girl, but she is crushing badly, so what does she do? Act like she dislikes the girl of course. It's reaction formation, a classic Freudian defense mechanism in which the ego unconsciously flips unacceptable/impossible feelings to their opposites. Basically her unconscious is telling her to hate Fleur to save her from the emotional pain liking Fleur would wreak on her. Course the defense mechanism doesn't stay in place the entire time, so little slips occur.
Hermione gives us hints to her true feelings for Fleur through her jealousy. In GoF she stares daggers at the boys when Fleur kisses them because she will never get that kiss she treasures. Her dislike of Fleur in HBP is also a defense mechanism. She thinks that she is losing the girl she loves to another, so she not only flips her feelings towards Fleur, she also displaces her anger at Bill for stealing Fleur towards Ron, the Weasley on whom she can easily take out all her anger and frustrations.
But of course, no ship could float if it was one sided. It's also clear Fleur fancies Hermione. Why else would she kiss two childish boys,if not to make the one girl she fancies jealous. There is also her choice of male mate. A former headboy, now employee at a bank, with too much hair and a slight rebellious streak. I mean, the parallel is quite easy to see. And at Hogwarts? She went for Cedric, also a rule abiding clean cut prefect. Maybe not consciously, but both pretty cleanly match up to Hermione, Then there is also the way Fleur just throws her relationship with Bill into Hermione's face at the Burrow. I mean, she clearly wants to get a reaction from Hermione, otherwise she would be just a tad more discreet.
Not all people would get along as friends, and Hermione and Fleur top this list. For Hermione, Fleur basically represents everything she isn't, a gorgeous polished knockout who can grab all the attention without lifting a finger. And Fleur just finds Hermione's causes and emotions too much too handle. She feels like she has to share Hermione with her friends and her causes and the world at large. So we've already got possible resentment and jealousy, and on top of that, they are also both very high strung, when they lose it, they completely lose it, and they just can't relax too well left to their own devices. Try to make them friends, and the result will be a disaster, because each needs a lot more than the other can give emotionally. But they still find each other hot, and at a certain point, it's gotta come to a head because these girls emotions slip out. So the solution? Definitely a one time thing when Fleur freaks out before her wedding, maybe more depending on if the wedding is canceled or not.
Yeah, I know you're all giving me funny looks and thinking "why in the world would JK write Hermione/Fleur?" but listen, it does make a lot of sense. First off, JK loves to play with traditional cliches and subvert them, and what could be better than the beauty and the brain with both female? But even then, JK gets to keep her theme of realistic romance by showing that lust isn't enough to overcome basic differences. So why B/F and R/Hr? Red herrings of course. A children's book can not have a homosexual relationship, so JK gives two cookie cutter het ships to keep her publishers happy, and come on, at this point enough people will read the last one regardless of what she writes that she can put in anything
The point of the above is that for all the crack involved, there is some truth usually buried in the mess. Fleur really does represent some of these things that Hermione will never have, especially in GoF where Hermione's femininity is brought front and center, and in HBP where Fleur is getting all this attention while Hermione's romantic prospects (pick a guy) are going nowhere. Some of the arguments I used for this essay are pulled from real shipping arguments, ones that actually make sense with respect to that ship.
The line between solid analysis and crack can be quite thin at times, but that's probably a good thing. The crack makes the five zillionth essay on Draco Malfoy easier to absorb, cause you have the *lol* and wtf? factor. It's trainwreck syndrome applied to essays, you can't stop staring cause it's so off the wall. It's what you say not how you say it, so long as the how is logical, well organized, polished, and the mechanics follow the rules of whatver language you are working in, the essay probably works. It's all a matter of separating the solid from the crack.
Getting back to my comm plug, a more cohesive version of the above, (either piece or both together) would be fine,, so long as it fulfills the prompt. At the moment, everything is pretty flexible.