J. Rowling confesses she's a Harry/Hermione shipper!
Well, I guess today wasn't a good day to try and get any work done ... :-)
Around mid-morning my IN box started showing unusual activity. J.K. Rowling regrets Ron and Hermione’s relationship!! and other headlines start appearing. Oodles of HP H/Hr fans come out of their 'retirement' to post the news (great to see them again! There's nothing like a page of colourful H/Hr icons; I think I imprinted on them back when I first got involved with the fandom. :-)). My LJ Friends page full of posts glorying in the news that Rowling has decided that her prized Ron/Hermione pairing was not 'credible' and wouldn't work; that "Hermione should have wed Harry".
There's been a few links doing the rounds; this is one of them:
J.K. Rowling questions Ron and Hermione’s relationship
I wish it was otherwise, but my first and primary reaction can be summarised as "M'eh, who cares, it's only Rowling". For the same reasons I didn't much care about her 2008 "it could have been Harry/Hermione" revelation to chief sycophant Melissa Anelli I likewise can't muster much interest in what Rowling has apparently said this time. It's only Rowling.
Deathly Hallows is the world's greatest literary catastrophe (in terms of commercial success). It has plot holes on top of contradictions on top of dei ex machina on top of cliched farce on top of just plain bad writing. Failure manifold and manifest. It's one of the few (I assume) published novels in the world of literature which is *provably* and objectively broken.
So I give Rowling's post-publication propaganda the same respect I give her HP writing in general - near zero. Bad canon is bad canon before Rowling discovered that for herself. Bad canon is still bad canon after she confesses to the mistake. She stands back from her work and realises that Ron/Hermione was a bad pairing, that Harry/Hermione was superior. Yeah, okay, we were saying that ten years ago Rowling, join the club.
Maybe next month she'll be telling us that she now understands how pathetic it was to introduce the dei ex machina Hallows in the final novel just to get Harry over the finish line. Or how Ron's suddenly extorting Harry "don't say the name!" because "it feels like a - a jinx or something" was excrement that most would be embarrassed of writing in high school. Or that the desperate injection of brand-new wand lore broke the rules of the preceding six-sevenths of the series.
On the score of "how does this change *my* HP views" the answer is "very little". Rowling's opinion has no more weight than any other fan. Particularly when objective canon evidence is on one's side.
What *is* interesting is to have a little bit more insight into a question that I've pondered occasionally since 1997 - did Rowling *know* just how bad her work was? Back then? Was her 'oh, maths!' mind oblivious to the myriad flaws of logic, of plot? Or was she aware ... and just didn't care? Abysmal writing or pathetic professionalism?
If you take her at her word - well, her words this week - she's only now, honestly, realised that Ron/Hermione was a failure. "If I'm absolutely honest, distance has given me perspective on that." Maybe she similarly didn't perceive all of the other problems with the train wreck known as Deathly Hallows back when she was writing it, as incredible as that may be.
Maybe next month she'll come out apologising for some of them as well.
So, overall, it's nice to know that Rowling is now a H/Hr shipper, but it doesn't change much for me when it comes to my own HP beliefs and proofs.
On the entertainment level it's amusing to read that the Harry Potter author is now admitting - with regard to Ron/Hermione - that her writing had "very little to do with literature". This only strengthens the observation that the rest of DH/HP was literary manure also. :-) Her concession that her writing R/Hr was not made "for reasons of credibility" lends more credence to those who believe that the rest of what she wrote isn't credible either.
I admit, that's satisfying. And a bit funny. :-)
On the pure fandom front - as distinct from analysing Rowling's work itself - I can't help laughing when I remember all of the mental midgets who insisted that they were 'right' about OBHWF because 'Jo says so'. Who couldn't seem to understand that canon didn't have to be GOOD canon; that the author telling people how they should read her canon didn't actually change that canon, or make it 'right' all of a sudden. Rowling's interview instructions about maternal love didn't suddenly make the Molly/Bellatrix scene work, even though some fans thought otherwise. Her blessing the Harry/Ginny relationship as one of 'soul mates' didn't suddenly conjure new canon into the pages of our books, despite some people in the fandom desperately hoping/thinking that it gave some sort of new interpretation to the H/G text that was actually there.
It's funny to think about those people now, today; the Rowling disciples who let their author-god do their thinking for them. I honestly don't think anyone on my minimal LJ Friends list is among them; my fandom involvement was in two phases, with the pre-DH period being entirely on LJ - I loved those shipping debates! - and the post-1997 participation mostly on other web sites. It was in the later term that I came across most of the pro-Jo zombies. It was an interesting education.
Anyway, I wonder what those people are doing? Abandoning R/Hr, or jettisoning Rowling? Pick one. Hee. :-)
What else can I say? All of the above is on the provision that the interview is authentic, and not an April Fools Day joke two months early. It's also uncertain, I think, as to the actual degree of love Rowling is giving Harry/Hermione. She's trashing her Ron/Hermione, and that's fine. :-) I'm not sure if she's then following up with saying she should have written H/Hr. To go that extra step means that Rowling would have to recant her H/G "soul mates" interview nonsense too, of which she seemed to be particularly defensive back in the day (on two occasions repeating the mantra unprompted). An affirmation of H/Hr from the HP author would generate further embarrassment for said author.
One ponders the real reason for all of this. A HP friend reckons it's to churn up the waters of publicity in advance of a new (HP) project. Surely it's humiliating for an author to admit to one and all that she made a mistake, wrote the wrong thing? Even if she's right about being wrong? :-)
Finally ... I remember when DH came out and we in the H/Hr community despaired over Emma Watson's squeeing over Ron and Hermione's marriage and 'having babies', as I recall. Emma Watson was something of a poster girl for H/Hr - viz those icons I imprinted on, above :-) - and clearly very intelligent, getting A levels and then attending university. I remember deploring her judgement on this matter and wondering if it was a case of not wanting to bite the hand that fed her.
Now this article states that "Watson didn't seem shocked by these comments and agreed with her". THIS MAKES PERFECT SENSE, YO. I'm relieved that Emma was maybe exercising some poetic licence back in the day.
Now I wish someone could get her frank opinion about the series as a whole ...
Well, right now I imagine Steve Kloves is in a hidden cellar brushing the dust off a box labelled "SECRET HARRY/HERMIONE FILM FOOTAGE". The movie folk went absolutely as far as they could with H/Hr - given that they had to stick to the canon - short of stashing the redheads in a rocket and shooting them into the sun. Now that Rowling has (hopefully - pending that H/G thing) given them the green light, can a new DH ending and epilogue be very far away? :-)
Around mid-morning my IN box started showing unusual activity. J.K. Rowling regrets Ron and Hermione’s relationship!! and other headlines start appearing. Oodles of HP H/Hr fans come out of their 'retirement' to post the news (great to see them again! There's nothing like a page of colourful H/Hr icons; I think I imprinted on them back when I first got involved with the fandom. :-)). My LJ Friends page full of posts glorying in the news that Rowling has decided that her prized Ron/Hermione pairing was not 'credible' and wouldn't work; that "Hermione should have wed Harry".
There's been a few links doing the rounds; this is one of them:
J.K. Rowling questions Ron and Hermione’s relationship
I wish it was otherwise, but my first and primary reaction can be summarised as "M'eh, who cares, it's only Rowling". For the same reasons I didn't much care about her 2008 "it could have been Harry/Hermione" revelation to chief sycophant Melissa Anelli I likewise can't muster much interest in what Rowling has apparently said this time. It's only Rowling.
Deathly Hallows is the world's greatest literary catastrophe (in terms of commercial success). It has plot holes on top of contradictions on top of dei ex machina on top of cliched farce on top of just plain bad writing. Failure manifold and manifest. It's one of the few (I assume) published novels in the world of literature which is *provably* and objectively broken.
So I give Rowling's post-publication propaganda the same respect I give her HP writing in general - near zero. Bad canon is bad canon before Rowling discovered that for herself. Bad canon is still bad canon after she confesses to the mistake. She stands back from her work and realises that Ron/Hermione was a bad pairing, that Harry/Hermione was superior. Yeah, okay, we were saying that ten years ago Rowling, join the club.
Maybe next month she'll be telling us that she now understands how pathetic it was to introduce the dei ex machina Hallows in the final novel just to get Harry over the finish line. Or how Ron's suddenly extorting Harry "don't say the name!" because "it feels like a - a jinx or something" was excrement that most would be embarrassed of writing in high school. Or that the desperate injection of brand-new wand lore broke the rules of the preceding six-sevenths of the series.
On the score of "how does this change *my* HP views" the answer is "very little". Rowling's opinion has no more weight than any other fan. Particularly when objective canon evidence is on one's side.
What *is* interesting is to have a little bit more insight into a question that I've pondered occasionally since 1997 - did Rowling *know* just how bad her work was? Back then? Was her 'oh, maths!' mind oblivious to the myriad flaws of logic, of plot? Or was she aware ... and just didn't care? Abysmal writing or pathetic professionalism?
If you take her at her word - well, her words this week - she's only now, honestly, realised that Ron/Hermione was a failure. "If I'm absolutely honest, distance has given me perspective on that." Maybe she similarly didn't perceive all of the other problems with the train wreck known as Deathly Hallows back when she was writing it, as incredible as that may be.
Maybe next month she'll come out apologising for some of them as well.
So, overall, it's nice to know that Rowling is now a H/Hr shipper, but it doesn't change much for me when it comes to my own HP beliefs and proofs.
On the entertainment level it's amusing to read that the Harry Potter author is now admitting - with regard to Ron/Hermione - that her writing had "very little to do with literature". This only strengthens the observation that the rest of DH/HP was literary manure also. :-) Her concession that her writing R/Hr was not made "for reasons of credibility" lends more credence to those who believe that the rest of what she wrote isn't credible either.
I admit, that's satisfying. And a bit funny. :-)
On the pure fandom front - as distinct from analysing Rowling's work itself - I can't help laughing when I remember all of the mental midgets who insisted that they were 'right' about OBHWF because 'Jo says so'. Who couldn't seem to understand that canon didn't have to be GOOD canon; that the author telling people how they should read her canon didn't actually change that canon, or make it 'right' all of a sudden. Rowling's interview instructions about maternal love didn't suddenly make the Molly/Bellatrix scene work, even though some fans thought otherwise. Her blessing the Harry/Ginny relationship as one of 'soul mates' didn't suddenly conjure new canon into the pages of our books, despite some people in the fandom desperately hoping/thinking that it gave some sort of new interpretation to the H/G text that was actually there.
It's funny to think about those people now, today; the Rowling disciples who let their author-god do their thinking for them. I honestly don't think anyone on my minimal LJ Friends list is among them; my fandom involvement was in two phases, with the pre-DH period being entirely on LJ - I loved those shipping debates! - and the post-1997 participation mostly on other web sites. It was in the later term that I came across most of the pro-Jo zombies. It was an interesting education.
Anyway, I wonder what those people are doing? Abandoning R/Hr, or jettisoning Rowling? Pick one. Hee. :-)
What else can I say? All of the above is on the provision that the interview is authentic, and not an April Fools Day joke two months early. It's also uncertain, I think, as to the actual degree of love Rowling is giving Harry/Hermione. She's trashing her Ron/Hermione, and that's fine. :-) I'm not sure if she's then following up with saying she should have written H/Hr. To go that extra step means that Rowling would have to recant her H/G "soul mates" interview nonsense too, of which she seemed to be particularly defensive back in the day (on two occasions repeating the mantra unprompted). An affirmation of H/Hr from the HP author would generate further embarrassment for said author.
One ponders the real reason for all of this. A HP friend reckons it's to churn up the waters of publicity in advance of a new (HP) project. Surely it's humiliating for an author to admit to one and all that she made a mistake, wrote the wrong thing? Even if she's right about being wrong? :-)
Finally ... I remember when DH came out and we in the H/Hr community despaired over Emma Watson's squeeing over Ron and Hermione's marriage and 'having babies', as I recall. Emma Watson was something of a poster girl for H/Hr - viz those icons I imprinted on, above :-) - and clearly very intelligent, getting A levels and then attending university. I remember deploring her judgement on this matter and wondering if it was a case of not wanting to bite the hand that fed her.
Now this article states that "Watson didn't seem shocked by these comments and agreed with her". THIS MAKES PERFECT SENSE, YO. I'm relieved that Emma was maybe exercising some poetic licence back in the day.
Now I wish someone could get her frank opinion about the series as a whole ...
Well, right now I imagine Steve Kloves is in a hidden cellar brushing the dust off a box labelled "SECRET HARRY/HERMIONE FILM FOOTAGE". The movie folk went absolutely as far as they could with H/Hr - given that they had to stick to the canon - short of stashing the redheads in a rocket and shooting them into the sun. Now that Rowling has (hopefully - pending that H/G thing) given them the green light, can a new DH ending and epilogue be very far away? :-)