Book Seven Predictions
antosha_c participated in a "Book Seven Predictions" Meme today, and I couldn't resist trying my hand. bandcandy has done something similar in the past, but I was able to maintain self-control in her case. Now I've lost it, and I have to give in. I'm listing AC's predictions below in italics and replying to them; then I'll add my own.
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Don't mind me, I've just been grumpy the last few days ... honestly, I thought there was a (good?) chance that H/Hr might eventuate in the 7th book, with all the evidence that was massing up. For some reason I thought that JKR had never quite articulated, in explicit, direct terms, that "Ronnie and Hermione will get together", etcetera, in that accursed, unprofessional "Interview o' Doom" she held right after HBP was released.
I don't know why I had that impression - which has allowed my hopes to build up over the past year, in the belief that she might have a big twist in the wings - because I went back to re-read it earlier this week and she does come right out and say it, damn it/her.
I'm suffering from a relapse of the grave disappointment I received when HBP came out, hence the grouchiness.
Some of us liked the romance subplot-such as it was-in HBP, and felt that the characterization followed from the earlier books.
'such as it was'.
Can you tell me why canon!Ginny loves Harry? What she sees in him? A comment from a fellow H/Hr fan caused me to ask myself this question yesterday. One of the big reasons you've said that your canon H/G is believable is because, purely on technical grounds, due to the mechanics of how JKR has written the story from Harry's perspective, we'd seen bugger all of the real Ginny - super!Ginny - until she burst upon us all in HBP.
Why does Ginny love Harry? There is absolutely no reason given in HBP, just a couple of 'hard, blazing looks'. So all I've got to go on is the crush she had on him from earlier, which is canon fact. Or otherwise the serendipitous match-up of adolescent hormonal lust and chest monsters, which leaves me completely unimpressed. Am I betraying a lack of same in my own childhood, the memory of which for other adult readers allows them to connect to canon's H/G?
I think Ginny's still running on that crush, given that she said that she "never really gave up" on him - i.e. she's still running on the momentum of a little girl's fantasy - and their farcical break-up scene when Ginny let slip:
I knew you wouldn't be happy unless you were hunting Voldemort. Maybe that's why I like you so much.
See, you poked me awake and got me angry all over again, grmmmmph. :-(
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But as to your second question -- why does Ginny love Harry -- I don't know that I could answer that properly for any relationship. I couldn't tell you why I couldn't get my best friend's little sister out of my head, no matter how I tried, back when I was seventeen. And twenty years later, after being married (not to the friend's sister :)) for ten years, why did I wake up one morning and realize that there was simply no other woman for me? Why is the first thing that really gets Harry's attention Ginny's smell? These sorts of primitive things, the things that make us choose our mates, are not subject to sound judgment and persuasive explanation.
But I agree that I felt a little blindsided when HBP came along -- I thought I'd been given one or two clear hints in OoP that there might be a relationship with Luna, or an outside chance with Tonks, even as I was being told that Cho was the Wrong One. But that's because I was blindsided, blindsided deliberately. And so was Harry.
But the reason I never felt that H/Hr was a serious possbility was because R/Hr was telegraphed very clearly in GoF, and even hinted at earlier. The alchemical site to which you pointed me says that the symbol on the back cover of DH is the "marriage of opposites." But in the HP universe the tempermental "opposites" have never been Harry and Hermione -- they've always been Hermione and Ron.
(...And indeed, thematic "opposites" in this case could very well mean Harry and Voldemort, which is truly scary. If JKR is following some of the classic coming of age narratives, Harry is going to have to come to terms with his own violent, hateful side, which means coming to terms with LV. Someone has recently pointed out that the end of DH might not be as simple as "H kills LV" or "LV kills H", because those endings do not take into account what each of them -- Harry and Tom -- would define as "victory.")
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Maybe I'm just exposing the lack of romance in my own life when I simply can't grok what was shown us in HBP. Or when I'm somewhat disgusted by it.
And then when you add in my preference/bias for Hermione, it all adds up to my current level of grouchiness.
:-(
But the reason I never felt that H/Hr was a serious possbility was because R/Hr was telegraphed very clearly in GoF, and even hinted at earlier.
I'm with you a million percent for Ron being (childishly) attracted to Hermione ... telegraphed with the 'anvil sized hints' that JKR was so smugly pleased about ... but there was very little to suggest that it went both ways. "You should have asked me first", possibly, after the ball, but that could have equally been read as simple frustration.
Nothing until lobotomised!Hermione turned up in HBP. Again, something that simply has never popped up in my own personal experience - not that I knew much about teenage girls when I was a teen, let alone these days - the idea that a brainy girl could suddenly behave so idiotically, all her attention tunnelled into attracting a simple jock. And yet there are people out there who say it's a known/common stereotype. Even if it is, I still maintain that (a) it's a lousy role model for JKR's juvenile readership, and (b) it didn't make for entertaining reading whatsoever.
:grumble:
I'd better leave now before Antosha comes over and pokes me again. Thanks for responding :-)
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In case the entry is protected against infidel unbelievers you, I'll post the most interesting bit of text here, posted by lj user hhr_fan_always:
The 'opposites' that a chemical wedding refer to is opposing elements, not 'opposites attract' like in romantic comedy or something.
The 'opposites' being referred to are hot/dry and cool/moist, fire/air and earth/water, masculine and feminine -- the purpose of the 'marriage' or chemical wedding was to unionize all the opposing forces in nature.
I'm going to steal from one of my own posts on the alchemy thread at ew.net so I don't have to rewrite this -- I apologize for my laziness!
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They're not meant to be astrological opposites -- they're meant to combine the four elements together. These are not just fire/air/water/earth, but also hot/dry/cool/moist.
Here's a quote from Nicholas Flamel about this marriage of elements. In it, he's describing one of the emblems that ended up on his tomb -- it is a picture of Flamel with his wife Perenelle. I'll stick the picture at the bottom of this post.
"I made then to be painted here two bodies, one of a Male, and another of a Female, to teach thee that in this second operation, thou hast truely, but yet not perfectly, two natures conjoined and married together, the Masculine and the Feminine, or rather the four Elements; and that the four natural enemies, the hot and cold, dry and moist, begin to approach amiably one towards another, and by means of the Mediators and Peace-makers, lay down by little and little, the ancient enmity of the old Chaos."
Here's the picture:
(URL is http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u220/vilepaper/flamel-perenelle.gif)
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Again, the R/Hr shipper argument is that Ron is sulphur and thus represents the fire/air, hot/dry, masculine portion of the union. However, there is no real evidence to back this up -- he doesn't match astrologically, elementally, in personality, or in literary function. If he were sulphur, it would be he that would be taking the Seven Steps of Alchemical Transformation so that he could be transmuted into gold. But this isn't Ron Weasley and the..., no matter how many OBHWF wish it to be so.
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