Harry Potter and author's remorse

[rthstewart]

In case you missed it, last night JK says that Hermione and Ron were a mistake she regrets, that Hermione should have married Harry, and that Hermione and Ron was a form of wish fulfillment.  One of the stories is hereI wasn't really part of those shipping wars, and wow, really do not want to relive those ever.  But I do remember the hurt over the

Comments

[katharhino]

I was never invested in the HP fandom. I lurked a lot, and I read a lot of fanfic, and I was around for shipping wars. But unlike the diehard fans, I find JKR's writing uneven and characterization heavy-handed - and although I really enjoyed the books I never thought they were omg the most brilliant thing ever. So I truly don't care one way or the other who Harry ends up with....

That said, I thought the depiction of Ron and Hermione's friendship moving into romance was one of her stronger and more realistic moments. I found Harry/Ginny a lot more problematic for many reasons, but mainly because JKR refused to make room in the Trio for Ginny to play an equal role, which meant Ginny was always secondary.

And ultimately, I find making this kind of pronouncement in public to be a very very weird choice. I get that her characters live on in her brain, totally get that. And I get that she might change her mind about them - I thought lady_songsmith's comment that she has matured as a writer was very insightful. But what purpose does it serve to make

[katharhino]

Ironically enough there's an argument happening on my fav Austen fanfic board right now about non-canon pairings - a topic which recurs every couple of months in Austen fandom, so I'm not participating in the argument because it's all been said before. But there are a good number of readers who won't read any story that doesn't end with Darcy/Elizabeth happily ever after, and they go so far as to say FF writers who want to explore other options are "tricking" them into reading. O_O Personally, I read Austen because of the insightful characterization, not the pairings (with the possible exception of Mr. Knightley/Emma - as close as I get to an OTP), so if you want to write Darcy/Jane and they are both still in-character I am all for it. But I'm in the minority. Anyway, it's just making me laugh imagining the upheaval in Austendom if Jane rose from the dead and announced she'd changed her mind about Elizabeth/Darcy because it was only wish fulfillment after all. I'm all for everyone having their own Jane Austen if they want to, as long

[rthstewart]

Trickery? Errr... isn't this why we tag? But Narnia is so like that too. If it's not in the book, right there on the page, it didn't happen because if it was important, Lewis would have put it in. And to that end, this is going around Tumblr:

In other news: Jane Austen rises from her grave to claim that she regrets Mr Darcy and Elizabeth ending up together. “Mr Wickham was probs the way to go." Fandom is shocked and confused.
http://misseffie.tumblr.com/post/75311609666/in-other-news-jane-austen-rises-from-her-grave-to

[katharhino]

Tagging/labeling/warning is another contentious issue, though, because Austen fandom is like that. Some authors don't want to reveal their ending right from the start if it's intended to be more like romantic suspense. I am guilty of writing a non-canon pairing myself (Henry Crawford/Fanny Price) but it was pretty clear - in fact I think I pretty much said "Hey, I am writing an AU about Henry/Fanny and here it is."

I'm seeing more and more similarities between Narnia fandom and Austen fandom, as you talk about it. The grandiose decrees about what Austen would have intended, yes, we have those too. In great abundance, in fact.

LOL.

[lauren_titmus]

I was a Harry/Hermione shipper. I shipped it before I even knew what shipping was

[rthstewart]

I was given the Hunger Games books for Christmas. When reading them, I was more interested in Katniss and the relationship with Prim and her mother than with Gale and Peeta. I was thinking during all the "romantic" bits "Get on with it so we can get back to the interesting bits."I'll get all old and boring on you, but frankly, I think age is one factor in this. And, as you rightly point out, a certain weariness with ship wars -- we're tired of how destructive they are

[lauren_titmus]

I've just worked out that I must of read the first 2 HP books when I was about 6 and a half I think

[hungrytiger11]

Personally, I'll be very interested to read (or watch?) the full interview (which doesn't come out till Thursday). I think there will be a better context for what and why she is saying what she is and the fact that Emma Watson is the one interviewing her might also have influenced what topics and questions were asked. I have a feeling that with the context it will (hopefully) be clearer why she is talking about it when, since she did seem to follow what was happening at least somewhat on HP sites, she had to have known that would upsetting news to many

[rthstewart]

Yes to all this. Animus made a similar point that it will be useful to see the whole thing in context. As a philosophical matter, I am interested in this issue of revisiting old work. My concern, such as it is, is the wisdom of it, given that people who espoused the view JKR now purports to espouse were openly mocked as delusional. Not cool.

Starbrow told me that there's lots of fanon that Ron and Hermione get divorced. I think there is GREAT fodder there for a marital counseling piece -- no, I'm not writing how Ron feels about that muggle thing known as therapy, and how Neville berates him for being silly about it because how does Ron think Neville handled his parents' condition for so long and so well? And Hermione's parents, being medical professionals, are gently encouraging it for their daughter. And gosh, I see one issue right away being how Harry and the war were the glue that held their relationship together and what happens when those two topics of conversation are gone? It would be really fun. (Also, stopping now).

[elouise82]

"But Neville, HARRY never got counseling after Cedric, and Sirius, and-"

"Yes, and we all remember how well THAT turned out, don't we?"

"Er ... right. So who would you recommend, then?"

[edenfalling]

Heh. I confess I've always prefered Harry/Hermione to Ron/Hermione -- partly because I like Harry better than Ron in general and partly because I thought it would be a much less tempestuous relationship -- but I could see quite clearly from GoF onward that R/Hr was going to happen in canon. I was never sure it would last past their early twenties, but I was willing to go along with the epilogue on the assumption that, over the years, Hermione and Ron had a bunch of explosions and put in a LOT of work to learn how to cope and survive as a couple. (You can see some of those assumptions at work in Along the Way, which is basically my take on 'how Hermione got from the war to the epilogue'. No marriage counseling per se, but it's not smooth sailing by any means.)

I don't see, though, why deciding R/Hr was a mistake necessarily means H/Hr should have happened. There is such thing as friendship! Why not have them all be best friends forever? (And then while you're at it, change CoS to not sweep Ginny's year-long encounter with Tom

[rthstewart]

As others have pointed out, something I liked so much about the Harry and Hermione relationship was that I did see it always as friends, that there wasn't any pairing off, I felt that was all a really good thing.

I admit this has been a useful intellecutal and emotional exercise for me -- not so much because author is dead and who ships whom (and who cares except for the past damage done) but I've very much had an idolized notion of those books and I've not gone back and read them in a while (and I read them as an adult) and I'm feeling very buoyed by those who are engaging in this critique. it's very useful for me personally.

[edenfalling]

My take on the HP series may be a bit skewed because it was my gateway into fandom, and also because one major reason I started writing fanfic was because it let me turn my perfectionism outward and "fix" somebody else's writing instead of spending even more time locked up in my head criticizing all the ways that I fell short of my own expectations. (Depression sucks, btw; I do not advise it. *sigh*) So I saw Rowling as imperfect from the word go, and her flaws as a writer and world-builder were a godsend for me.

[elouise82]

I was not/am not an enormous HP fan, so this didn't effect me all that much. I would hate the see the friendship between Harry and Hermione denigrated, and turned into a romance, though, because that was always one of my favorite parts of the books - how there was never even the slightest hint of romance between them, and it wasn't necessary, and oh look, you can be best friends with someone of the opposite sex and the world won't come crashing down around your ears

[rthstewart]

I've wondered about the movie influence too. I remember JKR being so excited at people who loved Ron as a book character and he was not well-served in the films at all. Ron was smart, he was a strategist, and he was Harry's window into the wizarding world. All of that was taken from him in the films.

I agree completely too that one thing I so liked about the Trio was that it wasn't a triangle and that Harry and Hermione were friends, good friends, and not romantic. That was always a positive in my mind.

People keep pulling her back,yes, but with the movies and the content and Pottermore, and so on, she's really not pulling away completely either. She's got so much head canon at this point that I guess it has to come out somewhere.