HBP

[emony]

I read the first two parts of the JKR interview with Melissa from The Leaky Cauldron and Emerson from Mugglenet at lunchtime today, and I was also talking via lj with nausica2 about some of the post-HBP fallout across the fandom. The interview hasn't mentioned (and undoubtedly won't) S/R at all, and only brushed on the R/T, with both Melissa and Emerson expressing their surprised at it. But they did mention the H/Hr, or lack of same. If I were a H/Hr shipper, I think I would've been more angry by the comments in the interview than anything that did or didn't happen in the book. A book you can see your own way, and there are always ways around whatever happens (see above, re: S/R post-OOTP!), but some of the things they were saying, not about the H/Hr ship, but about the *fans* seemed to me to be unnecessarily cruel and really inappropriate in an interview that's meant to be for *all* adult fans of HP. Okay, so H/Hr isn't going to happen (in the books). That doesn't make the H/Hr fans a bunch of delusional whackjobs just because they saw things differently. They aren't the lunatic fringe. They just have a different opinion.

It's really rather Gryffindor of them all, I think. The opinion that they must be right and anyone who doesn't see it the same way is not different but *stupid*. It's also the same sort of childish behaviour we had in Stargate fandom after the disaster that was season 4. I suppose that's why I'm feeling sympathy with the H/Hr shippers right now, even though I'm definitely not one myself.

I can understand JKR saying what she did. To her it's obviously going to be Hr/R and H/G, because she wrote it and can only see it the one way. Even if she does appreciate that other people might see it differently, she has the definative answer in her head because it's her book and they're her characters and she probably doesn't see how anyone could really see it differently than she intended it.

But Emerson, and Melissa although she wasn't as bad imo, ought to know better. I got the impression, although I don't know Mugglenet as a site, that Emerson is a "my way or the highway" sort of chap who gives anyone who doesn't share his views very short shrift. On his own site, fine. Whatever. I don't know his editorial policy on anything - it might be entirely fairly run, with his bias present but entirely clear and not in any way hidden, which is certainly one way to do things. But when you're doing an interview like this, you've got this huge opportunity, it seems so wrong to use it as an opportunity to gloat over other fans. "Look, *my* pairing was right, *your* pairing was wrong - haha!" It's.. well, to bring it down to the simple truth of it all, it's just not very nice.

Now I'm a Hr/R shipper. Always have been, always knew they'd get together eventually. I don't really see where the H/Hr comes from in the books. But lots of people do. And I think that's something that ought to be respected, especially now.

So yeah. That's what I thought about all that.

Comments

[nausica2.livejournal.com]

We've been talking about it, but word.

I'm also a R/Hr shipper, and I adore both of them, but I can understand people who watched the movies first can like H/Hr because in the first two movies there are hints and also in the third, imo.

And in a book it's easy to find stuff to support your views, unless the contrary stated. Yeah, some shippers have gone out of control, and I guess there have been huge fan wars, but Emerson was there in a "professional" way, with a golden chance and he has behaved as if he only wanted vindication.

Bad boy. Remus would never do that. ;))))

[emony.livejournal.com]

I can understand people who saw the films shipping H/Hr, especially POA. My colleagues have become fascinated by HP recently (seriously, it's odd), and my colleague N, who hasn't read the books but has (I think) seen the films said something about how he thought Harry and Hermione ("the girl witch, you know..") would get together. I can understand people who've read the books seeing H/Hr too, because, like you say, everyone reads the books differently. Every interpretation is slightly different - that's why we all take different things away from it, that's why we all have different favourite characters, and that's why we all have different ships, and different views of those ships. I sometimes wonder if the people who write fic where Draco Malfoy turns out to be a beautiful, altruistic, merely misunderstood person who loves kittens and puppies and opens a muggle orphanage in the manor, are actually reading the same books as I am - but they are. They're just interpreting it differently. So I get where the ship comes from in that sense. I don't see it myself, but I can see that other people have the facility to see it. If that makes sense.

It's weird, I keep finding myself getting confused between that actual Maurauder-era canon of the books and shoebox_project. Like when I was reading the interview, and they were talking about Lily's courage, and I was like, "yeah, she was so great at the funeral.." and it took me a while before I remembered that actually that wasn't *canon* canon, it was SBP canon! *g* But I agree - Remus would never behave that way. He's just too decent, bless him. *loves*

[odycee.livejournal.com]

I keep finding myself getting confused between that actual Maurauder-era canon of the books and shoebox_project

Heh. You're not the only one! I actually forget how little Maurauder-era canon there really is.