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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 ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
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.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-21 07:30 pm (UTC)The point of that dull meander down memory lane is that I've been the fan who doesn't get their pairing, and it sucks, but what sucks more is being subjected to abuse by those fans who feel the need to prove their superiority by gloating.
Also, it has to be said, you really did make me reconsider my attitude a bit in terms of ships. After the bad experience I'd had in Stargate fandom, it was really nice to be able to talk to someone of a different ship persuasion without all that tension. It is indeed possible to be friends with someone who ships differently to you, and if you just respect their ship and their right to ship whoever they want, then when it comes to it - either way - you're going to behave in an appropriately respectful manner to the outcome of that ship, whether your ship happens or theirs does or no one's does.
Personally I wonder why it is that so many R/Hr fans feel the need to crow their supposed victory so loudly. If they really weren't in any doubt about R/Hr, if they really felt that it was right and justified in canon and whatever, why does it matter so very much that they were "right" and anyone else was "wrong". What is it that they're trying to prove, and why do they feel that the H/Hr fans are such a threat that they need to do so?
I could go on, but I think I'm just rambling now. Sorry. The basic point is - rock on. We'll always have fanfic :)