I was never a Harry/Hermione shipper, but I can see that as a working long-term relationship a whole lot more easily than Ron/Hermione - which, to me, sort of worked as a teen thing, with all the excitement and shared adventures etc, but the only thing they really had in common was Harry and while opposites can attract, I never felt that with those two.
A short passionate post-war relationship, yes; long-term working, happy, mutually satisfying marriage, no.
So while Ron/Hermione is, sadly, still canon, I do feel at least somewhat vindicated by JKR's admission here.
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Originally Posted by eschwartz
I cannot agree more. I am sick and tired of people trying to claim "Dumbledore is gay" as if I should somehow care what she thinks outside the book. And I'm positive she only said that to be politically correct, as she was a little too "early" finishing the book and lost the opportunity to have a token mention.
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I think there was certainly some of that, but it
did, IMHO, also have in-story relevance due to the whole Grindelwald thing, and offered validation for what a lot of people assumed anyway.
So to me it didn't come off as an afterthought at least, or a chance to make headlines, but explaining something she'd had in mind while writing but that she for one or another reason chose not to actually say directly in the books, either for narrative or for other reasons.
After all, back in 2007 a kids' book actually having a confirmed gay character would probably have caused even more parental uproar and book-banning, at least in some areas. I'm just thinking of the outrage that a boy admitting he liked another boy in Rick Riordan's latest Heroes of Olympus book seems to have caused (I read a lot of extremely angry Amazon reviews from outraged parents), and this was in 2013 and a series that hadn't so far caused massive outrage and book-banning campaigns...