Erased by Time and Blockbusters—The Cautionary Tale of Ron Weasley

[SouthernSun]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

"Shippers" often become upset if their favored characters do not become romantically involved, even if there is nothing in the work to suggest that they might become a couple. Rule #34, if it exists, someone has made "slash" of it.

I have had to take extended breaks from series when characters that I was certain would become involved (and had been shipping the whole time!) ended up taking different paths.

[teh603]

I tend to think of Ron in the TvTropes sense- of the three, he's the McCoy to Harry's Kirk and Hermione's Spock.

[alanHd]

So JK Rowling thinks she got the Romance wrong

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26007732

[peachiekene]

Originally Posted by alanHd

So JK Rowling thinks she got the Romance wrong

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26007732

I've always been in the camp that the ending didn't fit with the story.

I don't really like Harry/Hermione either so it's not a case of "the lead male needs to get with the lead female".

[DiapDealer]

I'm not sure the opening sentence in the original article (referred to in the Entertainment Arts article) is very accurate:

IT WAS the romance every Harry Potter fan wanted to see.

That's just simply not true. It's certainly not the ending I wanted to see, anyway. A Hermione/Harry hookup would have been the easy-cheesy ending in my opinion.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by alanHd

So JK Rowling thinks she got the Romance wrong

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26007732

J.K. Rowling needs to shut up, IMNSHO. She wrote it, it was published, it's done. No do-overs. And it's seven years ago now! Let it go, dear. As an aside, I hate how her post-publication comments are somehow taken as canon. If it didn't happen in the books, it didn't happen; at least it's fair game for speculation.

That said, while Ron/Hermione was a dreadful pairing, I don't think Harry/Hermione would have been much better. I was rather fond of Viktor Krum for Hermione, myself.

[DiapDealer]

It's not as if the ultimate paring-off of the various characters in the epilogue was truly a part of "The Ending" of the saga anyway. Leaving it open to interpretation would have probably been the best approach. But yeah, authors shouldn't attempt to alter/create canon after the fact. It's rather silly.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by issybird

J.K. Rowling needs to shut up, IMNSHO. She wrote it, it was published, it's done. No do-overs. And it's seven years ago now! Let it go, dear. As an aside, I hate how her post-publication comments are somehow taken as canon. If it didn't happen in the books, it didn't happen; at least it's fair game for speculation.

That said, while Ron/Hermione was a dreadful pairing, I don't think Harry/Hermione would have been much better. I was rather fond of Viktor Krum for Hermione, myself.

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.

[peachiekene]

Originally Posted by issybird

J.K. Rowling needs to shut up, IMNSHO. She wrote it, it was published, it's done. No do-overs. And it's seven years ago now! Let it go, dear. As an aside, I hate how her post-publication comments are somehow taken as canon. If it didn't happen in the books, it didn't happen; at least it's fair game for speculation.

That said, while Ron/Hermione was a dreadful pairing, I don't think Harry/Hermione would have been much better. I was rather fond of Viktor Krum for Hermione, myself.

Lol! I half agree with Rowling needing to just stop with all this.
However, this is validation for me because I've been saying that since I finished the book in 2007 (she had the epilogue planned, but the story didn't develop to match). I really shouldn't be as giddy about this as I am honestly.
The book is still canon though, I won't argue that. She certainly can't turn around and rewrite the entire thing.

... I never really read the book with pairings in mind. (Although after a certain point with the way the movies were going, I knew Ron/Hermione would happen --- I just hoped the relationship would develop better.) BUT, now that you say it, I think I could get behind Viktor/Hermione. :P

[Yapyap]

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.

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.

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...

[DiapDealer]

Not surprisingly; googling the word(s) shipping/shipper/shipped in relation to books and/or reading/characters doesn't really bring whatever it is you guys are referring to the front page of the search results. Can someone help an ignorant brother out?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Not surprisingly; googling the word(s) shipping/shipper/shipped in relation to books and/or reading/characters doesn't really bring whatever it is you guys are referring to the front page of the search results. Can someone help an ignorant brother out?

I hadn't come across the term either, but I believe it's referring to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipping_%28fandom%29

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I hadn't come across the term either, but I believe it's referring to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipping_%28fandom%29

Ah... OK then. Thanks a lot Harry! That's not something I've ever encountered before. Probably because I'm the type that never really considers whether someone should/shouldn't "be together." In fiction or in real life. They just are or they are not. Life rarely considers whether people are the best match for each other or not. And as much as I like fantasy, I prefer fictional (even fantasy fictional) relationships to be more "real world" random.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I hadn't come across the term either, but I believe it's referring to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipping_%28fandom%29

Yep, there are a lot of terms for things in fanfiction. Slash, femslash, shipping, shippers, etc. Some are no doubt as old as the fan fictions way back after the original Star Trek series had fictions written by the fans for the early fanzines and some are probably newer and came about with the starting of fanfictions on the net. Some pairings are more likely than others too. I've even seen some where Draco sees the error of his ways and ends up in a relationship with Hermione. Not very likely of course but interesting if done right.

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by crich70

Yep, there are a lot of terms for things in fanfiction. Slash, femslash, shipping, shippers, etc. Some are no doubt as old as the fan fictions way back after the original Star Trek series had fictions written by the fans for the early fanzines and some are probably newer and came about with the starting of fanfictions on the net. Some pairings are more likely than others too. I've even seen some where Draco sees the error of his ways and ends up in a relationship with Hermione. Not very likely of course but interesting if done right.

Dramione (that's Draco/Hermione) is - used to be, anyway - a pretty big ship in the het corner of HP fandom, I think, at least as far as non-canon ships go. Probably not as huge as Drarry (Draco/Harry) or Snarry (Snape/Harry) for that matter, but for het, it's really popular.

I never really got the appeal of that (well, I do in theory, but I was never all that much interested in Draco as a character), being a long-time SSHG (that's Snape/Hermione) shipper instead, but there's some overlap between Dramione and SSHG shippers.

I think the overwhelming majority of non-canon shippers are very much aware that it's very, very, very much not canon and something that would never happen in canon. It's all for fun (even if people do take shipping seriously!) and in some ways, especially with fanfic, it's a whole lot more interesting to try and find ways of never-likely-in-canon pairings to happen in a way that they'd actually more or less make sense, compared to shipping canon pairings - there's so much more room for the "but what if ..." aspects for non-canon ships.

From what I gathered, the ship wars between Ron/Hermione and Harry/Hermione shippers were huge back in the day, though....