JKR's Conception of Shipping : comments.
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
||
|
6
|
7
|
8
|
9
|
10 |
11
|
12
|
|
13
|
14
|
15
|
16
|
17
|
18
|
19
|
|
20
|
21
|
22
|
23
|
24
|
25
|
26
|
|
27
|
28
|
29
|
30
|
31
|
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: "Now we know"
I'm really delighted that you think so! I've read so many H/Hr shippers go on about how there is absolutely no romantic implication in this scene whatsoever. But it seems as long as you tell yourself it's "just Harry's interpretation" you can see it perfectly clearly. Now you just have to take the next step and realize it's not just Harry. ;)
Ron often DENIES that that's what it is... and said "just as friends" "free agent" and Harry simply doesn't believe him!
Harry doesn't say whether he believes him. How do you know if he does? I think you mean something different than I do when you say "Harry thinks." I think you mean "the narration implies it is the case," regardless of whether Harry has any stated opinion on the matter at all.
And I have to confess - I do form my opinions on this world by actually reading the words in the books. If you want to take every single thing that's written and call it "Harry's opinion" and say the entire narrative is always suspect - and that therefore we can never know anything at all - then I don't know what to tell you. Only that I urge you to be brave instead!
Actually, she did not shoot down H/Hr... she seemed as if she was confirming R/Hr and H/G, but not once did she even mention H/Hr. She did everything BUT mention it
But H/Hr was exactly what they were talking about - it was the lead-in to her statement! Look at the context of her words: Emerson called H/Hr's delusional, and JKR said she's not going to say that, BUT "I am however, going to say..." She didn't just change the subject midstream - they were talking about the idea of shipping Harry/Hermione, and she responded with her own statement on the subject that she thought was more tactful than what Emerson said. And her more-tactful statement in response to the idea of H/Hr was "it's going to be clear once you've read book 6" and "it's done" and "it's Ron and Hermione."
Re: "Now we know"
I'm really delighted that you think so! I've read etc"
Well, the scene implies romance from Harry's POV. Harry thinks Ron missed the point, even though Ron says that Hermione missed it.
But whether or not Harry is wrong in his assumption remains to be seen. And again, because Harry never gets confirmation about his feelings this can very well set us, and Harry up for finding out that he's been wrong all along.
The R/Hr issue is just another area where Rowling gives enough information to come to a conclusion, but not enough to confirm whether or not that conclusion is the correct one. This has gone on regarding R/Hr for at least three years. I find that suspicious. Since Rowling has surprised us before based on insufficient info, I say it can be happening again.
PeachesPig:
"Harry doesn't say whether he believes him..."
Harry says later that he'd known this was coming, and that he would have to see what happened between them under the influence of dim lights and butterbeer. This is regarding when Harry assumes that Hermione is asking Ron on a "date" to Slughorn's party, though actually Hermione had been hinting for some time that Harry should hurry up and find a date because of the girls waiting to potion him, and only asked Ron when Harry told her there was no one he wanted to take. Ron assumes Hermione asks him as friends, he's a "free agent" "never promised her anything". HARRY is the one who thought otherwise.
PeachesPig: "I think you mean something different than I do when you say "Harry thinks..."
Whatever we do or don't know, hear, or witness between Ron and Hermione is what Harry doesn't know either. We only know what we know when Harry hears about it or witnesses it. Therefore Harry and the reader are basing their conclusions on the same information or lack thereof. Harry, and the reader may be wrong. We may be being fooled just like Harry might be.
Rowling has used limited information, or misinformation, or wrong conclusions to bring about twists before.
PeachesPig: "And I have to confess - I do form my opinions on this world by actually reading the words in the books... Only that I urge you to be brave instead!"
"Brave"? Erm... I don't know what you mean by that. I don't remember trembling this morning. lol
But yes...the style of writing Rowling is using often limits our information, and therefore often misleads us. The info she gives us may be PART of the answer, but may lead us to thinking the wrong way, just like Harry has done before. Or the info may be vague enough as to be looked at several ways, and we happen to pick the most obvious, but wrong one. I see R/Hr's feelings as one of those ambiguous areas in canon, and I see that Rowling may have decided to KEEP it that way for a reason.
Harry's suspicions about R/Hr have never been confirmed in all this time. I find that highly suspicious of a red-herring.
PeachesPig: But H/Hr was exactly what they were talking about etc etc "
And all she did was confirm the "anvils" she laid down, which no one is denying.
What we're thinking is that the whole reason they weren't merely clues, but anvils, was to hide the coming twist.
Now that I've read "Emma", I can see it clearly, and now that I've learned some about the alchemical steps the "seeker" goes through to becoming the "philosopher's stone", it makes sense that H/G happened too. Ginny was a stepping stone in Harry's journey.
Since Rowling IS setting up for a twist (in my opinion, she is), then of course, in her interview, she's going to reinforce the red-herrings she so carefully laid down.
PeachesPig: She didn't just change the subject midstream etc etc"
I reread book six like she told us too. Having done so, I see where certain things can be looked at differently.
And as Rowling also told a young interviewer named Emma Coad that only half her answer (about H/Hr) was in book six, I'm going to take that to mean that all is not over concerning shipping.
And now I'm truly done.
Re: "Now we know"
I just meant that staying entirely agnostic on the interpretation of anything and everything seems kind of sad to me. (Unless it's only shipping you refuse to believe the text about? But I can't see why shipping would be that important, so I have to assume you mean everything.) By "brave" I meant, don't let the fear of some bogeyman "twist" scare you away from deciding that you can, in fact, draw conclusions about events from the books! They're not a mass of wall-to-wall deception and trickery. Parts of them are a rather moving and sweet story about growing up. The books are trying to tell you a story. Let them!
Since Rowling IS setting up for a twist (in my opinion, she is), then of course, in her interview, she's going to reinforce the red-herrings she so carefully laid down.
*Shrug* So you won't draw conclusions from the books because it could all mean anything, and you won't believe a word of the author because she's deceiving us all to protect her deceptive books? (Except the bit about Emma Coad - appearently you took that at face value for some reason.) What can I say to that? If you'll really believe nothing at all, then there's nothing left we can discuss.
Re: "Now we know"
Let's thank God for small favors then and leave it at that, shall we? :0/
I'm just of the opinion that Rowling is not going to give any part of her book away in an interview. I see that she only reiterated what we already think we know from the books. She told us nothing people had not already read into book six... particularly her HeronChoco interviewers in the IoD.
You apparently think Rowling has no prob giving away some of her plots in an interview one book short of the series ending. I just don't see it. I think that would be crazy for an author to do that, especially one who has chosen to write her series the way Rowling has... keeping us guessing about the truth of the matter and constantly searching for clues.
And for the love of all that's holy, I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. So I leave you to your snark and unwillingness to see anything any other way than what's directly on the surface.
As for me, I'll keep on thinking that Rowling might still be hiding all of her ending, and if I'm wrong, then I won't be completely devistated, because all I'm doing is looking beyond the surface of things, which I've learned to do from all of the previous books Rowling has written. If Rowling was being completely open about everything, then fine. I just happen to think she hasn't been.
Re: "Now we know"
Why would she bother with that if it were just a red herring? If she has no problem giving away red herrings in her interviews, WHY did she tell her interviewers to warn people not to read her comments if they hadn't finished the book yet?
Re: "Now we know"
And yet just a moment earlier you held up her "sinking" of Draco/Hermione as a model? That was an interview. That was "giving something away." It seems to me that when she feels like it, she will indeed give away things, and moreover that you know this; so I'm not sure what you're trying to prove changing your argument now into a blanket statement that even you don't evidently believe. You can't both hold up D/Hr as a model for how she sinks ships and also claim that she would never give anything away!
But anyway, it's kind of beside the point; as I've emphasized, she clearly thought in her interview that she was only reiterating what the reader who had gotten through book 6 already knew. She didn't seem to think she was giving anything away at all.
So I leave you to your snark and unwillingness to see anything any other way than what's directly on the surface.
"What's directly on the surface"? Look, there is no inherent virtue in making things much more complicated than they really are. My goal has been to try to find out the truth about what she's doing. If that truth is is very simple, so be it. If it's extremely complicated, that's fine. It seems it's somewhere in the middle. I think it's clear that her romantic pairings can't be that obvious, or there wouldn't have been any debate about it!
If you find a problem that you're trying to solve too easy, maybe it's time to find a harder problem, instead of pretending the one you've got is something other than it is.
If Rowling was being completely open about everything, then fine. I just happen to think she hasn't been.
"Everything"? Of course she hasn't been completely open about everything; she quite pointedly has refused to explain or discuss certain things about Snape, Dumbledore, and obviously the Horcruxes and so on. Remember all that? Her refusal to give away the conclusion to the main dramatic story has nothing to do with her acknowledging the way the romances are going.