Orange is the new green.

[jlh]

I have done fuckall at work today. Instead, I have a Fandom Theory, prompted by looking at the new PoA pictures and listening to Poses.

Eighteen months ago, I found myself in the midst of the H/D sector of the fandom. This was odd, as I am not actually an H/D writer--I'm an H/H-D/G writer. But I was betaing Malfoy, PI for Nancy and my flist was full of Guns & Handcuffs types.

Then new canon came, and Nimbus, where I was bound and determined to plunge myself into the land of the Pumpkin Pie, where I belonged after all. And lo, I did! And now my flist is screaming about H/H instead of H/D.

So my theory is, Harry/Hermione is the new Harry/Draco. Sort of. I'm thinking, mostly, of where we are this spring vs. where we were in the fall of 2002:

Advance press, pictures, and trailer for Cos were all about the Quidditch, therefore, all about the Harry/Draco. Two Q studs, looking studly and ready for battle in their oh-so-fetishistic Q gear. Let's get ready to rumble!

Advance press, pictures, and trailer for PoA: Harry holding Hermione. Harry and Hermione walking in the snow. Harry and Hermione wearing hoodies and looking dishevled. Harry and Hermione talking and smiling. Feel the love, baby.

Never mind the tons of lovely H/H moments in OotP, while Draco is still a prat. That was fine for the true believer H/D types, but it shook out the plebey, fashionable, fair weather friends, didn't it?

Also, this_is_now is Harry/Hermione. ♥

What I'd like to see, once we see PoA, is a Harry/Hermione video that rivals that excellent Harry/Draco one that was done to "Through With You" by Maroon 5.

So? What say you?

Comments

[ali-wildgoose.livejournal.com]

I'm still sitting on the good ship dunnowhichshipIwant, BUT, that being said?

Dan and Emma...so very cute ^_^;;

[ladylisse.livejournal.com]

You can share my fleet. I collect ships.

(And Dan and Emma are going to convert me to H/Hr single-handedly. I swear. SOCUTE.)

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Well, I mean, I'm not a canon shipper. So I mostly mean that I'm "Squee, I like the idea of H/H" rather than "See? Canon will be H/H".

But yeah, it's mostly about the pics being all Dan and Emma rather than Dan and Tom.

[ali-wildgoose.livejournal.com]

I feel like my canon shipping and my fanon shipping are largely separate things...I mean, we've talked about it before...suffice it to say that my preference does not match up with my predictions. I sort of envy you, sometimes, in the way you seem largely unconcerned with predictions --- really, it's not something we should be dedicating too much thought to, as JKR is clearly mad and will do whatever strikes her fancy ;P

Dan and Emma pics = <3

Lack of Tom pics this time around = :(

[jlh.livejournal.com]

There's that excellent pic of Tom blowing on the paper crane, though. So pretty.

I think that in OotP, with Ginny, JKR proved my feeling that whatever she does in canon, she'll make it work. I was braced for things to be on that big R/H road, but now I'm suddenly feeling it might not be. But more than that, I'm very That Way Lies Madness about predicting JKR. No bet.

[ali-wildgoose.livejournal.com]

Yeah...I know cassie and holly have very big problems with ginny in OotP, and while I can completely understand their point structurally and narratively, as a plain old reader I really didn't mind so much. <:} Still have my fingers crossed for notsobad!draco, but...we'll see :P

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Well, they seem to think this was a random will from JKR, because they think the reader should have had hints that Harry simply didn't notice at the time. But JKR never writes that way. Things that Harry should have noticed in order to solve the mystery (but that, say, Hermione did notice) she doesn't reveal to us, either. Not only does she only show us what Harry can see, but she only shows us what Harry actually notices. It's very limiting, and it allows her to be very tricky and withhold a lot of information. Would it have made things deeper to be able to look back and see hints of what Ginny was like? Sure. But it also would have made things deeper to be able to look back during PS/SS and see hints of the answer to the mystery--and they ain't there. Trust me, I looked!

[ali-wildgoose.livejournal.com]

this might be one of the reasons people love PoA so much -- it's a mystery that's much easier for the reader to solve, at least in part, as there are clear hints of what's actually going on

[thegraybook.livejournal.com]

But it also would have made things deeper to be able to look back during PS/SS and see hints of the answer to the mystery--and they ain't there.

Perhaps not to the extent where you can solve the mystery, but once the reveal happens at the end of Book One, you can look back and say, "Ah, that's why Quirrel refused to shake Harry's hand, and why Snape acted so strange!" The reveal doesn't disrupt one's sense of narrative continuity - in other words, it doesn't break the rules of a mystery, wheras I felt Ginny in OOTP broke the rules of characterization in that she seemed utterly unlike she was in the previous four books. I felt like I must have missed a couple chapters or an important development, but no, JKR just left them out the way she left out the scene where Harry goes back and gets the M. Map in GOF. In both cases I feel it's narratively a reader cheat.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Well, let me be more specific about both:

First, there are a bunch of instances in which either someone mentions that Ginny doesn't act like herself around Harry, or Ginny shows that she has more knowledge than Harry assumes she does, or would have. Personally, I didn't see a huge shift from things implied in GoF; just some things made more obvious.

As for the clues, the thing that really strikes me from PS/SS is that if you go back to that Quidditch scene, there is no way for the reader to tell that Quirrell could even possibly be doing the spell rather than Snape. It only mentions vaguely that he was behind Snape--but not that he had his wand out, or that he was looking anywhere, or any of that. That was really the big clue that I felt was a cheat, as the only reason they thought it was Snape is that they were already prejudiced against Snape.

[thegraybook.livejournal.com]

First, there are a bunch of instances in which either someone mentions that Ginny doesn't act like herself around Harry, or Ginny shows that she has more knowledge than Harry assumes she does, or would have.

I would agree with the first, although not necessarily the second of these points - I felt it was suggested that Ginny was more talkative when Harry wasn't around, but that was about it, and certainly we saw no hints whatsoever of the tomboyish, pranky side of her personality. Of course a large part of my problem with Ginny's characterization was just that I found her deeply dislikable in OOTP, which is just subjective - I know Holly didn't mind her character so much as she just thought the characterizational shift was poor writing. (IIRC.)

[no-remorse.livejournal.com]

As for the clues, the thing that really strikes me from PS/SS is that if you go back to that Quidditch scene, there is no way for the reader to tell that Quirrell could even possibly be doing the spell rather than Snape.

Actually it is mentioned that Hermione "knocked Professor Quirrell headfirst into the row in front" while setting Snape on fire. Rowling leaves it to the reader to assume that Snape cast the curse, but she definitely leaves us a clue that it could be Quirrell.

Ginny... clues? Plural? Not really. Especially since what is easily forgiven for plot, is not all that forgivable for characterisation.

To quote myself at length:

"Something is wrong with the way Ginny is written. If Ms. Rowling wanted the reader to sympathise, to identify, to like Ginny, then she made it quite hard.

The first time we get to see Ginny, we get a less than favourable impression of her. Ginny's "I want to see the Boy-Who-Lived" reaction is not un-common, is not worse than Harry's Leaky Cauldron experience, but she is the only one whose behaviour gets admonished as de-humanising (the poor boy isn't something you goggle at in a zoo) by Rowling via Molly. Ginny's initial reaction to Harry is the only one which gets criticised within the text itself, despite being rather common. That is very interesting.

The Chamber of Secrets is Ginny's story and yet it is not. She just pops up often enough to work as the culprit, for the mystery to work. And for the first time - but not the last - Ginny becomes the victim of telling. Ron tells Harry that Ginny "has been talking about him all summer", that "normally she isn't that shy", but the worst is saved for last. Ginny is possessed by the Evil Diary, and yet we never get to hear her side of the story. What we get is the rather unsympathic version told by Tom Riddle, who is evil and knows how to twist the truth, but whose version does a fabulous job painting Ginny as a stupid, naive, selfish, little thing, that prefers strange happenings all over Hogwarts to Harry getting to know about her crush on him.

I am sure that there must have been a way to tell this story in a way that would have the reader feeling some major empathy for Ginny and her sad tale of woe, but making Tom Riddle its narrator wasn't it. Neither was making her first concern, after waking up, her getting expelled.

During the next two books Ginny is invisible. Rowling continues to have her languishing in love, but otherwise she doesn't give her one single thing to define herself with. She even completely disappears in the second half of GoF.

And then comes OotP. And in OotP we get Luna Lovegood. Luna is perfectly described - a small observation here, a description of her behaviour there, a conversation between the narrator and her on the other end and we have a well-rounded, well-described, unique, likable character, we can easily picture, we can empathise with, we can easily fall in love with. Luna is described in a way, characters should be described - through their actions, in small doses, small observations, small descriptions, small conversations, slyly inserted all over the text as a part of the story. Luna is all show - there is no tell. Rowling did a bang-up job with Luna.

Ginny... not so much. Ginny becomes (once again) the victim of telling in OotP. And there is no good reason for it. Ginny is good at hexing? Ginny is good at Quidditch because she practised behind her brothers' backs? Ginny is good at lying? Ginny has been dating Michael Corner since Harry's fourth year? Ginny has been over Harry since she got to know of Harry's crush on Cho? Yes, that's at least what the Twins, Ron and Hermione tell Harry. Harry doesn't witness any of this (with the notable exception of one Quidditch game).

And what is even much more bizarre, all these things could have easily been introduced in the previous three books, it would have cost two sentences in GoF to introduce Michael Corner. Three sentences in CoS to show that Ginny secretly practises Quidditch. One sentence in PoA that Ginny is good at hexing. It would have been so easy and would have worked miracles for Ginny's character development. But there is nothing."

This could be intentional, but if it isn't, then it is problematic, to say the least.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that you allow JKR one sentence to set up Quirrell casting a spell, but don't allow her at least three occasions to set up Ginny as a character.

I went back, the first time I read PS/SS, and read that aside re Quirrell. While that is something that you can go back and read--ah yes, he was in fact there--it is NOT something that you could have read at the time and surmise that it was Quirrell doing the spell. It does not say he was also looking at Harry; it does not say he was whispering; it merely confirms his presence near Snape. When I say I went back looking for clues, I mean clues that I the reader missed and should have caught, not clues that make things possible.

As for Ginny: Reread "The Unexpected Task". Everything I have ever felt about Ginny is contained in that scene, and is why I wasn't particularly surprised that Ginny is as she is in OotP. I'm sorry that Ali referred to, and hence you wandered into this continuation of a conversation the three of us have been having since June because there's a ton of shorthand going on here. My argument has always been less that JKR did this well, and more that this wasn't a crazy huge shift in Ginny's character; that's what I was saying to CC.

I don't think the Luna comparison is a good one. Luna was a brand new character in OotP, new to Harry, and he needed to learn everything about her. All of the "telling" in OotP about Ginny is in reply to Harry's questions, and done in a "Hello, didn't you know this?" tone. This is something Harry completely missed, hence the telling.

Could JKR have done this better? Absolutely. Is the Ginny in OotP a completely different person than one could have thought her to be in the earlier books? I really don't think so.

[eibbil-libbie.livejournal.com]

Feel the love, baby.

Oh, I'm soooo feeling the love.

Can I now start singing that I was H/H when H/H wasn't cool?

:D

[smilie117.livejournal.com]

:P what you talking about - H/H was always cool ;) at least to some *whistles*

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Sabs is right. H/H was always cool. What wasn't cool for a while was het, but I think it's making a comeback. However, cool usually means brace yourself for the plebefic. I bet there will be tons of annoying H/H after the movie comes out, just like there was annoying S/R after OotP, and annoying H/D after CoS.

However, you can sing it if you want to. It's better than Sleeping Single in a Double Bed.

[dejaspirit.livejournal.com]

It really bothers me that I know the words to both of those country songs.

H/Hr <3!!!

[eibbil-libbie.livejournal.com]

Just so long as you aren't wearing cowboy boots while singing them, I think you're safe.

I know all the words to Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger....I've tried, but I can't bleach them from brain. Woe.

[eibbil-libbie.livejournal.com]

*shudders at the plebefic*

That's all I could find when I first wandered into the fandom...ended up being so disgusted with it I started writing my own.

[zorb]

I remember back when the first movie came out, the G&H thread on FAP were already talking about how slashy CoS would be, and the PP thread couldn't wait to see all of the H/Hr moments in PoA on the big screen. We're basking in the long-anticipated payoff. :-D

And I agree, someone needs to make that video.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

PP is all about the he who laughs last, the long slow payoff rather than the immediate gratification, isn't it?

We are a patient lot.

[smilie117.livejournal.com]

re: video -- I say I'd love to see something like that as well ^___^

*waves H/H flag*

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I think pp.org should commission one, or have a contest, or something, after the DVD comes out. That would be, like, totally rocking.

My big song for PP is "Dancing Days" of course, but that's just me.

[nykohl.livejournal.com]

Can't really decide what ship I'm shipping - it seems that ever since I moved to Switzerland, I just can't find a boat that suits my fancy. But, what I wanted to say was, if someone makes a video that is equal to the genius that is "Through With You", I would pay to see it. Seriously.

[debellatrix.livejournal.com]

*Anything* but Harry/Ginny