Harry/Hermione: Rowling is now all, "Yeah, that should've been canon."

[mollyringle]

It's not The Onion, nor even Fanfiction.net:

"Rowling says that she should have put Hermione and Harry together in the Harry Potter series instead of Hermione and Ron.

“I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment,” she says. “That’s how it was conceived, really. For reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it, Hermione ended up with Ron.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” she continued, “I can hear the rage and fury it might cause some fans, but if I’m absolutely honest, distance has given me perspective on that. It was a choice I made for very personal reasons, not for reasons of credibility. Am I breaking people’s hearts by saying this? I hope not.”

---

I wouldn't say Harry/Hermione are the ideal couple, but they did have rather more chemistry and a better personality match than either Harry/Ginny or Hermione/Ron, so...fine with me! Going to be fun to watch fandom go completely insane for a little while.

In any case: What a book means to the reader is what it means to the reader, and nothing can change that. And she's not revising and reissuing the books, so it's not Lucas levels of messing with stuff. I find it interesting to hear what the author thinks of the series with her hindsight, but we can all go right on shipping whoever we like--Hermione/Snape, Luna/Harry, anything at all. Tolkien never admitted Frodo and Sam were in love, but I'll always know it's so.

Comments

[pith]

To me, Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione was sort of JKR's way of making sure everyone ended up a Weasley in some fashion. I don't dislike the Weasley family by any means, but neither of those pairings fit well for me.

But yes, I always love hearing authors' after-the-fact stories, particularly what they'd change if they could go back, because I am so bad for changing my mind about something halfway through a story and then debating which version is better.

[kinkthatwinked.livejournal.com]

For me, this just reminds me how much I wish she hadn't written an epilogue for the last book. I wish she hadn't set in stone who pairs off with who, and left it to the fans' varied imaginations. That way, even if Ron and Hermione did give it a shot at 17, that doesn't mean they'd still be together "Nineteen Years Later."

This isn't the first time she's done this -- remember how she oh-so-casually let us know Dumbledore was gay? And I still don't buy that a kid could be treated like he's nonexistent and worthless for the first 11 years of his life and still be that well-adjusted. From a writer's perspective, it is nice to hear how she decided what would be left out, what she changed or wishes she'd changed. From a reader's perspective, I'm still going to read those books again someday and enjoy them.

But now Ron and Hermione's tension will seem even more clunky and awkward than before, now that I know even the author was forcing herself to write it.

[archersangel (from livejournal.com)]

....they did have rather more chemistry and a better personality match than either Harry/Ginny or Hermione/Ron, so...fine with me!

i always thought that the movies seemed to be more harry/hermione.

Going to be fun to watch fandom go completely insane for a little while.

i read harry, a history by the webmistress of the leaky cauldron, melissa anelli & she talks about the shipping wars between the harry/hermione & the ron/hermione supporters. so i'm sure there are people going apes#!t as we speak. or type, rather.

[mariole.livejournal.com]

The thing is, JKR really didn't have much use for Ron after things got serious. The only role he had to play was eventual lovemate of Hermione-- who I always saw as a better match for Harry. Ginny was pretty much a non-entity so I couldn't really cheer when Harry ended up with her. Harry's mixed feelings were clear by all the looking around he did after he knew Ginny was in love with him (had a crush).

So if Ron ended up weak, it's because he really didn't have a terrific role to play in the books. He was always there to either support or stress Harry as the situation required. Again, hard to cheer for that.

[naill-renfro.livejournal.com]

HMS Harmony sails again!

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

I've heard the Weasley-family theory too, as if surely everyone must want to marry into it in their heart of hearts. (Or at least, gain a happy family, of which the Weasleys are one of the only around.) As Weasleys go, I'd rather take a twin myself.

I do sympathize with her for having conflicting later thoughts. I do the same with my stories. She's got to know what kind of craziness it'll provoke to speak them, though, so I wonder if she has a sadistic streak. ;)

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

I think that last bit about how the tension will now seem clunkier is the main damage done here. It's hard to un-know what is now known. But I suspect if people earnestly and honestly ship Ron/Hermione, they still will see what they used to see in it.

But agreed on the unnecessariness (and mostly unsatisfyingness) of the epilogue. "Happy for now" is more realistic and just as satisfying for me, when it comes to teens in fiction. Not many of us end up marrying the person we were dating at 17. OK, I did, but most don't. :D

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Agreed; the movies had a lot of Harmony chemistry. Or, at least, a noted lack of Ginny/Harry chemistry. And fandom has gone nuts indeed, as anyone could predict. It's largely "YAAAAY" vs. "Noooo!" Hee.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Excellent point. If asked, "What essential function does Ron perform for the team?", I'd have to ponder that a while before coming up with an answer with any meat to it. Think how much more we'd all have adored him if she had conflated his character with the twins'--and made him basically the twins' personality. Fred & George's trickery comes in handy lots of times. Ron sort of only serves as the convenient link to the twins and a happy household. (And Ginny. But yeah, it's perplexing how little personality we're shown for her. The life mate of Harry Potter deserves so much more.)

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

I don't have strong HP ships anywhere really, but I can't help feeling a glow of happiness for the Harmony team for getting such a big piece of vindication from the author. That's got to be nice!

[naill-renfro.livejournal.com]

Nor I, but it's nice to see the Author acknowledge that Ginny's middle name should have been Sue.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Hee. Srsly. On the plus side, the Ginny of canon makes me feel better when I'm writing characters and am fretting there's not enough chemistry between them. Even Rowling can't always make it work. (And I hope that if there's that little chemistry, I'll catch it earlier than a decade after publication.)