TiP and My Favorite Novel (was: TiP and Camelot)

[Laurin]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Ebony" <ebonyink at h...> wrote:
> Author of TiP here... *yawns*... when you look at canon, I quite 
> agree with the Harry=Arthur parallel.  But then, Harry and 
> Arthur are archetypal brethren, you know.   

That's why I said that.  Glad to see you see it too. <g>

> However, I don't think R/H shippers can rejoice just yet.  
> *snerk*  At this point, Ron=Lancelot or Hermione=Guinevere does 
> not work by any stretch of the imagination... as a lover of 
> Arthurian legend (and one who's studied it on the graduate school 
> level!), unless something is changed drastically in canon I don't 
> think that you can extrapolate a direct H/R/H parallel to Camelot 
> at all with the canon that we have.  

Oh, I completely agree that the Arthurian legend doesn't work very 
well, but I think the main reason is that Hermione is such a strong 
character compared to the depictions we usually get of Guinevere.  
Actually, I'd almost rather cast Hermione as Morgan LeFey, since 
she's a witch, strong, and for her to be with Harry would, IMO, be 
almost like incest, since they're such good friends.  (Although I've 
been known to waffle on that--I'm still not a firm shipper of any 
stripe.)
 
> In the post-Hogwarts *Trouble in Paradise* (TiP) milieu, there is 
> a purposeful skewing of character and switching of positions so 
> that Camelot *can* be alluded to.  The key term is "allusion"--no 
> direct parallels were intended.  

Yes, you would need to skew things considerably to sell Ron as 
Arthur.  I'm still not seeing him in this role.
 
> You see, after Voldemort's defeat in my fanfiction, Harry leaves 
> the wizarding world altogether, a bit like Frodo leaves the Shire 
> and Middle-Earth post-LOTR.  The difference is that Harry 
> eventually returns to the wizarding world and avoids the public 
> eye, making a life in a land that straddles the fence between the 
> wizarding world and somewhere else altogether.  Harry is offered 
> the "crown" in my backstory, but utterly refuses it, preferring to 
> continue his quest behind the scenes and out of the spotlight.

Here's where I had to go talk to my friend who has read Tip, and 
after she gave me a summary of the story (which doesn't mean I might 
not eventually read it--I'm one of those people who actually LOVES 
spoilers) I found a weird parallel between your story and my 
favorite novel (so the odds are actually increasing that I may read 
TiP after all).

What's my favorite novel, you ask?  (Okay, I'll pretend you 
did.)  "The Great Gatsby."  Now if you were going for a Gatsby 
parallel, I think you may have succeeded (even accidentally).  Not 
in the plot as much as the roles of the characters and the way the 
story is told.

I have to be honest with you, I went to look for TiP on Schnoogle 
and discovered that I HAD started to read it way back when there 
were only two or three chapters.  I didn't like the idea of a 
character I regard as peripheral narrating the action and not 
permitting me to get into Harry's head, which is something I love in 
JKR's books.  But my recent exchange with my TiP-reading friend 
opened my eyes to the fact that that is EXACTLY how Gatsby is 
structured!  Nick Carraway is a peripheral character, and yet it is 
through his eyes that we see the saga of Gatsby (Harry), Tom (Ron), 
Daisy (Hermione) and Tom's mistress (Mo).  There are obviously 
differences between your story and Fitzgerald's, but Gatsby fits 
Harry eerily: he was Daisy's/Hermione's first love, he went away to 
war, he dropped out of sight, then returned as a man of mystery and 
he'd like his woman back...

Of course, Tom and Gatsby weren't ever best friends, and Ron clearly 
has better taste in women than Tom (I always cringed at the 
descriptions of his mistress--what was he thinking?).  But since 
this narrative technique--the peripheral character filtering the 
story through his/her eyes and experiences--is something I enjoyed 
in Gatsby, I had to admit to my friend that I wouldn't let that 
alone put me off of TiP.

Regards,

Laurin