My SHIP is sinking...

[selah_1977]

Haven't read this list in quite some time, but just before the 
controversy (*schnoogles her beloved friends Penny and John*) there 
was an interesting post.  I read the responses, and just wanted to 
stick my head in and give the other point of view.

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., Katze <jdumas at k...> wrote:
> First...I'm sending this to the OT list because I'm more talking 
about fanfics than I am canon. 
> 
> Up front, I'll tell you that I used to be a R/Hr shipper, and a
> Harry/?-not-Ginny shipper.
> 
> I dare say that my original idea of an Hr/R pairing is beginning to
> wane, and it's all due to the fanfics I've started to read. I'm now
> finding that I'm ever so slowly becoming a R/death-or-? shipper 
(which doesn't bode well for Ron's fate), Hr/H shipper, and even a 
D/G shipper (Draco will have to clean up his act first though). 
> 
> After reading various fanfics, I've found a very strange pattern 
occur is fics that end up H/Hr.  It seems that the impulse reaction 
is to pair Ron and Hermione, and Harry with either Ginny or x (I 
won't read fics where he's dead). What disturbs me is that Ron is 
either made to be the bad guy/bad husband, or he is killed off in 
order to make the Harry/Hermione happen. Why is this?
> 


Well, I think this may be because of the following:

1)  Ron/Hermione (either relationship or tension) is often considered 
as a foregone canon conclusion by all, no matter what their shipping 
preference.  

2)  In order to pair off Harry and Hermione, you have to deal with a  
canon-assumed Ron/Hermione pairing, if your story is to have some 
canon basis.

3)  From what we've learned about Ron's character, he isn't likely to 
passively accept a Harry/Hermione pairing, which leads to conflict.


Of course, in one of the best and most popular H/H fanfics (the Draco 
Dormiens series by Cassandra Claire), there was pre-story R/H that 
didn't work out, and Ron in the 2 1/2 novels posted thus far has been 
neither bad nor dead.  So the above statement is either a pretty 
broad generalization, or a very specific fanfictional trope is being 
referred to.  

H/H fanfiction runs the gamut, and so does Ron's place in it.

--Ebony AKA AngieJ
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HP_Paradise
http://www.fictionalley.org