Couplethinking

[ssk7882 <skelkins@attbi.com>]

Eileen:

> Elkins, you know that I am a pretty serious shipper. 

And yet, all the way back in April, you shuddered in horror at 
FORLORNBARTEMIUS!  Now, what was so terrible about FORLORNBARTEMIUS?  
And you didn't like any of the 'shippy Fourth Man variants, either.

So what gives with that?  Do you only enjoy *reciprocated* romantic 
fixations or something?

> I can't help it. The moment I see two people who might do 
> well together, I want to pair 'em up. 

Oh, dear.  Are we talking just fictional characters here, or does 
that carry over into RL as well?

> How this sits with the fact that I haven't the slightest desire to 
> pair myself up, I do not know. 

Schadenfreude?  ;-)

You know, I used to have this terrible reputation for breaking couples
up?  I had a reputation as the anti-Cupid.  But I didn't mean to!  
Honest!  I don't know how it would always happen.  I'd just be, you 
know, *talking* to someone, and then the next thing I knew, they'd 
be quitting their job, growing their hair out, and ditching their SO.

I believe that many people considered me to be a very bad influence.
Quite a contrast from high school, where I was, of course, the 
designated *good* influence.  

Or at least, so my friends' parents all *thought.*  

> Anyway, as you also know, I've also been reading Lewis's "The Four 
> Loves" recently, in relation to our Crouch discussions, and was 
> very struck by his introduction of Friendship, and how modern 
> society does not regard it as a real love. 

<Elkins hops happily on her hobby horse.>  

<(Yes.  She actually has an entire *stable* of them.)>

Yes!  That is one of my major beefs with modern society, actually.
It obsesses on eros, to the utter detriment of philos.

Friendship is exceptionally important to me.  Whenever I hear someone 
use that phrase "just friends," it makes me grind my molars.  And I
have very little patience with people who prioritize this week's
sack-hop over their oldest and closest friends.  Makes me downright
cranky, that does.

Dicey:
> There's a dearth of intimate, non-sexual relationships between 
> people in fiction. As one who has had some wonderful, close, 
> platonic relationships with guys, I'd really like to see society 
> pull its head out and give these kinds of relationships more 
> emphasis than the romantic ones.

Oh, ditto!  Ditto, ditto, ditto.  I was rather disappointed with
the romance plotline of GoF, honestly.  It was certainly enjoyable, 
and I thought that JKR handled it with a delightfully deft touch.  
But at the same time, I really had been enjoying the non-sexual yet 
intimate nature of the Trio's relationship.  I was sorry to see signs 
that might be changing.

Television, of course, is just the *worst* that way.  It does often 
seem that any TV series that runs for long enough will eventually 
turn *all* of the relationships between members of the opposite sex 
non-platonic.  Most annoying, that.  

It also makes me wonder what on earth is wrong with those TV people.  
They're a bit like fanfic characters that way, actually, aren't 
they?  Utterly hopeless.  All you have to do is lock them in a small 
enclosed space together, and there you go.  Instant sex.  ;-)

You know, I've been living in very close personal quarters with one 
of my housemates for 15 years now.  We even shared a studio apartment 
for a time: a single room.  One sofa bed.  (We didn't want to share 
the bed, so instead, we took turns with it, each of us alternating 
nights sleeping on the floor.)  And yet somehow, while we were 
technically sexually compatible, I suppose, amazingly enough, we 
never once ended up having sex with each other.  Imagine!

It always strikes me as just bizarre and unbelievable when TV 
characters can't even seem to get trapped in an elevator together 
for an hour or so without kissing.  It really does.  It's just
plain *odd,* IMO, and always makes me wonder if perhaps the water
supply in TV land has been doctored up with aphrodisiacs, instead of
flouride.  ;-)


I wrote:

> > I mean, for heaven's sake! Did Paul get *laid* on the Road To 
> > Damascus? 

Eileen asked:

> So that's your problem with LOLLIPOPS, is it?

Well, yes.  That is *precisely* my problem with LOLLIPOPS.  It's 
not really the idea of Snape having loved Lily that bothers me at
all, you know.  It's my feeling that such an emotional attachment, 
should it ever be set forth in canon, would almost certainly also 
be set forth as a driving cause of his turning away from the Death 
Eaters.  And I really do dislike that idea quite a bit.  

Sadly, I rather suspect that it is going to be canon eventually.

<clings to George for comfort, while she is still able>

But that brings us back to an earlier point of David's:

> > > There's also the tricky question of what you think is 'true' 
> > > or will happen versus what you want to be true - not that I've 
> > > come across anyone with beliefs that strongly contradict their 
> > > references (e.g. "I think canon is firmly R/H but I feel Harry 
> > > is the right person for Hermione").
 
> > Do you mean just when it comes to shipping, David? Or to 
> > speculations in general? 

> I meant primarily shipping, and then other issues that seem to 
> animate the fandom generally, such as redeemable Draco. 

Redeemable Draco?  Really?

That's odd, because Draco seems to me to be one of the subjects
on which people *most* frequently cite the discrepancy between 
how they read the character and how they suspect that JKR actually
intended them to be reading him.  I've always thought redeemable
Draco one of the topics about which that discrepancy is the most
often cited, actually.

I've also seen a number of rather pessimistic statements from
H/H shippers.  And of course, I myself desperately dislike
LOLLIPOPS, while still finding it exceptionally canonically
plausible.

And I think that Snape's task really *is* likely to turn out to
be the most boring and obvious one of going back to Voldemort, 
you know -- in spite of the fact that, as all obsessed fans know, 
this would really be a very foolish and nonsensical and unsatisfying 
thing for it to turn out to be.  ;-)


Elkins