Slut!Seamus and other ships, and Seamus's religion

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "jeffl1965" <jeffl1965 at s...>
wrote:
> 

> So, I've seen that I'm not the only one curious about this, so I 
> wanted to ask if anybody wants to guess why Seamus is made a slut, 
> regardless as to the nature of the story or his realtionship.

I don't read enough fanfic to know what is common and what isn't, 
but my guess is that slut!Seamus appeared in some early fic and was 
copied by other fics until became embedded in writers' minds.
Sometimes one can find something in canon that could explain why a
particular fanon characterization became popular (e.g. gay!Justin 
from his admiration of Lockhart) but sometimes it's just random
genetic drift.
> 
> Another thing, I'm curious as to why many seem to think that its 
> quite cool for Dean and Seamus to be together, yet not for Harry
> and Ron? The same arguments I always hear can apply to them as 
> well. "They're best mates, and it would ruin things", "They're 
> obviously straight", hello? Sometimes things happen. There aren't 
> even obvious clues many times. So why is it really ok for D/S, but 
> not H/R? 

People who get attached to a certain ship often dislike any other 
ship for the same people. So Harry/Hermione, Harry/Ginny, and
Harry/Draco shippers all have that reason to object to Harry/Ron. I
kind of like Harry/Ron, but to me, Ron has displayed the most
heterosexuality of any kid of his year at Hogwarts, with his
exagerated reactions to Fleur, and his attempts to look down Madam
Rosmerta's neckline.

For me, the ship that I REALLY believe in, that is just SO OBVIOUS
from canon that I don't understand how anyone can doubt it, is
McGonagall/Hooch, so *I* get tetchy when people start shipping
Dumbledore/McGonagall or McGonagall/Sprout ...

> I won't even touch the subject of *anybody* with Snape. :)

A pity, as that's what I write.

> Now, is Seamus Catholic or Protestant? There's no mention. He 
> doesn't seem to have any prejudices about anybody prior to OOtP, so 
> I'm guessing that even being half n half, he wasn't taught to hate 
> based upon that, which is great. That could explain why he's so 
> close to Dean, since he's not really prejudiced against anybody
> that we know of. Is his village rather isolated, and that's why 
> he's not been taught any of those views? I'd like to think so. 

It seems to me that all your questions come from the idea that Seamus
was brought up in the Muggle world. I think he was brought up more in
the wizarding world (remember, he had all those tales of flying a
broomstick before he ever came to Hogwarts). Going to visit his
paternal grandparents in the Muggle world could be like going to 
gvisit them in a foreign country. Nowdays I have co-workers who get
all excited about taking their children to Taiwan or Pakistan to 
meet the grandparents, but back in my youth, my family lived in Los
Angeles and they took me to New York City to meet my grandparents in
1968(? It was the NY World's Fair.) 

The isolation you mention is not a Muggle isolated village, but the
entire wizarding world's isolation from Muggles.

I think there is no need to assume that there is any conflict between
Catholics and Protestants, any concept of Stuarts or Orangemen, in 
the wizarding world. That is just Muggle politics, which Muggle king
will rule the Muggle people of (Northern) Ireland. Even if his Muggle
grandparents were very into that conflict, his witch mother would 
have brought him up to think that that was just a stupid thing 
Muggles do, like playing football (soccer) instead of Quidditch. I
suppose his mother has also taught him that being prejudiced based on
skin color (instead of on important things like purity of blood) is
still another stupid thing Muggles do. However, in OoP she does seem
like the type to be prejudiced against werewolves: did Seamus make 
any comment when it was revealed to the whole school that Lupin was a
werewolf? 

(Another thought I have is, that Seamus might live in England. His
parents might have moved to England for career purposes, just as some
point, the Patil twins' ancestor moved from South Asia to Britain. If
Seamus lived in England, then Hogwarts might be the wizarding school
for Britain and Ireland could have its own school.)

My theory on the religion of British and Irish wizarding folk is 
that, while Muggle-borns would have brought many Muggle religions in
with them, the old pureblood families are very conservative and may
well have retained their old pre-Christian religions. I wonder if
their Druid religion and their Hellenistic Roman religion have merged
by now? So I imagine that British wizarding institutions have TWO
Official religions, their old religion and their Anglican religion.
Thus, it would be difficult for them to make being one particular
religion a mark of a political position.