Friendship, Love and Armageddon

[selah_1977]

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No: HPFGUIDX C7259
From: selah_1977
Subject: Friendship, Love and Armageddon
Date: 8/19/00 9:53 am  (ET)

As a former no-shipper, I can understand Neil's sentiments. SS and CoS
didn't even make me consider the possibility. But then again, when I
first started watching the sitcom Boy Meets World as a young teenager,
I couldn't have predicted anything sappy developing between Corey and
his ultra-weird buddy Topanga.... anyway, back to HP.

As I gaze into Trelawney's crystal ball, I do not forsee much fluff in
the books to come. After all, Voldemort's back.

But...

Consider this. When faced with an Armageddon scenario, do people 1)
become monkish and deal with the task at hand or 2) tend to be more
commitment-minded?

We'd like to think #1, right? But Muggle history and basic human
biological traits tend to favor #2.

I wonder if this is why it seems to us that wizards and witches marry
at earlier ages. Reading between the lines, it does seem as if Lily and
James married early. But as their time at Hogwarts seems to coincide
with the opening of the First Voldemort Age, why wouldn't they put off
making a solid commitment until Evil Incarnate was vanquished? (Maybe
that's what Sirius and Remus did.) Or at least until they were older?

Well, folks, when tomorrow isn't promised, we sentient primates tend to
live in the moment.

The basic human instinct is survival. That's why the PoU scenario works
so well IMO. "There's nothing like an impending crisis to get one to
acknowledge long-buried feelings."

So psychologically speaking, we shippers in all our colorful varieties
aren't just sappy fools. We know that just because the End of the
Wizarding World is threatened doesn't mean that its inhabitants will
put the rest of life for a more opportune time. Quite the opposite.

As for the end of the series, I don't think Neil or any other ardent
anti-shipper will need their airplane sickbag. I rather think that as
we wave farewell to our fearless trio and their friends, we'll be left
with a sense of thankfulness. Sort of like that glad feeling you get
after your wake up from a nightmare and realize that it is morning.

And after the dawn... well, a thousand theorists and fic writers tell the
story much better than I can. But they all seem to say the same thing,
in the words of the great children's poet Shel Silverstein:

"Then listen closely, child, listen to me,
ANYTHING can happen.
ANYTHING can be."

Ebony AKA AngieJ (president of Sentimental Saps Anonymous)