the Anne girl books (slightly OT)

[Ebony]

No: HPFGUIDX 7297

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, EvenCirce713 at a... wrote:
> In a message dated 12/14/00 04:50:32 -0000 Eastern 
Standard Time, "Susan 
> McGee" <Schlobin at a...> writes:
> 
> << Oh my goodness! I was just about to post about the 
Pringles (who Anne 
>  routed) in Anne of Green Gables. I'm astonished that anyone 
else has 
>  read ALL those books.
>  
>  Susan >>
> Oh there are lots of us out here. Who besides Anne combines 
that sense of 
> hard practicality and dreaminess. In spite of being a H/Hr 
shipper( by 
> default) I'd love to see Harry with an Anne. Could Ginny be an 
Anne?
> ~Circe

Perhaps... Ginny seems Anneish in some ways, but not in 
others.  Harry is more like Gilbert... he functions how Gilbert 
might have functioned if  he had been the center of the Anne 
narrative. There's not a perfect parallel there.   Most Lucy Maud 
Montgomery fans I've met tend R/H... I thought this summer that 
they'd lean H/H because of my own LMM fanaticism (twelve years 
and counting... I've read every single thing she's ever published), 
but Hermione's definitely not an Anne-like character.  She's way 
too modern for LMM.

And yes, Susan, there are many of us Annefans lurking about.  I 
adore orphan kids from Dickens' creations to Cosette of Les 
Miserables to Seymour of "Little Shop of Horrors"... that was the 
main initial attraction of the Harry Potter novels.  Children of all 
ages are my #1 passion in life, and unloved children break my 
heart.  You'll find an unloved/unwanted child at or near the central 
focus of every single piece of fiction I've ever written.  I've only 
recently (as in this semester) come to terms with the area in my 
own psyche that caused this.  So all of the books I develop a 
passion for, whatever the genre, feature protagonists from 
broken or dysfunctional families... or have no family to speak of 
at all.

I also have a hereditary disdain for those whose loyalty is 
questionable.  I found Edmund difficult to sympathize with in "The 
Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe"... and had a difficult time 
forgiving what he did (though I know as the allegorical Judas, he 
couldn't help himself).   I'm also finding that I have a decreasing 
amount of empathy with Ron as the series progresses... I loved 
him in the first two novels but something about him nags at me 
while reading PoA and GoF.  I think the similarity is that both of 
these characters were discontented with their lot in life, but their 
discontent IMO isn't quite justified considering the 
circumstances.  The Anne-related point?  Ron isn't a lot like 
Gilbert at all... Gilbert's #1 character trait is faithfulness and 
constancy to the point of being stubborn/obstinate.

--Ebony