[HPforGrownups] No-ship Harry - Reading Ahead - Gorgeous Granger

[Horst or Rebecca J. Bohner]

No: HPFGUIDX 20796

> >I can see another teenaged boy throwing caution to the
> >wind and starting up a romance anyway (*cough*Ron*cough*) but not Harry.
> >He thinks too much, and he worries too much, to do that.

> All of this is perfectly reasonable.  However, the heart has its reasons
of
> which reason knows nothing.  I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of
> conflict arose once Harry =was= in love with someone... but that it would
> actually keep him from falling for someone?  Or
> even from acting on his feelings, at least initially?

Oh, I don't think it would keep him from falling in love.  But I think he
would have to fight his feelings like crazy (and probably be unsuccessful in
some regards), which would make it all the more tragic.  Or maybe I'm making
this TOO dark...

> making them sleep with their potions professor, things like that <grins
> appreciatively at Rebecca>.

Hey!  She has not!   *looks indignantly at Amy, then relents and grins back*
I thought I did make that part of it quite clear, but I can't take
responsibility for the way my readers may choose to fill in the blanks
between scenes...

> I'm actually a Harry no-shipper too, just because I can't really see him
> with anyone we've met so far.

Right.  I'm not at all opposed to H/G, but only if Ginny gets more character
development and I can see that it would actually make sense.  I'm not in
favor of Harry being handed off to Ginny just because she's always had a
crush on him.  I mean, *most* teenaged crushes end up being completely
fruitless -- or at least all of mine did.

> Terrific post, David--one of those that leaves me with nothing to say but
> "uh-huh!!"  As for being in the water, have no fear.  Shippers of all
> descriptions will be chugging over frantically to be the first to lower
you
> a buoy.

Whoop!  Whoop!  Up periscope on the U-Boat No-Ship...

> Re: reading the last pages first, I am so relieved to hear I'm not the
only
> person who does this!

I have to admit that from my perspective, the revelation that people do this
is kind of shocking.  I mean, I can see doing it with a book you don't
really enjoy and just want to know how it turns out so you can toss it aside
and get on to something you enjoy more; but spoiling a really GOOD book for
yourself?  I can't do it, myself.  It's not just that it feels like
cheating, it's that I know I won't enjoy the book half as much if I do it.

Of course, I read so fast that it's no trial to wait until I've gotten to
the end legitimately:  I read GoF in about three and a half hours.

> the Plain Girl Who's Just Lovely if She Puts on a Little Makeup and Does
> Something with Her Hair is a cliche too (all I have to do is think of Ally
> Sheedy in "The Breakfast Club" and I break out in hives).

I don't know how "plain" Hermione really was.  I think that Ron and Harry
have had a mental block where she's concerned since Day One:  they met her
before they had any interest in girls romantically, and she became their
friend before they had the chance to start thinking of her as A Girl, one of
those mysterious alluring creatures capable of causing percolation of the
hormones.  They've always thought of her as an honorary guy, so of course
they wouldn't notice her changing from a skinny little girl to a young
woman.

What I think the Yule Ball *did* do for Hermione was make her look
different, so that Harry & Ron didn't recognize her right away.  Her hair
was sleek so it didn't immediately yell "Hermione" at them, and she was
wearing much more flattering and elegant robes that no doubt made her look
older and more sophisticated.  So that stripped away their expectations of
What Hermione Looks Like and forced them to take a second look -- hey, she's
pretty, why didn't we notice that before?

I don't recall JKR mentioning cosmetics in her description of Hermione:
just the hair and the robes.  I think Harry and Ron would have noticed (and
probably Ron would have said something acid) if Hermione had been wearing
any appreciable amount of makeup.

So my take on all this is that Hermione didn't really undergo a
Cinderella-like transformation from a plain girl into a pretty one; I think
she simply made herself look different for the Ball, and defeated Ron and
Harry's expectations of her in such a way that they realized hey, this girl
IS a girl and she's not half bad to look at, either.

And I too, have more to say on this subject but will say it over on
OT-Chatter.  :)
--
Rebecca J. Bohner
rebeccaj at pobox.com
http://home.golden.net/~rebeccaj