SHIP: The truth about H/H?

[Horst or Rebecca J. Bohner]

No: HPFGUIDX 20816

Carole wrote:

> I just have to creep out of lurkdom and support Penny on this one.  I
> was best friends with my hubby before it ever turned into romance.
> We palled around together in college.  He helped me through physics,
> I got him through a geology elective.  We were buddies for quite
> awhile before we ever kissed.  For those who haven't experienced that
> I can see why H/H does not have the appeal.  But for those of us who
> *have* experienced its very powerful.

Well, you have just told the story of my own courtship with my husband -- as
well as the story of all the romances I always liked and respected most in
literature even before I met my husband.  And I agree heartily with you that
such relationships are the best.  However, I am not at all an H/H shipper,
even though PoU was the first fic I ever read (oh, no, sorry, it was the
second:  Pippin's hilarious "Imperius Crush" was the first) and most of the
better-quality fics I've read have been H/H to at least some extent.

So I don't think you can boil a person's ship preferences down to their life
experience, or their fanfic reading experience, or even which boy we'd
choose if we were in Hermione's place (I love Ron, but given a choice I
would probably choose Harry myself).  There are all kinds of reasons, just
as there are all kinds of people.

> Hollywood and romance novels have led a lot of people to believe that
> a relationship is not intense without tension, fighting, anger,
> resistance, and spats.  A relationship can be very intense even if
> you agree on a lot of major issues.  Passion does not have to derive
> from anger or spats.

Again, I agree:  my husband and I have literally never had an argument in 3
years of marriage, and I'm more than happy to keep it that way.  I never
liked the "bickering lovers" motif either; I'd much rather see people laugh
together and tease each other.  But again, that doesn't make me an H/Her.  I
don't really see that kind of relaxed openness between Harry and Hermione
either.

I think they're all still too young and emotionally turbulent for anyone to
really say what they'll be like or which relationship (H/H or R/H) would
turn out for the best in the end.  Ron is easier to object to because he
shoots his mouth off more than Harry does, and therefore appears to have
more of an attitude problem.  But it could just as easily be said that Ron
is more open than Harry and therefore resolving conflicts with him wouldn't
be so difficult.

Remember in the Scabbers-Crookshanks tiff, Hermione was just as stubborn and
insensitive as Ron was, indeed in some ways more so.  And in the Harry-Ron
tiff in GoF, it was Harry who kept it going when Ron wanted to resolve it.
IMO, they *all* need to grow up and learn to stop bickering before they're
ready for any kind of a serious relationship -- with each other or with
anybody else.
--
Rebecca J. Bohner
(who prefers R/H to H/H simply because it seems more canonically likely, and
because she's tired of people slagging Ron -- but really doesn't care if
none of them end up with anybody.  I'd rather see a relationship for Sirius
or Remus, frankly.)