SHIP(TBAY)R/H vs. H/H vs. FITD--Banging

[abigailnus <abigailnus@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 48948

[Note: While I read the odd post here and there, I absolutely 
and completely did *not* follow the recent Shipping thread.  
Consequently, I have no idea what was said in it beyond 
what I saw in the subject lines.  If any or all of my thoughts 
in this post have been mentioned, or refuted, in that thread, 
I offer my most sincere apologies.]

Cindy and Derannimer are just settling down to watch the 
show when a slightly lost looking figure trudges over a nearby 
sand-dune.  If possible, she seems even less coordinated then 
Derannimer was, although that may be because she keeps 
looking up at the flying ships and going 'Wow!' and 'Whee!'.

"Abigail?"  Asks Cindy, "Where have you been keeping 
yourself?  You were at George's Tavern, I remeber, but what 
happened then?"

"I have been through a Dishwasher."  Abigail states.  "I left 
when people started drawing swords, although I understand 
there was some interesting stuff with a bunny and a 
well-dressed Russian gentleman that I missed [1].  And then... 
it appeared.  The Crouch monolith.  We all just sat around and 
stared at it.  At its size.  Its strangely perfect lines.  Its 
apparently unbreachable surface.  I just sat and pondered it 
for days."  Her eyes take on a slightly glassy expression for a 
moment until, with a shake of her head, she snaps back to 
reality.  "Anyway, I was just on my way home when this light 
show started, and then I heard the two of you talking.  Do you 
mind if I join in a bit?"

"Not at all."  Says Derannimer.  "Pull up some sand.  Do you 
Ship?"

"Nope."  Abigail replies instantly.

"Not even a bit?"  Cindy exclaims incredulously.  "Come on, 
everyone's got their own personal preference, even if they 
never state it."

"I don't."  Abigail shrugs.  "Or rather, I do, but it's sort on an 
anti-Ship.  I've always found the idea that Lily and James 
married and had a child so young faintly disturbing, especially 
when you consider wizards' extended lifespans.  I was more 
than a little distressed to discover that Mr. and Mrs. Weasly had 
apparently been high-school sweethearts as well.  I'd be only 
too happy for none of the Trio or their contemporaries to couple 
up as soon as they leave school."

"You must realise that's a dramatically untenable position."  
Cindy points out.  "I mean, how's the epilogue chapter going to 
start?  'Harry held the door open for Sheila, whom he had met 
at an office party three years ago and married last year'?  
Where's the Bang?"

"You're right, of course."  Abigail nods.  "In the end, at least 
one of those" she points up at the watercrafts circling each 
other like binary stars, "has to be true."

Derannimer's brow furrows.  "At *least* one?" She asks.  
"There are only two, and they're mutually exclusive."

"Don't be deceieved by appearances."  Abigail says with a 
cryptic grin.  "The two ships up there - the H\H and H\R - may 
be the biggest ships in the fleet, but there are many others.  
The light from these two is just so bright, it drowns out the 
rest.  See over there?"  She points at a seemingly empty 
portion of sky.  "That small, heavy-looking one?  That's the 
Harry\Ginny.  A bit of a plodder, I admit, but it has quite a 
few supporters."

"Who may be looking for some retribution if they hear their 
Ship being called a plodder."  Cindy says with an evil grin.  

Abigail's expression freezes.  "Did I say plodder?  I meant... 
um... gee... puller!  They *pull* their weight!  Right! That was it."  
Abigail wipes the sweat off her brow, and then points up to 
another portion of sky, where a shadow, black on black, can 
only dimly be perceived.  "Anyway, they've still got someone 
to look down on - that's the Ginny/Neville over there."  She's 
about to start explaining about it when two streaks of green 
light cut across the sky.  They're so fast and small that, if the 
three women weren't already looking at that portion of sky, 
they might not have noticed them.

"Were those comets?"  Derannimer asks, "Or stray canons?"

"Neither."  Abigail smiles.  "That was the Draco/Hermione 
and its smaller cousin, the Draco/Ginny.  They're powered by 
fanfic, which is why they're so fast.  There are others, of course.  
If it were a moonless night we might be able to see the 
Hermione/Krum, the Ron/Fleur or the Harry/Cho.  And if we 
turn to that corner of the sky over there, we might be able to 
see some of the non-Trio Ships - Bill/Fleur, George/Angelina, 
Sirius/Arabella Figg."

"Are you sure you don't Ship?"  Derannimer asks.  "You seem 
to know an awful lot about it.  Anyway, none of those Ships 
are involved in this fight.  I might have seen Harry/Ginny throw 
a volley once, but it happened so fast I'm not even sure I saw it."

"Neither am I."  Abigail admits.  "I was just pointing out that 
your Bang assessment is incomplete.  Even if it were, I have 
some issues with your conclusion."

"What, that Farmer In The Dell is the bangiest Ship of them 
all?"  Asks Derannimer.

"Right."  Abigail nods.  "You see, I'm not quite certain 
that FITD can rightly be called a Ship.  Frankly, I wouldn't 
even call it a theory - by the end of GoF I simply can't 
see any other canonical way of reading the relationships 
between the Trio.  Add to the canon JKR's interview 
statement that in OotP 'everyone is in love with the 
wrong person' [2] and what you get is not a theory, it's 
fact.  Even if we put that aside for a moment, as I 
understand both of these Ships - and most of the smaller 
ones - they don't assume that the relationship they 
advocate already exists.  At best most of them assume 
that one party is in love with the other - Ron loves 
Hermione, Ginny loves Harry, Neville loves Ginny - but 
that love is not reciprocated.  Most Shipping theories 
are concerneded with predicting who the characters end 
up with after book 7, and are only tangentially interested 
in how the characters get there.  FITD deals strictly 
with the status quo at the end of GoF, and presumably 
tells us a lot about the dynamics within the Trio 
throughout book 5."

"So what's your point?"  Asks Cindy.

"That book 7 can't end with a FITD situation - the Trio's 
tangled love lives must be sorted out - to my own personal 
discomfort, but there you are.  So how does the FITD 
situation logically resolve itself?"

"Well, it's obvious that ..."  Dernnimer pauses.  "It could go 
either way.  FITD supports both H/H and H/G."

"Precisely!"  Abigail smiles.  "If H/H is your pleasure, then 
Harry simply wakes up one morning and realises that 
instead of mooning over Cho/Parvati/Arabella Figg/insert
female character here he should be with this great person 
who's been in love with him all along - Hermione.  And if 
your tastes run to H/G, simply substitute Hermione for 
Harry, Ron for Hermione, and switch all the prepositions 
around.  I call it the Vanity Fair [3] scenario, although I 
imagine many fanfic writers have given it different names.  
It could also work, by the way, for Harry/Ginny - Ginny is 
part of the FITD situation, you know.  In other words, 
reports of the Banglessness of H/H and H/R were a bit 
premature."

"Because both Ships get their Banginess not from the 
resolution of the romance, but from the love-triangle that 
preceeds it!"  Derannimer cries.

"That's exactly it."  Abigail agrees,  "Anyone who's read 
a romance novel, be it Jane Austen or Danielle Steel, knows 
that the story is interesting not because of the happy ending, 
but because of the thorny path leading up to it."

"So H/H is Bangy?"  Cindy asks, a bit doubtfully.

"If you start from a FITD position," Abigail says, "and 
especially if you mix in some of that delicious Jealous!Ron 
stuff that Derannimer cooked up.  And so is H/R, and even 
H/G.  Draco/Hermione and Draco/Ginny also Bang, but for 
different and, I trust, entirely obvious reasons."

"So this Bang analysis is useless."  Derannimer says, 
crestfallen.  "We haven't come any closer to establishing the 
canon weight the different Ships are to be given."

"Not entirely useless."  Abigail replies.  "I'm afraid no amount 
of farmers in dells could make Neville/Ginny Bangy."

Derannimer smiles.  "Well, that's a start."

Abigail 
Who really enjoyed Derannimer's post.

[1] See Pip's insightful post on Metathinking in the 
OT-Chatter group, #12757 

[2] I couldn't find this interview in the Lexicon, but I know
I read it somewhere.   

[3] In the novel Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackery, 
one of the two heroines falls in love and marries a man whose 
best friend is in love with her.  After she is widowed, she 
spends years pining for her husband, even though his friend 
has made his (vastly superior) love well-known.  Only when he 
grows tired of waiting for her does she realise that she's 
actually in love with him.  It's actually a much better book then 
I'm making it sound - very wry and cynical.