Shippers and LANDLUBBERS (reassuring Elkins)

[cindysphynx]

No: HPFGUIDX 35270

Tabouli wrote:

> Now, as no-one will have guessed, I gain great entertainment from 
>my strident stance on LOLLIPOPS and other mildly offbeat Ships 
>(Ships involving the Trio are too centre stage to be much fun - 
>where's the room for concocting elaborate canon-based backstories in 
>that?).  I do base my theories on fill-in-the-jigsaw interpretations 
>of canon, and I'd argue more so than proponents of Harry/Ginny, for 
>example.  Not that there's anything wrong with H/G shipping  - I 
>just think it's more speculation than canon-based at this point, as 
>I think evidence for Harry returning Ginny's feelings is meagre to 
>nil, and therefore supporters of this ship have to do a lot of 
>*forward" speculation, that is, projecting a future in which Harry 
>will notice Ginny and inventing a reason for this.  LOLLIPOPS and 
>FLIRTIAC are *backwards* speculations, where one looks at the 
>present and what we know of the past and tries to develop a 
>backstory about what *did* happen, incorporating everything we 
>currently know from canon.


That's it!  You've put your finger on an important distinction, IMHO.

You see, some shipping theories don't intrigue me much (R/H, H/H, 
etc), but I think LOLLIPOPS, CUPIDSBLUDGER and other backward-looking 
theories like FEATHERBOA, George are great fun.  The difference must 
be the distinction Tabouli makes -- that backward speculation is more 
canon-based.  We do have lots of clear canon facts about Snape's 
background, who was a Death Eater and when, who tried to feed whom to 
a werewolf, who has a grudge against whom, etc.  It is entertaining 
on some level to try to use logic to piece these facts together into 
something coherent and, hopefully, mildly amusing.

On the other hand, we have no canon at all that one character will 
wind up with another because none of it has happened yet.  So we are 
left with speculating about whether a particular interaction will 
lead to a future relationship when we don't even know for sure if 
certain characters will survive the next book.  

Well, at least I understand, or at least I think I do.  I guess that 
makes me a non-future-shipper and a pro-past-shipper.

Cindy