Pulling up my GIANTCUSHION, and some gender-spiked musings (with a side of literary archetypes)

[viola_1895]

No: HPFGUIDX 33175

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "serenadust" <jmmears at p...> wrote:
> Wow, lucky you, Julie.  I was a Hermione who would have loved to 
have 
> been a Fleur (although I never would have admitted it at the time).

Well, I certainly had a high enough opinion of myself to qualify as a 
Fleur. ^_^ I don't know about any of the rest. But I like her 
character -- at the end of the Second Task we see her with her 
sister, and that really struck a chord with me. I have a younger 
brother, and no matter how snotty and spoiled I may have been as a 
teen, if anything had ever threatened him I would have been whacking 
grindylows left and right to save him, too. ^_^ 


>  Sorry, who's Cordelia?

*laughs* Oh! I thought everyone in Potter fandom was required to 
watch Buffy! Cordelia is the Fleur of the Buffyverse, only with 
snappier comebacks.


> I think that JKR is perfectly capable of executing OBHWF in a way 
> that most readers would be fine with (if that's where she wants to 
> go). I think that people like this theory mainly because everyone 
> ends up happy this way.  The other theories (FITD and HGG) require 
> that Ron and Ginny end up dead/evil or punished in some way.  I 
still 
> don't get the hostility toward the two of them.

I find OBHWF too tidy for my literary taste. But I don't think it 
will be the end of the world if the series does end on that note. 
Star Wars essentially ended with One Big Happy Skywalker Family. 
*shrugs*

The criticisms of Ron and Ginny are valid. I just think they 
sometimes get taken too far. They're characters whose flaws are more 
uncomfortable to deal with than, say, Harry or Hermione's -- whose 
flaws often take on the aspect of job-interview 'what's your biggest 
weakness?'-type shortcomings, i.e. "I work far too hard." or "I'm too 
loyal for my own good!" In other words, they aren't always perceived 
as bad things. I, personally, think Hermione's perfectionism is going 
to be the cause of big problems down the road. Then again, so might 
Ron's jealousy, or Ginny's prolonged exposure to Tom Riddle. Or 
Dumbledore's overconfidence, or Snape's shadowy loyalties, etc.

>  This is one reason I gave up on fanfic.  

Before you give up totally, check out Jennifer-Oksana's "Footnotes." 
It's a short fic that deals pretty bluntly with some of Hermione's 
possible challenges in being Harry's friend through the dark times to 
come. It's possibly my favorite fanon Hermione portrayal, or at least 
one of them. And Snape is wonderful in it too.
(http://www.imjustsayin.net/jennyo/stories/otherfic/footnotes.txt)

-Julie

Cordelia: I just don't see why everyone's always picking on Marie 
Antoinette. I can so relate to her. She worked really hard to look 
that good, and people just don't appreciate that kind of effort. And 
I know the peasants were all depressed--

Xander: I think you mean 'oppressed'

Cordelia: Whatever. They were cranky. So they're like: 'Let's lose 
some heads!' Ugh, that's fair. And, eh, Marie Antoinette cared about 
them. She was going to let them have cake.