Hermione's Birthday; SHIP (FITD)

Ebony selah_1977 at yahoo.com
Wed Apr 16 14:43:15 UTC 2003


No: HPFGUIDX 55432

(Apologies to those on digest, as I deleted this message by mistake. 
*shuts ears in oven door and irons hands*)

First of all, I am quite uncharacteristically smug and ungracious 
about being right re: Hermione's birthday. It may not be a major 
point, but I feel vindicated (and thank Steve for having my essay on 
the Lexicon, which originated as a post here). 

Hermione's age is very important IMO. *teacher soapbox* In 
adolescence, year-to-year developmental changes are far more dynamic 
than they are now at this stage of our lives. If Hermione was nearly 
a year older than Harry and several months older than Ron, JKR as a 
former teacher would have naturally written her a bit differently... 
I stand by that. And of *course* she is more mature than both of the 
boys in the canon we have so far; not only are most girls that age, 
I'm nearly 26 and most of my same-cohort males haven't yet caught up 
to us emotionally. I am beginning to wonder if this will ever 
happen. ;-)

Then again, JKR *did* confirm Hermione's age in canon; even if fandom 
did not think that Dumbledore's quote in PoA ("two thirteen year old 
wizards) was enough, or was an uncorrected mistake, I rather suppose 
that JKR does. 

Although, I did sigh a bit when I saw this. Because *that* was 
actually the One Question I Would Ask JKR If I Could Meet 
Her... "what year was Hermione born in?" So now, I've got to think 
of something else just in case.

For those of you coming to Nimbus, Steve and I will be two of the 
panelists on a fandom culture panel, "The Wizarding World: Past, 
Present, Future". During this, we will be chatting about various 
events in JKR's series from c. 993 to 1998 and beyond, anachronisms, 
character ages, how Muggle events might impact wizarding, etc. I 
also plan to work with Steve and the other panelists on some visual 
aids. So isn't it reassuring that our sense of time seems to be okay 
thus far?

A fandomer named Taras was nice enough to transcribe the DVD-ROM 
information for those of us who do not have it:
http://poke.uh-shells.co.uk/texts/cos-time.txt

While reading it over, I was extraordinarily pleased. Nothing looked 
strange or off at all. 

And I think that this *must* settle the birthday debate once and for 
all, because I cannot think of another reason *why* Hermione's 
birthday was confirmed on this timeline and Ron's was not, when we've 
have not had any indication of either of these dates in canon... 
except for *our* benefit. It must have gotten back to TPTB that 
Hermione's birthday was under dispute in the fandom, and this was 
inserted for much the same reasons as Krum's pronunciation lesson in 
GoF. So I am very hopeful that other Frequently Asked Fan Questions 
will be settled or at least touched upon on June 21.

Speaking of which...

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pennylin" <pennylin at s...> 
wrote in response to this quote:
> <<<<Chris doesn't suggest anything between Harry and Hermione in 
CoS that i saw. But he did suggest a R/Her dynamic by the tension 
between them at the end in the hug/hand-shake scene. And JKR 
suggested a R/Her dynamic in the quarrels they had over the dance 
issue. I'm not sure how anyone could see/read those scenes and not 
see the dynamic there...it just seems that obvious to me. But perhaps 
some of you are calling this a "red herring" as well and thinking 
that JKR is gonna pull a fast one on us. It's certainly possible. Can 
some H/Her shippers give me some examples of canon that lead you to 
believe in the H/Her ship?>>>>>>>>>
> 
> You could check out the Romance FP here as a start:
> 
> http://www.hpfgu.org.uk/faq/
> 
> There is an extensive H/H position brief over at FictionAlley Park, 
though I can't find it at the moment. Heidi? Ebony? This brief 
dissects each of the four books, both from the position of H/H and 
the position of against R/H (and H/G). 


On Christmas Eve 2002, a bunch of H/H shippers who frequented the 
Debate Thread on FictionAlley Park grew rather tired of *being* tired-
-and posted a brief, finally telling the fandom *why* H/Hers were 
H/Hers. We read each book from an H/H subtextual perspective, and 
then read it from an anti-R/H (can't pretty it up any more than that) 
perspective.

The original essays can be found here:
http://www.fictionalley.org/fictionalleypark/forums/showthread.php?
s=&threadid=21753&perpage=20&pagenumber=2

You'll have to scroll down for Emberfire's introduction. Dozens of 
H/Hers posted during a ship chat that day. It was planned that way 
because for months and months, the best H/H essayists would post in 
that forum one at a time, only to have to engage with 5-10 R/Hers at 
once, who would not engage our main points... a teacher of debate 
would have had a field day seeing all the logical fallacies being 
bounced around by both sides! So at that time, the decent H/H 
writers would get overwhelmed and leave... this was the only way we 
could get the R/Hers to stop and take us seriously. (I've heard that 
things have improved on the DT since then, with a new wave of very 
savvy H/H debaters. This situation will only improve, I predict, 
once OotP comes out. :-D)

On our H/H directory site, Pumpkin Pie, we have clean copies of the 
four pro-H/H essays:
http://www.pumpkinpie.org/index.php?x=ship.php

We did not post the anti-R/H essays there because we consider it bad 
form to post such things on a site where non-H/H shippers might not 
feel comfortable engaging us. We do not choose to deal with others 
in this fandom the way that those others sometimes choose to deal 
with us. So the essays at the Pumpkin Pie are strictly pro-H/H, and 
the essays by me, Zorb (who will be the H/H moderator for the ship 
debate at Nimbus), Mia, Carl, and Yumi can only be found at this time 
in the FictionAlley archives. We would welcome the chance for them 
to be housed elsewhere, though, in a place where people of all ships 
or none at all could discourse.

However, I *have* reposted my "why I question R/H in GoF" essay here 
before, perhaps a month or two ago. If you search the archives 
with "Ebony R/H GoF", etc. you will find it:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/50156
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/50157

I've heard recently that it's been rumored, whispered on the wind, 
that I've conceded the debate and am just waiting on the inevitable. 
I've even heard that it has been said that in canon, I believe in 
R/H, but I just don't like it. Nothing could be further from the 
case... if JKR tried to convince me of the plausibility of R/H in 
GoF, she failed utterly and completely not only with me, but with 
millions of H/Hers worldwide.

The real reason I've only lurked around here is because I have had a 
semester so busy that I had to ask for an extension on my thesis and 
I've not written a new chapter on my fanfic since December. It takes 
time and consistency in order to enter the shipping waters here... 
and because I don't have the time to check daily, often I find the 
debate has gotten away from me. So what I've found is that I often 
start tempests in the teapot, then run away while others get the 
blame. Nice. :)

Also, usually folks who show valor or merit in the fray get promoted 
to some other office, like lieutenant or general. So even if you 
don't see me around here in name, know that I am around her in 
spirit, helping a new wave of my shipmates Champion the Subtext. :-D

--Ebony AKA AngieJ, home sick today.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This summer:
http://www.hp2003.org
My zone:
http://www.fictionalley.org
My ship:
http://www.pumpkinpie.org
My fics:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HP_Paradise






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