[HPforGrownups] Re: SHIP: JKR Interview (what she said and what she didn't say)

[Pen Robinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 52107


On Wednesday, Feb 12, 2003, at 19:53 Europe/London, Penny Linsenmayer 
wrote:

>

> Q: Is Harry Potter ever going to fall in love with Hermione or is he 
> going to fall in love with Ginny Weasley?
> A: In Book IV Harry does decide he likes a girl, but it's not Hermione 
> or Ginny. However, he's only 14, so there's plenty of time for him to 
> change his mind. ;-)
>
> Now, *that's* an appropriately-worded question, isn't it?  Yep.  So.  
> Let's see.  If she thought "Man, these people are dense.  Did they not 
> *hear* my answer to this back in October?!  For crying out 
> loud......Harry is *never* going to fall in love with Hermione," WHY 
> didn't she say so?  It would have been soooooooo easy, wouldn't it?  I 
> mean if you were clear in your "intent" that Hermione would never 
> figure in Harry's love life at all, why wouldn't you say: "In Book IV, 
> Harry does decide he likes a girl, but it's not Hermione or Ginny.  As 
> I said last October, Harry and Hermione are very platonic friends.  
> However, Harry's only 14, so there's plenty of time for him to change 
> his mind about other girls, nudge, nudge, wink, wink."
>
> Eh?  Now *that* would have slammed H/H and bolstered the flagging H/G, 
> right?  But, no.  That's not what she said.  She left the door wide 
> open for Harry to change his mind about *either* Hermione or Ginny or 
> someone entirely different for that matter.
>
> She's had some opportunities to be explicit, Angua, and she *hasn't* 
> been.  I think it's pretty obvious that she has her reasons for not 
> being explicit.

How often is JKR - or any other author - *explicit* about what is in a 
book yet to be published?

Perhaps, as a Dorothy Dunnett reader, I am inured to vagueness by the 
author (DD carefully avoided being explicit even about books that had 
been published, read and discussed at tremendous length... ).  But I 
would *expect* an ambiguous answer to a question that is obviously 
important to a lot of readers.  Why would an author risk alienating 
potential readers by saying flat out "No, that's not going to happen"?

Being 'anti-explicit' is precisely what I would expect.  JKR wants what 
is coming to be a surprise.  (So do I.)

Her answer, above, leaves people the opportunity to assume H/H, or H/G, 
or H/F or whatever takes their fancy.  Good for her.

<massively more snippage>

> Well, it may be *obvious* to you, Angua.  What's obvious to me about 
> Ginny is that she is a background character of little importance at 
> the moment.  She isn't even mentioned, not once, in the last 400 pages 
> of GoF (not again after the Yule Ball).  She's not mentioned as eating 
> lunch with everyone on the day of the Third Task when Molly and Bill 
> come up to support Harry.  She's not seen in the stands during the 
> Third Task.  She's nowhere to be seen in the post-3rd Task scenes in 
> the hospital.  She's not on the train with them coming home.  Where is 
> she?  If JKR were going to be setting her up as the ultimate love 
> interest of our beloved hero, don't you think she ought to spend just 
> a wee bit of time here and there mentioning Ginny every so often so 
> the reader doesn't forget who she is?!  I personally think the H/G 
> ship is sinking, sinking, sinking ........ but whatever.

Yeah... but Sirius Black was, as far as anyone knew, a 'throwaway' 
character who just happened to lend Hagrid his motorbike at the 
beginning of book one.  And what of Mrs Figg, of whom apparently we can 
expect to see rather more in future?

I don't see Ginny's lack of prominence so far as meaning that she is an 
irrelevant character.  Neither does it mean she is destined for future 
greatness.  But it doesn't rule anything out!

Pen