A SHIPping discussion manifesto

[David <dfrankiswork@netscape.net>]

No: HPFGUIDX 50392

Penny wrote:

>  let me just 
> say a huge "ME TOO" to Amy Z's post about how the ambiguity in the 
> shipping is quite distinguishable from the other revelations (such 
as 
> Quirrel or Crouch Jr., etc.).  I can't add much more than "me 
too," 
> so I'll just put it here.  The shipping ambiguities will always be 
> somewhat ambiguous.  It's not as though the characters can be 
shown 
> to be in love since PS/SS .... they will change as they mature.  I 
> also don't buy the notion that the ships have been "destined" 
since 
> PS/SS (Ginny as the first girl Harry sees and Hermione's 
interaction 
> with Ron over the smudged nose).  

I agree completely with this, and what Amy said.  However, this was 
not quite my intent with post 50365.

What I am driving at is that I think there are some shipping 
discussions to be had that, to my knowledge, have not had good 
coverage in HPFGU.

Most shipping analysis in GOF that we see, IMO, is concerned with 
trying to work out which of the two boys Hermione favours.  While it 
is true that nobody (AFAIK) thinks the characters have been in love 
since the beginning of PS, it is my opinion that the vast majority 
of shipping discussion does assert things about the situation in 
GOF, in a way that could indeed be validated by what we read in 
later books.  I wanted to suggest there are some other directions of 
enquiry that might be interesting to pursue.

The first is that the text might support variant readings in a way 
that is more than just different reader interpretations.  I find it 
hard to express this without referring to author intent, but then we 
do have at least one book definitely to come, and two more 
apparently in the pipeline.  Hence the subject line of my previous 
post.

So, your exam question:  does the text go out of its way (whatever 
that means!) to string along opposing shippers?  Is the ambiguity in 
Hermione, JKR, or her readers?

The second concerns the implication of one answer, which is 
approximately the one Amy and Penny give.  This is to look at 
Hermione's choice as essentially undetermined at this stage (ie at 
any point in the first four books) and look at how events may be 
shaping her choices.  IMO most shipping discussion about specific 
incidents such as the Yule Ball focuses on what they *reveal* about 
Hermione's current state of mind.  I think it might be an 
interesting endeavour to looks at how they might *affect* her 
ongoing state of mind.

So, a starter: can you support from the text a shipping position in 
which Hermione is torn and trying to sort out how she feels?  Do you 
feel that the difficulty of knowing her true feelings is because she 
conceals them, or because she is still forming them?

But I think there are other, more radical, positions than Amy and 
Penny's, and I would be interested to hear what you all think about 
that, too.  For example, that we have what I think of as a post-
modern situation in which we would have two equally valid endings as 
happens with some books.

I hasten to add I'm not against any of the current shipping 
discussion.  I just think there's more and hoped someone might want 
to discuss it.

David