SHIPping For the Long Haul

[Jim Ferer <jferer@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 50821

Jim Ferer (me):"That line of thinking calls up this question for
R/Hers: are you  R/Hers for a date or two or three, or even a whole
school year, or are  you in it for the long haul? How do you define
R/H victory? It's  important, because some of us may be debating very
different things."

David:"Yes, I agree that in shipping debates there is plenty of
potential for confusion between what is seen as occurring in canon,
and what may eventually happen post-canon."

Exactly, although I might say 'late-canon or post-canon.'

David:"My definition of R/H victory would simply be that the later
books (OOP onward) make it beyond reasonable doubt that GOF (and POA)
were indeed foreshadowing Hermione having an interest in Ron. That
would be entirely compatible with your position, which I think you
describe as H/H."

That seems to me a very modest goal, one you are likely to achieve.  I
expect more from my ship, that Harry and Hermione are suited
(destined?) to be long-term partners.

David:"You see, I have a lot of trouble envisaging any of the trio
'dating'. Perhaps it's a difference of language across the water, but
I connote dating with the case where two people don't know each other
very well at all, but have decided they want to know each other
better. I think H, H, and R are way past that."

I was not really satisfied with that word, either, and I'm more than
willing to adopt another.  "Have a romance?" Perhaps.  "An affair?"
No, because that presupposes physical intimacy that to me is
unnecessary during the Hogwarts years anyway.  It's affairs of the
heart we're discussing.

David:"Thus for example we might see a tacit understanding between two
of them that they have rights of interference in each other's lives
and behaviour with no public declaration of being 'an item' or much
physicality of behaviour."

All three have those 'rights' now, it seems.  I mean, my mother feels
she has those rights of interference, but there's no romance.  I
believe that there's more, a special place in the participant's feelings.

David:"That might mean that either camp in the fandom could claim
victory under a scenario different from what seems often to be envisaged."

That's the problem and the reason I posed the question.  I see Harry
and Hermione as likely suited for life (in the future), not just for
being an item for a while.

David:"Now this is the essence of why I don't go along with the H/H
case as often put forward: that post-canon they are suited.

I have three objections, in order of increasing radicality:

How can a third party know whether a couple are 'suited' for each
other in advance?

How can you predict from teens what the adult will be?"

We already know that SHIPping 14 and 15 year olds makes no sense,
really.  I do it because it's a great window into these characters. 
To do it at all, we have to make predictions that what we see in the
fourteen year old is prologue for the adult.  If we can't make those
assumptions for the sake of argument, then we shouldn't be here at all.

David:"Given that one *has* determined under some definition that two
people are 'suited', why is that a good thing for them?"

Well, I wish I'd met someone suited for *me*.  "Suited," for me, means
that "this pair are likely to have long-tem happiness and success as a
couple." By that, if it's not good for them, they're not suited.

David:"And in terms of fictional characters, I feel that there may be
more to be done on working out the implications of the fact that so
many of the great fictional romances are tragic."

There's plenty of potential for that here.  One romance we don't talk
about much, the fairly one-sided Krum/Hermione romance, is very likely
to end tragically.  Other romances might also.

Jim Ferer