SHIP Krum's Role (was SHIP Luna.)

[dan]

No: HPFGUIDX 106158

"Halli" wrote:

>> "I'm not trying to kill anyones visions of a "happy ending" or
>> anything, but somehow I don't see these books as romantic as some 
>> of you... I'm not entirely sure that everyone is going to pair off 
>> in the end and get married or whatever...

Initially, reading this list, I skipped merrily passed all the posts 
with SHIP in the subject. After a while, as my understanding of the 
series deepened - after a couple weeks of reading really thoughtful 
posts, back when the list was full of those - I started to keen on 
certain aspects of the whole phenomenon. Yet, it is never "happiness" 
nor "ending" toward which these thoughts strive. No reminiscences of 
unrequited love colour the anticipated result. Nor do I expect in 
Rowling's work love itself will make any more "sense" than it does in 
the real world. (In some cases, however, shippers do seem be 
motivated by just such things - often the "hard" shippers, those for 
whom the ships are inevitable and not moot.) What did stand out was 
that, for some reason, some of the most thoughtful listees here were 
also fairly active shippers. Jim describes it, partially, as an 
abundance of references to all sorts of different kinds of love in 
the books. And he says: 

"Jim Ferer" wrote:

> I want to understand each one of them as best I can, get
> under their skins and into their minds and hearts.... 

I concede this point. But before that there is the question of why we 
might think/feel shipping has validity in this very sense. In David 
Copperfield, for example, Dickens does all the work for us regarding 
romance - we know immediately Emily will fall tragically for 
Steerforth, and that Ham will pay somehow, we know immediately Dora 
isn't the last word, and that Agnes is, with her finger pointing 
upwards and all that. On a more formalaic level there is the whole 
romance novel genre, extending into the successful-suburban-housewife-
leaves-her-family formula, which "works out" what is already 
apparent. It's like a drug, a substitute for romance, or for leaving. 
Definitely not Rowling's gambit.

Not Rowling's gambit, but in many cases, the formulas from other 
novels are applied as if it were her gambit. Putting the books 
exclusively in the kids section is also a mistake.

What we are witnessing, and participating in, is something really 
peculiar and particular. The Harry Potter books have become like 
Erised to a great many people. And one of the results is that, upon 
the characters, unto the books themselves, all kinds of emotions and 
thoughts are being projected, politico-religious viewpoints, silly 
demands that the books be innocuous, or at least not subversive, 
sundry moralistic, alchemistic, psychoanalytic contrivances, and 
ships ships ships.

The genius of Rowling is the genius of the possible, of possiblity, 
the very same that came to her as Harry Potter on the train from 
Manchester to London. 

Love is not a closing, but an opening. Love is possiblity.

Then why is Rowling so parsimonious with this romance topic? I think 
it's mostly Rowling herself. On the one hour TV documentary about 
her, she made a passing reference to not being a very romantic person 
at all, for a long time. Yet, the possibility was there. That is how
characters in her books are, and how WE are. Full of possibility.

To exercise a Harry/Hermione ship, or, a Harry/Luna ship, in our 
minds, (which is where, as I pointed out in my last post, the magic 
is) can be instructive because it IS possible - Rowling makes it so, 
quite literally. And what the heck was that little bit about golden 
lights in Parvati's hair (end of chapter 31, OoTP)? It's not unusual, 
in fact it's so common as to make up a good portion of a day, in real 
life terms, to have daydreamy moments like that. It's less usual in 
genre fiction, without it "meaning" something. It's almost unheard of 
in children's literature - a passage referring to some character in 
such a way without it "meaning" anything. Of course, there's the 
possibility it does "mean" something, other than that Harry was 
daydreaming, or maybe even as a sign of his being under the influence 
of a befuddlement potion or something, or even as a sign of the onset 
of the biggest and most important Voldemort brain incursion, which 
happens later in that history of magic exam! It's just, Rowling never 
says "rather like the warning people suffering from epilepsy get 
before a seizure, Harry found himself distracted by golden lights in 
Parvati's hair," or "as if under the influence of a befuddlement 
potion" or the like.

I hope that, at the end of the series, Rowling doesn't "happy" 
or "end", in the sense of no more possibilities. I'd opt for a 
closing chapter that creates more possibilities. I dont' want the 
books to "close" that way.

In fact, Rowling seems to avoid the closed, so I have no great fear 
that all our ships will sink. But what Jim came short of saying was 
that shipping is almost necessary, to understand how the books 
operate.

That is my sense, at any rate.

Dan
captain of the L3 (League of Luna Lovers) and H/LL shipper