there are SHIPs and there are SHIPs

[dan]

No: HPFGUIDX 99217

Well, what I mean is, we can SHIP as a point of contention, or
rather, as an active choosing ourselves, that is, acting out how we
would work things out, or we can ship according to what we gather
Rowling SHIPs (if at all) - but - if we do both, I think they don't
have to agree. I remember a really good fan fiction, which I've
forgotten the name of, where Hermione goes off somewhere to develop
her "empathetic" powers under the tutelage of some witch on a remote
island. It was well written, and fun to read, even if it had nothing
to do with the Hermione I got from the books. It was, as far as I
could tell, an expression of the first kind of SHIP. Not exactly A/U -
there's a difference - but alternate personality, perhaps (though we
could argue the tendancies are latent in the Rowling characters, and
we just move those tendancies out).

Myself, I have long thought there was a kind of complex, latent bond
between Harry and Hermione, and that Ron's role, in terms of that
bond, anyway, was intermediary. As in PS, Hermione must leave Harry
at some point and return to look after Ron. A foreshadowing, say. 
That is, the tension between Ron and Hermione so broadly spoken of in
the story is in fact partly a result of the much more unsettling
tension between Harry and Hermione. So unsettling that it takes the
form of projection - both projecting onto Ron - Harry his own
interest in Hermione, and Hermione her own misgivings about 
potentially being with Harry.

But, my chosen SHIP is Luna, for entirely different reasons. Starting
from the moment they share after Harry's sit down by the lake at the
end of OOP, where he faces the lake as if he were facing mute
fate/history/earth, and working backwards through the book, I
have "decided" that The Room is "out here", that is, the RW in the
meta sense, and that Luna Lovegood is somehow "from here" - her
appearance signals the beginning of the resolution of the series - 
whether or not she in fact somehow embodies that resolution I can't 
say. I may go into this in detail, if anyone wants me to. Let's just 
say that I see the whole series as a kind of escape from the closet - 
not of homosexuality, but, in fact, literally.

At any rate, what I am saying about SHIPs is that there seem to be
two main kinds, and different kinds of supporting arguements or
whatnot for each of them. Often, when I'm expressing points about the 
series, or reading other's posts, it's as if the two are working 
together in some way, not distinct from each other. The potential we 
identify in the characters to be something they do not at present 
seem to be arises from Rowling's tendancy to make possession, 
impersonation, or self-transformation in some way key to every book - 
polyjuice, animagi, metamorphmagi, possession (of Quirrell) or mental 
coercion by telepathy. She encourages us to SHIP away, the coniver! 
We see potential for change/transformation/alteration everywhere.
 
So, if someone asked me who Harry would "be with" (if he survived, 
which he won't) I'd say Hermione, but if they asked who, in the best 
of all possible outcomes, he would be with (though even there he'd 
not survive) I'd say Luna.