SHIP: Emma, Twists, and HBP

[Pat]

No: HPFGUIDX 136484

A bit long, mostly about shipping, a little about Snape, and 
CONTAINS "EMMA" SPOILERS.

Jane Austen is JKR's favorite author, and Austen's Emma, is
her favorite book.  She said:  

"Boquet, Tim. "J.K. Rowling: The Wizard Behind Harry Potter," 
Reader's Digest, December 2000 "I love a good whodunnit and my 
passion is plot construction. Readers loved to be tricked, but not 
conned," Rowling says, warming to her theme. "The best twist ever in 
literature is in Jane Austen's Emma. To me she is the target of 
perfection at which we shoot in vain."

In the same interview: "She has never had a market in mind.
`I started writing these books for me, but I really like my
readers.'"

In another interview: Assuras, Thalia. "J.K. Rowling Discusses the 
Adventures of Harry Potter," CBS News: This Morning, 28 June 1999

JKR:..."I think also I never had a target audience in mind. I
wrote what I knew I would like to read and obviously, I'm 33, so hopefully that's why adults like it so much."

Considering that Emma is her favorite book, it`s full of
zigzagging shipping, and the twists in it are her target of perfection, I firmly believe JKR put one or more Emma-like twists in HBP, question is, where?

If you look in Emma for the things that created the twists, and then 
look for the same types of things in HBP, I think that you will see 
only a few with Snape, but a wealth of opportunities in the 
shipping. I think this is the reason many readers think things 
are "off" in HBP.  We also have to remember HBP had editors,
some of whom are named at the end of the book, one being a continuity 
editor.  We have to assume the editors questioned the things we see 
as being discontinuous, "off", or suddenly out of character,
and that they were satisfied with Jo's explanations.

On JKR's website:

"Section: F.A.Q.
Do you like `Half-Blood Prince'?
I like it better than I liked `Goblet', `Phoenix' or
`Chamber' when I finished them. Book six does what I wanted it to do and even if nobody else likes it (and some won't), I know it will remain one of my favourites of the series. Ultimately you have to please yourself before you please anyone else!"

Some may say this refers to her thinking Ginny is the perfect 
girlfriend for Harry.  I say it looks like what someone might say 
after having written a book full of misleading twists.

Further, as a H/Hr shipper, I've been wrestling with why I
didn't see R/Hr, and I'm afraid to say it, but still don't, and
I'll tell you why.

In the books only, without interview comments, I have come to the 
conclusion that Jo had the perfect optical illusion going in the 
shipping.  People saw and were convinced of at least 2 very 
different things.  H/Hr shippers looked at the trio's
interactions through what I'm calling a Lofty Principles Filter, and therefore didn't see Hermione or Ron liking each other, because they took Ron`s "fraternizing with the enemy" comment to mean just
that, and they took Hermione`s instances of being upset at Ron as being over the principle of the thing in each case.  If you remove the Lofty Principles Filter, and replace it with what I'm calling a
Jealousy Filter, you then see Hermione and Ron liking each other.  But either way, you see Hermione being a devoted friend to Harry, and that they admire things in each other very much. Which puts them perfectly on the road to going the way of Emma and Mr. Knightly sometime in book 7, but more on that later.

Jo's interview comments indicate the jealousy filter was the one
to use.  However, those comments don't look 100% foolproof to me.  I 
think it's a possibility that Jo would like us all to be looking 
through the Jealousy Filter, because she's about to swap it in
book 7 to reveal the twists.  What else could she do?  If the book Emma was published in parts, as HP has been, HBP would be the equivalent of the time in Emma when everything looks like it's going the wrong way.  Breaking at that point, what kind of comments could an author make without giving away what she's up to?  She'd have to
give cagey answers, or misleading ones, as even refusing to comment might tip us off that something fishy is going on.

The things that produce the twists in Emma include unfinished 
sentences and incomplete conversations that characters, and 
therefore readers, take one way and then in the end, learn meant 
something completely different.  Another tool was characters 
misinterpreting the meaning of actions, and thereby misleading the 
reader.  And then what I think was the biggest twist was the 
conversation and agreement between two characters, which we knew 
nothing about until the end, and which they hid completely by their 
behavior.

You can see these tools in HBP in Snape and Dumbledore's 
conversations and interactions.  But they are present even more in 
the shipping.  

I say the shipping optical illusion, being able to see things two 
ways, continues through HBP.  Throw the twins and Slughorn's
potions into the mix with the two filters, and I think Jo has achieved twists to make Jane Austen cheer from the great beyond. 

I agree that neither Hermione or Harry has shown romantic interest 
in the other so far.  However, in Emma, Jo's favorite book, with
the greatest twist ever in it, Emma and Mr. Knightly are platonic and 
cherished friends until the end of the book, when they discover 
romantic love for each other as well.  Why shouldn't anyone think 
this could possibly happen with H/Hr?

If either Ron or Hermione liked the other since the age of 13, there 
is a strong likelihood that wouldn't carry through until
adulthood.  If Ginny was star struck with The Boy Who Lived at age 10, and has never given up on him since, there is the possibility the hard blazing look is obsession, and also would be unlikely to carry 
though to adulthood. And an obsession, along with taking
Hermione's advice to get Harry to like her, looks like a good explanation for her lack of emotion in breaking up with Michael and Dean - they were pawns in her master plan. 

Here's another quote from Edinburgh "cub reporter" press
conference, 
ITV, 16 July 2005
"JK Rowling: I had the idea as I have said many a time before on
the train, and I just loved the idea so much I couldn't wait to start 
writing it, which is the best. Iris Murdoch said writing was like 
getting married, you shouldn't commit yourself until you can't 
believe your luck. That is how I felt about Harry."

I know she used Murdoch's quote in reference to publishing, but
she must believe it in regard to marriage as well, no?  I can't see
Ron or Hermione "not believing their luck", but I can see it
being the case with H/Hr if they develop romantic feelings for one another.  I suppose H/G shippers will see it with Harry and Ginny, but why, oh why, were the rest of us not sold on that relationship?  I suspect we are not being allowed to buy into it because it isn't going to last, somewhat as we were deflected from squeeing over Cho.

In summary, Jo wants to write twists like Austen, her favorite book 
is full of shipping twists, and has platonic friends falling for 
each other at the end.  HBP is full of potions and characters 
dropping old behaviors and taking on new ones, which are then not 
consistent throughout the book. I think there are lots of reasons to 
think the characters and shipping have been affected by potions and 
twists, and that is the reason for the weirdness that is HBP.

-Pat