Dallas Theory - Shipping-also in response to Pirate Ginny

[adairfletch]

No: HPFGUIDX 133389

Kate wrote: 
> I honestly feel that the use of the love-potions in HBP was comic-
> relief, instead of fodder for conspiracy theories. I really feel 
> that if JKR used the Dallas theory it would be more clichéd than
> the way the romance is currently portrayed, and not nearly as 
> emotionally honest

Thank you, Kate, for writing my exact feelings on the love potion 
theory so eloquently.  And Sienna brought up some amazing points in 
her response post to mine (the name is Adair, by the way ;P), but the 
glaringly obvious problem I have with the love potion idea is that we 
see how Ron actually acts in response to one.  Harry nor Ron react 
this obsessively towards Ginny, Hermione, or Lavendar.  And I think 
if Harry were under a potion, it would have been rather difficult for 
him to break up with her in such a way at the end (as it was 
explained Tom Riddle only broke up with Merope when she stopped using 
the potion, and then he was incensed, and knew he had been under some 
spell).  I also don't think Ginny or Lavendar using a love potion 
wouldn't have gotten past Hermione.  Honestly, I've always seen 
Ron/Hermione coming, as Harry also admitted in this book. 

Where I agree with the shipper protests, is that though I didn't see 
the relationships in and of themselves as forced, there seems to be 
so much left out.  The book feels as if JKR was trying so hard to get 
through the main plot and cut all the trimmings, which we were 
spoiled with in Phoenix.  I loved this book, but as others have 
stated, there was a... richness that was missing.  I've been calling 
this book "Book 7, Part 1" to my friends, because that's what it felt 
like to me.  Harry/Ginny would have been so much more believable had 
we been given interactions between them at the Burrow (in the 
beginning), or at school, or on the Quidditch field.  He hung out 
with her more, too, in his fifth year (I'm thinking of the D.A. and 
after Sirius' death), when he would have had chances to know her 
better, but we were never allowed to read any of this.  That's the 
stuff I missed in this book: the beloved unnecessary detail, 
extraneous to the book's plot, but so desired by the devoted HP fan.  

Honestly, I felt as if JKR hurried up with Harry/Cho's ending, 
suddenly had Harry realize Ginny wasn't just Ron's little sister, and 
then stuck the Dean/Ginny interaction in there as an excuse for a 
catalyst.  There's nothing like the clarity that comes with psychotic 
jealously, neh?  After my second read, I saw all kinds of tiny clues 
to Harry/Ginny in the beginning, I just think JKR shouldn't have 
shoved it so abruptly upon us.  But it is Harry we're talking about.  
He decides if he likes or dislikes something, and then his opinion 
sticks like glue.  He's loyal and stubborn to a fault.  So, no, I 
don't believe Harry/Ginny is implausible, it just didn't feel 
properly filled out.  

Mostly, my theory isn't that something is running amok at Hogwarts, 
as the Pirate Ginny thread implies, but that the relationships and 
character interactions are real and true, and JKR just didn't go into 
great detail about them.  Like all the descriptions of Hogwarts 
missing, I think JKR takes for granted that we understand these 
characters completely in our minds by now.  The relationships seem 
forced to us, because they are brand new events, and yet... they're 
not, at least Ron/Hermione isn't, and Ginny liking Harry isn't.  We 
never questioned when Harry suddenly had a crush on Cho, from one 
glimpse at the end of book three.  But we question now, because the 
questions were always hinted at, and have now suddenly been answered, 
without any preamble.  It was a lot to take in, especially since sex 
and the like, though suggested, have always seemed outside of the 
major scope of the series.  Now, all the trio can seem to think about 
is snogging.  Though that also sounds a whole lot like being sixteen.

Adair, who loved this book, but who also wished it was longer than 
OOTP, and wonders in the name "Merope" is Oedipus inspired