The Harry Potter Series

[dwanollah]

Not only that, but the "kill off a character" is a common approach for dealing with writer's block or forcing yourself to think about the plot/characters in different perspectives. "This is boring, I'm stuck, I-... wait. What if I killed ____?"

[petitesuite]

Yeah, I don't blame her at all for thinking it out of spite. If I had fans like that, I probably would have written an entire book consisting of Draco saying over and over again that he doesn't wear leather pants.

[Mutagen]

It's funny because around the time of book 5 or 6, I was sure she was going to kill Ron off. And I was ready to be PISSED.

[kostgard]

I was afraid for a long time that she would kill off Ron too. It just seemed like if she were to kill off one of the main trio, it would be him. I'm very glad she didn't, though.

And yeah, I don't blame her at all for feeling that way with how crazy some of the HP fans are. But she probably would have ended up in some sort of Misery situation if she started killing characters out of spite. Those Potter-ites don't mess around.

[GoldenFleece]

Well, well, well...

In a new interview conducted by Emma Watson, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling drops a bombshell: She regrets putting Ron and Hermione together.

The shocking revelation came in the new issue of Wonderland, of which Watson is a guest editor this month. The comments were obtained by The Sunday Times.

Rowling says that she should have put Hermione and Harry together in the Harry Potter series instead of Hermione and Ron, according to the publication’s headline, which reads, “JK admits Hermione should have wed Harry.”

“I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment,” she says. “That’s how it was conceived, really. For reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it, Hermione ended up with Ron.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” she continued, “I can hear the rage and fury it might cause some fans, but if I’m absolutely honest, distance has given me perspective on that. It was a choice I made for very personal reasons, not for reasons of credibility. Am I breaking people’s hearts by saying this? I hope not.”

I've never been of the "Ron's not good enough for Hermione" school, I just think the bickering tension can go to a really ugly place in a romance (not violence necessarily, though when Hermione made those birds attack Ron that time because she was jealous of Lavender, we were supposed to think that was cute because...why?). One argument for Ron/Hermione was always that he wants someone like his mother, ignoring how he's like Molly and Arthur is a much mellower guy in general, and together they're not two insecure people prone to hitting below the belt when they're angry, the way Ron and Hermione are. But ultimately, it's a children's book, so the pairings don't have to work in a real-world sense.

[Babycakes]

Wow. That's interesting. I always thought she was vocally repulsed by the thought of Hermione/Harry. Hermione was always too much of a mom to Harry IMO. I know they tried to push that pairing in the movies, but the books always counteracted that. Hermione/Ron was always the more interesting pairing.

I didn't buy Ginny/Harry book or movies for a myriad of reasons. I always thought it was so creepy that Harry liked a girl that looked so much like his mom.

Final thought: Harry should have ended up with Luna. Team Luna/Harry forever.

[Mutagen]

Hooboy...  I can see the mushroom cloud of wank rising over the fandom already. 

Mostly, I find it a little hilarious that out of all the couples she regrets, she picks Ron and Hermione. I mean... no regrets on the handling of Harry/Ginny?  Lupin/Tonks?  Really?? 

[GoldenFleece]

Feb 2, 2014 0:25:39 GMT -4 Mutagen said:

Hooboy...  I can see the mushroom cloud of wank rising over the fandom already. 

Mostly, I find it a little hilarious that out of all the couples she regrets, she picks Ron and Hermione. I mean... no regrets on the handling of Harry/Ginny?  Lupin/Tonks?  Really?? 

In a way that makes sense, because as a non-Ron/Hermione fan, it always annoyed me how it seemed that Ron and his feelings and ego were the engine that drove all shipping. A big argument against Harry/Hermione was that Ron obviously liked Hermione and would be too badly hurt if she ended up with Harry, and couldn't the sidekick get the girl once instead of the hero? So because Ron had to "win" Hermione, that left Ginny or Luna for Harry, unless JKR was inclined to put Harry with some other Hogwarts girl or kill him off/have him end up single.

[Mutagen]

Well, I dunno.  At this point, I think passionately stupid arguments have been made about almost every possible ship in the series.  For every "Ron's feelings must be spared no matter what" argument, there's somebody out there making a "Ron the Death Eater" type of argument (which even spawned its own trope on TV Tropes). I always thought there was an element of self-insert fantasy happening with regards to Hermione, and that drove a lot of the "but she can't end up with HIM!!" backlash against whichever ship the person didn't like.

Personally, Harry always read more like a little brother to me than a significantly romantic character, so I could never get all that invested in who he ended up with.  I rag on the way the Harry/Ginny relationship was handled, but the relationship itself didn't really put me off.  I did think Harry/Luna was a huge missed opportunity though.

[Ninja Bunny]

I liked that Harry and Hermione didn't end up together. It subverted the overused trope that the hero ends up with the main girl.