The Interview of Dreams by Gluglug
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe and all the characters in it belong to J.K. Rowling. No infringement intended, just borrowing.
Summary/Author's Note: For this one-shot, imagine that not only does our Harmonian dream come true on July 21st but also that JKR grants a joint interview to Portkey and Harmony Forever. Think of it as our version of the IOD, except this is the Interview of Dreams. This is how I imagine her to be when she is finally able to explain herself. I named the writer of the article after some of my favorite posters here on Portkey and on Harmony Forever. This is dedicated to them and many others who tirelessly research theories, argue and defend our favorite ship.
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Rowling Shocks Readers with Romantic Partner for Harry
By Lissy Salamon Brown
Author J.K. Rowling surprised millions of Harry Potter readers with the release of Deathly Hallows on July 21st. Arguably not because of who died, or how Harry defeated Lord Voldemort, but with whom Harry fell in love in the end. It wasn't Ginny Weasley, who was briefly Harry's love interest in the previous book, Half Blood Prince. It wasn't Cho Chang, Harry's first crush and kiss from Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix. It wasn't even Luna Lovegood, Harry's platonic date in HBP. It was Hermione Granger, Harry's brainy best friend.
It was conventional wisdom that Hermione was going to end up with Ron Weasley, Harry's other best friend. A majority of readers thought that their constant bickering was simmering sexual tension that would come to a boil in the final book. J.K. Rowling, in an interview with Melissa Anelli of The Leaky Cauldron and Emerson Spartz of Mugglenet (two of the largest Harry Potter fan sites on the Internet), following the release the sixth book in the series (Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince), confirmed that Ron and Hermione were a couple. Or did she?
JKR recently gave a joint interview to representatives from Portkey and Harmony Forever, two of the largest websites devoted to Harry and Hermione shipping. Shipping, for those who don't know, is a term used to describe fans rooting for a fictional pairing to have a romantic relationship. (Harry/Hermione fans call themselves Harmonians or Pumpkineers). The following are excerpts in which Rowling explains why she put Harry and Hermione together and gives some insight how she structured the Harry Potter series.
PK and HF: Have you always planned to put Harry and Hermione (H/Hr) together?
JKR: I had always planned to put H/Hr together, from the very first book. Harry was the first character I created and I knew he needed a female counterpart. Hermione came next; she is an exaggeration of myself when I was a child. Harry is also a part of me as well, so it would make sense that they would come together. However, I didn't want to make it obvious throughout the series that Harry and Hermione were destined to become lovers. I wanted to make the relationships as much of a mystery as the other plot threads.
PK and HF: Were you influenced by the twist in Emma, which you have mentioned before?
JKR: One of my favorite authors and books, as many know, is Jane Austen's Emma, about a young woman who is oblivious to her own romantic feelings for George Knightley, her close friend and confidant. She has her revelation towards the end of the story, once she is threatened with losing him to her best friend, Harriet. It turns out that there is nothing between Knightley and Harriet, only Emma's misperception. Knightly has been in love with Emma for quite a while and this is revealed and they marry at the end of the book.
I always loved this twist and wanted to borrow it for the HP series. So I created Ron Weasley, whose personality was based on a childhood friend, Sean. I wanted to give Harry another friend, someone who would be a normal young wizard and to also add humor as Harry and Hermione can be quite intense and serious. By making Ron's personality diametrically opposite to Hermione, tension was created. Many readers interpreted their tension as sexual once they hit puberty but I was also careful to leave enough ambiguity that their tension could be explained away by sibling like rivalry as well as competing for Harry's attention. In a way, the Ron/Hermione relationship was one of the biggest red herrings of the series. As they reveal to Harry in DH, there was never any romantic interest on either of their parts.
PK and HF: You have said that you have learned a lot about alchemy in researching and writing the HP series. Was literary alchemy a framework you used to plan out Harry's love life?
JKR: You've done your homework! Yes, in literary alchemy, which has been used by authors such as Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and used to great effect in Elizabeth Goudge's The Little White Horse, was my blueprint for Harry's love life as well as his path throughout the seven books. Alchemy is a bit complicated so I'll try to explain the basics. Harry, the hero, is Sulphur (or fire) which must combine with Mercury (or earth) to become the Philosopher's Stone. I had marked Harry as Sulphur due to his Leo birthsign, his scar and other details. Hermione was always Mercury. Her initials HG, which is also the elemental abbreviation, are a big clue! Her name was derived from Hermes, the guide of alchemy. Even details such as the color of her Yule Ball gown were symbolic to alchemy.
One of the reasons I wrote HBP the way it was, to the dismay of the H/Hr shippers, was due to alchemy. Ginny, whose full name is Ginevra is an anagram for Vinegar. Vinegar is supposed to separate and purify Sulphur and Mercury near the final stages of alchemy. However, they combine again permanently in the final stage.
PK and HF: Speaking of Ginny, many H/Hr shippers were upset with the way you described her in your interview with Mugglenet and The Leaky Cauldron. We didn't understand why you described her as the ideal girl for Harry.
JKR: You have to look at it from Harry's point of view. He was sixteen year old boy who yearned to be normal. Half Blood Prince essentially was Harry's quest to be normal. He had just learned that he was a marked man, literally and figuratively and was also grieving the loss of Sirius. But Harry didn't want to face his destiny or deal with pain. He looked to escape - hence Ginny. She was his ideal girl - pretty, funny and athletic. Ginny was the ideal distraction- intrepid readers will recall that I described her as such in Chapter 12 in HBP. You also have to remember that ideal isn't necessarily what Harry needed - it's what he wanted.
PK and HF: Speaking of the interview, we were also upset that you seemed to confirm Ron and Hermione as the canon couple.
JKR: Seem is the key word, here. I was speaking from Harry's POV again. In Harry's mind in HBP, Ron and Hermione were inevitable. It didn't hurt that Emerson and Melissa supported the pairing. I wanted to trick the reader into thinking that Harry's assumptions about love were correct and reinforce it in that interview. Never mind that Harry's assumptions about love were often wrong. I didn't put the Tonks/Lupin romance in there for nothing.
PK and HF: Speaking of Emerson & Melissa, have you heard from them since the book came out?
JKR: Not directly but from what I've heard they are very angry with me. They say that I lied to them. I maintain that I did no such thing. I may have tricked them into thinking that R/Hr was a done deal but I didn't lie to them. I only said as of book 6, we (the readers) knew that it was R/Hr. I never said Ron and Hermione were going to end up together at the end of the series, did I? If I had come out and said that, then I would have lied. I'm sorry that they are upset but I can't please everyone. I knew I would upset a portion of the readership with this book. I just hope that they can accept that Harry and Hermione are the true canon pairing, eventually.
PK and HF: That might be a problem for those who insist that Harry and Hermione are boring and lack passion. What would you say to convince them otherwise?
JKR: I'm not out to change anyone's mind if they don't like the pairing. However, I would ask them to reread the series and look for the subtle hints I placed in the books. I would heartily disagree with those who insist they have no spark. They've had passionate arguments - look at the scene in Order of the Phoenix when Hermione is trying to persuade Harry not to rescue Sirius because it could be a trap. I also wrote some flirting between them from Prisoner of Azkaban through the last book. And I would say that their first kiss was one of the steamiest things I've ever written. And even when their passion fades, Harry and Hermione have a true companionship. They complement each other in every way - when Harry is impulsive, Hermione is deliberate. He has taught her how to feel and she has taught him to think before he acts. They rely and depend on each other and they are also each other's biggest champions.
PK and HF: Well said. Back to the interview, Harmonians have spent the past two years analyzing the things you have said regarding shipping in that interview. Besides the comment that Ginny was Harry's ideal and that R/Hr were a done deal, there were a few other things that were said that angered and confused us. Would you be willing to discuss this?
JKR: Yes, bring it on!
PK/HF: We were hurt by your refusal to put Emerson in his place when he called H/Hr shippers delusional, which many of us turned into a badge of honor! As it turns out he was calling you "delusional" but he didn't know it at the time. What do you think of that exchange now?
JKR: I was amused, rather than angered by his use of the word, since I alone knew the truth. Of course, at the time, I would've loved to have told him that he was the delusional one but I couldn't. You know how protective I am about giving away secrets and spoiling things. I couldn't very well tell Emerson and Melissa that the story was going to end up H/Hr, could I? But I made sure to tell him that I didn't agree with his opinion, but somehow the damage was done and I had read online that Harmonians believed that I had called them delusional.
PK/HF: But you also told us to go back and re-read. Many of us took that to mean, go back and re-read and you'll see that it was always One Big Happy Weasley Family.
JKR: Well, that was your interpretation. I was trying to say, in a veiled way, re-read HBP, and despite all of the OBHWF, as you call it, you'll see that Harry and Hermione's relationship did advance. Harry was so concerned with Hermione's feelings that he tracked her down twice during the course of the book when he knew she was upset. He hadn't done that previously, although he did show concern when she was overworking herself in PoA. But he had always sided with Ron and this was the first time he tried to take Hermione's side. That was a huge shift for Harry, to empathize with her in order to prepare the way for him to realize his feelings in DH.
PK/HF: What about the hug in the hospital wing in HBP? Can you describe why you wrote it so plainly, yet subtly? We don't know how long that hug lasted, do we?
JKR: Again, you don't miss a thing (laughs). I wrote that hug to be a significant moment between Harry and Hermione yet wanted to keep it under the radar. If you look at it literally, Ginny leads Harry into the hospital wing into Hermione's waiting arms. Then, he's still holding her while he looks over her shoulder to see Bill's injuries. I didn't say when they let go because I didn't want to call attention to it. But let's just say it was a long embrace. It was also significant because this was the first time in the book that Hermione showed Harry real physical affection. I wanted to show that she was back to her old self, where Harry came first in her life.
PK/HF: You were also clever in leaving two other future couples by Bill's bed - Tonks/Lupin and Ron/Luna.
JKR: Very observant of you. As I mentioned before, the T/L reveal was to show that Harry had been mislead into thinking that Tonks was in love with Sirius. And I wanted to foreshadow R/L as well.
PK/HF: Another couple we like. Not just because it takes Ron from Hermione but because of their interactions. We loved the gurdyroot scene in HBP - we saw that as a turning point in Ron's emotional development.
JKR: No longer a teaspoon but a tablespoon? (Laughs) I enjoyed writing the R/L romance very much in HBP and DH. Luna is one of my favorite characters. Originally, I had planned to kill Ron off but once I introduced Luna in OotP and she developed a crush on Ron, I decided that they should be together. They also balance each other out - Ron brings Luna out of the dream world in her head and Luna helps Ron to be more open minded. They also appreciate each other's quirks. Alchemically speaking, the pairing makes sense in that Ron is the red king to Luna's white queen. Luna marked him as her king with the Quidditch anthem - Weasley is our King. It was also important to keep Ron and Luna alive as she represents air and he represents water, along with Harry's fire and Hermione's earth. Just like the four founders, they make up the four elements.
PK/HF: Yes, we loved some of the back story in DH about the founders of Hogwarts, especially the romantic intrigue. Did you ever consider writing a prequel focusing on the adventures of Godric, Rowena, Helga and Salazar?
JKR: Yes, I was thinking of writing a prequel to the HP about the founding of Hogwarts but there wasn't enough in my opinion for a full novel. I think the story has come as far as it will ever go and I feel that I have brought things full circle.
PK/HF: Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us and putting to bed the shipping questions we've had in our minds for so long. We could probably go on forever, but we'll stop here. Do you have any parting words for your fellow delusional shippers?
JKR: (Laughs) I want to thank you all for sticking with me and for reading the entire series. I hope it was as rewarding for you to read as it was for me to write - I know that's a cliché but it's true.
I want to apologize for any hurt feelings that came across following the release of HBP. It wasn't my intention to hurt anyone but I had to protect my ending. Since Harry's love for Hermione was integral in the defeat of Voldemort, I needed to keep it quiet. But now it's all over, and everything is out in the open. I also want to reach out to the Ron/Hermione and Harry/Ginny shippers out there, as you are disappointed that the book didn't turn out as you anticipated. But I had to write the book to please myself first and foremost. I always said I was writing what I liked to read. Anyone who took the time to examine the bookshelf on my website had an inkling what was coming.
Again, I just want to say thank you for reading and theorizing, arguing and defending your views. I hope we meet again in future.
PK/HF: Thanks again, JK Rowling.
JKR: My pleasure.
To read the rest of the exclusive interview, where JKR discusses the rest of the plot twists in Deathly Hallows, visit Portkey.org or HarmonyForever.com.
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