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Rowling Admits that Harry and Hermione Should've Gotten Married


JumpyTheFrog
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It annoys me that she keeps updating us with facts that were not in the books. It's like she trying to control all our interpretations. I don't think it shows any respect for the readers. 

 

I do agree that it didn't make sense for those two to be together, but she doesn't have to tell me that after the fact. She's taking the joy out of contemplating twists and turns.

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Yeah, I disagree. Ron was insecure about always being second-fiddle to Harry. If Ron didn't at least get Hermione in the end, that would make one more instance of Harry always having the "best" and Ron always getting the second choice. It makes more sense the way she wrote it. All the tension surrounding Ron's failure to ask her to be his date for the Yule Ball? It would have made no sense if Ron never ended up with her anyway. 

 

P.S. It does annoy me that JKR interjects these ideas after the fact. Just let the story stand, for Pete's sake. 

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Why did anyone have to end up together, period. Okay, I haven't read the books (ducks), I've seen all the movies though, so I'm sure I'm missing some of the "ending". Wasn't HP a story about good & evil, friendship, teamwork, magic, etc. Was it necessary that HP have a Disney ending with a romance or two involved? Again, I haven't read the books, so I don't what dynamic the romance played in that. Why does the girl have to end up with anyone? Frankly, from the movie perspective, I think she should have ended up with Neville, they would have made a great and powerful duo. 

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I do wish that the relationship between Genny and HP were better defined in the books (the movies hardly addressed it at all).  But I think how things turned out makes PERFECT sense.  And yes, she should stop micromanaging how we think about the books retrospectively...I just don't see terribly many authors doing this so I am wondering why she is...

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I can understand Emma Watson's comment because she is really young. But, Ron repeatedly shows power, courage, humor, love, etc. I would think Rowling is plenty old enough to figure out that all kinds of relationships work for reasons that are mysterious to those outside the relationship. And plenty of relationships that should work on paper, don't work at all. 

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I always thought Harry should have ended up with Cho.

 

I always felt that his relationship with Ginny was a little contrived. There was no real building of what made Harry and Ginny work together other than that she had a crush on him.

 

However, Ron and Hermione were perfect together. They balanced each other out. Harry and Hermione were too much alike.Plus there were definitely sparks with Ron and Hermione that I never felt with HP and her. 

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Why did anyone have to end up together, period. Okay, I haven't read the books (ducks), I've seen all the movies though, so I'm sure I'm missing some of the "ending". Wasn't HP a story about good & evil, friendship, teamwork, magic, etc. Was it necessary that HP have a Disney ending with a romance or two involved? Again, I haven't read the books, so I don't what dynamic the romance played in that. Why does the girl have to end up with anyone? Frankly, from the movie perspective, I think she should have ended up with Neville, they would have made a great and powerful duo. 

 

I think reading the books would help with this. Romance definitely plays a much bigger part in the books than in the movies. 

 

Neville didn't need to end up with anyone whose personality would overshadow his own. All he wanted and needed was a quiet life. 

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Revealing details after publication is not micromanaging in any way. She answers fan questions, and as the creator of this world she cares deeply about the accuracy of her story. This is how every. single. author. ever feels. (I know--as an editor I have worked with many of them.) Revealing details and continuing to have interviews also is a way to market her future publications by keeping the public's interest alive. Mostly, though, this is the world into which JKR immersed herself in a way no one else can claim--she lived and breathed this world for years in creating it. It's totally natural for her to talk about it.

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Personally, I would have liked for Harry to marry Luna. It's fascinating to me that she is the one he's talking to after the final defeat of Voldemort in DH. She says something like, "If it were me, I would want some peace and quiet." 

 

 

I hated the Epilogue 100%. The cartoonish marriages and the names of the children were absurd. 

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I don't know. I think it turned out just fine. I like Harry better with Ginny.

 

The story wouldn't make sense as she wrote it if Harry ended up with Hermione.  Ron needed to realize he was NOT second fiddle to Harry and end up with Hermione and Harry with Ginny, and her large family.  Otherwise its not true to the characters.

 

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I don't see a problem with her coming out with more about the books.  She's still writing bits about the world and it is HER world she created.  She didn't write for us as much as for herself and we are lucky observers, IMHO.  And these don't come out in "Hey LOOK at me and see what I know!" bits, but in interviews where she is asked.  Other authors do this all the time.  I love it. I find it fascinating to see inside their heads how the stories developed and changed.

 

That said, I think Harry and Hermione would be cute together, but I'm happy with how the books turned out.  Ok, maybe I totally can't understand Ron & Hermione together.  I just don't see the chemistry.  But I'm not the writer. ;)

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Revealing details after publication is not micromanaging in any way. She answers fan questions, and as the creator of this world she cares deeply about the accuracy of her story. This is how every. single. author. ever feels. (I know--as an editor I have worked with many of them.) Revealing details and continuing to have interviews also is a way to market her future publications by keeping the public's interest alive. Mostly, though, this is the world into which JKR immersed herself in a way no one else can claim--she lived and breathed this world for years in creating it. It's totally natural for her to talk about it.

Ok, you said it much better than I.  This x100.  :iagree:

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Personally, I would have liked for Harry to marry Luna. It's fascinating to me that she is the one he's talking to after the final defeat of Voldemort in DH. She says something like, "If it were me, I would want some peace and quiet." 

 

 

I hated the Epilogue 100%. The cartoonish marriages and the names of the children were absurd. 

 

At one point I also thought they would end up together. I like her with Neville, though. 

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That said, I think Harry and Hermione would be cute together, but I'm happy with how the books turned out.  Ok, maybe I totally can't understand Ron & Hermione together.  I just don't see the chemistry.  But I'm not the writer. ;)

 

This is just how I see it, but I think Hermione was attracted to Ron's ability to live in the moment, to not care intensely about every little thing, the fact that he just lived in the wizarding world versus having to puzzle everything out like Hermione and Harry. 

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This is just how I see it, but I think Hermione was attracted to Ron's ability to live in the moment, to not care intensely about every little thing, the fact that he just lived in the wizarding world versus having to puzzle everything out like Hermione and Harry. 

Yeah, I guess I can see that.  I really do like Ron.  I don't get the hatred towards him from some HP fans.  But man the fights between them must be epic.  :lol:

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I cannot tell you how much this irked me.

 

It's like George Lucas, who has completely lost my respect by refusing to let his work stand.

 

When I was reading HP, I actually worried that Rowling was going to cop out and put Harry and Hermione together, when it was so clear to me from the beginning that Ron was Hermione's perfect match.

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I like hermione with ron.  (eta: I think they're a better fit than harry & ginny.  ginny had a huge crush, but it always seemed one-sided.)

 

the nightmare scenario is she turns into george lucas who could. not. stop. tinkering.  and CHANGING things.

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I much prefer Hermione with Ron. She set that up from the 4th book on but it seemed a natural fit from the first book IMO. I don't like the idea of Hermione with Harry at all. I thought Harry and Ginny was a tad underdeveloped but nice.

 

Cho wasn't developed enough as a character for me to say if I like the idea of her with Harry or not.

 

I liked that Luna married a non-classmate. I thought it was contrived that they all ended up married to classmates. How many married couples are among your high school classmates? I can think of 2, 1 already divorced and the second is a student and teacher (never fear, very young teacher and the relationship was not started until the student was in grad school 3000 miles away. But still, a little gross IMO). Of course the dating pool may be a bit smaller unless you can find an understanding muggle!

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 I thought it was contrived that they all ended up married to classmates.

 

That is one part I strongly disliked about the Epilogue. And of course, the childrens' names. Albus Severus? James Sirius? Lily? Who names their children after their parents' love triangle? 

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That is one part I strongly disliked about the Epilogue. And of course, the childrens' names. Albus Severus? James Sirius? Lily? Who names their children after their parents' love triangle? 

 

I thought of it more as he named his kids after people he respected greatly that he had lost.  And Harry had more say in the names than Ginny did.  We certainly used names of loved ones for our kids. (and could well have used more if they weren't still inconveniently ALIVE... its much easier naming a kid after someone dead than someone alive, IMHO. Someone dead won't go out and do something stupid and make you wish you hadn't used the name!)

 

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I figure JKR keeps making comments about the stories because people keep asking her about them. I doubt she has to go flagging down the press to say, "hey, stop, lemme tell you something else I just thought about!"  :laugh: 

 

I like Ron and Hermione. It felt the most "right" to me. I also agree that Harry/Ginny was underdeveloped, but I also got a sense of Ginny growing into a pretty bad-a** kinda girl herself, so in the end, I thought it worked. I didn't like their relationship in the movies, however. I don't know if that was the acting, the fact that the story was even less developed on screen, or both.

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 Many authors may go back and explain things a bit more clearly....like she did about Dumbledore. That was different. 

 

However it is annoying to want to change a major point which was alluded to in  every book!

 

I honestly did not care for the epilogue but she did write it and it was included. 

 

 

Personally, I would have liked for Harry to marry Luna. It's fascinating to me that she is the one he's talking to after the final defeat of Voldemort in DH. She says something like, "If it were me, I would want some peace and quiet." 

 

 

I hated the Epilogue 100%. The cartoonish marriages and the names of the children were absurd. 

 

I totally agree about the epilogue.  I thought it read like bad fanfiction and would have preferred to have everything not so tidily and cutely summed up.  

 

The kids names ... gag.  Double gag.  I wish I could unread the epilogue, that's how much I hated it.

 

As for the pairings - I also thought that felt contrived.  I wonder if she'll go through and edit them and rerelease them in 20 years.  That would be kind of fun and it would start all kinds of arguments.  

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Yeah, I guess I can see that.  I really do like Ron.  I don't get the hatred towards him from some HP fans.  But man the fights between them must be epic.  :lol:

 

I like Ron as well. I get the awkwardness of being a middle kid, trying to find a "place."  Any kid in the middle like that would have a bit of Ron in them. The epilogue is titled "twenty years later" and we do see Ron more self assured, he is more comfortable in his skin.  

 

 

Maybe Harry got "more names" because Ginny likely has so many nieces and nephews that the pickings were slim by the time she decided to stop playing Quidditch. :lol: Ginny would have also known Dumbledore, Snape, and Sirius.  I don't like the names either but there are many names in Harry Potter that I never would have used for a kid.

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I can't ship anyone in HP, except maybe Neville/Luna if I squint and turn the book slightly to the left. By the end of Deathly Hallows, I truly didn't care who ended up with who, but I doubt any of them are easy to be married to. Emotionally, they have enough baggage between them to run an airport.

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I never thought that Ron and Hermione were exactly an ideal couple.  I think they have a lot of potential to make it work, and I'm glad they're together, but I wouldn't call it the stuff of "happily ever after," unless they work really hard at it (and gain a whole lot of maturity!).  It annoys me that Rowling's talking about it, because in the end Hermione made the decision to be the type of person who would marry Ron, and vice versa.  And as Dumbledore says, it's our choices far more than our abilities that shape us.  I think that kind of thing should be saved for memoirs.

 

I wish Ginny had been more developed.  That relationship felt kind of rushed.  But I liked how Harry saved her life way back in the second year, thus creating a deep magical bond between them (as Dumbledore explains to Harry about Harry's relationship with Wormtail).  Then they get married...kinda sweet. :001_wub:

 

And that epilogue?  Oh, man.  Why, oh why, didn't some editor say to her, "This is terrible and you know it.  Re-write it."

 

 

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Well at least she didn't say she would have paired up Hermione and Draco. Awkward.

 

Place my vote for Harry and Luna. I think she had a much deeper understanding of him. As for Hermione, I think she was only matched on an intellectual level by......Severus (ducks and hides). But there are just too many variables there. I do wish his ending was different though.

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Meh. I still say Harry should have been killed in the final battle, so who he ended up marrying is pretty much a moot point over here.

There was so much potential for that to be the case. I think if JKR had not "accidentally" become famous writing a children's series, she would have had the hero die. But that's a lot of pressure when a couple hundred million kids are counting on how you write the end.  :tongue_smilie:

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With regard to names, I thought it was weird that two Muggle dentists would name their kid Hermione. Really?

Yeah, well, the names are obviously planned for a particular point. Like Remus Lupin. Was he fated to be bitten by a werewolf with a name like that?  :tongue_smilie: It was written as a hint, of course.  Any of the books by John Granger delve into the literary aspects of the books in a fascinating way. The names are full of meaning. 

 

But yeah, it would be more likely they would have named her Sara. Or Elizabeth.  :D

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I haven't read all the replies yet, but I think it would have been much to cliched if Harry and Hermoine ended up together.

 

 

 

Neville didn't need to end up with anyone whose personality would overshadow his own. All he wanted and needed was a quiet life. 

 

I read an interview with JKR shortly after the 7th book was published, where she gave some updates on other characters. She said Cho married a muggle, Luna married the wizard world's equivalent of a naturalist, and Neville married Hannah Abbot. Hannah ran a store or inn or something in Hogsmeade while Neville taught at Hogwarts (his part we know about of course). I wish I could find a link to it. I've tried several times in the last few years and can never find it.

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Luna didn't end up with Neville. Neville marries Hannah Abbott. Yes, I'm a giant nerd, and I know these things off of the top of my head. 

 

Oh how funny. After I posted I went back to read the replies. It was you I was responding to about who ended up together, but you knew all along. :)

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Luna didn't end up with Neville. Neville marries Hannah Abbott. Yes, I'm a giant nerd, and I know these things off of the top of my head.

 

 

 

I read an interview with JKR shortly after the 7th book was published, where she gave some updates on other characters. She said Cho married a muggle, Luna married the wizard world's equivalent of a naturalist, and Neville married Hannah Abbot. Hannah ran a store or inn or something in Hogsmeade while Neville taught at Hogwarts (his part we know about of course). I wish I could find a link to it. I've tried several times in the last few years and can never find it.

;)

A link for you:

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2007/10/20/j-k-rowling-at-carnegie-hall-reveals-dumbledore-is-gay-neville-marries-hannah-abbott-and-scores-more

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Luna didn't end up with Neville. Neville marries Hannah Abbott. Yes, I'm a giant nerd, and I know these things off of the top of my head. 

 

Oh how funny. After I posted I went back to read the replies. It was you I was responding to about who ended up together, but you knew all along. :)

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I don't so much mind her giving more details about the world she created.  But I agree that this was different.  The romance between Ron and Hermione starts building early in the series.  A lot of things about Harry and Ron's relationship in the last book are tied up in resolving it clearly.  She would have to rewrite a huge amount of stuff to make that change.  It's changing the books after the fact.  Dh and I have been calling her the George Lucas of the book world.

 

I disagree that artists and authors get to come out and tell us everything about their art and make it a part of that.  Part of art is the interpretation of it.  It feels like Rowling simply doesn't understand that.  I get that it's hard to let it go, but let it go.  We get to read into it what we want now.  That's art.

 

Several people have said that she's doing this to keep herself relevant.  Honestly, I think the more she does it, the more she's cheapening the series and devaluing it.

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