Assorted nattering + FICRECS.

[pauraque_bk]

-Oops, I wanted to point to the hp_essays HBP read-through before all the chapters were taken, but... I didn't. Well, you can still volunteer to pinch-hit if someone drops out! I snagged Chapter 4.


-I was thinking about amanuensis1's post about the way JKR writes romance again, and thinking back to something I said to _hannelore a couple days after the book came out.

I was complaining about Harry/Ginny, and she asked how I thought it could have been better, or something along those lines... And I said that if I were writing it, I'd have given Harry and Ginny at least one scene where they had a real conversation -- shouldn't be too hard to come up with an excuse for them to be alone together. They could start off talking about the Quidditch team, then somehow get around to the potions textbook, which turns it into something more serious -- do more than just touch on their mutual and respective experiences with Voldemort, actually let them talk for more than two sentences. And in the course of this, Harry would realize how much he had in common with her, or she could say something really insightful and he'd be impressed, or whatever seemed natural...

But that's the way I'd write it, because I'm a character-oriented writer. And of course JKR didn't write it that way, because she's a plot-oriented writer. I actually would have been astonished if she'd done a scene anything like that -- it would have seemed strange and uncharacteristic.

Realizing this doesn't change the fact that I didn't enjoy the romances while I was reading them, of course. It's not that I don't like the way JKR writes, it's that I find her style/strategy doesn't work equally well for all types of storylines. "Plotty hints" as amanuensis1 calls them work fine for a lot of things, but are totally unsatisfying for what (to me) can only be successfully written by spending time on psychological and emotional development.


-You guys have all been reading black_dog's excellent HBP posts, right? Here, try the HP books as unsolvable puzzles and fallible!Dumbledore.


-My head is starting to hurt from trying to figure out why Voldemort gave Lily the choice to live. gmth brought it up after the JKR interview, and fitchersvogel did a thing about it too avec Snape/Lily.

I was considering earlier what it would look like if V had been playing on Snape and Peter's respective feelings to get each of them to give up what they knew about the Potters. Say Snape loves Lily and despises James -- say Peter loves James and despises Lily. Voldemort promises Snape he won't hurt Lily, and promises Peter he won't hurt James. I'm not wedded to this idea, it's just something I was fooling around with as a possibility for fic.

Now, from the interview, we know that V killed James without a second thought, but gave Lily the chance to spare herself. Then it starts looking like he was trying to choose Snape over Peter, reward him.

Heh, I wish I could come up with a more solid reason for sparing her.


-RECS!

Eve(ning) (PG-13, Remus/Sirius) by imochan [No HBP spoilers.]
When you read an imochan ficlet you never notice how short it is, because it's so dense, packed with images and sensations that demand to be felt, that stick hard in your mind and on your fingertips. She makes it look so easy. *happy sigh*

As You Were (NC-17, Harry/Draco) by emmagrant01
Post-HBP. I hear this author is hot stuff in H/D fandom, but I'd never read anything by her before. Very much enjoyed this, though.

Attempt No. 32 (NC-17, Harry/Slughorn) by biichan
First post-HBP fic I read, and glad of it! Something smuttily delicious to put a smile on your face.

Double Penetration (NC-17, Slughorn/Tom/Dumbledore) by _hannelore
Mmmm. Love Tom here. So manipulative, playing them off each other. Makes me want to write this threesome too. Also post-HBP, obviously.

(Btw, _slugclub_ exists.)

Comments

My two penn'orth

[laura-the-auror.livejournal.com]

Re: Snape/Lily -
http://www.livejournal.com/users/fitchersvogel/2321.html?thread=2065#t2065

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

I certainly agree that the romance would have worked better -- for me, at least -- with some actual development to it, as you said. And I get the plot/character issues. But Harry does occasionally have serious conversations (that aren't pure exposition) with people. Usually with people named Albus. The idea of JKR as so plot-driven makes a lot of sense to me, and the fact that we see things through Harry's POV explains why this works fine for Ron/Hermione, and even for Remus/Tonks, IMO. (Why would Harry have known what was going on? The things he would see or know were the same that we saw.)

OTOH, it doesn't explain why Harry/Cho worked so well. That was a relationship that started out as "hey, she's cute" -- an entirely acceptable reason for a 15-year-old to date someone -- but we saw it through Harry's eyes and bought it (or I did). Moreover, that relationship involved emotions, even if they were an entire mystery to Harry, and we saw the emotions, saw where they were coming from (I actually thought Hermione underestimated the amount of things going through Cho's head when she rattled them off), and saw from the start why that relationship was doomed to disaster. It *worked*. I liked Harry/Cho; not in the sense that I think they belong together, but in that I liked reading their arc. Harry and Ginny's mostly confused me. And when it didn't confuse me, it bored me. That's not so good. Neither of them had any real emotions involving the other (excluding teenage lust) that I saw, yet it was portrayed as this deep connection between the two, and the break-up was equally out of nowhere and for reasons that made no sense. Of course, this break up didn't occur as a natural progression, as with Harry/Cho, but we still should have had some idea it was coming, beyond "Harry's a noble hero going on a quest, and questing, noble heros don't have girlfriends."

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That's a really good point, comparing it to Cho, because I agree. The Cho arc was painful and in no way the ideal romance, but it certainly seemed real enough. Even if you wanted to say that Ginny was "the one" for Harry, if it had been written as realistically as Cho's it would still have been goofy and not very perfect at all--and that could be a fine thing. I think the fact is that while people can certainly fall in love in high school, no high school girl can really fulfill the role of perfect romantic heroine for our hero and still come across as a regular girl. If you make them both into normal girls it seems like the main difference between the two romances was that Harry was actually ready for Ginny where he wasn't for Cho...

...although with both girls he seems to more want to do her hair than have sex with her.

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

...although with both girls he seems to more want to do her hair than have sex with her.

So really, the issue isn't the two girls *or* his readiness, it's that he's killing time until he understands that Snape isn't evil, thus altering his viewpoint so that he can see that he and Snape are meant for each other. I'm sure that's what JKR intended. ;-)

I think she could have done a more realistic Harry/Ginny without being *too* goofy -- a little bit goofy is what makes them likeable, generally. I'm all right with slightly fluffy or unrealistic romances, but I didn't feel like we had any real emotions or connection at all in H/G. I never actually believed that Harry was attracted to Ginny, nor did I have any idea what he saw in her (the fact that I couldn't stand Ginny in this book obviously didn't help).

I don't think I understand what the benefit is of having a "perfect romantic heroine" in the first place. Cho and Ginny are different, and the relationships would be very different by virtue of the different roles they hold in Harry's life. I think the big problem with Cho wasn't Harry's readiness, it was a combination of the issues surrounding Cedric's death (neither of their fault, certainly, but it did doom the relationship before it started) and the fact that they didn't actually know each other beyond a mutual crush and a Quidditch rivalry. These weren't problems with Ginny, which already sets her into a place where she and Harry could have a better relationship. So why make her into some supposed ideal (avoiding the issue of JKR's seriously messed-up version of an ideal) rather than a person? And why not show Harry actually feeling something for her, rather than just being jealous over her?

My favorite ship in HBP involving any member of the trio was by far Harry/Luna, because I could see some sort of connection between them, especially going back to OotP with their conversation about death. Harry considered Luna a friend even though she's decidedly *not* cool, he doesn't worry about what other people think about her, he's comfortable around her, and he thinks she's funny. That's certainly more than I felt like we got for Ginny.

... This is why I need to not start responding to posts past 3 AM. I don't seem to know how to shut up.