This week I want to Overanalyze something about Harry Potter.
First I have to ask a question: Did you guys know that the channel isn’t called ABC Family anymore? Did you? It’s now ABC FreeForm. What does FreeForm mean, you might be asking? I am not sure, but I think it’s Latin for “a name that we hope leads to less angry tweets than the one that heavily implies family friendly viewing while we advertise a bunch of sex-themed dramedies.”
Anyway, I noticed something the other night, during one of the extra-very-special Harry Potter commemoration weeks that happen approximately 13 times per year on that channel. That is a frequency of once per month, with an extra week thrown in for those that missed one. This may possibly be the origin of the term “Baker’s Dozen.”
… we got to see a meaningful and long-term friendship between two human beings. The fact that they were the opposite sex seemed to be the least important part of the whole thing.
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Anyway, while I was getting my monthly dose of vitamin HP, and wondering what the hell “FreeForm,” means, I had a re-watch of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Even though I might be a little confused about which character is the aforementioned prince (Voldemort? Harry? Maggie Smith?), I realized for the first time how happy I was that Harry and Hermione did NOT wind up getting together.
You heard me, Harmonians.
I realize this is a divisive topic, in a heavily political season, and that a lot of people disagree with me, including a certain JK Rowling. I, however, am not afraid to plant myself Captain-America-Style, with an unyielding insistence on this new point of view that I decided I had this week.
See, my son and daughter were watching with me, and it was their reaction that energized my opinion. “The Half-Blood Prince; whoever that is,” is the movie in which Harry and Ginny Weasley first become romantic. My children had a startling reaction to this development.
None. They really didn’t react at all. They accepted it. They didn’t have the reaction that people of my generation, aptly named the slightly-too-old-for-this-but-still-into-it-while-the-books-were-coming-out generation, seem to still have when this topic comes up.
I realized for the first time how a Harry-Ginny pairing interrupts a long and unhealthy set of assumptions that stories have taught us about relationships. It gave me hope that maybe my kids can grow up to believe in a few things. Specifically three things:
1. Boys and girls can be friends.
If you were anything like me you assumed that Harry and Hermione would eventually pair up when you saw them in the first movie. We have all seen movies before; we know the way it’s supposed to go. Cracked even made a video parody of the series in which their version of Harry chides Ron for flirting with Hermione, insisting, “Why would she go out with you? If anything she should wind up with me, I’m the hero.”
Instead of this we got to see a meaningful and long-term friendship between two human beings. The fact that they were the opposite sex seemed to be the least important part of the whole thing. They were accepted in various settings as two people who deeply and platonically enjoy each other. Even Ron only became jealous of their connection while brainwashed by a part of Voldemort’s soul encapsulated within an object. Seriously guys, what a cool series.
Hermione and Harry were allowed to exist without being a threat to each other’s ongoing development or outside relationships. How different is that from the other messages we receive, that women and men can’t even be around each other without some hint of sexual connection, real or perceived? It makes me wonder how we would interact with each other in our workplaces, churches, and homes if we really believed this.
Another thing that is great about Ginny-Harry Shipping is:
2. Growth in relationships (and life) is a good thing.
Guys, be honest…did I use the term Shipping correctly? Never mind.
The worst sin that any character in a movie or TV series can commit is to experience growth. Unless it is the final episode nobody takes that exciting new job, moves away, or actually seems to get married. Nobody says “I think I am too busy to hang out ALL THE TIME in that same bar/coffee shop/diner anymore.” Status quo is held up as the standard of happiness for all.
Life is different than this, requiring us to grow or stagnate. This means making decisions, committing to something, and sometimes leaving options behind. This can include seeing someone in a different light.
As a man in his late thirties, I am obviously world-weary and cynical, but even I get the romancies when I see that scene in The Mysterious Identity of The Half-Blood Prince where Harry and Ginny first kiss. Have you seen it lately?
For this moment he isn’t the chosen one, plucked from pre-adolescence to fight the Wizarding world’s version of Hitler. He is just Ginny’s chosen one, the boy she likes and wants to be with.
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The swelling of the romantic music is only one thing I love about that scene. The context for this moment is that Ginny is doing something clever to help Harry through a difficult time. Then she uses her own agency to kiss him. Harry moves from main character to a more submissive role, accepting help and then being affectionately approached by Ginny. For this moment he isn’t the chosen one, plucked from pre-adolescence to fight the Wizarding world’s version of Hitler. He is just Ginny’s chosen one, the boy she likes and wants to be with.
Clever, kind, bold, and trusting. That’s a romantic combination.
Ginny being with Harry also makes more sense, as pointed out by my friend Hadas.
Hadas Ben-Tsur is a Podcaster, Pop-Culture Commentator, and the Digital Media Manager for Common Room. She recently released a solid week of Potter related podcasts through the Common Room Podcast. If you are a fan of the Potterverse, you should probably go and listen to all of them right now.
In her episode about relationships within the series, at about ten and a half minutes in, she said:
“It kind of makes sense that the little sister of your best friend who’s always loved you is the one that you’re going to end up with.”
She added that Ginny and Harry are “essentially Lily and James … and the one who looks like your mom is probably going to be the one you end up with.”
Which leads to my strongest reason for liking this paring:
3. A woman is not a prize.
Jasmine, a well-known Disney princess and belly-shirt model, tells her father “I am not a prize to be won.” We all enjoy that moment before watching Aladdin lie and compete for her hand, then finally win her over by … more lying? Doing the clearly non-terrible thing by releasing his magical slave that helped him lie in the first place? Something …?
Oh right, he beat the bad guy. Thereby deserving the girl. Sort of like a prize. You know, the kind that exits to be won.
Taken at face value Hermione is smarter and more driven than the middle Weasly. He doesn’t, dare I say it, deserve her.
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The thing that is so powerful to me about Hermione winding up in a relationship with Ron is the same thing that hard-core-Harmonians dislike about the pairing: she’s too good for him. Taken at face value Hermione is smarter and more driven than the middle Weasly. He doesn’t, dare I say it, deserve her.
Hermione and Ron’s choice to be together does the same thing for me as Ginny and Harry’s relationship. It removes an expectation, the entitlement that the identified hero has to get the assigned girl. A truly horrible expectation if you think about it, turning a human being into some sort of Goblet of Fire, waiting to be claimed upon a man’s emergence from the belly of the beast.
I mentioned that I was watching this with my children, my 12-year-old son and my 10-year-old daughter. I decided that it felt better for them to think, “Oh, two people are choosing to be together,” than for them to only receive the message that “Oh, Harry’s then main dude, so he deserves the chance to kill, fight, spell, or survive to get that one girl we know belongs to him.”
So that’s the honest reason I Ship(?) the wedding of Weasly & Potter, and will be buying them that ridiculous popcorn popper from Bed, Bath & Beyond that they registered for.
Speaking of honesty, I should probably confess. I was clearly lying before, pretending not to know a thing well within my nerdosphere. Everybody knows Snape is the Half-Blood Prince, right?
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Photo: Getty Images
No way. Harry and Hermoine were meant to be together. It was a relationship which was perfect. Sort of like a match made in heaven. I would have preferred Neville being with Ginny. We all knew how happy he was when he went to the Yule ball with her. And that would also be a stellar show of love. Ron would be best if paired with Luna Lovegood. He starts their relation in a condescending manner, not really showing much interest in her also calling her whacky at times. But through their common fights he gains a lot of respect… Read more »
JKR never actually said that Hermione and Harry should be together, the media took her words out of context. Nowhere from those quotes did she actually say that.
Ron is funny, witty, smart, kind and caring, and conscious of what Hermione wants and needs. The movies portrayed him as a complete buffoon, but that’s NOT what he is..!!
First things first. You have rematches the Half Blood Prince (meaning you viewed this more then once) and still havent determined that Snape is the half blood prince? Secondly all of the Weasleys end up with someone that this fictional wizarding community deems better then them. Ron and Hermione, Ginny and Harry and Bill Weasleys ended up with Fleur DelAcour. Obviously the ‘Goodmenproject.com is wrote by a muggle.
If you read the entire article, it says at the end that he knows that Snape is the Half Blood Prince.
Wait, weren’t there like 7 books? Shouldn’t Harry have had at least 7 different women by then? What good is it being the hero if you’re only going to get one babe? 🙂
You’re not a ‘hero’ for recycling through women. And you aren’t a good man for advocating for women to be used as trophies while wanting men to represented as heroes. I seriously hope your response was meant to be flip…but even if it was…your comment is simply careless and sexist.
If Ginn is Lily then Hermione is Mrs Weasley
. I’m glad Harry didn’t end up with H. They didn’t fit that way.
I completely agree that harry and funny should be together and Ron and Hermione. I’ve always felt that way. I don’t think harry and Hermione would work. Heroine and Ron work. They both understand what its like to be Harry’s side kick. They are the only two on their level throughout the series. They aren’t the hero, but they’re below him. (Occasionally Neville or ginny would step up but obviously hermville doesn’t work, not does Rinny) harry and ginny works too. They have similar interests like their passion for quidditch and being inside voldemorts head (maybe not always “interests”, but… Read more »