Dreams Of Noise

Actually, my main thought about the HP series now is that after HBP, I only marginally care about book 7. I mean, I'll get it, but I doubt much I'll be anywhere at midnight so I can sit up all night and read it.

JKR still gets zillions of karma points for hooking a whole generation on reading--many of them will keep reading even after the last Potter book, and as Diane Duane put it recently, that alone should get JKR a free pass into heaven. But for me, the direction she went in HBP led into a whole passel of "And I should care anymore why?".

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You and me both, and you know how Tom feels about it!

I didn't really care who Harry ended up with, but poor Hermione, no-one should have to marry Ron except his right hand.

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Threadjacking to debate Ron. Why so? (Full disclosure: someone amused by the ship wars with friends on both sides.) I can understand liking Harry and Hermione together, but what's wrong with Ron?

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I may not be as aggressively anti-Ron as some folks (although I've read several quite interesting Dark!Ron fics), but for me it's fairly straightforward why Ron/Hermione cannot work: They are friends because of Harry. He disses her bookreading every chance he gets. She rolls her eyes in disgust at his attitudes, his language, his table manners, his obsession with Quidditch (which she only watches because she worries about Harry getting hurt). Bluntly, she gets along much better with most of the other Weasleys. I think Ron and Hermione would never hang out together if not for their mutual friendship with Harry Potter.

Sometimes constant arguments aren't sexual tension; they're just constant arguments.

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Well pointed out--absent Harry, they really have nothing in common. Even leaving that out, it's a doomed relationship--either he'd be a parasite upon her brilliance (as if it's not obvious she will Be Someone Important Eventually--either Headmistress of Hogwarts or Minister or Magic, if not both), or she'd dominate him about as subtly as Germany tiptoed into Poland in 1939. I'd say if Ron can live with never making a single decision again for the rest of his existence, sure, stick with Hermione, but otherwise no. It's not that they don't like each other--they're not from the same dimension.

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An excerpt from a fanfic I like (http://fanfiction.portkey.org/story/4197):

“Do you know what I want to do when I leave Hogwarts?”

“Be the Minister of Magic,” he said instantly.

She felt her jaw drop as she looked at him. She’d never told anyone that.

“How did you know?” she asked.

He smiled crookedly at her again, that little half-smile that made her heart race, forcing the blood to pulse through her veins. “Because it’s you.”

She smiled slightly. Such a Harry answer. “Would it bother you to be married to the Minister?”

“Of course not,” he smiled.

“How do you think it would affect Ron to be married to the Minister?”

He opened his mouth, and then paused, wincing.

“Exactly,” she said dryly.

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I seem to be the only non-H/Hr here, so I might as well jump in here, too. :-)

Yes, Hermione's a talented girl bent on world domination, but I think she'll start out small. Maybe get some actual journalism going in the world, instead of the scandal sheet known as the Daily Prophet (MY biggest peeve with the books). In addition, I think we can agree Hermione isn't quite ready yet to jump in as headmistress, Mimister of Magic, or any of the wonderful things she will no doubt accomplish in her long and productive life. Hermione's smart, but she needs to be grounded to get her ideas going somewhere -- as I mention below, knitting hats isn't exactly bringing down the Berlin Wall.

So, we have Hermione. Nice girl, all things considered, but sort of directionless as to where she should go immediately after school. (What do you do with a B.A. from Hogwarts?) In need of someone who knows the wizarding world inside and out from experience, not from books or hearsay. I'd argue that Ron makes a much better political partner for Hermione than Harry does because he knows little things she doesn't, like which Ministry officials are idiots and that tearing down the Daily Prophet might not be as good an idea as it seems.

And I think if Hermione tried to dominate Ron for the rest of their lives, we'd hear about it all the way over here, they'd be yelling so loud. :-)

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I don't ship H/Hr.

I just really loathe R/Hr.

I actually shipped H/D (because Harry pays so much more attention to boys than girls--I'm not a slasher in every fandom), and knowing it never would happen in the books, thought I would be okay with H/G. (The way H/G was actually written, I was not okay with it. "I didn't really get a life, I was just faking to get your attention" pissed me off past the point of politeness.)

But H/D fics tend to have a lot of R/Hr in them, and I really hate it.

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It sounds to me from the comments you've made here that you're not so much anti-R/Hr as you are anti-Ron. Which I disagree with, but we've covered that, I think.

And I didn't read Ginny's "I just did it all for you" as an attention ploy (though to be fair, if she really intended the dating random people to make Harry jealous, it did work). I saw it more as "you fucker, stop trying to be noble and don't break up with me." At that point, she's disappointed in the way he's treating her and wants to save face.

And, to end this on a happy note, your icon amuses me beyond all reason. :-)

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Thanks! :D I wasn't offended, I just...want to kill the assumption that all people who dislike R/Hr are H/Hr shippers.

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markbernstein.livejournal.com

What do you do with a B.A. from Hogwarts?

Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

I was a baby when mom and dad were slain
My uncle treats me like I give him a pain
Now Snape despises me and Draco is the bane
Of my life
It's hell
It sucks to be me

. . .

Everyone will bow to the Dark Lord, someday
When he's resurrected and comes back to stay
If you all would just admit
That you admire him, a little bit
'Cause you're weak and he's the one who's strong
Then you know we all would get along

. . .

House Slytherin is for scorn
We wish you'd never been born
You're not a snake so you must take
Our scorn, scorn, scorn

. . .

There's a fine, fine line between a love spell and a curse
There's a fine, fine line between a rescue and a hearse
And you never know 'til you turn the page if the ending's gonna please
There's a fine, fine line between wow, and a waste of trees

I don't have time for this!

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Evil earworms ... plot-bunnies ... song fiends? Something. Anyway, they strike again! Well done on all counts, particularly the Dark Lord song. :-)

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Lord Voldemort was killed,
That's how I found my purpose,
And Dumbledore was thrilled,
Now I am bound to purpose,
The Boy Who Lived, The One Who Was Chose,
If it were Neville, we'd all be so hosed,
I've got my purpose --
Slaying Voldie!

-----

I realized these next two work best if Snape is played by Nikki.

If you were Dark,
If you had the Mark,
We'd share a spark
Of something harkening
To a better time,
When it wasn't a crime
To kill mudbloods -- what a lark!
If I was Dark!
But I'm not Dark.

-----

Right now, you're so mad at Snape,
You really want to harm him,
Reeling from his mental rape,
You barely can disarm him,
There's a spell that you can call on,
If you've got the will...
Avada Kedavra,
It only has one purpose, that's to kill.

Avada Kedavra, huh?
Sounds like some kinda Unforgivable curse.

Ee-yup.
One shot of this, and you're right out of any sequels.
Except for Potter.

Huh. That is Unforgivable!

-----

Nope nope nope nope....

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Okay, that last verse has its problems. Still could work. "... Except for you. Snape sticks his head in -- "Huh. That is unforgivable!"

Dunno. Not worth worrying about.

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I just want to point out that y'all are evil. Not that you didn't know that already... :)

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Hermione doesn't try to dominate Ron. She just does. Ron's "problem" is that he's a typical mid-teen boy. He has no idea who he is or what he wants to do with himself, he's not especially talented at anything (except, apparently, wizard chess--although that hasn't been re-visited in a long time), he doesn't have a destiny thrust on him like Harry or unspeakably high expectations of himself (and the means to meet them) like Hermione... he just is. He's the magical Joe Average.

Ron/Hermione works only after ten years or so, when both have been through one failed marriage each and want to just settle down with someone who understands what it was like to have been in the thick of it and it's no longer about romance.

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I'm gonna disagree with your interpretation of why Ron and Hermione are friends. Harry may have been the impetus for them hanging out, but it isn't like they were both friends with him seperately and he brought them together. Ron and Hermione aren't OMGBFF, but I think their friendship has grown beyond needing to tolerate each other because they're both friends with Harry. Otherwise, why would they hang out together, ever?

I agree Hermione gets along quite well with a good deal of the Weasley family (if you're looking for some good Hermione/virtually anyone smut, I recommend <lj user="inell", if you haven't found her already. NWS, obviously). But personally, I see her and Ron's arguing as pointed, rather than out-and-out mean. They cross lines, obviously, but they're not out to get each other. But if you want to read their fighting as more mean-spirited than I do, that's your right.

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If constant arguments were sexual tension,

dragonscholar and I would have stayed engaged, got married and STILL be married. Sex isn't enough to make up for being with someone whom you may actually like from a safe distance, but who annoys you a lot up close and personal.

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I have this thing about men who tease women, and belittle the things they care about, particularly women they claim they like. Of course in Hare-Brained Plot she acted as badly as he did, for once, but that just goes to confirm my belief that they bring out the worst in each other.

Please don't tell me that it's 'realistic'. We're talking about a book with an immortal villain, where you can point your wand at stuff and magic just happens.

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Not gonna argue the realistic. And while it's your right to interpret characters as you may (given that this is, you know, fandom), I don't think Ron's mocking of Hermione is based solely in meanness. If it were, they wouldn't be friends, and I don't think they'd even hang out together, for Harry's sake or otherwise.

Speaking as someone whose friends often pull her back from the edge of Exciting New Projects, I see Ron's teasing of Hermione as his way of acknowledging that she's both smarter than him and slightly quixotic in her goals. Knitting to free house-elves? Nicely grassroots, but it's not going to change anything long-term.

Hermione has a long way to go before she overhauls the wizarding world, and I think Ron knows that. I'm not saying he isn't sometimes gratuitously mean, but I'm saying I don't think he's out to get her.

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Ron reminds me so much of boys who used to annoy the shit out of me in school and people would say "oh, he likes you," to which my invariable response was, "then I wish he would like someone else!" It's so visceral.

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Fair enough -- I know how hard it is to remove personal prejudice from what I'm reading. :-) But I take it from your comment earlier that that wasn't all you disliked about "Half-Blood Prince."

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I could go on for years about why I hate HBP.

I did not think it was possible that I would hate a book in which Draco was finally shown not to be totally evil (as I've always believed) and in which Snape (whom I like, a lot) would kill Dumbledore (whom I have wanted dead-dead-DEAD since about book 2).

I really didn't.

But she found a way to make me hate it.

If you say you are writing a story about the importance of choices and how bloodlines are not important, it really, totally, completely detracts from your point if you make your villain a sociopath almost from birth, and give him a sociopathic family he's never met, thus making it clear that he was sociopathic because of his bloodline, and not because of anything the people who raised him did or that he himself chose (although Dumbledore, as par his usual egotistical self, could not possibly have fucked that up any worse).

I have written a lot of essays on this and about how, from 2003-2006, the most recent two installments in the series plus the behaviour of the fans who tend to be on Rowling's wavelength, turned me from being an active fan and ficcer to a person who couldn't care less what happens in Book 7. A lot of them are in my Memories.

I have heard most of the really common arguments, so unless you come up with an objection I've never heard before I really don't want to debate it.

I was a much happier HP fan before I discovered HP fandom and found out that the rest of the world didn't view it as a story about some kids who were stuck in the middle of a battle between some completely fucked up crazy genocidal lunatics and some very manipulative slightly more socially acceptable and pleasanter fanatics. And OOTP sort of even made me briefly happy because it made it clear how really fucked up the Ministry was. Dumbledore's pinged my cult-founder-dar ever since Book Two when he sort of equates personal loyalty to himself and Gryffindor with being a good person at the end, and I would love to send Amnesty International into Azkaban.

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I'll assume that you've heard the epic-myth interpretation, then. :-)

I like some of what you have to say here. I'd really like to see the books explore more of the bloodline-war aspects. Screw horcruxes, I want politics! I disagree that Riddle was evil because of his bloodline -- I think Rowling's going by the idea that capital-E Evil exists because it just does, no explanation possible. But something's clearly rotten in the state of the wizarding world, and no defeat of the most evil dark wizard in a century can change that. Which rings very well in my head.

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My problem is that either you're writing an epic/myth, or you're writing a story about the importance of human choices. You can't claim to be writing a story about the importance of human choices and then say 'Evil just is.'

I really enjoyed the first four books, I just wanted to smack a lot of the good guys; the fifth was okay, but suffered from lack of editing and an Idiot Plot. But the sixth collapsed the wave and spiked an epic flamewar of all flamewars in fandom, not in my opinion so much between Ron vs Harry but much more between people who were into the really simplistic Good vs Evil thing and the people who saw the nuances that were there in the first five books and were thinking she might actually do something interesting with them. I opened up the box and whoa, stinky dead cat!

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I'm not sure I agree there, because I guarantee you that sixteen year olds don't respect peers that are vastly more intelligent than they, having been--modesty aside--the vastly more intelligent sixteen year old myself at one point. Respect was not what I got from either my classmates or my age-peers. Ron likes her well enough, but he doesn't understand her and he knows he never will, and he's not secure enough in himself to be able to keep her grounded.

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Having also been a vastly more intelligent sixteen-year-old (wanna share SAT scores? :-P), I can say that your experiences, while understandable, aren't necessarily the norm. My experience, and the experience of most smart kids I now know, was not one of being brutally mocked for being smart. Sure, they got some weird looks and got called nerds a lot, but it's not like they felt the need to go all Carrie on everyone. And I don't think Ron's teasing will lead Hermione to a similar fate. :-)

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Sure, I took mine when I was 16--which was my senior year. 570v 730m... I was having an off day verbally.

Anyway, no, teasing doesn't inevitably lead to Carrie-dom, or I would've been an attention-grabbing headline a quarter century ago. But I assert that the isolation of the intelligent students is the norm. Seen it happen to more than just me. Hermione has the advantage of having a supportive family (which is ultimately what prevents Carrie-dom, if you ask me).

Now, as to Ron, I don't understand him so much as I understand where he's coming from: Mom and Dad's house has been compared to The Burrow, and my family (immediate and extended) to the Weasleys, and successfully. We make our own slightly weird horde. :)

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Took 'em for the first time in seventh grade, somewhere in the 1100s. Ended up at a 760v 720m, 33 ACT. Can't recall the SAT IIs or AP scores ... let's not get into all this. :-)

I really do have to disagree with you on the smart-kids-getting-isolated bit. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, because obviously it does. I know kids it's happened to, and it sucks. But the majority of smart kids I know weren't ostracized or belittled overly much. And I really, really feel like that's becoming the norm with shifts in education -- it's about teaching kids what to value, and if they value smartness (or at least the ability to fill in the correct bubbles, because it gets them funding), they'll value smart kids. (Of course, I'd prefer it if they valued smartness for different reasons, which I think DOES happen in some places, but regardless, valuing intelligence is a good thing.)

Ahem. Away from soapbox, on to Hogwarts.

I agree Hermione's not going to go Carrie (or, for that matter, Columbine) on the gang at Hogwarts, because, as you say, she has people who love her. Emo!Hermione is one of the fanfic cliches that pisses me off the most. And Ron reminds me in a lot of ways of (here comes the soapbox again) people who just don't know what to do with themselves. He's got a family that supports him, talented and wonderful friends ... he just doesn't know what inside himself he's supposed to be doing. And so neither do we, because the books are called Harry Potter, not Ron Weasley. :-) I have faith that Ron will figure out what he wants, because that's what happens when you grow up, which is what I think Book 7 is going to talk about. But for now, he's trying to find himself (he goes looking for himself and on the way, he finds Fleur, Padma, Lavender, and ...). But hooray for weird hordes of families! I'm from ~~repressed~~ Puritan stock, so we're not nearly as much fun.

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Then things have changed a lot since I was in school: K-12 1968-1980, yes, there is a year "missing"--I spent but three weeks in the first grade and then was put in the second without any notification to my parents. My parents were told point blank at a PTA meeting that "no one wants to hear how damn smart your kid is"... but of course everyone wanted to hear who could shoot a hoop or kick a football. You don't want to know how long I could go on about my experience... my only solace is that because of what happened to me, my school district took steps so bright kids after me wouldn't get what I got--early reader programs in kindergarten, accelerated programs throughout K-6, the stuff I needed but the school district didn't know they needed until I went through.

Anyway, yes, if it wasn't for my family, I don't even want to think how I might've turned out. Functional in a fun way--like the Addams Family, only weirder. ;)

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As we've been having this discussion, I've been asking my friends what kinds of experiences they had in school, just to make sure I wasn't crazy. And the answer I got most was "yeah, I didn't get too much shit for being a smart kid, although my older brother/friend/that guy who sat in the corner didn't have it too easy." But from what you've told me of your schooling, and my own informal surveys of people around my age (currently a junior in college ... damn, how'd I get this far already?), it seems like most schools have adopted the way your school did, so that a) smart kids get what they need and (more importantly) b) smart kids get some kind of recognition. If there's one refrain I heard at every college info meeting I went to, it was something like "it's impossible to get sports scholarships, because your kid is NOT going to be the next Michael Jordan/Payton Manning/Barry Bonds. We'd much rather see well-rounded kids, who are smart as well as good athletes." I don't quite know why I was at this meeting, being a girl who can't run when chased, but ...

Bottom line: your school was clearly fucking unready to deal with anyone smarter than a pound of hair, which sucks majorly. But from what I know, that's becoming the exception, not the norm. :-)

And you're gonna hate me here, but I've never actually seen an Addams Family anything. No, apparently I didn't have a childhood. :-D

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Ummm... I got regularly beaten up for being smart. And for being, not merely Teacher's Pet, but Principal's Pet. I was the nerd-boy mocked by girls, I was the goofy-looking kid (my nickname was "Goofy" for two and a half years, oh, yeah, that was fun)... and they came to me for homework help. Passive/aggressive as fuck. It's miraculous I turned out even a bit okay, and some stuff I'll be working on for the rest of my life.

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That sucks, man, and I'm sorry. I do know that shit like that happens, and there's nothing that's good about that. And I'm not saying it doesn't happen, or trying to belittle people it happens to. But I am saying that, from what I've seen and from what the kids I know see ("kids" here meaning anyone from my church youth group advisers to professors to friends to people I baby-sit for), it doesn't always happen, and it seems like it's not happening as often as it used to. If I were a sociologist, it'd probably be the second thing I'd study, right after how standardized tests mess with people. Granted I'm a lot younger than you are, and (just like everyone) have a tendency to generalize what I know. But I really, really believe that kids today aren't as horrible as they were.

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nightsinger.livejournal.com

I agree completely. Ron's a complete wanker, and, frankly, not bright enough for Hermione. I can't see her not becoming completely bored with him.

Examplefic of a post-Hogwarts, post-war world wherein Hermione marries Ron: And They Didn't Live Happily Ever After by Betz (http://ashwinder.sycophanthex.com/viewstory.php?sid=7357)
(HG/SS -- but don't get squicked. It's very nicely done.)

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HG/SS doesn't squick me--Riley and I are old friends, and I've read "Pawn to Queen".

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(Okay, screw HTML. I'm going to be a ~~hobbit~~ hermit.)

I agree with something someone said about the whole Msscribe (http://www.journalfen.net/community/bad_penny/1074.html) deal: you miss out on a lot of the shipping wars by reading (and writing) fic.

Thus, although I don't ship that way, I'll point you over to my friend

goldy_dollar, who writes some H/Hr. Including a rather enjoyable Firefly crossover (http://goldy-dollar.livejournal.com/146588.html), some nice angst (http://goldy-dollar.livejournal.com/130759.html#cutid1), and a cute moment (http://goldy-dollar.livejournal.com/119770.html#cutid1).

Enjoy!

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shaharazad.livejournal.com

I'll be at the reading on Wednesday. Looking forward to it!

-Rick

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ruisseau.livejournal.com

These fics are both rated NC-17. However, the plot does not depend on the sex in any way. Also, both contain (graphic) slash (i.e., homosexuality).

I'll fully admit that I've stepped out of HP fandom almost entirely.

Stealing Harry/Laocoon's Children:
The one fic I'm still following is a carefully written AU (alternate universe) where Remus gets to Sirius in time, Lucius Malfoy is the prisoner in Azkaban, and Remus and Sirius "kidnap" Harry from the Dursleys when he is 8. The story begins with Harry at 8 and is currently following him through his third year at Hogwarts. Three novels long with one in the process and several short stories can be found here (http://sam-storyteller.livejournal.com/2005/07/07/).

Cartographer's Craft:
A completed novel-length fic by the same author is my favorite of all the post-HBP fics I've read. PDF for this fic downloadable here (http://sam-storyteller.livejournal.com/43528.html).

It seems odd to be rec'ing fics in Tom's LJ as it was Tom who sent me to my very first HP fic almost 4 years ago.

My main fandoms these days are Doctor Who and House. The icon I'm using is from Ouran High School Host Club (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouran_High_Host_Club), which is crack of the highest order.

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markbernstein.livejournal.com

By the way, for those who haven't seen this, or something similar, Daniel Radcliffe will be making his London stage debut as the disturbed stableboy in Peter Shaffer's Equus.

It's a role that requires onstage nudity.

Anyone want to start a pool on the date the first pictures will appear on the web?

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jss

Anyone who thinks the answer isn't "Mere seconds after the nudity in question," thanks to the prevalence of camera-phones and instant-uploads, is fooling themselves.

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That's what I was thinking. Snap, macro, upload, boom.

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