Harry Potter Author Admits Ron Shouldn't Have Ended With Hermione

[Foolery]

Honestly, I was just disappointed that Harry didn't die along with Voldemort in the last book. Avada Kedavra you googly-eyed fuck!

 

[DirgeNovak]

Ron and Hermione was fine. What I didn't like so much was Harry not ending up with Cho. I didn't like Ginny much.
But in the end, who cares? It was a great series that ended in a great way.

 

[Roxor]

I'll give it a week before we have a full series rewrite on a fanfic sate claiming "The story which would have happened!" with Harry ending up with Hermione.

Solvemedia: draw a blank

Good luck getting the shippers to do that.

 

[Murais]

I think people are losing sight of what's important here;

That half-assed epilogue at the end of Book 7 had absolutely no business existing, and had it been left out, all this nonsense about weak relationship hook-ups wouldn't be an issue of debate.

 

[The Funslinger]

I don't understand what she means by wish fulfillment, like did she see herself in Hermione and always wanted to end up with a guy like Ron?

I assumed she meant it in the 'Ron = second fiddle/Harry's Luigi' sort of way. Him getting Hermione is like, finally, the normal guy got the main lead.

I could communicate that better, but I'm really tired.

OT: I was fine with Ron/Hermione. As has been already said, I liked that she subverted expectation and put Harry with Ginny.

And I wouldn't say the Ginny thing was forced. I mean you never really see any of this from Ginny's PoV. I could rant about how it makes sense, but I really shouldn't.

Suffice it to say this revelation annoys me. More because of my general dislike of shippers than anything.

 

[Erttheking]

Oh dear, the internet is going to be consumed with the fire of millions of shippers now. It really is scary how angry some people can get over some things.

 

[The Funslinger]

Don't worry, on the first book's 25th anniversary, Rowling will re-release the books one at a time: Harry Potter: The Special Edition, thus correcting this travesty and others. My bet is that Voldemort will be rewritten to be harry's father. Then of course Ron will die, but it will be a one off, he gets killed in the chess game of book one. Hermoine ends up with Madeye, which is the real reason he leaves Hogwarts.

No, no, Mad Eye needs to regenerate into David Tennant and then take Cho Chang away in his TARDIS, thus blue-ballsing Harry forever.

 

[RandV80]

Which gets me to my next point:
Considering how many people's love-life actually goes, why didn't all or almost all of them get married to people they met later in life, like during their job training or actual work or whatever?
I have no statistics, but how many people actually get married to their school sweetheart? Those relationships tend not to be very long-lived.

That's kind of what I was thinking here. JK Rowling is a baby boomer isn't she (edit missed by 1 year)? It make sense considering the target audience but the books definitely have that 'high school is the best/defining part of your life vibe'. I can only speculate but I think that generation created that impression because they mostly got married and started having kids in their early 20's, at which point you basically lose your independence so maybe high school did seem like a blast.

Realistically most of those relationships wouldn't work out, they'd graduate and mature into adults meeting other people while not caring who was a Hufflepuff and who a Slytherin or whatever.

And for what it's worth I'm glad in the end she at least didn't throw Neville and Luna together. I like both of them, but it would seem extra cheesy as you're basically saying 'these two are the oddball kids so let's throw them together!'

 

[RandV80]

Don't worry, on the first book's 25th anniversary, Rowling will re-release the books one at a time: Harry Potter: The Special Edition, thus correcting this travesty and others. My bet is that Voldemort will be rewritten to be harry's father. Then of course Ron will die, but it will be a one off, he gets killed in the chess game of book one. Hermoine ends up with Madeye, which is the real reason he leaves Hogwarts.

You're way off here, Ron will die in the chess game because he's an idiot but Hermione will end up with Snape and Harry with Draco!

 

[Kingjackl]

Well, no one says she isn't allowed to change her mind on such things. Personally, I don't see a problem with Ron ending up with Hermione or Harry ending up with Hermione or Draco ending up with Dobby or whatever. From the looks of that epilogue, everything worked out in the end.

 

[Hap2]

With Harry saving her in Book 2 and Ginny using a love potion on him in Book 6,

That was some random stalkery type that did that, not Ginny.

...

As an aside, I don't see it as that weird that they end up together, but them staying together for decades is another matter. How many people end up with their high school sweethearts?

How many people struggle together against abnormal odds as these characters did? Bonding through a struggle against adversity: it's not like they had a typical life. It seems stranger to compare them to the average everyday person.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

Oh noes! Their relationship is not destined by fate to be a fantastic, magical journey of untroubled perfection, and it turns out that it'll require some real human effort to make their relationship work.

 

[michael87cn]

I thought they were great together. "There's no logical reason for them to go together!" Uh well, yeah there was, there was a lot of it. They went to school together, had fights and arguments, got over them and were close friends. Sounds logical to me, and realistic.

 

[Alex Co]

That's truth in television then, ey?
I've seen lots of couples like that, me ma and da included.

You know why they say "truth is stranger than fiction?" Because fiction has to have some sort of internal consistency.

Then again, that brings me back to the book 7 comment, so....

The same could be said regarding Ron and Hermione, though.

I don't know, Hermione and Ron's borderline antagonism seems to fit. Unless the sole logic is "Hermione's the girl in the group, and Harry's the leader...."

Come on Escapist, I love you guys, but putting headlines like this is just clickbait, bordering on lies. She never said anything on Hermione/Harry and it's not like people need incentive to read any article on HP.

In fairness, this is how it was reported almost everywhere I've seen. The Escapist isn't perfect, but I think we can chalk this up to things other than "clickbiat."

Thanks! And I can say that I don't write stuff just for clickbait. Otherwise, I'd title some of my posts way, way differently. =) The Sunday Times titles it that way, maybe the feature itself has more on it and Rowling does say that Hermione should wed Harry. Once we get more info, we'll update it.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Man, the admins over at Portkey.org must be having the biggest orgasms of their lives right about now


Funnily enough, most of my inclination towards the Harry/Hermione setup was the very good chemistry between Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson in the films; the novels didn't make me go one way or the other. That said, Harry/Ginny was obnoxious as fuck and came literally the hell from nowhere.

 

[Alex Co]

Am I missing the part where Rowling actually said that Hermione should have ended up with Harry? Or is the title just clickbait?

At any rate, this kind of reminds me of the whole "Dumbledore is gay" thing. Does it really matter in the end? The worse that can happen is that ten dozen fanfics about how Ron and Hermione's marriage is falling apart will be created - if they have not already.

Though I do question the necessity of pairing any one of the Main Three with another. This coming from someone who likes that Harry wound up with his best friend's sister.

Sorry for that, assumed Rowling meant for Harry to wed Hermione, as it's also the title The Sunday Times is going with in their feature.

Thanks, didn't mean to come off as scathing or anything. Truth be told, I didn't read the source material, so...

On another note, the epilogue as a whole kind of rubbed me the wrong way. It was nice to see that everything went swell for the characters' foreseeable lives, but in some ways it almost felt forced.

No worries! I Understand where the question came from regarding the story. =)

And yeah, I agree. Some of the stuff felt forced. Honestly? Ginny being Harry's wife seemed like that to me. Like he just suddenly liked Ginny? When did this happen? He was at the Burrow for how many times and didn't notice her? Rowling didn't want Cho, and we didn't have any other girl as Harry's love interest, yes?

 

[Atmos Duality]

It didn't ruin the ending of the book or the series for me, so...I really don't see the issue.
There's a lot of blank time between the end climax and the epilogue; it's not that far of a stretch considering what Ron and Hermione suffered through and accomplished together.

 

[Kahani]

Lastly, Rowling thinks Ron and Hermione would have needed "relationship counseling" -- a scene most book and film fans would love to witness, I reckon.

"I think we should see a counsellor."
"Obliviate"
"I love you, honey."

if Harry married Hermione -- as insinuated, who would have Ron ended up with that made sense?

This is one thing that always really bugs me - why should any of them be expected to end up with anyone? When the books finished, they were still all teenagers. Even the flash forward at the end only had them maybe around 30. Not everyone is desperate to immediately latch on to someone and start breeding as soon as they're out of school. Many people don't end up with a long-term partner for years, let alone actually settle down and get married, assuming they ever do at all.

And even if they did, why would it be someone from the books at all? I haven't even seen any of my school friends in years. Even many friends from university I only see occasionally, if at all. The only couple I know who married after finishing school were divorced in under two years. People move around, drift apart, make new friends, and so on. Marrying your school sweetheart and living happily ever after is not what any normal person would expect to happen. Who would Ron have ended up with? Some girl he met on a skiing holiday in the Alps. Or maybe on the bus on the way to work. The only thing we can be sure of is that it would almost certainly not be any character that actually appeared in the books.

 

[Dragonbums]

Why the fuck should people get mad at something like this?

The author simply stated that she personally had her own romantic couple and wished she did that instead. However she didn't. And it doesn't seem that she's inclined to rewrite the whole damn novel to incorporate that one way or another.

It actually says a lot more about the author. Despite her personal preferences, she still opted to choose the pairings that best matched the story and experiences within her world.

She shouldn't need to censor her own opinions at the objection of butthurt fans.

 

[Lieju]

Wait, why should Hermione end up with Harry?
Only because he is main protagonist?

I'm not big HP fan, but the fact that female protagonist doesn't end up paired with main protagonist was awesome.

Yeah, I don't think Harry and Hermione ever had any romantic interest.

I always preferred Hermione/Draco, to be honest. Mostly because it had potential to be interesting, and offering a chance for character-development for Draco, but I never was invested in any pairings in the fandom.

Harry/Ginny was weird, but I guess it was nice for Harry and his future cildren to finally have a real family. I can see the appeal for Harry, marrying into the Weasley-clan.