Let's talk about Ron and Hermione

Oh, Ronald. If only there was someone out there who loved you.

Okay. This has been done to death. The internet has screamed its rage, and the dust has settled. Nevertheless, I have Things To Say.

A couple weeks ago, a teaser article was published, in which J.K. Rowling apparently told Emma Watson that Ron and Hermione getting married was a mistake, and that Hermione should have ended up with Harry, instead. This news spread like wildfire. Cue the screaming. I was always more invested in Harry and Ginny, myself, so I never realized how much of a Ron/Hermione fan I was until this teaser article; I did, however, know how much I hated the idea of Harry/Hermione, which has always felt like incest to me. 

I am not going to rehash everyone's arguments about how unclassy it is to renounce major plot threads in your books, because one, that has been done to death, two, I respect Rowling rather more than that, and three, I have since read the full interview. Here is the most relevant passage from the interview:

Rowling: What I will say is that I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment. That’s how it was conceived, really. For reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it, Hermione with Ron.

Watson: Ah.

Rowling: I know, I’m sorry, I can hear the rage and fury it might cause some fans, but if I’m absolutely honest, distance has given me perspective on that. It was a choice I made for very personal reasons, not for reasons of credibility. Am I breaking people’s hearts by saying this? I hope not.

Watson: I don’t know. I think there are fans out there who know that too and who wonder whether Ron would have really been able to make her happy.

Rowling: Yes exactly.

Watson: And vice versa.

Rowling: It was a young relationship. I think the attraction itself is plausible but the combative side of it… I’m not sure you could have got over that in an adult relationship, there was too much fundamental incompatibility. I can’t believe we are saying all of this – this is Potter heresy!

In some ways Hermione and Harry are a better fit, and I’ll tell you something very strange. When I wrote Hallows, I felt this quite strongly when I had Hermione and Harry together in the tent!

Rowling  later goes on to say:

All this says something very powerful about the character of Hermione as well. Hermione was the one that stuck with Harry all the way through that last installment, that very last part of the adventure. It wasn’t Ron, which also says something very powerful about Ron. He was injured in a way, in his self-esteem, from the start of the series. He always knew he came second to fourth best, and then he had to make friends with the hero of it all and that’s a hell of a position to be in, eternally overshadowed. So Ron had to act out in that way at some point.

But Hermione’s always there for Harry. I remember you sent me a note after you read Hallows and before you starting shooting, and said something about that, because it was Hermione’s journey as much as Harry’s at the end.

And then finally, and less damningly:

Oh, maybe she and Ron will be alright with a bit of counseling, you know. I wonder what happens at wizard marriage counseling? They’ll probably be fine. He needs to work on his self-esteem issues and she needs to work on being a little less critical.

What I get from the article is this: Rowling identified a lot with Hermione, so Hermione ended up with Ron, a "funny man." Rowling says, "Just like her creator, [Hermione] has a real weakness for a funny man. These uptight girls, they do like them funny." That's what Rowling means by "wish fulfillment." I... can't argue with that. Us uptight girls, we do like them funny. I just don't think that's a bad thing, nor do I find it impossible that Ron could make Hermione happy – "and vice versa."

So what I don't get from the article: Ron and Hermione's marriage would inevitably end up in a horrible, vicious divorce. Harry and Hermione would indubitably be better. Rowling concedes, though I'm sure at least a little laughingly, that Ron and Hermione would probably work things out with marriage counseling. As for Harry and Hermione, Rowling says only that "in some ways [they] are a better fit." In some ways. There's nothing definite in that phrasing.

(I'm putting the rest under a cut, because it got longer than I'd like, and I guess because there are spoilers if you've been living under a rock.)

A Friendly PSA: Ichabod Crane and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

Let's play a game. It's called "One of These Things is Not Like the Others: Ichabod Crane Edition." 

Ready? BEGIN!

I'll give you a minute. It's rather difficult. (But not quite so difficult as getting that Sesame Street song out of your head. I made the mistake of looking it up on YouTube, in the hopes of embedding a video for you. I decided against it. You can thank me later.)

All three of these are pictures of different on-screen portrayals of Ichabod Crane. Ichabod Crane being the subject of Washington Irving's 1820 short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."

The first picture is, of course, of Johnny Depp, in Tim Burton's 1999 rendition of the story, called "Sleepy Hollow." The third picture is from the 1949 Disney rendition, where the story was coupled with The Wind in the Willows to make "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad." 

And the second one. The second one is the reason for this post. It's from Fox's new TV show, coming out this fall, called... yes, "Sleepy Hollow."

 

Basically, from what I've gathered, Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman have both been resurrected and set loose on the twenty-first century. Ichabod teams up with a sassy lady cop to fight supernatural creatures, particularly the Headless Horseman, whom Ichabod shot and then beheaded during the Revolutionary War. There are witches. Oh, and the Headless Horseman is actually the fourth horseman of the apocalypse, Death.

Firstly, Supernatural did it better. Secondly, ugh. Another cop show? Seriously? Although I'm amused by how America is moving toward creating action heroes out of historical and literary figures. (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, I'm looking at you. And as a side note, watching BBC's "Sherlock" and CBS's "Elementary" will basically define the difference between British and American television. But I'm getting off topic.)

Let's get back to the Ichabods. 

The rest of this post contains spoilers, but you are probably familiar enough with the basic story that you don't care. This warning is for those who do.

Film Break: WWI's Presence in "The Awakening," PART TWO

This is part two of my discussion of WWI in the British film "The Awakening." You can find part one here, wherein I examine Tom, Maud, Headmaster Purslow, Victor Parry, McNair, Judd, and the general thematic presence of WWI as a ghost in the background and foreground of the film. There is historical speculation on why McNair has a cough, an examination of a passage from Tennyson's "Morte D'Arthur," and a pertinent quote from Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est." If any of that sounds interesting to you, I'd recommend reading it. There are also pretty screencaps, which I made myself, but which of course I have no actual ownership over.

Because I ran out of room in the last post, I am going to finish my analysis of "The Awakening" by focusing on the characters Robert and Florence. I'm saving our heroine for last, you see. 

THE REST OF THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS, CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Film Break: WWI's Presence in "The Awakening," PART ONE

Remember when I mentioned that some films have a literary quality to them? Well, "The Awakening" is one of them, and I'm going to attempt to put my finger on why that is. (And it's not the cinematography and soundtrack, which are completely gorgeous, by the way.)

I'm not usually a fan of "scary" movies, but I am a sucker for a ghost story, which is what this is. Oh, is it a lovely, lovely ghost story. One that works on both literal and metaphorical levels, especially as regards WWI.

If you haven't watched it, you should. Behold, the lackluster Netflix summary (and Netflix has the film up on Instant Play, conveniently):

A haunted boarding school calls on Florence Cathcart, who disproves hoaxes for a living. But the strange place leads Cathcart to question rationality.

Because this post got insanely long, and is rife with screencaps and quotes, I am breaking it into two parts. This first part covers everyone and everything WWI-related except Robert and Florence.

THE REST OF THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS, CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

The Function of Magic in Aimee Bender's "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake"

From Barnes & Noble:

Discovering in childhood a supernatural ability to taste the emotions of others in their cooking, Rose Edelstein grows up to regard food as a curse when it reveals everyone's secret realities.

I finished reading this book yesterday, and loved it. I expected to love it, but the book itself was not what I was expecting, so I'm still pleasantly surprised.

I heard about this book, by description only, about six months ago, in a lower division fiction-writing class – so, a class filled with mostly non-English majors looking to fulfill a General Education requirement. We had split up into groups after reading one of Aimee Bender's short stories, which I can no longer remember. At some point, a girl in my group mentioned that she'd read one of Bender's novels before, but that it was really weird, because it was about a girl who could taste people's emotions through food. So of course, at once, I made a mental note to track down this book. I, the unofficial baker-in-training.

Since I had no idea of the title, it was a happy accident which caused me to stumble over the book in question last week, and I slowly set about reading it. After I had finished reading it, I headed over to the Barnes & Noble website, as per usual, to skim people's reviews. Not shockingly, most of the reviewers didn't get the book. They didn't like the pace and lack of action (it's a character study piece), nor did they understand the magic (it's magical realism).

It's funny, magic. I noticed in a few of my Creative Writing workshop classes that magic, particularly magical realism, is an entirely unfamiliar beast. Fittingly, it is a mythical creature that many people are baffled by. When something isn't cut and dry fiction, but veers into genre, especially anything like fantasy, it's confusing. I find this trend completely fascinating. Creative writers don't lack imagination; they don't even necessarily have contempt for the fantasy genre. It just throws them for a loop. Magical realism is particularly difficult because it walks the line between being normal fiction and being fantasy fiction, especially when magical realism can often be read entirely as metaphor if you feel like it.

(Someone once aptly described the difference between fantasy and magical realism as this: fantasy is how Harry Potter views the wizarding world for the first time. Magical realism is how the other wizards view the wizarding world; they've grown up with it, and so it's normal. Magical realism treats magic as if it is relatively normal. There is little of the traditional fantasy world-building.)

The general reading population has this same confusion over magic. But why? I honestly have no idea. I feel fortunate because I do appreciate a character-driven story (which most creative writers apparently do), as well as magic. Magical realism, in fact, is probably my favorite genre. 

I think I'm starting to veer away from my point, so I'll get back to it. I've been blithering on and on when what I really want to talk about is the magic itself in The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, and why the end didn't make too much sense until I Googled, then pondered, then had one of those epiphany moments. 

THE REMAINDER OF THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS, PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!

"Not Fourteen": A Random Shakespeare Appreciation Post

Okay. Well. Here's the thing. The more delicate among you may need to avert your eyes for a moment. Are you ready? Here we go: 

I am not really a Shakespeare fan. Cue the hisses of blasphemy. 

Perhaps this is a product of having to read Shakespeare all throughout high school and into college, without much choice in the matter. We were practically given a mallet and told explicitly to beat the plays to death with it – Hamlet, I'm looking at you. Perhaps I just don't really like to read plays. I've been to Ashland. Macbeth was amazing. Have I ever read it? No. Was I supposed to? Probably. Will I ever? We'll see. (Probably not. Ironically, it's difficult to read Shakespeare by yourself instead of with a class, but with a class, it's almost always unbearable. That might be a catch-22, but I didn't finish reading that book, either, so I wouldn't know.)

Even though I don't like Shakespeare all that much, however, I can appreciate him. Some of the things he does are quite clever, especially within the lines themselves. 

This is going to be a lot less effective, because I can't find the original blog post/article/comment/whatever-it-was, which stated things so clearly and wonderfully, but oh well. Basically, I ran across this interpretation of a single phrase in Romeo and Juliet, and it blew my mind. I've posted about it in at least one place before, but no one shared my enthusiasm, which... WHAT? How is this not amazing?

In Act I, Scene III of the play, the Nurse and Lady Capulet are discussing Juliet. 

Nurse: She is not fourteen. How long is it now / To Lammas-tide?

Lady Capulet: A fortnight and odd days.

Nurse: Even or odd, of all days in the year, / Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.

Juliet is "not fourteen." But do you know what is fourteen? Sonnets. Sonnets, Shakespeare's go-to, perfect form, are fourteen lines. Juliet is thirteen, and will die before she can become that perfect sonnet. She will die before she can become fully formed: a woman. 

It's been eight years since I read the play, so this source tells me the play's action takes place over only four days. Juliet can't even reach for the number fourteen by being fourteen days away from that age, because her mother says Juliet is "A fortnight and odd days." A fortnight being, of course, fourteen days (or nights, technically). It's like, by the addition of that "and odd days," Juliet is being explicitly denied her ~sonnet of womanhood yet again. 

To me, this is a bit more textual evidence that my reading of the play isn't completely unfounded. I personally don't believe that Romeo and Juliet is the ultimate love story; I think it's a cautionary tale. I think it's not only a warning to feuding families, but to stupid kids. 

Even if you do think Romeo and Juliet is romantic (which is totally fine, especially since we are basically socialized from birth to think so), you've got to admit, the sonnet connection is pretty neat. Or perhaps I'm just overly excitable.

The Importance of Madge Undersee

In the interest of including a bunch of my literary ramblings, here's an informal essay I wrote of my own volition in September of 2011 about Madge Undersee, an underrated character in the Hunger Games trilogy. It is about 4,500 words long, and CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR ALL THREE BOOKS. It was also written before the film came out, but still holds up, and was originally posted online in ~other places.

When I first heard that The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins was going to be made into a film, of course I was excited. Wary, maybe, but excited in the way that you get when a book you absolutely love is coming to the big screen, because it means you will be able to share your love with other people and experience the book again in a different light.

And of course, I was eager to see who had been cast as whom, and would periodically check the IMDB page for updates on that front. But when the casting became fixed, and all of the characters were filled out, I realized someone was missing: Madge Undersee, the daughter of District Twelve’s mayor and Katniss’s friend. The very girl with whom Katniss’s mockingjay pin originates. A bit of Googling confirmed that Madge was not, in fact, going to be included in the film.

This... did not sit well with me. I have since found an article that more or less describes the new origin of Katniss’s pin – at least, how it stood during a draft stage of the script. The idea is sort of nice, if a little Hollywood... but arguably, not as effective as Madge giving Katniss the pin, both in terms of the plot and Katniss’s character development.

Because the thing is, Madge is important, and not just because of the pin. She is important to Katniss as a character (and as a person), to the reader, and to the overall story. And she's important as an entity unto herself.