I'm anti-H/G and I've enjoyed reading both your post and your responses to others here, very insightful. I've learnt a lot. Gained much new ammunition. :-)
... because of Ron's insecurity (which we all know he doesn't get over even after a storyline about him getting over it).
Can you elaborate on Ron's "not getting over it"? I can't recall any clues that he's still insecure about Hermione after the evil!Voldemort!H/Hr scene and Harry's "like a sister" declaration.
A very well known H/G fanfic author once happily compared R/Hr to a "knight's quest", where the lady would set out a number of tasks/challenges for the knight to complete in order to win her hand. R/Hr really seemed that way to me, too ... although I couldn't see that as a good thing. If we were to take the "bickering means true love" trope as true - which I would have preferred had been left with the bad television sitcoms - then Hermione had selected Ron as her love interest back in book 2 or 3. According to the OBHWF fans anyway. Which means Hermione was just sitting there for four or five years, waiting for Ron to grow up. Finally, in DH, he mentions the Hogwarts house elves, she ticks that item off her list - "he thought of the house elves ... hey, that's the last item on my list, I can snog him now!". No romantic tension or complexity, it's all part of the 'cookie cutter' template, Hermione was *always* there for Ron, just like Ginny was there waiting for Harry to notice her.
A painfully ordinary teenaged couple with no better or worse chance of winding up married as anybody else.
I've never really thought about Ron/Lavender, which is interesting, because now that you mention it ... I discounted them because it was *obvious* that it was "doomed from the start", as you state ... and yet it is similar in composition to H/G. All physical attraction, no deeper emotional depth mentioned, girl crushing on the boy's reputation/title rather than the individual and so forth. Wow. Never thought to compare the two couples before.
But one of these "painfully ordinary teenage" romances is lauded as a match made in heaven between soulmates. Amazing!
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... because of Ron's insecurity (which we all know he doesn't get over even after a storyline about him getting over it).
Can you elaborate on Ron's "not getting over it"? I can't recall any clues that he's still insecure about Hermione after the evil!Voldemort!H/Hr scene and Harry's "like a sister" declaration.
A very well known H/G fanfic author once happily compared R/Hr to a "knight's quest", where the lady would set out a number of tasks/challenges for the knight to complete in order to win her hand. R/Hr really seemed that way to me, too ... although I couldn't see that as a good thing. If we were to take the "bickering means true love" trope as true - which I would have preferred had been left with the bad television sitcoms - then Hermione had selected Ron as her love interest back in book 2 or 3. According to the OBHWF fans anyway. Which means Hermione was just sitting there for four or five years, waiting for Ron to grow up. Finally, in DH, he mentions the Hogwarts house elves, she ticks that item off her list - "he thought of the house elves ... hey, that's the last item on my list, I can snog him now!". No romantic tension or complexity, it's all part of the 'cookie cutter' template, Hermione was *always* there for Ron, just like Ginny was there waiting for Harry to notice her.
A painfully ordinary teenaged couple with no better or worse chance of winding up married as anybody else.
I've never really thought about Ron/Lavender, which is interesting, because now that you mention it ... I discounted them because it was *obvious* that it was "doomed from the start", as you state ... and yet it is similar in composition to H/G. All physical attraction, no deeper emotional depth mentioned, girl crushing on the boy's reputation/title rather than the individual and so forth. Wow. Never thought to compare the two couples before.
But one of these "painfully ordinary teenage" romances is lauded as a match made in heaven between soulmates. Amazing!