Where did that ship come from?

[sistermagpie]

Recently I’ve read a couple of conversations that made me think about shipping. Specifically I've been thinking about the criticism: Why does s/he like her/him? As in: We don't understand why s/he likes her/him. The sudden attraction comes out of nowhere. If we don't understand that it's not realistic/it's badly written or whatever.

I'm going to use actual ships to talk about this, but hopefully this will not set off a ship argument or make anybody feel criticized for liking or not liking a ship. One of the ships I'm going to talk about I don't like (Harry/Ginny from HP) and one I do (Zuko/Mai from Avatar), so hopefully that separates it from liking or not liking the ship straight off.



Both these ships have gotten this criticism. In both cases, some people felt like the part where the guy (who in both cases was more our pov character) started to like this girl just happened, and that the relationship happened off-page. To give more of an idea of where I'm coming from, here's why I was surprised to hear this. In the exchange I was reading someone had criticized Zutarians for "making up meanings" for Zuko/Katara interactions--iow, writing in an off-page romance. The Zutarian countered back that it was hypocritical for the person to have a problem with off-page Zuko/Katara when they defended off-screen Zuko/Mai.

That made me say...whoa. That's two different definition of "off-screen/off-page" here. Zuko/Mai happens onscreen. The two express attraction to each other. They kiss. They refer to each other as boyfriend/girlfriend. They tell other people they like/love each other. They kiss some more. That was the definition of "onscreen" the Maiko person was using.

What the other person was saying was that s/he never saw *why* these characters liked each other, and if that wasn't argued convincingly and we just had to make up the reasons they clicked, how was that any different from Zuko/Katara, especially since presumably this person could argue why those two characters should be attracted to each other.

I hate to drag Harry/Hermione into this because they shouldn't automatically be defined as the anti-Harry/Ginny ship, but I know some of the feelings there are similar. Even more so than Zuko/Katara, Harry and Hermione are friends. We know what they like about each other in a far more detailed and less superficial ways than we know why Harry and Ginny think each other is awesome.

But these couples--H/G and M/Z--were described as *unrealistic* because of this. The couples aren't convincing, it "makes no sense," it just comes out of nowhere.

But the thing is, in real life, isn't that just as often how it happens? Especially if you're a teenager who's therefore only recently developed a consistent sexual desire? (Consistent meaning that it's always part of your pov, not consistent meaning you always like one person, gender or type.) When I think back on high school romances at my school that's actually the way it always seemed to play out to me. More often than not somebody liking somebody else made no particular sense whatsoever. Sure you expected a popular girl to date a popular boy in her group or whatever, but my friends more often seemed to like totally random people. Could any of them have given me a convincing meta-reason for why they focused on these random girls or boys? Probably not. I can think of a couple of fairly long-relationship where people never stopped asking what they were doing together.

Of course we accept things in reality that make bad writing in fiction. I don't consider "but that's the way it happens sometimes in real life!" as any kind of defense of something that doesn't work in fiction. But in this case I think there is a defense here. Romance fiction is very concerned with why people like other people, why the hero is the best man for the girl (or in general), why the heroine should get the guy over any other girl. But in a story about something else, like HP and A:TLA both are, I don't think it's odd to throw in random sexual attraction from one teenager to another as just another obstacle. It's not the reasons for Harry liking Ginny that are important, it's that he thinks she's hot and that gives him something he wants that he has to do something to have. (Okay, he doesn’t have to do much—it’s Harry Potter, after all!) Or even more with Zuko and Mai, their attraction for each other creates a relationship that will then have an effect on things. It's not that Zuko and Mai see that the other has X qualities and therefore fall in love, it's that Zuko and Mai have a long-running attraction to each other, which leads them to date, and once they date they like each other even better and discover things about each other. The stiltedness of their overtly romantic scenes makes sense given their lack of experience and discomfort with affection in general. Trying and failing to do what you think a boyfriend is supposed to do or say isn’t a sign Zuko doesn’t like Mai, imo, but that he wants Mai to like him because he likes her and doesn’t know how to do that.

In a way, in these cases it would almost be less realistic to me to get careful scenes that explained exactly what they were supposed to be attracted to in the other. Sometimes romance works backwards; you see who the person is attracted to and then you can work that back to the way they are in other ways. Their attraction says something about them, not the other way around. HP takes this even further with the idea of love potions that give you a scent to follow to your True Love For Life and as romances go that's not as interesting as a sophisticated fic that dives into what makes Harry and Hermione or Harry and Draco or Harry and Luna tick and how their two psychologies attract each other. But that doesn't, imo, make the other way badly or underwritten necessarily.

That sounds like a long-winded way of just saying "they're not writing a romance!" which of course gets countered with "that doesn't mean the romance in it should suck!" and that's not what I mean. These shows are writing romance, obviously. Romance is part of the plot (the gay romance just as much as the het romance--I'm looking at you, DD/GG!). It makes things happen, gives people motivations, is part of what people want. What I'm saying is that there's a valid tradition of presenting attraction as a done deal that doesn't have to be defended or explained for a reason. Someone pushing another person's sexual buttons, just striking someone else as physically attractive even if that person is bad for them or has other qualities they normally wouldn't like, is also part of life so shouldn't be automatically discounted in fiction.

With both these couples I have no problem in the end finding reasons why they work for the characters. I can see reasons why each would find the other superior to other people, and choose to spend their time with him/her, to get married and have kids once the initial sexual curiosity has been satisfied. I don't mind that I don’t relate to the feeling of attraction that strikes the characters but instead just know that Mai has a crush on Zuko already and Zuko is very okay with that, or know that Ginny has always crushed on Harry and Harry is now going to think she's the girl he wants as a girlfriend because she's better than other girls that way. That doesn't strike me as unrealistic or badly written given what came before, and it makes sense to me that two boys who have previously been focused on other things (or in Harry's case a different girl) would now find their attention wandering to this girl.

Really, any ship needs that spark of “and then sexual attraction arbitrarily happened.” Even in a story where you ship the two main characters and understand their relationship inside and out and see just how good they are for each other and how they hurt each other and why they need each other, if you don’t have that moment of OMG, WANT! there’s no romance. Though ships can still be criticized or disliked, both for reasons outside the text (not liking what that romance seems to "say" in the context of the story) or inside (not seeing chemistry, finding it squicky, not buying it, finding the characters annoying together, feeling like the writer is just writing their own fantasy without communicating it to the audience etc.).

Comments

[go-back-chief.livejournal.com]

For instance, what doesn't make sense about a boy being attracted to a hot girl?

But it makes less sense that a boy would suddenly be attracted to a hot girl he never even thought about, previously. Unless she suddenly became hot (which is plausible, especially when it comes to teenage girls) or she said or did something, or something else happened that made him think of her in a completely new way and thus discovering she was hot. Both possibilities are plausible, but only the second one is interesting.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

But it makes less sense that a boy would suddenly be attracted to a hot girl he never even thought about, previously.

Actually, I think it would make sense if they were both adolescents. I do think it's supposed to be a sort of "My, how you've grown" situation. Unfortunately we're not actually told that Ginny now has big tits, but Harry starts to find Ginny attractive around when she becomes a knockout (judging by how suddenly everybody agrees how pretty she is). There's a bit of a lag, but I assume that's supposed to be explained by Harry seeing her as Ron's little sister and so needing to catch up with his body reacting to her like she's a girl.

What's missing, of course, is the description of this. Harry's sexual desire remains a mystery even from himself (we get coy references to "dreams that would upset Ron" or whatever, but that's after he's started liking her and is smelling her in his love potion). It's like someone said about being more in Harry's head than in Zuko's. It's not so much that we need more to understand why Harry's attracted, imo, it's that from the view inside his head he doesn't really seem to find her attractive. If we were watching from the outside we'd probably mistakenly think he's crushing on her earlier and get that it's because she's pretty and awesome now.

[go-back-chief.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree, it's only in HBP that everyone starts talking about how Ginny is pretty, and that's when Harry falls in love with her. I would have preferred it if it said explicitly that Ginny had gotten D-cups, because noting and reacting to that would certainly have made Harry seem like a more normal teenage boy if nothing else, but as I said, the girl suddenly becoming hot, which seems more than likely to be what's going on here, is plausible enough. But it doesn't make for a very interesting story.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

the girl suddenly becoming hot, which seems more than likely to be what's going on here, is plausible enough. But it doesn't make for a very interesting story.

Especially since the girl is already ready to marry him. There's no obstacles whatsoever except for the completely artificial ones Harry creates using Ron and Voldemort. He doesn't have to win Ginny once he realizes he wants her now, after she's stopped wanting him. It's an incredibly smooth development of love that I always thought was maybe supposed to be a commentary about the way these things work. The way the girl develops this sort of thing young, but the boy isn't ready and is embarassed, and then she's again more mature and he's all awkward because he's caught up to her...

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Ginny the beauty is a fanon invention.

I think you're wrong; it's a canon fact that Ginny is pretty and good looking.

And in DH, we have Victor Krum noticing Ginny. But he also notices Hermione. Does this mean Hermione is a great beauty?

Viktor does more than 'notice' Ginny; he remarks outright on her looks:

"This girl is very nice looking," Krum said ...

...

"Vot," he said, draining his goblet and getting to his feet again, "is the point of being an international Quidditch player if all the good-looking girls are taken?"

Viktor leaves us convinced as to Ginny's good looks, telling us twice.

Pansy's remark in HBP is also much more assertive, leaving Ginny's good looks in no doubt:

"A lot of boys like her," said Pansy, watching Malfoy out of the corner of her eyes for his reaction. "Even you think she's good looking, don't you, Blaise, and we all how hard you are to please!"

Yes, Blaise wouldn't have a bar of Ginny, but that's on ethical grounds; he thinks she's a 'blood traitor'. But *a lot of boys* like Ginny and think she's pretty.

I'm sure there are other scenes in canon where Ginny is blatantly described as pretty. When they're shopping in Diagon Alley, for example, a street vendor suggests that Molly purchase something for her "pretty daughter/girl", something like that.

Ginny is never called *beautiful* - she's not a classic beauty like Fleur - but she is most definitely good looking / pretty. Nothing but the best for the hero and his love interest!

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what to say ... you seem to be trying very very hard to ignore what's written in the canon text.

In your first post you seem to take pains to sidestep the most relevant part of each of the 'Ginny is pretty' scenes, ignoring the text where characters state outright that Ginny is pretty or good-looking. Rather than note Pansy's simple statement that "a lot of boys like her" or "even [Blaise] thinks she's good looking" you instead concentrate on Blaise's reaction (then, and later in the Slug Club!?). Victor says - twice! - that Ginny is nice/good looking ... but you conveniently ignore those words and choose to drag in Hermione!?

You've got all these various people stating that Ginny is pretty, good-looking, that "a lot of boys like her". That's in black and white.

There's no need to drag in Hermione.

There's no need to worry about whether Blaise personally is attracted to Ginny - he's told us why he's not interested in Ginny. And his reason doesn't contradict the fact of Ginny's physical beauty.

There's no need to bring in Fleur, Gabrielle or any of the others. We know they're beautiful because Harry noticed their beauty in the course of the narrative. We know Ginny is pretty because Harry, Pansy, a DE, a bloke in the street and 'a lot of boys' have noted same.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

No, I think they really are saying that she's pretty. Sure it's not like it's on every page, but it's enough (and consistent enough) that I think she's genuinely exceptionally pretty.

There's a random person on the street who calls out to her as pretty. The DE at the end *is* saying that she's pretty, he's just taunting her that he's going to cut off her head. Pansy is testing Draco but testing him because Ginny is actually found attractive by a lot of people, including Blaise she thinks. (Blaise responds by sulkily saying she's a blood traitor but not saying that she's not pretty--I got the impression that yes, Blaise did find her attractive, of course.) Viktor, too, objectively describes her as such.

That's a lot of references to Ginny being attractive (not that Hermione is the plain Jane--she's whistled at on the street). Even if everybody has a reason for doing it, I don't think that explains it all or even most of it away--she is literally a very pretty girl. She is very popular--too popular for her own good, as Harry says. Granted he's being jealous so he's oversensitive to any attention paid to her, but the book seems to say pretty much flat out that yes, Ginny is quite sought-after. That's why Harry has to act fast in asking her out. That's why her brothers begin hovering over her protectively. That the other boys she went out with are nothing special doesn't really matter, the point is that they do want her. She would never be hurting for dates. In the author's words she's "like Lily"--a popular girl.

She's not so supernaturally beautiful that nobody can resist her--I think she's supposed to be pretty in a friendly, less threatening way. But no, I don't think it's a fanon idea that she's supposed to be one of the prettiest girls at Hogwarts. I got that from reading HBP.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

If that's true though why can neither you, madderbrad nor I name more than three instances of Ginny being called good-looking/pretty?

Three instances is already a lot! Ginny's a supporting character and the author goes out of her way to have characters state that she is pretty--this in a storyline where the hero wants to date her and is worried about someone else getting her etc. It seems like you're arguing against all of these straightforward things, demanding more proof that she's pretty because it's not enough to have a number of people say so or do other things that are shorthand for her being pretty. You ask above why Pansy would compliment Ginny by calling her pretty--she would call her pretty because Ginny's being pretty is an accepted fact in her world.

As Madderbrad said, there's no reason to drag in Hermione or compare romantic history etc. to counteract people saying that Ginny is pretty. Why would I not think she's pretty when the author has a number of people tell me she is? It really seems to go beyond personal taste here. Not everyone is attracted to her but she seems to be conventionally pretty based on people casually saying so.

"A lot of boys like her," said Pansy, watching Malfoy out of the corner of her eyes for his reaction.

"I wouldn't touch a filthy little blood traitor like her whatever she looked like," said Blaise coldly, Pansy looked pleased.

I didn't misremember, actually, I was giving my own interpretation of the response here that he wouldn't touch her whatever she looked like as sour grapes. I don't know why you feel that Pansy's looking at Draco proves that Ginny isn't pretty--I know she's saying it for Draco's reaction. I think she's stating the obvious fact that Ginny is pretty and seeing if Draco agrees too much for comfort--she's got reason to be insecure. She's pleased that Blaise puts Ginny down by saying he doesn't care what Ginny looks like because she's a blood traitor. He's not saying she's not pretty, he's saying her looks don't count as much as her being a blood traitor. He clashes with her personally despite her being pretty.

This is a book and Ginny is a supporting character that the author has limited time to sketch out. One of the things JKR finds time to mention is that she's pretty. If the word "pretty" is used to describe a character with this much page time not once but several times in one book, I see no reason to look for reasons it doesn't count each time or decide that she needs to also have X more boyfriends than Hermione. This also goes for things like her brothers worrying about her popularity--you say what we get in canon (the twins mentioning her dating guys in the shop and Ron later getting protective) is not enough. It is, imo, an efficient way of establishing the fact. Three of her brothers discuss her popularity with boys in a scene--it doesn't matter if the twins that there's no follow-up story of the three of them trying to fit her with a chastity belt. The conversation informs us about Ginny. Bringing in factors like the size of the school making popularity meaningless seem like yet another way of erasing what was put in the book for a reason. (And I believe JKR very clearly meant Ginny was like Lily meaning sought after for dates and not popular as a Quidditch player. Within the text itself it's her popularity with boys that's brought up.) Show don't tell is better, but sometimes you just get tell. We get told a lot about Ginny.

You may argue with every time other people get from the text that Ginny is conventionally pretty or not agree with it, but it's not a fanon invention. It comes from canon.