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

[godspoodle.livejournal.com]

Weeelllll... alfskjaslkj oh man. If you think Lily just feels sorry for poor ugly Snape, then I can't say anything :P I'm torn whether I think that's a valid interpretation or not-- since it's not like we get Lily's pov one way or the other. But it's certainly quite a cynical viewpoint, haha. Oh man. She was a child, right-- and they took to each other naturally, unless you think at 11 years old, she was 'just pretending' for some reason and 'just tolerating' him even though they seemed to hang out a lot, in school and out. Her relationship with her sister suffered, too, and wouldn't she have chosen her sister over Snape if he didn't mean that much to her? I see it as being complicated; he hurt her a lot with the Mudblood comment, and by the time the pantsing happened, they'd already reached a low point at the verge of 'splitting up'. I mean, Snape *was* a nasty jerk, and it's possibly a toss-up whether James was 'as bad', but basically she wasn't friends with James. She may have had an appreciation for 'mean humor', and may even have been feeling a bit vindictive by then, but... I think it's pretty clear to me, at least, that Lily cared for Snape and that Snape messed things up. Uh, but that's a whole 'nother subject. Er. Also, Snape & Lily had more than one scene together, non?

As for James & Lily, indeed they don't have more than 2-- one at the train first year and one with the pantsing. That's why I said it's more the 'legendary' status (that makes it grand romance) and also lots of implication/set-up elements. So the change James makes is by implication, but it's clear he's not the boy he was-- he became a Head Boy, he stopped messing around with Sirius so much, he was the one being recriminating about the Shack. Also, it doesn't make sense otherwise (unless he changed)-- unless you say Lily's distaste was fake. And I don't think it was just 'cause there's no reason for her to fake it... she could've accepted him much earlier, but didn't. She wasn't a saint, but she had her own ideas of behavior that she applied to both Snape & James... though it's true people (and JKR) overdo the righteousness. I think her extraordinariness is more in the effect she has on others, as I said-- as a catalyst. And she really is the only one who loved Snape (I think), so that in itself puts her in a party of one, hahah.

I don't think there's evidence she *enjoyed* Snape's 'smackdown'... certainly not in a gleeful way, which would imply she actually felt the same as James & Sirius about him, which makes no sense. They were both angry at each other; Snape was humiliated so he lashed out (Mudblood!), she was angry and hurt, shocked, etc. I don't think Snape would've cared for her unless she genuinely showed interest in him-- though he immediately got attached to her being pretty and also a Muggleborn, it can't be enough to explain the entire relationship. She could only have been genuinely outraged by James & Sirius' behavior on the train and afterwards-- certainly, Snape didn't deserve it then. And when Snape did deserve it, she told him-- she asked him to stop, questioned his choice of friends, etc, rather than just immediately looking down at him. With James, it's a lot more muddled, clearly, as for what happened-- but clearly (at least to me), *something* did. James was always different from Sirius, at least in that Sirius looked to James, but James looked to Lily (almost like Snape did). Even if it was fake on some level, I think he had to have 'cleaned up' for Lily, and it's clear he really loved her a lot, which was my main point, anyway: the most dramatic love. He died for her! heh. Though in that sense he's more than tied with Snape; Snape, however, never changed-- or indeed did anything-- while she lived.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

No, I didn't say she was pretending at all with Snape. I said she was shown as compassionate because when faced with an ugly kid in funny clothes she didn't react by teasing him or judging him--like Pansy would do. She was his friend. When I said feel sorry for him I was more thinking of his family situation. She's shown asking about his parents fighting at home, obviously being sympathetic and caring about that.

But she's attracted to James the asshole. She's not attracted to some nice guy who's totally reformed. At 11 James was just some kid who took on her and her best friend. By 15 she knows James better and already likes him despite his being at his worst.

I'm not making her out to be this evil liar who manipulated Snape into thinking she liked him when really she was a terrible friend (not that you're saying I'm doing that but that's the extreme end of the Not!Saint Lily thought). I'm saying that Lily was not, from what we see, any paragon of virtue, or particularly kind by my standards (rather than the author's). She was exactly what Ginny is, a girl who stands up when she sees people bullying the innocent and weak but also enjoys the right people beating up on others. Here, as I've said before, I think she's just mirroring the series' own ideals. So of course James is fine the way he is. The stuff Snape gets bent out of shape about is just James being a little too high spirited for his own good, a little too cocky. James' impulses to bully aren't the sign of anything too bad, they're just the natural downside of his passion for justice (just like Harry's torture impulses, Ginny's put-downs and violent outbursts, Lily's amusement at James, the Twins' more harmful practical jokes). It's Snape's bullying that's the sign of a problem because it's all about jealousy and weakness--he's a racist.

I don't think there's evidence she *enjoyed* Snape's 'smackdown'... certainly not in a gleeful way, which would imply she actually felt the same as James & Sirius about him, which makes no sense.

"Lily, whose furious expression had twitched for an instant as thought she was going to smile, said, 'Let him down!'

That's after everyone is cheering over James hefting Snape into the air. She's not just the same as James and Sirius in the scene, but she's already attracted to James in this scene, and what he does here doesn't put her off. It's obvious to me that Lily already likes James, and here I do have the author backing me up here that yes, she does. She's liking James in this scene, her face twitches because she's conflicted--she's angry about the injustice to Snape but also has positive feelings for James. I don't think her twitch of a smile is at Snape's slashing James' face, since it comes after Levicorpus. She thinks his response to Snape is funny but isn't letting him see that she likes him at all. Or maybe she just automatically laughs at people being pantsed--not a way to show a character as incredibly kind.

James is the guy Lily likes already. And we never see any indication that he changed at all besides that he "grew up" and his head unswelled a bit (which indicates the problem was that he was full of himself not that he was cruel). There's no big change for James, just the vague idea that he was a berk when he was 15. She also comes to consider Sirius a great friend and we know he never regretted anything he did as a teenager--neither did James, from what we see. If this is what she's attracted to--a guy mostly known for being a bully--I think she finds the bullying attractive. (Her relationship with her sister, too, is not destroyed by her being friends with Snape but by her being a witch and her sister being jealous, which Lily throws in her face.)

[godspoodle.livejournal.com]

Haha ok but... fnlkasjfal it's funny how we agree but put emphasis on different things. I never said *I* thought Lily was particularly kind by my standards, though I think she's more sensitive to Slytherins than Ginny just by virtue of having a Slytherin friend (which... sort of sounds like having 'black friends' or 'gay friends', but anyway... uhh yeah this sounds bad). I guess I got carried away saying Lily was symbolic of love and/or more 'loving', but this wasn't to say she was saintly.

Anyway, you're right in that the thing with her sister was more to do with being a witch (man, these things mutate in my head when I haven't thought of the canon for long enough... urgh). But I don't think Lily was Snape's friend the same way Ginny is Luna's... though I actually think Ginny is more Luna's and Neville's friend than Harry is... like, I think they were closer, more... love. Can I actually back this up? God, I guess not. Your interpretation definitely works, of course.

I think it's true she always liked James on some level, was attracted to him, and that James was never 'that bad', etc. At the same time, it's clear that at some points in their 5th and 6th years, both James and Sirius were really getting out of control, and James 'repented' more than Sirius did; grew up a bit more-- of course, this isn't hard since basically Sirius didn't grow up at all. But I think there's some stuff in canon about how James shaped up in seventh year, though we clearly know next to nothing about it. There wasn't that much shaping up to do, I guess, but he no longer teased Snape, at least so blatantly, I believe. I think he wanted her approval.

I didn't mean to turn this into some over-arching justification for either of them, just to say they have more grand/epic elements than H/G or R/Hr, but in some ways there are definitely still similarities. The big thing that really transforms J/L is the presence of Snape and them dying (through betrayal, no less). That really pumps up their story at lot, from a potential romance level point of view. Like I said earlier about romance in general, I suppose you can always take the same facts and make a different narrative out of it-- depending what point you're trying to make. With H/G, I see less attempts by canon to make the story epic-- as you acknowledged, at least, there's a 'supposed to be' level in J/L that's pretty grandiose even if the characterization is more ordinary and repetitive. I mix up the intented glamour and actuality a bit too much, but speaking of True Love, for me the intent/stylization is important for the reasons of shifting narrative I mentioned.

I agree Lily is conflicted-- feeling bad about the pantsing but helplessly liking James' antics. Like I said, an appreciation for James' (and possibly Snape's, at some point!) 'mean humor'. But that doesn't really speak horridly of her character, necessarily, or mean she's actually a mean person who gloated at a friend's pain, etc. I do agree it's not a big change, because he was already supposed to be fine, not like Snape needed to change-- but it's still *romantic* that he shaped up for her. Here I want to separate what's romantic from what's admirable :P Trying to keep the romantic thread hanging when you're just being reasonable is hard :)) hahahaflsjklasj I was trying to explain my reasoning for seeing J/L as the most romantic narrative, remember :>

I do still think that it's not the bullying she finds attractive, per se, because that *would* make her actually actively horrid/hypocritical/mean, not just 'not that kind'. James is cute. Hell, Draco is cute. That doesn't mean Draco is cute because he's mean, but the cute way he's mean is... well, why he's cute. Y'know? This doesn't mean I like Draco because I like mean people. But I do like a lot of people who happen to be mean sometimes, but in particular ways, y'know. ^^;;;; James really was hot-headed, swaggery & cocky, funny & charming, etc, so even when he went too far it was hard to hate him. But since I like James, my opinion is probably moot ^^;;;

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh, you're right about Ginny and Luna vs. Lily and Snape. S/L is presented as a friendship while Luna is presented as this girl who's picked on and that's how Ginny meets her. Snape might be funny-looking but nobody's picking on him when Lily meets him. With Snape I think it's more showing that Lily doesn't judge people on superficial things the way Draco or Pansy would. With Luna it's that Ginny is great because she doesn't join in picking on Luna and stands up to other people who do. Lily doesn't have to stick up for Snape until they meet MWPP.

We don't really get anything about whether James changed any more than Sirius did, I don't think, since we don't see him. I think what we're told is that they're both made Head Boy and Girl in 7th year (why on earth James would be made Head Boy is a mystery...) and there's a vague mention of James having deflated his head a bit. It's more like the way somebody might say, if somebody saw Harry raging around in OotP, "well, Ginny started going out with him the next year, after he'd calmed the fuck down a little." It's not that there was some big change in Harry, he's just not as intense in that way later.

In some ways Sirius changed a lot more than James, growing old in jail. He just didn't regret anything about Snape or anything that he and James had done together. Did James? I don't know, but not necessarily. James did, presumably, want her to date him. But I don't think he necessarily changed any more or less than Sirius, even if Lily gave him a reason to reign himself in a little that Sirius didn't have.

I guess I'm not sure I even see James and Lily as "supposed to be epic." I think it's supposed to be sad that they died and that they were happily married, but I don't see them as any more epic a pair than Harry and Ginny or Ron and Hermione. They were a bickering couple who really liked each other underneath--tragic that they died young, but not otherwise tragic. Even the whole idea that Lily "changed" James is getting a little out of proportion. We didn't learn James needed any changing until the fifth book where he comes off badly to Harry, and the response isn't any story of Lily changing him but his friends laughing about how James could be an idiot at that age.

The change idea was even further put down in DH when we find out the Prank came before SWM. That was the thing that had previously been connected to James' change, because that was the heroic thing he did. Only it turned out he did that before SWM--probably it was more that that got Lily's attention. It's just that this whole idea that James shaped up for Lily really isn't supported in canon. It's just a joke--James stopped hexing Snape where Lily could see him and she agreed to go out with him in 7th year since by then his head had deflated a bit. At least that's the way I'm remember it now.

It seems more like James was always the good guy and Snape was always fatally flawed, and while good!Lily was friends with little, more innocent Snape she grew up to love the good man James was always going to grow up to be. No more fundamentally changed from the kid on the train than anyone else (because nobody changes much in this universe; their choices just gradually show who they are).

[godspoodle.livejournal.com]

Ahh, the change thing. You're right about people revealing vs changing in this universe, and though that doesn't always get to me, I do like a basic arc.... ugh. Well, there's Snape, haha, though that's definitely debatable.

In the end, I was just thinking I think of Snape/Lily (and Dumbledore/Grindelwald) as 'most romantic', but I didn't mention it because ummm, I don't think they're really written that way? Though what does that really mean? Do I use my definition of romance or the one used in the text, especially when H/G and S/L are like, on the opposite ends of the 'what's romantic/True Love' spectrum... buuuut at the same time, well, perhaps it's easier to fudge the edges with J/L a bit more 'cause we *see* H/G and clearly they're not epic, just some badly-written hormones and basic straightforward compatibility (plus a little obsessiveness, esp. on Ginny's part always a plus). On the other hand, what does it mean to think James' persistence in 'courting' Lily is more 'romantic' than Ginny's fixation? Ehhh, even I can't keep track of my possible narratives, hahaha. You're right in that I went a bit out of proportion and exaggerated to justify the J/L-- I mean, I don't really think it's 'epic romance', just more romantic than H/G, which doesn't take much.

The funny thing really... lafkjsflksajf the funny thing is that uhhh I believe that that's how life works, in a certain sense-- our choices do gradually show who we are, and nature influences nurture (as nurture influences nature, but less so... it's more that I think nurture defines what bits of nature are exposed and when and how), and free will exists but is exercised in a very limited fashion by the majority of people. So my main issue with JKR is that in practice, the way people act is less predictable; while in every case you can say 'you saw it coming' (people are rarely surprising in retrospect), in terms of predicting their actions, you should be surprised-- or, should I say, there's the illusion of change, which you later see fits into a pattern for that individual when you think about it; its' not that people's choices are set, it's that the motivations for their choices follow an arc that begins at the beginning and is therefore consistent, basically. The way she wrote it, it's like everything goes along according to plan-- people have... not just personalities but destinies, for lack of a better term. It's not just that Snape is flawed-- because he is, and most people in most narratives would have those flaws remain in some fashion-- it's that his actions, firstly, seem overly limited (even for his stated personality) and don't have quite the effect they could have. Same with Draco and Harry. My point is, the problem isn't so straightforward as 'people don't change', because you can have a decent (and believable) narrative where indeed people are doomed from the get-go (like say, Oedipus), but there's still a valid arc. I don't know. ^^;

As I said in the beginning, almost everything I could say about J/L is implication and therefore a lot of 'reading into things', haha, so if you confront me on that I have to fold. That said, I definitely don't see *more* True Love epicness with H/G, so I wouldn't single *them* out as 'supposed to be' either. It's just all kind of... um, blah, on the romance front, though I do still love the doomed ones. I always love the doomed ones :D

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Afterthought: One thing I think this comes down to is just what the author's writing. It's not that I don't think JKR has any kindness in her as a person, but given the emotions she's focusing on in these books, there's just very little of it. There's too much revenge on mean people at school or showing people who think they're so great and punishing the wicked and fixing injustice. That's what I think is considered attractive in the world, not compassion. What Ursula LeGuin called "ethically mean-spirited." Most people in the books are ethically mean-spirited, including Lily. She's not particularly mean-spirited, but as one of the shining stars she shares their outlook.

[godspoodle.livejournal.com]

Well, I agree (though I'm not sure how we got from romance/compassion to 'true' kindness rather than romance, which tends to produce rather selfish kindnesses), but... her being ethically mean-spirited is sort of irrelevant in this context, at least it was to me? Anyway, in a general sense there's two sorts of 'compassion'-- one driven by justice and one by mercy. This... I don't actually prioritize them, necessarily, in a theoretical sense, since you have be truly just (and harsh) or truly merciful (and altruistic), and both are necessary and admirable. They're extremes of character, too, so you rarely see either.

Most people in general, especially practical/hands-on rational types, are probably more justice-driven, and I've come to terms with that, haha. I'm definitely not of their ilk, but it's apersonality thing. If you can be good at being the way you are, I guess it's fine with me; being just yet compassionate insofar as that fits is also traditional for heroes. You very rarely have heroes (not antiheroes and not like, priestly mentors) that aren't that way on some level... or worse. Sometimes it really is very jarring because no only are they 'ethically mean-spirited', they're actually also bitchy and hardass and just plain not nice, haha. This is all typical for hero types these days, men or women. On that scale (like compared to the Hollows books), I think Lily is pretty nice, haha. They're all very judgmental, hard-line, closed-minded, etc. Those damn Js, ruining everything!!! D: D: hahahafhlfksajflkasjflkasjlkasj Um. I'm overly amused, I know. >__> I try to be all 'there there, go on and, uh, protect us from the wicked', or whatever, just 'cause basically if you can't beat 'em, accept 'em :>