This post is mainly addressed to Silens Cursor. It's long. Very long.

Really? You think that an insecure person of the magnitude that you describe could possibly, possible, stay true to her beliefs while everyone around her is scoffing at her? Your argument that house-elves like being enslaved, thus Hermione being misguided is flawed at best. It's like saying that kidnapped-victims who bond with their captors don't want to be freed, and thus shouldn't be freed.

And even if you argue that since everyone says that house-elves love slavery - well, the group is never wrong, right? There's no example of a majority oppressing a minority in anyway, right? Oh. Wait.

Doesn't make sense.

Not all innovations have to do with magic. And the Marauders weren't being innovative by becoming Animagi. They were following instructions - just at a younger age than normal. Hermione is being innovative through her mundane practices - not her magic. Perhaps her innovations didn't pan out - but there is evidence, nonetheless, of her innovation (DA galleons, house-elf rights etc.).

I never said that I shipped H/Hr, which you seem to think I do. I agree, working relationships thrive on equality. My point wasn't that H/Hr was perfect. I was simply disagreeing with the majority of people who think that Hermione is the "bad" one of the two. Hermione is better than Harry - at least in canon.

Harry, with a dark lord on his trail, does squat to improve his chances of living. He slacks off, ignores advice, and gets angry at pretty much everything. Not a guy you'd want to date - angsty, lazy, unreasonable.

Hermione stays loyal to Harry, despite the above mentioned. She does his homework for him - and is pretty much the only sensible character in the entire series. I'd love to have a girl like that - caring, sensible, smart.

For fuck's sake - all teenage girls are insecure. If you'd ever dated in high school you should know this. But people change. You look past the insecurities, and you see someone worth knowing.

Because if being rife with insecurity makes someone not datable - there would be absolutely no dating in high school - or anywhere for that matter. Everyone has insecurities - and more than Hermione has, for that matter.

As for Hermione being hypocritical: example, please?

Your idea of a "forward thinking, independent" man is probably a lot different than mine.

I kind of agree with this - but there's always a chance. Y'know, of friends becoming lovers? Happens IRL.

Harry. Secure in himself. Maybe, but he's certainly not secure with others. If you're confident in yourself, but not in others, then you're not likely to be a bastion of charm. And it seems to me that you seem to be lauding Harry's convictions, while damning Hermione's. At least, Hermione's seem to be based in some logic, while Harry's is all emotion.

Well, it's your call when you decide which characters you like. But I strongly disagree with you interpretation of Hermione. For example, I'm not entirely certain where you can call Hermione's loyalty blind. Especially when comparing to Harry's. Hermione, it is assumed, knows more about Dumbledore than Harry did. Yet, Harry does everything Dumbledore tells him to do. Sure we have a bunch of internal monologue reagarding Harry's hate of Dumbledores orders and none of Hermiones - but that's because there are no internal dialogue of anyone except for Harry - so we can't simply assume that Hermione's loyalty is blind.

TL;DR: I disagree.

 

Well, duh, dipshit. She sticks to her convictions there because being wrong is more horrifying and humiliating to her than other people thinking her crusade is kinda dumb. What's one thing Hermione fucking freaks out about? Being wrong. She goes out of her way, in fact, to point out the times she's right.

As for House-Elves, well. Since House-Elves themselves say they prefer slavery, and act fucking terrified at the alternative, I guess we might have to just accept that. Or maybe take a step back and think. House-Elves have probably been raised for generations now to love the leash, and just freeing them isn't going to magically erase centuries of cultural conditioning. A program to free them would have to slowly integrate them back into society, because just flat freeing them and then walking off isn't going to help at all. They'd have no idea what to do, they'd want the leash again, and it'd be total chaos.

 

There it is.

This belief, in a nutshell, is why the majority of H/Hr fanfiction sucks. (Who the fuck wants to read about Hermione saving the day with an inferior Harry along for the ride).

 

...

Well, gee I dunno.

My primary objection to the pairing is that they seem (to me) like less a couple and more like siblings or cousins in how they relate to each other - filling surrogate roles that the other one lacks - which makes any romantic liaison seem weird and off-putting to me. Personality clashes and misbegotten pairings I can deal with. Kissing cousins (figuratively, in this case)? Nope.

 

I think Syao might like to have a word with you.

 

I don't judge the perversions of others, Sheep-lover, I only judge fictional perversions.

 

Personally, I prefer H/Hr over H/G any day. As long as it's well written. Ginny annoys me. A lot. Hermionie doesn't bother me nearly as much.

My $0.02.

 

Necromancer!Hermione?! Seriously?! Dude, where is that story?

 

Personally, till the fourth book, Hermione was my second most favorite character after Harry. In fact, before OotP came out, H/Hr was my favorite ship.

It didn't change much in OotP, though my favorite ships now included Harry/Tonks, but that is understandable I hope. Hot shape-shifter > Normal girl any day, any time.

HBP, I prefer to ignore mostly, because I didn't like any one in that piece of shit.

My dislike for Hermione comes from DH. I'm not even going to point out stuff from fanfics, as those are not canon. In DH, we have a Hermione who just summons Dumbledore's books from his office. Now, this was necessary, but it's a small instance of her hypocrisy, in regards to cheating and stealing, which I suppose, they did earlier in CoS too, when they stole from Snape's stores. It didn't matter to me much, other than a slight oddity, and I mostly ignored it.

Then she obliviates her parents for 'their protection'. It was nothing minor either, she basically rewrote their entire lives, thus their entire characters and moved them far from their home and lives. After fighting so strongly for House-elf freedoms and all, it was really, jarringly hypocritical.

After that there are instances upon instances of her increasingly dominating attitude, from almost forcing Harry to spend the first few days, almost continuously under the Invisibility cloak to more. Now if she knew about it's status as a Hallow, I could sort of understand that, but from what I remember (and I could be wrong as I could barely read DH, and it took me almost a whole year to get through it), her main reason for that was that if he's seen, DEs would be able to track them easier. But wouldn't the DE's also know by now how Hermione and Ron look? And the two of them together, well, it's not a great leap of logic to assume that Harry would be nearby.

I could go on, but for that I'd have to glance to through DH again, and well, I'd like to retain as much sanity as I have left.

So, to sum up the tl;dr, I dislike Hermione because of how her character developed in the canon, and thus have no interest in her. And as the series is about Harry and not her, I see no reason to change my view on her, until I do find a good story that redeems her. But, these are my views, and you are equally entitled to yours.

On the other hand, I also dislike canon Harry, but he was more sufferable in canon than Hermione, and if I didn't want to read about him getting better, I wouldn;t even be in this fandom.

 

My favorite H/Hr is Harry Potter and the Years of Rebellion (DLP thread) by Full Pensieve, but I cannot make a full recommendation because a) it's more than 500k words, and b) it has no chance of being finished due to author illness, except for possibly having the rest of it presented in outline form by the fic's "excecutor." Beyond that, it has some pluses and minuses.

Pluses: The best "psychologically traumatized Hermione" characterization I've seen; a very extensive and impressive universe-building effort (if that's your thing); a bunch of nice OCs (again, if that's your thing).

Minuses: A rather less inspired Harry characterization. Readers are treated to a heck of a lot of twitchy rage and misery from him - this is a problem for many post-Sirius fics started before HDP was published. Also, as you can guess from the word count, the author doesn't know the meaning of brevity.

 

To add another note to this spicy debate I ask for adding an official subcommunity:

H/Hr/R
Motto:
Stronger Together Than Apart

​

You see, it is canon, even more so than H/Hr - if you expand canon to include JKR's interviews.

We already have a few stories in the library, sadly only very few at the moment. I am sure Taure and others (Oz?) will jump at the chance to recommend more triofics.

For those a bit sceptical considering the unique pairing I recommend the following essay: http://community.livejournal.com/ship_manifesto/21133.html

Give it a try. Further stories are available at the following archives:

Triofic (soon to be moved into AO3)
Archive Of Our Own
TQP: The Broomshed > Ménage a Trio
TQP: Remains of the Day > Three of Hearts
TQP: Hallowed Halls > Golden Trio
ff.net: Harry/Ron/Hermione
FictionAlley: Trio ship
FictionAlleyPark: HMS Menage a Trio (H/R/Hr) Cookie Jar III look at the first post for the first two Cookie Jars.

Discussion groups:
FictionAlleyPark: HMS Ménage a Trio
Yahoo Groups: Menage A Trio

There are a few archives with H/Hr/R as a subcommunity - though you have to browse to find the triofics, like Best Mates, Glassesreflects, InkStainedFinger, etc.

Of course there are also a few dedicated LiveJournal communities:
The Trio Fuh-Q-Fest!
Menage A Trio
Trio Wonderland



For those of you who think a threesome is a bit limited in its possibilities, go here...
http://forums.fictionalley.org/park/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35954

 

Here ya go Pers; I posted this in another thread last week. These are the H/Hr fics from my faves at ffn. As I said earlier, your mileage may vary, but I enjoyed all of these at some point. Quite a few of them are in the library: (in no particular order)

Backwards Compatible by Ruskbyte
Resistance by lorien829
Eighth by lorien829
Open Your Eyes: GOF and OOTP by mathiasgranger
Vox Corporis by MissAnnThropic
A Serpent’s Sacrifice by Gabilian
Hermione’s Plan by chem prof
Notebooks and Letters by chem prof
The Golden Age by Arsinoe de Blassenville
Testing Defenses by canoncansodoff
Dark Lord Rising by AndrewsQuill
Tom and Harry by old-crow
No Thanks by old-crow
HP and the Lost Demon by Angry Hermione


From other sites off the top of my head:
Sunset over Britain by bobmin (shut up - the first one is actually really good)
Magic Never Dies by lynney
HP and the Years of Rebellion by Full Pensieve

Er, yes, Sesc, that is my argument. Is your argument that it is logically impossible for JKR to write her characters OOC because she's the author?

So if she had turned Hermione into a meth addict/prostitute in book 7, you would have considered that in-character for Hermione? Really?

 

My biggest problem with many H/Hr fics is that the authors tend to redcon Harry's feelings.

For instance, if I start to read an H/Hr story that starts in 4th, 5th, 6th or 7th year, I will very likely encounter a Harry who's been in love with Hermione for a very long time (ever since 1st year in the worst cases), he's just too fucking scared to admit it. Which definitely makes him the bad guy when it comes to the Cho fiasco. Or Harry's feelings and opinions do a complete turn-around out of the blue. I honestly don't know which is worse.

Adding Soul Bonds, Love Potions and Compulsion Charms into the mix just makes the relationship development more rushed and the story more tedious to read.

Quite a few Weasley bashing Harmonians who're stuck in this trap have managed to write fics I consider Guilty Pleasures however, but I only read them for the plot twists, changes from canon, action sequences ETC. and try to skim over as much of the worst characterisation as I can.

H/Hr, like most pairings, has potential. The trouble is finding stories that manage to utilise it properly.

 

Thanks! Lots of these I've not yet read or read other things by the authors. (E.g., I recall enjoying Angry Hermione's other story, Message in a Bottle, but missed Lost Demon for some reason).

 

Isn't the definition of "in character" what the author has the characters do in canon? The only person allowed to do character development is the author of the source material, so yes: it is logically impossible for JKR to write her characters OOC. By definition.

When Harmonians say that Rowling wrote Hermione "OOC", what they really mean is "Rowling didn't write Hermione the way I wanted her to."

tl;dr: Rowling's characterization and interpretation counts, yours does not.

 

<Rolls eyes>

Jesus, Nuke; you have really got a stick up your ass about Harmonians. Did one of them key MIONE 4EVR into your car?

As far as the definition of 'in character' is concerned, we're just piddling over semantics. Would it be more acceptable to refer to Hermione's characterization as inconsistent? Because we had five books to get an understanding of who she is and what she's likely to do. She was unrecognizable in book six.

I'd call that OOC, even if it came from the author, because it contradicted what had already been established in the previous five books of canon.

As far as my (or your) 'interpretation' of the books goes - it is, in principle, just as valid as JKR's. Why? Because language is a public discourse, with meanings agreed upon by those who use it. Once her book is published, she loses control of its 'meaning.' (It doesn't matter what she wants her book to mean; its meaning lies in the words on the page). You'll find that every literary critic in the world agrees with this, and that writers are notoriously awful critics of their own work.

 

Lost Demon is by far the better fic in my mind. Even before the update rate died, Message was taking too long to get anywhere.

I'm a pro-Hermione kinda' guy. We don't need another lengthy post why so I won't. Mike covered it all. Instead, a few recommendations, which this topic should probably do a bit more of. Note that Mike covered most of the good ones off the top of my head, though I disagree with a few.

Forever Knight

One of, if not the best portrayals of vampires in the fandom.

Harry Potter and the Seven Split Soul

Be warned it's been around two years since I read this and I know my standards have risen since arriving at DLP. I can't say how well it has aged...

The Human Condition

Not quite H/Hr (though it sort of ends that way). Great mystery, at any rate.

The Cardinal Curses

Another mystery. Not quite as good as Human Condition but was still an enjoyable read with a few good ideas.

There's a few others that I can't remember at the moment. I'll post again if/when I remember.

 

My view on the Harry/Hermione pairing that's come to me recently is that Hermione had feelings for both him and Ron starting whenever she really started noticing boys. After a while she sees that Harry doesn't see her as a viable relationship material, so she focuses on getting together with Ron.

Then by the time it really comes around that they might want to try something out (sometime during DH), they are already sold on their respective Weasleys and don't want to do anything that might damage their chances with them.

Does that really have anything in canon backing it up, not really, but it's how I like to see the relationships turning out now.

When I say that Hermione ended up choosing Ron over Harry it by no means she's settling for second best in her mind, she's just choosing the second option. But I really can't see Hermione and Ron having a happy relationship for very long. I think they'd have a few good years of marriage before their different viewpoints on issues started becoming unbearable for them to be together. Their relationship has just been shown as being too hot for them to be happily married for as long as Molly and Arther.

Harry and Hermione isn't that much better, but they've shown that they can work together peacefully more often than Hermione and Ron. And really their only arguments came from things that were potentially dangerous to Harry (the Firebolt being most prominent, even then it was mostly Ron and his perceived thought that Crookshanks ate Scabbers that dragged things along for as long as they did and Harry having no clue how to juggle being friends with both of them at the time).

I do think they'd still fight, but things wouldn't blow up to the point that Hermione and Ron would experience.