JKR "wish fulfillment"/Ron and Hermione may have needed relationship counselling

JK Rowling: "I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfilment.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/harry-should-have-married-hermione-says-j-k-rowling-9102110.html

I haven't read the books or seen the films (well, I tried reading the first book, but didn't get past chapter 1), so I'm not going to comment. We've discussed author wish fulfilment before, and thought it was interesting that Rowling has brought it up now:

In a rare interview given to Wonderland magazine, she said: "I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfilment.”
“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 ended up with Ron.”

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Thoughts?

Two other threads about wish-fulfilment:

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=250414&page=2

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=261670

*Just realized the first thread was mine (written in a moment of frustration, and have since discovered there is better HF out there), but I think thread 2 is a much better discussion.

I wonder if maybe all fiction is either a fulfillment of either our greatest wishes or deepest fears.

kuwisdelu said:

I wonder if maybe all fiction is either a fulfillment of either our greatest wishes or deepest fears.

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I love that. In my case my fiction must be my deepest fears.

kuwisdelu said:

I wonder if maybe all fiction is either a fulfillment of either our greatest wishes or deepest fears.

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Or some combination.

Characters become so real that you eventually know how they will react in any given situation, and in this case, from what I understand JKR planned from the beginning for Hermione to end up with Ron and stuck with that, even when it no longer felt right. I would probably have to agree with her- those two would kill each other if they were real, but I do think it was a nice change for the hero not to end up with the girl.

ave said:

[...] but I do think it was a nice change for the hero not to end up with the girl.

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Agreed, though, it is nothing new that the girl ends up being someone's love interest...

kuwisdelu said:

I wonder if maybe all fiction is either a fulfillment of either our greatest wishes or deepest fears.

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I'm working on my first novel, what I'd call 'High Fantasy' even so, there are definitely elements of both my greatest wishes and my deepest fears.

I don't want to say I knew it all along...

But I kind of did.

Humor aside, I agree with what ave said. Sometimes you plan out stuff for a certain character and later on the story it just slaps you on the face with unexpected character development and what you planned no longer makes sense. Looks like JK followed her plan anyways...

ave said:

Characters become so real that you eventually know how they will react in any given situation, and in this case, from what I understand JKR planned from the beginning for Hermione to end up with Ron and stuck with that, even when it no longer felt right. I would probably have to agree with her- those two would kill each other if they were real, but I do think it was a nice change for the hero not to end up with the girl.

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Even though I've never read the books, I always thought it was a smart move by JK to subvert the trope.

I feel like it would have been a much bigger problem if the two main characters had ended up together for wish fulfillment. Having the two side-kicks do it, especially when you're expecting from early on for Harry to end up with Hermione works well.

And, I'll add, while they're not too much alike, I never got the vibe that they couldn't work out, that they wouldn't be reasonably attracted to each other. We could debate whether or not their romance will last, but that doesn't mean that they couldn't think the relationship wasn't idea for a few years. Having that subtext almost makes it more real.

I only wish she regretted Harry/Ginny as much as I did.

Ron/Hermione felt awkward at the end, but she telegraphed that relationship from the first book, so it would have been a little weird if she didn't follow through.

jjdebenedictis said:

I only wish she regretted Harry/Ginny as much as I did.

Ron/Hermione felt awkward at the end, but she telegraphed that relationship from the first book, so it would have been a little weird if she didn't follow through.

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Really? I pegged Harry and Ginny together at the beginning of book 2. Absolutely expected it and would have been disappointed with a Harry/Hermione pairing.

I am very interested in the full article when it comes out. I love the idea that she's still thinking about the way things settled with her characters.

As a very devoted plotter, I totally get Rowling's feeling that she had to stick to the plan despite how the books evolved. As much as I love my plotting and planning, I try to modify as the writing changes, but it's not so easy...

To be fair, if there hadn't been that epilogue, she could just say they split up after a few years and remained good friends...

I wonder if the angles in Heaven ever talk about Adam and Eve like this...

Sorry, Mrs. Rowling, but that ship has sailed.

As someone who never really "got" Ron/Hermione, I'm not surprised about this - they never seemed like they'd be a good couple. I know that opposites attract, but from personal experience, the more important thing is that the people compliment each others personalities. Ron/Hermione never really struck me as realistic for those reasons.

The blogosphere is blowing up over this. At first I thought it was a hoax that someone had put up just to stir the pot, but I guess that's not the case.

Only bothered by one thing: the "logic" that says Hermione not being with Ron dictates she must instead be with Harry. The actors have better onscreen chemistry if you do that, but I don't get that subtext from the books themselves. I assumed from either the second or third book (I read them pretty quick, can't remember) that Hermione and Ron would end up together, but I don't really see why it matters.

This doesn't really surprise me. Without going into the shipping wars, high school sweethearts have a high divorce rate; counseling seems like the realistic thing to do.

HSLane said:

This doesn't really surprise me. Without going into the shipping wars, high school sweethearts have a high divorce rate; counseling seems like the realistic thing to do.

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Yup. Plus, I think they would argue about a lot of things. Ron was kind of racist in an uniformed way, and that's great (read the link). I started shipping them past Prisoner of Azkaban, so I'm not saying it as someone anti-ship, but there really are a lot of reasons why they might be on rocky ground. They clash a lot.

When she put Harry with Ginny, she was creating a visual recollection of James and Lily to torment Snape.

By putting Harry with Hermione, in a way, she'd be undoing the regret of not finding love with the best friend, which was Snape's biggest regret.

I expect they're divorced by now.

...shit happens.

I never cared to much about the romantic pairings in HP. Harry/Ginny were started in the second book so I always figured it would go that way. I figured Ron would try with Hermione. I had a lot of problems with the seventh book and Ron/Herminoe didn't even make the list. I was more interested in he-who-must-not-be-named and Snape.

Ron and Hermione as a couple never worked for me. They just weren't a good match, and the relationship didn't ring true. I'm glad Rowling decided to explain what she was thinking.