J. K. Rowling caused something of an Internet dust-up when word got out that, in a conversation with Emma Watson, the Harry Potter author had expressed doubts about the wisdom of pairing up Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger and her suspicion that Harry might have been the better match for Hermione. While the initial reports turned out to have slightly exaggerated the seriousness of Rowling’s second thoughts, there’s no denying that the full interview, which is now available, reveals a certain longing for the Potter/Granger match that might have been, on the part of both Rowling and Watson.
Nothing is more natural than that an author—especially one with so voluminous a created universe as Rowling’s—should wonder whether she might have done better by tweaking the creation here or there. (“Every book is a failure,” remarked the ever cheerful George Orwell.) Still, I want to reassure Rowling (or, failing that, any fans of the name “Hermione Weasley” who may be reeling from the author’s new misgivings) that her initial decision was the right choice after all—for the characters and for the fictional world they inhabit.
A thought experiment: What would the series have been like without Ron and Hermione’s romance, and the hints thereat that were woven throughout their whole Hogwarts career? Obviously, it’s impossible to know what other changes Rowling might have felt it wise to make had she decided to do this one thing differently, but I think we can safely make this assertion about that alternative world: It would be one in which Ronald Weasley was a much less interesting wizard. Fictional characters are defined by their relationships even more than we real people are defined by ours. Without the love-hate dynamic between him and Hermione (so obviously, and so amusingly to the reader, destined to issue in some sort of profound attachment), Ron would be little more than Harry’s goofy sidekick, who would, no doubt, mature mentally and morally over the years, but probably not in any way particularly interesting or distinct. (The awkward-male-overcoming-insecurities-and-rising-to-true-Gryffindor-status niche was already amply filled by Neville Longbottum, and Ron needed some narrative raison d’être in addition if he was to avoid collapsing into redundancy or vapidity.) Much the same thing would have happened to Han Solo if George Lucas, scratching the whole siblings angle, had decided that Luke and Leia would make a smart match. Imagine how much less sympathetic the dashing space smuggler must have been if all he ever remained was a dashing space smuggler, without the pathos of his and Leia’s relationship, by turns hostile and tender.
For that matter, and to turn our attention from Ron’s predicament alone, imagine how much limper a character Leia would likely have turned out if, in the happy ending, she became merely the leading man’s grand prize. And, for as much as Rowling indubitably succeeded in making Hermione a wonderfully cogent and vivid character, it’s not unreasonable to wonder whether even she could have resisted the flattening effect of being the hero’s love interest. The thing about heroes is that they tend to steal the show, relating those near them to the status of mere set pieces. Harry Potter certainly could have done so, what with the Chosen One mythos that pervades the whole series, and it’s to Rowling’s immense credit that she didn’t let him become one. But it seems to me that the danger would have been much greater if not for the fact that Harry’s two closest friends—and the two most prominent characters after himself—were, in at least one way, more interested in each other than in him.
This isn’t the only case that can be made for the propriety of the Ron/Hermione pairing. (Alyssa Rosenberg’s essay at Think Progress, which makes the same case from a different angle, is both insightful and moving.) In a longer defense, I might have dwelt on how Harry and Hermione’s relationship was always more fraternal/sororal than romantic and the appropriateness of their becoming brother- and sister-in-law. I might also have argued that something symbolically important would have been lost if Harry and Hermione—both raised by Muggles and ignorant of magic prior to their Hogwarts acceptances—had stuck together instead of marrying into an established wizarding family.
But I do think this is one of the most significant reasons why Rowling was right to stick to her original design. The importance of Ron and Hermione’s relationship isn’t just that it fulfilled both of their characters in the most interesting way. It’s that it helped to remind us readers that it wasn’t just Harry we were reading about, that, in the vast and lively universe into which we had stepped, the Boy Who Lived wasn’t the only life that mattered. Inasmuch as all of us are prone to construe ourselves as the world’s title character, that seems a lesson well worth taking to heart.
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