Radicals proclaiming the death of the author may want to lower the red standard. It has been seven years since Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, star characters in JK Rowling?s Harry Potter series, disappeared into the magical Platform Nine and Three Quarters, ginger-haired children in tow.
Now, in an interview published in Wonderland magazine, their author claims the pairing was a mistake, more to do with ?wish-fulfilment? on her part than with ?literature?, that Hermione might have been a better fit with Harry Potter himself. And pray who would marry Ginny Weasley, Harry?s love interest, one might ask. Seamus Finnigan? Dean Thomas? Fans are outraged. Like a Voldemort of the Muggle world, Rowling has risen again to vanquish love, truth and butterbeer.For the uninitiated, Ron and Hermione are best friends to Harry Potter, standing by his side even in his most quixotic forays against Lord Voldemort. The romance between goofy, hot-headed Ron and the clever Hermione became the toast of Potter fandom when it was first made public. It was also polarising. There were those who believed Hermione’s brilliance matched better with Harry’s heroism. But Ron and Hermione weathered the storm of scepticism. Once
declared, romances in fiction are set in stone and crucial to the way the story is remembered. Imagine Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice marrying Mr Collins instead of Mr Darcy, or Scarlet O’Hara choosing the delicate Ashley Wilkes over the stormy Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind. Or even Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings marrying Eowyn of Rohan instead of Arwen Undomiel.
When that ghostly intelligence, the authorial imagination, springs to life again, rearranging the past, undoing what cannot be undone, readers are rudely reminded of the illusion they have bought into. But sometimes, it is a good thing the author is alive, capable of reversing fictional fates. What if Sherlock Holmes had actually died fighting Moriarty on that cliff-edge in Switzerland? Good thing he was brought back on popular demand.
