J.K. Rowling has made many of us question the very foundations of our childhood by announcing that she regrets her decision to pair romantically Hermione Granger with Ron Weasley. The world-renowned British author retroactively declared that Harry Potter would have made a better partner for the curly-haired genius.
This hasn’t shocked most, as the chemistry between Harry and Hermione was palpable throughout the seven novels. Their alliterative names and matching talent made them a perfect pair on paper. But regardless of how real Rowling’s descriptions of Hogsmeade and Fluffy the three-headed dog and Remus Lupin might have seemed, the world of Harry Potter is just that: trapped on paper.
In an interview conducted by Hermione’s actress, Emma Watson, Rowling attested that she originally tried to force the union of the red-headed sidekick and the leading lady more for “personal reasons” than for reasons of “credibility.” Perhaps Rowling was aiming to prove the existence of platonic male-female friendships, or to break up what would potentially be the wizarding world’s most powerful couple.
I digress.
Despite the legitimacy of Rowling’s revisions, it does not change the fact that many will look at the series in a new light, and not just in terms of the Ron-mione love saga. For all those that will read the series in the future, Rowling has forced her readers to question every character, every event, and every relationship. For all those whose multiple readings of the series provided a first love of reading, a first group of friends, and a first sense of magic, Harry Potter is newly tainted.
We expect authors to act as the gods of their stories. When a piece truly resonates with us, we trust that god for answers in our own life, long after we turn the last page. If F. Scott Fitzgerald had come out after he wrote “The Great Gatsby” and said, “Oh, I should have had Tom end up with Myrtle,” we would feel like the whole book was a lie, and, at the least, that Fitzgerald haphazardly toyed with his readers’ emotions.
Some may say that Rowling’s confession was merely a publicity stunt or that it does not tint the lasting beauty of the books. But this confession took back pages and whole chapters of dialogue and feelings that played an integral part in the story. Rowling’s comment means something to literature. It makes us question the underdog-Rons of the world landing the Hermiones of the world. It is sad that Rowling thinks Ron and Hermione would have needed marriage counseling, even if we know it in our hearts to be true.
