Harry or Ron?

I'm sure by now that everyone's heard of J. K. Rowling's revelation that she regrets pairing Hermione with Ron at the end of her Harry Potter series, and that she might have preferred to end the series with Hermione and Harry together instead.

I first heard of this over on tumblr, and the entire HP fandom burst into arguments as to who they thought she should have ended up with.

Me? Honestly, I really don't care. I love the Harry Potter series, but I didn't read it for the romance. I read it for the story; for the underlying messages about courage, family, friendship, authority and war.

But now that I've had time to think about it, here are some of my thoughts on the matter (all of which are just my personal opinions and not meant to insult anyone!):

• I think it's hugely important that Hermione wasn't Harry's love interest. Hermione has become a role model for girls, and women, all over the world, and fans gravitate towards her because she is who she is. She doesn't apologise for being fiercely clever and bookish, and it's so fantastic that she wasn't there to just be Harry's girlfriend. She's more than just the hero's bit on the side.
• As far as I'm concerned there's a severe lack of male/female friendship in literature, particularly literature that falls into the YA category, and I was always a fan of Harry and Hermione's friendship. A romance would have lessened its poignancy.
• Are we just going to ignore Ginny? In the films she's fairly easy to look over, but in the books Ginny is another brilliant heroine alongside Hermione and Luna. She refuses to put up with Harry's angst and therefore keeps him grounded.
• And let's not forget that Ginny's friendship with Hermione is lovely, and I really, really dislike the idea of the two of them fighting for Harry's affections.
• The other half of this argument I really don't like is this assumption that Ron and Hermione's marital problems would be down to Ron not being good enough for her. Ron is brave and loyal and funny. He might not be the chosen one, but he's still a hero in his own right and I hate this idea that he doesn't deserve Hermione because she's intelligent. Ron's NOT stupid!
• And finally, I love Harry Potter because it doesn't include any of this love triangle crap that is EVERYWHERE in YA right now. I think Rowling wrote accurate teenagers, and while a lot of teenagers don't end up marrying people they met when they were eleven, I'm still a fan of the way the series ended.

That's all I have to say about it. Now I'm going to resume my position of not caring.

Talk to you later! J.