If you’re a Harry Potter fan, you know what happened last week. I was asked what my opinion was. Well, I didn’t wind up feeling like it was worth a blog post because while I jumped into the discussion early (on my personal Facebook, though), others were quicker with the articles and went into more depth than I would have.

The stuff I like covering about the series gravitates far more to the side of worldbuilding, not relationships. I like talking about the medieval symbols Rowling dusts off and presents as new; the social commentary; the philosophy and the fairy tale. I don’t have much to say on the relationships other than that Harry never felt like a natural teen when it came to his attempts at romance. Though his inner desires and thoughts come off perfectly as what a bookish, socially-awkward girl assumed her male peers acted like. Hmm.

As an aside: I’ve been told my opinion on the above is stupid and that Harry is a perfect example of teen boys in love. Interestingly enough, all those who insist on that have been women. Let me reiterate that: I, a male, am not aware of how males think, but those women were experts. Again, hmm.

(Perhaps one day I’ll write up my “Writing the Opposite Gender” talk, but it takes 40-45 minutes to deliver properly and that would be a long blog post. Maybe I’ll make it a Google Hangout or something.)

Anyway, this is not to say that I don’t have an opinion on the relationships, just that it doesn’t come up much. Arguing over who should have been with whom is an exercise in futility. But that is exactly what Wonderland Magazine wanted us to do. They released a no-context snippet of a rare interview with J. K. Rowling, couched in such a way that the fans would get into a fervor and furor. (Huh. “Fervorous furor.” Sounds like a wizardly badger or something.) I saw it, commented, and put forth the opinion that the magazine did it deliberately to get people buying the magazine to see if Jo said anything else controversial.

I was right.

So, hype aside, what’s my opinion on the concept, now that it’s been brought up? As I said, others got to it faster than I did, and two in particular stood out as covering pretty much every point I was articulating myself. These two are Elizabeth’s own take on the futility of the subject itself, and Samantha Rullo’s article on Bustle listing more reasons than I’d heard from anyone else in favor of the canon pairings (and even making a really decent argument for Ginny in her own right, better than I’d ever considered for a character I’d criticized for getting very little development in the books).