Yep, here's Part II of this essay. Part III is coming and it's actually BY Creamtea-- that's the one that contains a lot of predictions for Book 7, and much D/G goodness. Since all three parts fit together, though, I've decided to post them as three chapters of this essay. So Parts I and III are by Creamtea; part II is by Anise (that would be me! :) You can tell by our different writing styles, and also the fact that I put punctuation inside parantheses and she doesn't (didn't you ever read Eats, Shoots and Leaves? ;)

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I have a confession to make.

I LOVE Creamtea’s potions essay. In fact, I love everything about it. And the reason is fairly simple: it explains so much that is otherwise inexplicable. Why the constant theme of love potions threaded throughout HBP? Why the even more relentless theme of hexes being used against people without their consent? Why the story of Merope and Tom Riddle? Why the vase of flowers in the twins’ room when Harry stays at the Burrow? Why does Hermione watch him like a hawk the next morning? Why the bizarre descriptions of Harry’s feelings for Ginny when they finally do emerge, from clawing monsters to roaring creatures? Why does he never seem to wonder if she will be interested in him, a vast departure from the agonizing about reactions we saw with Cho? For that matter, why did we get three books’ worth of buildup for Harry’s interest in Cho, and zero for his interest in Ginny, which Harry himself refers to as a “sudden madness”? Why does Harry finally dismiss Ginny and then spare not one single thought for her afterwards? Why does JKR tell us that she’d always planned for Harry and Ginny to part? Why does she say that she knows the hero must go on alone? Why does she never use the word “love” to describe their relationship, and why don’t they? Why and why and why, in short. In a court of law, no attorney could convict Harry and Ginny of loving each other. There’s just too much reasonable doubt.

And yet… and yet, there’s no way around it. Any love potion theory can seem to be just too hard to swallow whole, no matter how much proof exists for it. And I think that I’m finally putting my finger on the reason why. It isn’t really a question of proof, because there’s more than enough to entertain this theory as a serious possibility, at the very least. It isn’t exactly a question of what sort of plotlines it might create for Book 7, either, although that issue is related. No, it’s what we might properly call a metatext problem. A big secret to the amazing success of the HP books is their ability to be more than the sum of their parts. By the way they fit together, they become not just mystery novels but mystical texts. If the love potion theory is true, if Harry and Ginny will not permanently end up together, and are not in love—then these developments must be made to fit into the metaphysical Harry Potter, which is more than just the way that they might work in the plotline. How does all of this fit into the organic mass of all seven books? How can it feel right? What does it mean in terms of theme, of character arc, and of Harry’s search for final resolution? And finally, how could Hermione be responsible for this entire thing when it doesn’t seem to mesh at all with the way her character has been portrayed up to now?

This is a lot to tackle, but I think it’s necessary to at least try. Hold on tight… we’re in for a bumpy ride…

I think that first of all, we have to cut through all the shippy shippiness, and all the cheering and booing for one character over another, and all the weird plot speculations, and ask the most basic question of all: what kind of books are these?

We should perhaps start out by defining what they’re not. Most importantly, they’re not romance novels. This may seem like a dubious argument after HBP, when the themes of love and romance took up so much time and space. The truth is, at the end of HBP we’re left with a number of mysteries regarding these themes. We really don’t know what all the love and romance meant at this point, because so much of the information was so contradictory. Harry and Ginny get together, but Harry breaks up with her at the end of the book. Ron and Hermione are clearly going to get together by the end of the series, yet they spend the vast majority of HBP viciously fighting, and at its end they’re far from unequivocally being a couple. The love between Bill/Fleur and Remus/Tonks is clearly real, and yet what are we to make of the constant theme of obsessive, deceptive, and untrue love, from Romilda Vane to Tom/Merope?

One key is that we actually have more proof now of the nature of the HP books through JKR’s statements in the Mugglenet interview than we’ve ever had before. JKR engages in a lot of coy and clever evasion in this interview, but this is one area where she does not evade. She flat-out TELLS us what her books are: once when she points out the elements they share with mystery novels and also says they focus on character, and once when she very clearly states that in "this type of writing," "the hero has to go on alone." Well, there's exactly one type of literary structure fitting that description, and it's the hero's journey novel, which certainly can encompass both the mystery format and the character study. But this is always the type of writing that is the furthest from the romance novel. Romance was not the be-all and end-all in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the first known hero's journey writing. And yet sex, romance, and the human feelings resulting from them were massively important to the plot; they were, in fact, what drove it forward. Without the wild man Enkidu having sex with the sacred prostitute, he couldn't have been initiated into civilization, and there's no plot. Without Gilgamesh turning down Ishtar, the goddess doesn't spend the rest of the story trying to get revenge on him, and there's no plot. So "romantic" relationships are central to what actually happens in Gilgamesh-- the thing is, though, that they're not written in anything like the way they would be for a romance novel. I believe that exactly the same thing happened in HBP, and this point is what causes so much confusion for a lot of people.

In hero's journey narratives, mysteries, and character studies, romance absolutely can exist. But it doesn't serve the same function that it does in a romance novel per se. In a romance novel, it's paramount that the romance works out, not that it serves the plot. In a hero’s journey narrative, it is always a plot point. In a novel based essentially around a character study, it illuminates the character, and provides a lot of the reasons why he makes the choices he does. A perfect example is W. Somerset Maugham’s classic Of Human Bondage. (There were a number of film versions of this—the best-known one had Leslie Howard and Bette Davis.) One of the central themes of the book is Philip Carey’s long, obsessive romance with Mildred Rogers, and after many agonizing chapters, it ends in disaster. But the reason it exists at all is for the same reason the rest of the romances in the book exist—to help us understand Philip and to give us a window into his character we can’t get in any other way. We understand who he is through what he loves, and what attracts him. In the HP series, that’s also a main reason why we see Harry/Cho (although, as we will see later, there were other reasons as well.)

In classic mystery novels, on the other hand, if romance exists, it’s either a complete throwaway (which I think we can rule out for H/G both because of how long Ginny’s been on the scene, and the sheer amount of space it took up in Harry’s head) or it’s a plot point, and I think we have to go further than the idea that it exists as such simply to camouflage characters’ motives, because there can be a whole lot more to it than that.

Agatha Christie is a good example. Nobody would ever say that she was a good romance writer as such; it was not a genre that came naturally to her, and the romance element in her writing generally took up very little space and had almost no importance. (Murder on the Orient Express is a good example, as are most of the relationships in Murder Under the Sun.) But—and it’s a big but—if Christie did include romance prominently, similar to the way H/G was handled in HBP, there was always a very important plot-related reason. Endless Night (a very underrated Christie book) is a good example. The central relationship takes up a large part of the book, and we learn that it’s because the romance itself holds the key to the murder that forms the plot. (I won’t give anything else away—go and read the book, if you haven’t already!) In other words, the romance was so uncharacteristically important for a Christie book precisely because it serves a vastly different purpose than it would in a romance novel.

If all seven HP books really WERE romance novels, that would be the only logical way for H/G to become permanent and meaningful: no matter how many awful problems it has, no matter how illogical it is, this is the point of this particular type of writing, and so the romance must work out. But if these books aren't romance novels-- and we KNOW that they're not; we've been TOLD what they are in no uncertain terms-- then we have to take a much closer look at what’s really going on with the relentless theme of love in all seven books, from mother’s love to father’s love to sibling’s love to romantic love. This is what opens the door to understanding the purpose that H/G really serves, especially for Book 7.

We know that the power of love is the overarching theme of all seven books. It’s the reason why Harry is even around for the first book, the reason why he lived past the age of one year old—and we also know that it’s the one sure weapon he has against Voldemort. Now let’s keep all that in mind as we examine a scene in HBP that most people overlook.

“But I haven’t got uncommon skill and power,” said Harry, before he could stop himself.

“Yes, you have,” said Dumbledore firmly. “You have a power that Voldemort has never had. You can—“

“I know!” said Harry impatiently. “I can love!” It was only with difficulty that he stopped himself adding, “Big deal!”

“Yes, Harry, you can love,” said Dumbledore, who looked as though he knew perfectly well what Harry had just refrained from saying.” Which, given everything that has happened to you, is a great and remarkable thing. You are still too young to understand how unusual you are, Harry.”

“So, when the prophecy says that I’ll have ‘power the Dark Lord knows not,’ it just means- love?” asked Harry, feeling a little let down.

“Yes- just love,” said Dumbledore. “But Harry, never forget that what the prophecy says is only significant because Voldemort made it so.”
- pg. 509, HBP, American edition.

This isn’t a shippy scene by any stretch of the imagination even though it deals with love, nor does it seem at first glance to have a lot to do with what’s currently happening in the plot, which I think is why it’s easy to ignore. But it’s a big mistake to do that, because in a way, it’s the heart and soul of the book- and helps us to understand why a love potion plotline would be more than worth a major chunk of page time in both HBP and Book 7.

Just to begin with, this is actually one of the most damning pieces of evidence against lasting/meaningful H/G, because Harry has had reactions to Ginny for months by this point. We’ve heard about the clawing monsters and the roaring creatures in his chest (which doesn’t seem like a very good example of the kind of love Dumbledore is talking about.) And we’ve seen references to his NC-17 fantasies about her. His feelings have already begun to intensify dramatically after the concussion incident. (In fact, he’s going to give into his feelings about forty pages later, and they’ll start to date.) At this point, we have a tremendous amount of longing and yearning and fantasizing on Harry’s part. Ginny would be the most logical person, thing, or concept to leap into his mind right now, when Dumbledore brings up love. But he doesn’t think about Ginny at all. He doesn’t spare a single thought for her or about her, and this, of all times, would be the time to do it. If love is the only way he’s going to ultimately defeat Voldemort, this is the perfect moment to think about someone he does love or might love. The fact that he doesn’t do this is some pretty major foreshadowing for the idea that love for Ginny is not going to be the love that defeats Voldemort. But there’s a lot more than that going on here.

Even more importantly, Dumbledore goes on to emphasize that the different parts of the prophecy are important only because the actions and decisions of human beings have made them so (which takes us right back to the theme that our choices make all the difference.) Voldemort chose to make Harry into his greatest enemy precisely because he tried to keep the prophecy from coming true (obviously, JKR has read Oedipus Rex .) Harry chose to defeat Voldemort, because after Voldemort killed his family, there was nothing else he could choose to do. But right before we see the references to these two choices, Dumbledore refers to the fact that Harry will defeat Voldemort because he has a power that the Dark Lord knows not, which is love. Harry’s mother first activated this clause when she sacrificed herself to save him. We are left with an interesting question, though: who else might have made a choice in this direction?

The answer, of course, is Hermione, who chose to give Harry a love potion. And we begin to see an incredibly important reason why she made that choice. It’s why she felt her choice was justified, and for a much better reason than simply her friendship with Ginny. This is the key to understanding both why she did it and its central importance to the plot and theme of all seven books.

A good way to understand this is to look at an incident that happened in Arthurian legend (and when the Weasley are involved, we always have to wonder if those legends are in JKR’s mind.) In this reading, Ginevra is not Guinevere, but Elaine, the Lady of Shallott and Guinevere’s cousin. Hermione takes on the role of Morgaine, the powerful witch who gave Lancelot a love potion so that he would fall in love with Elaine, who had pined after him for a long time. What’s especially interesting about this parallel is that the general consensus between accounts seems to be the idea that Morgaine dosed Lancelot because she liked Elaine and wanted to help her, but that she also did it for another reason. In the negative portrayals of Morgaine (Tennyson and Mary Stewart’s Crystal Cave series, for example,) she does this in order to further her own evil witchy plots. In Marion Zimmer Bradley’s more thoughtful Mists of Avalon version, Morgaine is trying to keep the kingdom together against evil foes. But however you interpret it, Morgaine clearly thought that she was helping the entire situation on a broader level, the one of politics, quests, and lofty goals—and doing it through use of a love potion.

From this point of view, Hermione’s actions truly begin to make sense for the first time. She wants to help her friend Ginny, yes, but there’s another reason why she would dose Harry with a love potion—a far more important one- and I think it’s the one that overcomes her scruples about it. One criticism often brought up against the idea that Hermione was responsible is that it’s just too hard to believe this obsessively rule-following girl would do such a thing. And it’s true that friendship for Ginny and Harry alone, and thinking that the two of them would be ideal for each other, are not really compelling enough reasons. But if we add on another, higher reason, Hermione’s motivations become a lot more understandable.

The power of love is the overarching theme of the books. But the key here is that this isn’t just an interesting metatext idea; it’s the actual weapon that the main character is supposed to use against the main villain. So it’s not just that the readers know it; some important characters know it, too. And I believe Hermione in particular knows this very well. We know how intelligent she is and how well she picks up on things; the “cleverest witch of her generation” would have no trouble at all in finding this fact out. When Harry tells her and Ron about the prophecy, he actually doesn’t say this part of it in so many words. But she’s already known for five years by that point that Harry survived because his mother gave up her life for him through the power of love, so she didn’t have to know the prophecy anyway in order to believe that love was going to ultimately save Harry. If Hermione convinces herself that Harry needs to feel romantic love in order to defeat Voldemort, then the last puzzle piece of her motivation falls into place. She’s not only helping her friends by getting Harry and Ginny together; she’s defeating the most evil wizard on the planet. For Hermione, there would no longer even be any question of the ends not justifying the means.

And this also fits in with the idea that Hermione didn’t want Cho and Harry to be together, and perhaps even worked against the relationship. Cho wasn’t Hermione’s friend, and Ginny was, but more importantly, Hermione could convince herself that Cho simply wasn’t the right person to be the love object that would enable Harry to defeat Voldemort. Not only is Ginny her friend, but she’s also the seventh child in her family and the first daughter in hundreds of years; we already know from interviews that JKR considers this to be magically significant. Hermione knows about Ginny’s significance and believes that she’s the perfect love object for Harry because of it.

So here we have the central reason why the love potion isn’t some kind of weird distraction from the plot, which is the biggest problem a lot of people do have with accepting it as what really might have happened in HBP. If it’s an odd side detour that takes us away from what’s really going on, then it’s very hard to believe it’s true no matter how much evidence we see for it. But a plot distraction is the last thing it is; instead, it’s absolutely central to the overarching theme of all seven books. Hermione and Ginny’s tragic fault is that they screwed around with love, even though they themselves did what they did out of love. They tried to force love to be what they thought it should be, but what they—and we—will discover is that the kind of love they had in mind is not the kind that’s going to defeat Voldemort. We’ve already seen major foreshadowing of this in Lily Potter’s sacrifice. Mother love, not romantic love, was what saved Harry the first time. Eros had nothing to do with it, yet that is the kind of love that Hermione and Ginny were both trying to push onto Harry sixteen years later.

And it fits with the fact that the central question of the series still remains unsolved: if love is going to defeat Voldemort, how will this happen? If it’s Harry’s secret weapon, what is the nature of this weapon, and how will he use it? What kind of love will work, and what kind won’t?

From this point of view, it makes all the sense in the world that love was such a major theme in HBP, and that we saw so many different kinds of it. For the first time, it truly makes sense that we saw so much page time devoted to everything from true love to denied love to frustrated love to lust to obsession to infatuation. We’ve already heard that Book 6 and 7 are like two halves of the same work, but I think this is really a main reason why. We’ve learned half of what the theme of love means in HBP, and we’ll learn the other half in the seventh book. We learned what love isn’t going to be for Harry in HBP, and in the seventh book… I believe that we have to learn what it will be. From this point of view, the nature of H/G in HBP also makes sense on a metatext level, and I believe that this is the only way it can happen. If we take H/G as a straight-ahead romance, it has problems so severe that it’s literally almost impossible to believe a writer even one-tenth as gifted as JKR is in every other area could have written it. But if we look at it through the lens presented in this essay—through love potion as not only plot device, but as a vital part of the overriding theme- it makes sense.

The best analogy I can think of is with Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. It’s one of those plays on which critical opinion is divided. A lot of readers and critics feel that as amusing and well-written as it is, the biggest problem is the completely unrealistic way that all the romantic relationships in it are written. But Dr. Michael Hollander taught a class at Princeton a few years ago that turned the entire argument upside down, and it’s really worth understanding this in terms of HBP. If you look at the romance in Measure for Measure the same way that you’d look at it in a romance novel—where romance is the entire point—the only conclusion you can draw is that it’s hideously badly written. But Dr. Hollander argues that the play was never meant to be seen as a romance, but rather as an allegory about the Christian church, final judgment, sin, mercy, and the omnipotence of God. Romance plays a vital part in the plot and theme of this play, but it’s not the plot and theme in and of itself. Taken from this point of view, he makes a convincing argument that it’s the greatest comedic play ever written.

The lecture is available on tape or CD through the Teaching Company, and it’s worth checking out, as is Shakespeare’s play, of course. If you like convoluted theological arguments as much as I do, you’ll love it… (Anise waits. Crickets chirp. A tumbleweed rolls by.) But to understand how this relates to HBP, you don’t need to be familiar with the lecture, the theology involved, or Measure for Measure- because in essence Dr. Hollander makes the same argument that I made here, and that Creamtea has made. The way the H/G romance is written in HBP is bizarrely and inexplicably bad, unless you understand it in the way it’s meant to be understood. Then, it makes sense. Trying to understand where the H/G romance is going to lead in terms of plot and theme is confusing, and seems only to go in the opposite direction from where we’ve been led to believe things are going to end up- unless we see H/G for what it really was. Then, the puzzle pieces for Book 7 begin to fall into place. But I’ll let Creamtea make those predictions! :)
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