[ SECRET POST #5528 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5528 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 16 secrets from Secret Submission Post #791.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I don't necessarily think it IS inherently creepier than Snarry, but I can think of some reasons people might cite for why it is. Snape's history as a death eater and Hermione's being of muggle parentage, for one. Her extremely strong desire to gain the recognition and respect of authority figures and him being one such authority figure, for another. Snape may have way more power, but based on the books it seems clear that Harry will absolutely give Snape's bullshit right back to him if he needs to--while I don't necessarily get that same impression of ready defiance from Hermione. And it's not because I think Hermione is weak, but because, at least as a teenager, she just cares much more than Harry does about things like rules and authority figures and proving herself.

Also, let's be real, whether rightly or wrongly, many people react more strongly to the idea of adult man/underage girl, due to all sorts of complicated real-world factors.

Also also, many female fanfic readers and writers experience toxic and alarming dynamics in slash ships with slightly less acute intensity than they experience those same dynamics in het fics. For many female readers/writers, dark stuff just hits a little too close to home when it's het.

[(Anonymous)]

Good points, I totally see how someone could argue all of that.

I was a Snape/Hermione shipper back in the day, and as I recall from most of the fic I read, there was a lot of it being a power fantasy about Hermione getting an antagonistic authority figure to learn to respect her brilliance and admit he was wrong about a lot - and also about Hermione realizing that authority isn't all that and sometimes rules are just hindrances to what you really need to do (or who you really want to do). Often involved Hermione getting a somewhat morally gray herself (as she does in the books to some extent).

There was a lot of romanticized Snape Manor aristocracy stuff before we learned that he was a working-class half-blood with a chip on his shoulder about it, which was fun, but the truth is actually a more interesting character.

I'm female, and I didn't really feel what you're describing (though I certainly see how others do). Hermione was mostly our viewpoint character, and she was acting on her own desires.

[(Anonymous)]

SA

adding also: Hermione's goody-two-shoes qualities are the worst flaw of her character - if she hadn't learned to get over that authority-worship and rules-lawyering, she could have become another Umbridge when she came into power. Snape's flaws are on FULL DISPLAY, but Hermione's are really fascinating to explore because they're more subtle, and because she's younger, her growth will be more dramatic.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I can understand this.

I feel like the thing about most controversial and "squicky" pairings is that people have their own default ways of looking at the characters and dynamics at play, and they bring those preconceptions to the table, without realizing that their default preconceptions aren't the same as everyone else's default preconceptions. Many shippers are operating from a totally different set of default preconceptions.

For instance, the perspective I start from as a default (and please bear with me here because this sounds like an attack but it isn't one) is that Snape is bullying and abusive to kids that are under his charge, he flagrantly abuses his authority in the classroom, and he probably still has some blood-racist ideology he hasn't completely weeded out of his world-view. And that Hermione is brilliant and aspiring and deeply fundamentally good. And oh god, why* would anyone want to see Hermione, a shining beacon of brave and earnest (underage!) potential, be preyed on and violated by a cruel adult bully who has clear authority over her from the start, and no compunction about abusing said authority?

But what I think is notable is just how different the dynamic I describe is to the dynamic you describe. And while I do think non-shipper's perspectives tends to hew somewhat closer to canon on average, I don't think a closer-to-canon view is any more correct or valid or valuable. Canon's just a jumping off point, after all.

Basically, I think shipping almost always involves "Drinking the Kool-Aid" to some degree. And when we look at a ship and it squicks us the fuck out, that's at least partially because he haven't drank the Kool-Aid for that ship, and therefore we don't understand what we're looking at.

*Admittedly some people like ships because they're a Dead Dove sundae with a Dead Dove cherry on top. Like I'm sure there are Snape/Hermione shippers who are in it entirely for the sadistic-adult-Snape-emotionally-and-psychologically-destroys-pure-underage-Hermione content. And that's okay too, no matter how much I personally find it squicky. I just think that kind of face-value reading isn't anywhere near the full picture with most ships. When a ship seems messed up at first glance, what fandom does with that ship is often not at all what a non-initiate would assume.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

It's absolutely true that people who are into a ship will take it in all sorts of directions that aren't immediately obvious from what the canon presents - and will make it work because we're invested in making it work. Of course when you see that photomanip of Alan Rickman with like a 12-year-old Emma Watson, it's perfectly reasonable to be horrified. But the majority of the fic and art was not that.

I was most involved during that three-year hiatus between GoF and OotP, and no one knew how the story was going to play out, so there was a lot of room to speculate and a lot of time to write fics that would probably be jossed, but who cares?

It was very popular to set stories after Hogwarts when Hermione is an adult. There was a whole subgenre of stories where Hermione is successful, she's a magical researcher or rising up the ranks at the Ministry of Magic or something, and Snape is a high-end potions specialist ("he's an arse but he's the best in the business" archetype). They have to work together to prevent something terrible, they're the only ones who can do it, they remember Hogwarts and they don't get along at first...which sets up standard story beats for a rivals-to-lovers romance with wizard-war stuff going on too.

(For all its many flaws, I was absolutely delighted that in the alternate timeline in Cursed Child, Snape is the liaison to the resistance fighters Hermione and Ron, and the three of them are clearly bantery good friends who respect and trust each other. Can't take the ship goggles off, I thought, most hilarious polycule ever.)

Basically, I think shipping almost always involves "Drinking the Kool-Aid" to some degree. And when we look at a ship and it squicks us the fuck out, that's at least partially because he haven't drank the Kool-Aid for that ship, and therefore we don't understand what we're looking at.

Exactly. Because you don't have the motivation to look at all the possibilities where this ship could work.

I'm sure there were dead-dove fics where it is just as horrible as you'd think, and Hermione is a manipulated sexually abused child and it's just awful. I can't say that I ever read one, though. Mostly I worked off recs from other people I knew in the ship, because fandom was a lot less centralized then, and stories like that just didn't come up. And it's fine to write them of course, but people who enjoyed the ship in the way my circle did would not have been into them.

Thank you so much for being open-minded and about this, by the way. Conversations like this are so valuable and I wish they were easier to come by.

It's almost rekindled my love. Alas, JKR is so horrible I just can't make new HP stuff anymore but I might try to find and reread some old favorites.