The muse is a fickle thing. Sometimes she demands satisfaction. In this case, she insisted that Hermione had a story to tell, too, and that I better flex my typing fingers and get cracking.
Hermione's narrative has several nuances to it, which readers will more easily pick up if they approach it with an open, ready mind. It's hard to reconcile with a different perspective when one has already cemented an opinion and is not ready to take the step of re-examining it.
That being said, I also wanted the opportunity to clap back at the Mollys of the world - the ones who, both in real life and where fictional characters reimagined in a fandom are concerned - are always quick to demonize the woman while making endless excuses and being an apologist for the man, without any regard to the complex situation that is the breakdown of a relationship.
The Mollys of this world, when they choose to react in such a way, do women everywhere a grave disservice. The view they perpetrate - that women who make hard choices and mistakes as Hermione did do not deserve a happy ending - is incredibly troubling.
Women are allowed to fall out of love with someone. Women should be able to make a decision that is best for them, without being torn to shreds for it. Women are human, and should be permitted to err, just as men are. The Mollys of this world, unfortunately, do not understand this. We as women should be building each other up. Listening to each other. Having empathy and understanding, being open-minded, and above all, supporting each other and forgiving each other our mistakes. Wouldn't you agree?
To do otherwise - to revile and attack a woman because she dared to dream and made a few mistakes along the way, while minimising, excusing or ignoring what the man may have done or not done to contribute to the breakdown; and to ignore the many complex factors which may be involved in favour of zeroing in on her perceived faults and transgressions - is incredibly misogynistic, and this is what bothers me most about the Mollys of the world. I'm sure it bothers you, too.
I hear what you say regarding JK Rowling's comment about the Mirror of Erised. Unfortunately, since The Choices We Make, and His Witch, were quite clearly not canon-compliant, her suppositions are of neither consequence nor relevance here , as I'm sure you can appreciate.
Of course Hermione will always feel guilty, and of course she will be sad that she lost their friendship. But truly, she would have been miserable forcing herself to stay in the relationship, and she knew it. She also knew she made mistakes, and was prepared to admit them. People who are able to do that should be acknowledged, don't you think? As I said before, to err is human - even if the human in question is a fictional character with whom the writer has taken creative liberties.
It is unfortunate that you were unable to reconcile with the other side of their story and you had such trouble accepting it, but thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts!
Firstly, let me preface this by saying this is purely my opinion, it is not meant to be personal, and I'm sure, as is evident, there are many who love this fanfiction.
It is not about the fact that I cannot reconcile with this side of the story. Its more that I feel this story devolves into standard issue Weasley bashing tropes, Ron and Molly specifically, that are a dime a dozen and that I dislike most intensely. What I loved about "His Witch" in isolation was that it felt canon adjascent. I don't think the characters would react quite that way but it wasn't completely out of the realm of possibility. Here, I think the characters are completely OOC from my perspective. I cannot envision the Ron you wrote in "His Witch" allowing Molly to publicly humiliate Hermione since we see in his inner monologue that he could never hurt Hermione, even though he resented her. Then, there is the fact that you fall back on the standard "Ron expects Hermione to be a housewife" and "Ron doesn't understand Hermione's interests" which doesn't track with who the character is at all from the books unless he's meant to be completely OOC. I mean, he spent 10 years with Hermione and he still think Hermione would not be a career centric woman. His whole development in the books is him understanding the importance of Hermione's convictions. So that itself took me completely out of the story.
Also, it feels like a lot of this was written so you can handwave the grey areas of Hermione away. Another thing I loved about "His Witch" was that you allowed both Ron and Hermione to be grey as characters and not written in black and white. Ron was unhealthily unable to let Hermione and his breakup go, but he didn't go out of his way to be unpleasant to Hermione and other people. He was cutting in his words to Hermione, but he didn't do it to her without her prompting him. Hermione was right about wanting to breakup, but maybe she didn't go about it the right way. She had the right intentions about wanting to make up, but did a completely insensitive and cowardly thing in the process of doing so. That's what made the story interesting. By devolving the story into Ron being an old fashioned backward thinking guy who had ridiculous expectations from Hermione and was clueless about her desires in her life, you remove all the grey from Hermione's character in the effort to justify her actions. Its hard not to think that at least some of this story is written specifically with that purpose given you used some of the comments that spoke out against Hermione from "His Witch". As a result, to me, it also makes "His Witch" retroactively less interesting.
Also, like I mentioned earlier, I felt that "His Witch" was different as it wasn't trying to take clear sides while this story very clearly does. As I mentioned, Ron comes off as OOC but so does Hermione. Like I mentioned in my previous comment, I don't see any version of Hermione who would realistically not carry the burden of grief of the destruction of her friendship with Ron. Her friendship with Ron and Harry are the first two friendships she ever had in her life and the fact that one is irreparably destroyed and partly due to her actions and its evident that Ron is so miserable is something that would eat at her. The bittersweet ending of "His Witch" was that both of them will now have to live with their respective misery. Ron with his knowledge that the love of his life is marrying someone else and left him, and Hermione that one of her two best friends is no longer her friend and is miserable because of her, rightly or wrongly. So it takes away from the beauty of that ending and my trying to make Hermione be ok with that, it makes Hermione OOC as well.
Finally, I also think "His Witch" is a little more immersive. I think you got into Ron's head in that story better than you did with Hermione's here. This just felt a tad rushed when reading it. Look, its your story. You are free to write whatever you want and that's the great part about fanfiction. Its not for me, because it follows some of the tropes and storybeats I don't like but I'm sure there are plenty who love it.
I think if you are a writer, then you have to learn to take criticism on the chin. Its only picky and nasty if you are offended by any criticism that comes your way. I am not tearing the writer down. I'm just telling why the story doesn't work for me and I think any writer should appreciate that. As I mentioned in my comment, its evident that there are many who like it and that's the great part about fanfiction. I wrote what I did because I was correcting what the author that my thoughts on the story was. If its disappointing to you, that's fine. But I will always be honest. Trust me, there are are a lot of critiquers who are a lot more harsh than me.
It seems you've found this story really confronting, given you keep returning to it, and I'm a little concerned at this point for your well-being. I truly hope you're ok. Please reach out to someone you trust if you feel you need to talk.
I confess I'm a little baffled by your latest responses. Rather than a criticism, it seems to be a highly detailed complaint focusing on the fact I didn't write the story in the way you thought I should have. It's truly unfortunate you feel that way.
You do recognise people like different things, which is great! Because, as you've so astutely pointed out, they do. The world of fanfic is broad and wonderful. But, at the same time, you appear to feel very strongly about the fact that I don't write the way you think I should write. Regretfully, that's not something I can help you with.
I cannot in good conscience allow readers, however well meaning, to dictate to me the way I spin my stories. I would be doing myself a disservice and taking the joy and expression out of my writing if I were to say to myself, "right, I mustn't include this theme or portray that character in such way, because someone might find it upsetting."
I'm confident that you can agree this is a reasonable, logical position to take, and as you pointed out earlier, it *is* my story. We writers can't please everyone, and if we tried, we'd never be able to publish anything, and readers would have no stories to enjoy.
I'm truly sorry you missed the nuances of Hermione's side of the story, which is, of course, that everyone is flawed. Yes, even the Weasleys, though this concept seems difficult for you. You clearly love them very much. I understand. I have characters I love too, and I get the feels when a writer portrays them in a light other than what I'd prefer.
However, I also show that writer respect by not complaining about how they chose to express their creativity. I simply carry on. I hope you will be able to find the resolve to do this, too - life is much less stressful that way!
Thank you again for commenting, and I hope you will be able to find something more to your liking 😊
I appreciate how you took the criticism like a sport. I mean, the long and short of my criticism is that I did not find this particularly story nuanced. I loved "His Witch". That was a wonderfully written story and what I loved about it that both Ron and Hermione came across as flawed characters who were right in some ways and wrong in some ways. To me, this story devolves that into more standard issue black and white story and also robs "His Witch" a little bit since it is canonically in the same universe. I do feel that this story comes off as you are trying to whiten out Hermione's grey edges from "His Witch" and I could write essays about how much I despise the trope that Ron just wants Hermione to be a house wife with his kids. I find that to be as OOC for him as say if you had written Hermione to have physically cheated on Ron. So in essence, while I found the characters of Ron and Hermione more believable in "His Witch", both of them come off as OOC here to me. I suppose you should take a little satisfaction from the fact that my criticism of this story partially stems from how much I loved "His Witch". But this particularly story didn't characterize the characters in a way I thought was consistent and as interesting as in "His Witch". Lets just leave it at that. Hope you continue to write great stories and people enjoy them.
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Art3misiA Mon 17 Feb 2020 12:15AM UTC
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UltraHPFan Mon 17 Feb 2020 04:58AM UTC
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