Exhibit A:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10076581/1/Epilogue-Part-2

Character bashing for everyone (intentionally or not) in this fic!

The sad thing is, it's not even a spelling and/or grammatical mess. The OOC is despite the author having a modicum of intelligence. Ugh. I feel unclean.

Araeph

But from what I read, my take is that she regrets pairing them up not because there's any specifically better ship, but that she feels that how she paired characters up towards the end of the series doesn't reflect how she feels about them now and how they could have grown.

... Which is perfectly valid, I think everyone who has written original fiction and gotten characters together has at least one pair where they look back and are like "You know what, that doesn't work as well as I thought it would."

I also think that it might be part of the backlash that she's occasionally gotten for having so many characters paired up by their late teens and presumably married only a few years after that. Although it happens in real life (and seems to have been common in the UK in the late eighties and early nineties, if the amount which stories from that time mention couples that young is any indication,) it's very different from the reality known by the fanbase, which is people who were being born in the late eighties and early nineties.

Personally, I saw the Ron/Hermione ship coming as early as second year (I was also a fan of Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain, so I was no stranger to shipping the people who bicker the most,) but wasn't 100% sold on it after the bird incident in sixth year. Hermione's temper and developing ruthlessness, especially with her magic, didn't sit well with Ron's blunders. She's got a tendency to lash out at Ron far more than she does anyone else, and I didn't think that was going to make a great marriage.

Harry and Hermione always seemed like family to me, so I don't think it was actually necessary to have a marriage within the Golden Trio. Actually, I was on the fence about most of the student pairings in the last two books because 1) I felt that everyone involved was too young for the pairings to be permanent, 2) Many characters who were paired weren't given equal screentime and so pairings came off as very uneven, since we didn't know enough about one of the parties, and 3) I think Rowling is much better at writing mystery plots and children than she is at writing teens, and she fell into the trap of thinking that romances are absolutely necessary to writing teens or marketing to them. (Or just into the writing trap of wanting all her literary creations to pair off and settle down.)

I'm not a shipper - particularly when it comes to Harry Potter if only because that sort of thing can go right off the end of the lunacy scale - so have no real comment on H/G vs H/H, but I do agree that we're in for a rough time on the badfic front.

I can almost hear the cries of 'I knew their love was the OTP all along' from here...

Honestly, I never even liked the idea of any of the trio being together. They just seem too much compatible as friends for a romantic relationship to work.

On the other hand, Ginny-Harry always seemed like Ginny's one-sided school crush. From my perspective, she always seemed more compatible with Neville.

To be honest, for the main trio, I don't remember ever shipping them with any of the characters presented in the book, and all of their romantic interactions with pretty much anyone seemed a bit forced.

First: Where did you hear that?

Second: Call me one of those weirdos, but I'm a Ron/Hermione shipper. I'm not 100% sure why JKR would say that (I mean, she was dropping hints since GoF, maybe even PoA if you really look), but it might have something to do with them falling in love over the course of a war... I love Ron and Hermione together.

To be honest, though, I'm mostly worried about this news being true because if it is, it's going to spawn even more Ron the Death Eater fics, which I despise. Ron is awesome. Yeah, he has flaws and isn't the best person all the time... but who is?

I should probably stop writing; I can't form a coherent thought when I get something like this dropped on me.

I mean, the two of them have had way too many disputes in the books prior to Deathly Hallows, where all of a sudden they're all mushy-gushy because Ron read a book on how to charm witches. Once they're together... well, I really can't see it lasting, and it's remarkable that they've gotten at least enough years of marriage under their belt to raise two children.

Ooh, the plotbunnies are rolling around for a post-Epilogue, domestic-bliss-isn't-suiting-them sorta thing. I mean, I'm a Harry/Hermione shipper (back in my day we called it the Pumpkin Pie) too, and I'm not entirely sure how Harry and Ginny are soulmates (Agent Eledhwen's saying something along the lines of "I work in BBC Sherlock and Star Trek; I know what soulmates look like" right about... now). I can definitely see Hermione and Ron having shouting matches, Hermione telling Rose not to settle for a man like Ron, Hermione throwing herself into her work so thoroughly that she's never home --

(yes, this is speaking from personal experience, shh.)

Isn't it the position of an author to decide which characters to pair off, when, and to whom? If J.K. Rowling didn't think Ron and Hermione would fit one another, why did she have them get married and make several children? I mean, from a certain perspective, going with the Ron-Hermione relationship when she doesn't think it could be altogether viable would be good from a Pair the Spares standpoint, since if Harry and Hermione paired up, there wouldn't be all that many main characters or central supporting characters for Ron to have flash-forward babies with that hadn't already been paired off, aside from Luna. (Now that would be an interesting story.) But she'd have been able to make it work if she really thought a big name should've been paired with someone less recognizable. It didn't entirely seem as though J.K. Rowling was aiming for name recognition in the final choices anyway, as evidenced by the fact that she already settled, and I use the term loosely, for having fan-favorite Draco Malfoy paired off with(gasp) a minor character!
And of course, leaving any main characters unmarried would be absolutely out of the question, since their referential offspring would be required to interact with one another on the eve of their first day of wizard school, making some form of final pairing an absolute necessity. How else would we know that Voldemort hadn't destroyed any chance to create a new generation of magic users?

Wow, I am a lot more invested in this than I thought I was. I don't even really like Harry Potter!

Honestly, I'm not a shipper.

My reaction to R/Hr? "Meh, OK."
My reaction to H/Hr? "Meh, whatever."
My reaction to H/G? "Eh, if that's what you want."

I ship friendship. :)

But what I CAN think about, and little else, is the tidal wave of fics that are going to be coming in! Hideous Ron-bashing fics, OOC Hermiones and Harrys running around, and the Ron/Hermione shippers hitting back with Harry-bashing...ugh. Better batten down the hatches, PPCers. It's gonna get ugly.

*dusts off the Red Pen files*

It may be time to return to duty.

—Araeph