Defending Harmione part 3!
I'm back to defend my fav ship!
I have a part 1 where I debunked some of the most popular arguments against Harmione and in part 2 I debunked the "siblings" argument. Time for part 3! This one is going to be about a video on YouTube titled "Why Harry and Hermione Wouldn't Work - Harry Potter Video Essay" and I'll go over the points the YouTuber made and try my best to debunk them. 💘
Also, I accept that there's still a few minor flaws to the ship, but these little flaws and obstacles make every ship beautiful. 🥀
1. "It would be too cliche. The hero gets the smartest and prettiest girl as a trophy."
This is a fair argument to the whole story itself, but it doesn't defeat the ship in any way. If you put it in other words: "Harry and Hermione wouldn't work together because they're both very powerful and great and that would make it very cliche." That's silly. But even that isn't right. The situation isn't exactly how people make it seem.
Hermione isn't the all-perfect girl, the most beautiful, the most intelligent, everything perfect. She has flaws, many flaws (which weren't portrayed in the movies) and she is a very realistic character. She is intelligent and productive, she is a perfectionist in a way, but that also causes her to be very anxious and stressed out at moments, she puts too much pressure on herself, and she's also insecure! Who said Hermione was the most beautiful one? Just because Emma Watson was gorgeous doesn't mean Hermione was too. Of course, Harry thought she was pretty according to OotP, but it's clearly stated in the books that she wasn't the prettiest girl in the series. Fleur, Cho and even Ginny were much more beautiful. Hermione is NOT the perfect superstar.
You might say that even if she's not perfect, she's still the female lead. But the actual "cliche" part is about the hero ending up with the perfect superstar and not necessarily with the other lead hero.
So back to Hermione being the brightest witch of her age. But her being very bright and powerful doesn't make her a bad match for Harry. Ginny was very smart in fact, she was beautiful and funny, very sassy and confident. Why isn't she considered as a trophy for Harry?
The point is, NO, Hermione is NOT a perfect all-star and their relationship wouldn't even have to be built on the hero and the heroine being perfect, their relationship would be built on trust and loyalty.
2. "Harry and Hermione's relationship prove that a male and a female can be friends without having a romantic relationship, so we shouldn't ruin that."
Yes, it's truly a beautiful demonstration that a male and a female can be best friends, but this says nothing that's actually against the ship, just like the previous one. If you put this in other words, it would sound like this: "Harry and Hermione were amazing best friends so they can't date." I understand that their friendship was amazing, but that in no way means their relationship would be bad. Of course, you don't have to see their relationship as romantic just because they were good friends, you can see it as platonic, but I'm just saying that the argument makes no sense.
Besides, was Hermione really the only female friend Harry had? What about Luna? What about Ginny (if you consider Harry and Hermione start dating and Ginny remains a friend, she was clearly very included after OoTP)? What about Ron's friendship with Hermione? What about Ron and Luna's friendship? What about Neville and Luna's friendship? What about Harry's quidditch teammates (Alicia, Katie, Angelina)? Why does everyone always make it seem like Hermione was the only female friend he had? Surely she was his only BEST friend but then Ron and Hermione were best friends too...
3. "It ruins the dynamic of the story. Harry's relationships were never meant to be the main focus, just a demonstration of his maturity. While Ron and Hermione's relationship developing in the background is nice to see."
I really didn't want to drag Romione into this because it's my second favorite ship from the entire Harry Potter universe. Just a disclaimer that anything I say here is not meant to bash Romione and hate on it because I'm truly a big fan of them and their love is undeniable.
I also mention Ginny and Harry's relationship in this and I have to say they're ALSO one of my favorite ships in the entire hp universe so no hate to them either. 🥺
Okay, so, basically every point he made in his video was about the story and not their actual relationship. The title is wrong, this doesn't show why Harry and Hermione wouldn't work, he's just saying how it would change the storyline. But I think we are all already aware that Harry and Hermione getting together would change a lot in the story. But I'll go over it anyways.
First of all, I don't entirely agree that Harry's relationships weren't the main focus, I mean half of the half-blood prince was about him developing feelings for Ginny-
But anyways, if Harry and Hermione were going to end up together, it would still happen in a similar way. We have all read the beautiful moments they shared together throughout the books, and those would've been enough for them to develop their feelings, but just not realize it until the last 2 books. We wouldn't have to add in any scenes that would change the story massively to lead them to falling in love, honestly, we had enough already in the books. So the only thing that would change would be probably Harry not developing feelings for Ginny, but instead slowly realizing his feelings for Hermione. Simple!
And as for Romione, I agree, the slowburn was beautiful, but we could've had the same thing, same development but as a friendship! Ron's character arc is one of my favorite things about the series and nobody can convince me that it wasn't amazing. Instead of Ron changing for Hermione to become her lover, we could have Ron changing for her to become a better friend. His character arc remains the same and Ron Hermione become best friends. Of course this would change many scenes and the storyline would've changed a lot as I already mentioned, but hey! At least we wouldn't have Ron haters who bash him for mAkInG hErMiOnE cRy. 🤡 And JKR could add different scenes instead of the ones hinting at Ron and Hermione's romantic relationship. We still would have had a beautiful story with a VERY SIMILAR dynamic.
4. "Harry wasn't the kind of guy Hermione was looking for. She already made a mistake with dating Viktor Krum, and she realized she didn't need a hero. She was a hero herself. Although Harry ≠ Viktor, they have very similar qualities like: bravery, loyalty and they are both heroes."
This is probably the best argument of the entire *almost* 5 minute video.
But there's still so much wrong with this.
Bravery and loyalty are literally Ron's best traits lmao. That's exactly why she chose him. 🤣 Every Romione shipper knows she doesn't value intelligence and looks, she values bravery, courage, loyalty. That's exactly what she said in the first book and stuck by it until the end.
She didn't need a hero? She was a hero herself? - Then why are we forgetting that Ron was also a hero? Everyone always makes it seem like Harry and Hermione are the mighty heroes and Ron is their goofy sidekick. He was also a hero! I believe he is even on the chocolate frog cards (correct me if I'm wrong)! And we all know that's the biggest flex. 😌
But besides that, Ron and Harry are very similar in many ways. They're both brave, they're both loyal, they both like to have fun, they're both lazy, they're both amazing at quidditch, they're both talented (Harry is very powerful and he's good at DADA, while Ron can do many impressive things like mimic voices and come up with quick solutions even when he's under pressure and his life depends on it!). So if Hermione liked one and thought he was her "type", then there's a hight possibility she liked the other too. In canon, she only likes Ron obviously, but I'm saying that since Ron and Harry are so similar and share the same traits, Hermione could've chosen Harry too.
Anyways, that's all that the video included, it was very nice hearing different opinions and I actually wasn't writing this out of anger like I wrote the post about defending Romione against *the ridiculously stupid* arguments that Dr*mione shippers like to use.
Once again, if it isn't clear, I STAN both Romione and Hinny, but Harmione definitely could've worked. :)
Thanks for reading! ~ Lia <3
Art: Asha47110 on DeviantArt :)
