HP: What about the cat???

[yardwork]

All through the series Hermione has a cat that seems to be an important person. The cat protects them. The cat knows how to get into the secret tunnel under the Whomping Willow. Crookshanks is mentioned at the beginning of The Deathly Hallows (meaning that he apparently was not Dumbledore - which is what I'd suspected) but then is never mentioned again! Who is Crookshanks? Why is he dropped off at the Weasley's house at the beginning of the last book and never mentioned again?

The other thing that irritates me about the series is that Rowling pairs off everyone at the end - but not one pairing is gay! Ok, my kids laughed at me for bringing this up. But seriously. Not one gay couple among all the happy straight couples? Nobody? In most classic children's literature there are no pairings, leaving it up to the reader to imagine. Since Rowling felt it necessary to mate everybody at the end, why couldn't she have included some gay couples?

[XemaSab]

1. She didn't mate everyone

:shrug:

Unmated: Dumbledore, McGonagall, Lockhart, Sprout, Pomfrey, Filch, Hooch, Flitwick, Mad-Eye, and most of the Aurors and unspecified Order members.

Kids who are never shown dating: Neville, Luna, Seamus, the Creeveys, Crabbe, Goyle, most of the Slytherins, Ravenclaws, and Hufflepuffs.

Also, just because the kids date the opposite sex in the books doesn't mean they're not gay.

Most male botanists are gay, anyways. :P

(Oh and I was left wondering if there hadn't been something between Lucius and Snape.)

[Matilda]

2. I guess Crookshanks was left at the Weasleys for his own safety.

And kids roaming around camping in the open don't need the bother of looking after a pet.

I know a lot of readers wondered for a while whether Crookshanks was an Animagus, but it seems he
was just Hermione's pet.

As for the pairing - the only odd thing that struck me was that not too many people marry their first
love. In real life, they probably would have moved on to other partners before marrying. It was
just a bit too happy-ever-after for me.

[CBHagman]

3. Okay, I'm going to need some strong aspirin. (SPOILER CITY)

Oy. Can you imagine the brouhaha if J.K. Rowling had dealt with gay relationships? Let's face it: the books mostly dance around sexuality, aside from A) Sirius's pictures of the Muggle girls in bikinis, B) the word "desire" being flung around whenever Severus Snape's feelings for Lily Evans came up, and C) some honest-to-goodness snogging by assorted characters. Oh, and even Lupin's announcement of his wife's pregnancy was couched in terms children can handle: "Tonks is going to have a baby." We're just a degree past I Love Lucy.

I did notice the bit about wizard-witch marriages commencing young, aside from Remus Lupin's marriage to Nymphadora Tonks.

Anyway, J.K. Rowling's now got plenty of time to write Maurice and Scudder Go to Hogwarts, or Hagrid's Big Book of Animals, or even Lavender Brown's Magical Lonely Hearts Rescue Network. Or we can all write them in our heads.

[XemaSab]

4. Harry Potter is already Satanic

:eyes:

[Matilda]

5. Yep - gay pairings would really have brought the wrath

of the fundies down on her head.

[XemaSab]

6. Especially hot gay love between Snape and Lucius...

Oh yes. :D

[Matilda]

7. There are others who think as you do.

I trawled through some Potter and Snape sites to see what people thought about the resolution of
the story, and of course there's lots of fancic (most of it's probably unreadable, but you can tell
from headers and summaries what they're about).

There are some Lucius/Snape stories, and even a couple of Sirius/Snape (I suppose all the hatred was
simply denial). There are lots of Hermione/Snape stories, that one's very popular. Also a few
Draco/Hermione, and some Harry/Hermione. What interested me was how few people seem to be really
interested in pursuing relationships for Ginny, Luna, Neville or even Ron. Some take the Ron/
Hermione story further, but that's it.

But the two hotties seem to be Snape and Hermione, in various pairings.

And, as CB Hagman pointed out in another thread, heaps of people have turned their hands to making
videos of the Snape/Lily love affair - forget about James, he doesn't come into it at all.

It's interesting how people just rewrite what they don't agree with, and many put a lot of effort
into it too.