Comparing iCarly and Harry Potter: Unpacking the Unpopular Love-Hate Relationships
Author's Note: While I normally don't care if you read this part or not, it's your loss if you don't. I like to give you a glimpse into my psyche and overall, entertain. Everything I write should be written like I actually want it to be read. The legal stuff should always be illegally funny.
Right, so here's my conundrum. I love this little show called iCarly, right? But I also love this little book series, Harry Potter and the yadda yadda yadda. One would just leave it at that, but I have a weird, twisted mind. The mind of a writer, you could say. Purely by accident, I compared the characters to each other. Carly is to Harry, Hermione is to Freddie, and Ron is to Sam. (That also led me to thinking Draco is to Nevel Papperman, Neville Longbottom is to Gibby ( :-P) , Snape is to Mr. Howard, McGonagall is to Mrs. Briggs (Holy shit they're both Scottish, too!), Mrs. Benson is to Molly Weasley, Spencer is to The Weasley Twins, and Valerie (The bitch that used Freddie to make her own webshow) is to Ginny. Yeah. I said it. But that's another story.) When I made the first generalizations about the trio in each story, I am ashamed to say that I am such a hypocrite.
I have two major ships in my life right now, Seddie and Harmony. See wherein my problem lies? Seddie is the romantic pairing between Freddie and Sam, and Harmony is the pairing of Harry and Hermione. In the canon versions, they paired up Ron and Hermione / Freddie and Sam. At least half of my dreams came true. Love/Hate relationships seems all the rage, though I hate them. No, scratch that. I absolutely love them when they're tastefully done. On iCarly, it was tastefully done. (Kind of a throwback, but the best mention of a love/hate relationship that was tastefully done is from 'The Nanny', The couple of Niles and C.C. Babcock. Love that relationship. I'd never personally want anything akin to that, but... fun to watch.) J.K. Rowling, as brilliant as she is for every other aspect of the Potterverse, was absolutely clueless when it came to romance. Looking back, I could see that both Ron and Sam were bullies. I could also see that their main victims were their love-interest. But here's the difference. One did it because she was a tough kid raised on the street, that simply did not know how to express her feelings better, because she had an uncaring mother and a missing father. The other one was just fucking stupid.
Would you like to take a stab in the dark which is which?
Let's look at the character reactions of the victims, shall we? Hermione first – well, I remember her crying because some jackass said that she doesn't have any friends because she was one of the only people in her class that could actually get an assignment done right, even taking the time to help someone out. Serves her right; the bitch. And since that fateful day, when Ron partially saved her life by using the spell that she taught him how to do in the first place, she's been doing his homework ever since. How fucking romantic!
Now, let's look at Freddie. We saw an embarrassingly slow escalation from enemies, to frenemies, to friends, to best friends, to finally, a relationship of some sort (Edit – And then back to frenemies. Seriously, what the hell?). Like I said before, this is a love/hate relationship that I actually like sometimes. Sure, it was significantly more violent, but I never saw an incident that kept him down. He always seemed to get right back up, even though he complained about it. Okay, okay, in the first season area, he stayed down for a while. But as time went on, he got up faster and faster until he, dare I say, got used to it. Sometimes, he even retaliated. Hermione never retaliated. From the Wingardium Leviosa fiasco to deserting your friends in a tent, she never really retaliated. And is it me, or did Ron get more vicious with the insults as they grew? What the fuck is he, seven? And I can somewhat understand trying to make your crush jealous, but coming off as a sleaze in a public place, making out with a girl that you clearly didn't care about? And it's all water under the bridge by THE END
Right, so here's my conundrum. I love this little show called iCarly, right? But I also love this little book series, Harry Potter and the yadda yadda yadda. One would just leave it at that, but I have a weird, twisted mind. The mind of a writer, you could say. Purely by accident, I compared the characters to each other. Carly is to Harry, Hermione is to Freddie, and Ron is to Sam. (That also led me to thinking Draco is to Nevel Papperman, Neville Longbottom is to Gibby ( :-P) , Snape is to Mr. Howard, McGonagall is to Mrs. Briggs (Holy shit they're both Scottish, too!), Mrs. Benson is to Molly Weasley, Spencer is to The Weasley Twins, and Valerie (The bitch that used Freddie to make her own webshow) is to Ginny. Yeah. I said it. But that's another story.) When I made the first generalizations about the trio in each story, I am ashamed to say that I am such a hypocrite.
I have two major ships in my life right now, Seddie and Harmony. See wherein my problem lies? Seddie is the romantic pairing between Freddie and Sam, and Harmony is the pairing of Harry and Hermione. In the canon versions, they paired up Ron and Hermione / Freddie and Sam. At least half of my dreams came true. Love/Hate relationships seems all the rage, though I hate them. No, scratch that. I absolutely love them when they're tastefully done. On iCarly, it was tastefully done. (Kind of a throwback, but the best mention of a love/hate relationship that was tastefully done is from 'The Nanny', The couple of Niles and C.C. Babcock. Love that relationship. I'd never personally want anything akin to that, but... fun to watch.) J.K. Rowling, as brilliant as she is for every other aspect of the Potterverse, was absolutely clueless when it came to romance. Looking back, I could see that both Ron and Sam were bullies. I could also see that their main victims were their love-interest. But here's the difference. One did it because she was a tough kid raised on the street, that simply did not know how to express her feelings better, because she had an uncaring mother and a missing father. The other one was just fucking stupid.
Would you like to take a stab in the dark which is which?
Let's look at the character reactions of the victims, shall we? Hermione first – well, I remember her crying because some jackass said that she doesn't have any friends because she was one of the only people in her class that could actually get an assignment done right, even taking the time to help someone out. Serves her right; the bitch. And since that fateful day, when Ron partially saved her life by using the spell that she taught him how to do in the first place, she's been doing his homework ever since. How fucking romantic!
Now, let's look at Freddie. We saw an embarrassingly slow escalation from enemies, to frenemies, to friends, to best friends, to finally, a relationship of some sort (Edit – And then back to frenemies. Seriously, what the hell?). Like I said before, this is a love/hate relationship that I actually like sometimes. Sure, it was significantly more violent, but I never saw an incident that kept him down. He always seemed to get right back up, even though he complained about it. Okay, okay, in the first season area, he stayed down for a while. But as time went on, he got up faster and faster until he, dare I say, got used to it. Sometimes, he even retaliated. Hermione never retaliated. From the Wingardium Leviosa fiasco to deserting your friends in a tent, she never really retaliated. And is it me, or did Ron get more vicious with the insults as they grew? What the fuck is he, seven? And I can somewhat understand trying to make your crush jealous, but coming off as a sleaze in a public place, making out with a girl that you clearly didn't care about? And it's all water under the bridge by THE END
