I’ve meaning to send this ask for ages and finally found the courage to do so :) I started reading lionheart on a whim in the beginning of November and since them after reading everything a couple of times, all I can say is that it is a masterpiece. I am so in love with your writing, especially with how you give Draco the space to be gracious and grow up. I love for example when they are in the Slytherin common room and Draco see for himself that the mermaids are sentient beings just like him. Also, I am completely enamored with the golden quartet (?), the relationships between them feel much more balanced, and I have so much love for Harry, Hermione, and Ron. I do think you does the characters justice, if not written in a better and more honest, human way. Btw, I love your Narcisa because I am such an apologist for her and her crimes. (If Narcisa has million fans, then I'm one of them. If Narcisa has one fan, then I'm THAT ONE. If Narcisa has no fans, that means I'm dead.). This also aplies for hermione. Anyway, all I am trying to do is to put into words what the world you design means to me, but alas I do not seem to have. When the time comes for my unborn children to read the Harry Potter series, I am showing them your books and telling them it is canon.
Now that I am done showering you with complements, I have a couple of questions. First, after reading the last chapter (which I adored), the fight between Draco and Sirius, one of my favorite moments, kept coming to mind. Was it intentional for Draco to give such honest wake up call for Theo basing himself from the talk he had with Sirius years ago? Secondly, I am not sure with you already answer this, if so, feel free to tell me, but if you could choose Poet, Soldier or King for each – Draco, Harry, Hermione, and Ron – which one would they be?
Thank you for taking the time to read. I usually download each chapter because I like to highlight my favorite parts, I will try to be more present on AO3! And sorry for any English mistakes, it is not my first language!
Thank you, my friend! This is a completely lovely ask, and as I often do with lovely asks, I've hoarded it for a while to re-read whenever I want a nice treat. However, I've left the question unanswered long enough.
If we're going to do the Soldier/Poet/King test, I want to complicate it a little. You can either do it by personality (the way we do when we say "I'm soldier!" or "I'm poet!") or you can do it by narrative role, i.e. what you actually do in the context of the story. Those can be different. For instance, you can be a poet-coded soldier (your chosen weapon is your word, but you're pushed by your circumstances to fight), or a soldier-coded king (you carry a mighty sword, but you're forced off the battlefield to rule, i.e. you want to fight but you can't). That opens up the range of ways to fill the role. So it's like:
Obviously, the central axis here is going to be the most satisfied/content with their lot in life, but there's a broad range of happinesses.
If you ask me, Harry is a poet-coded king, because he's incredibly reluctant to take leadership, and he doesn't want anyone to fight for him. He runs away in Deathly Hallows because he can't stand to be at the center of a war (which is going to happen anyway) and has only accepted Ron and Hermione's sacrifice begrudgingly. It's also worth saying that Harry's best moments come when he's trying to talk someone down: he's telling Remus to go back to Tonks, he's telling Slughorn to preserve Lily's memory by being noble for her sake, he's telling Riddle to "try for remorse." Harry is at his best when he's giving consolation and understanding, not when he's fighting; his signature spell is Expelliarmus. Kid's not a soldier. And he hates the idea of being a king. (This is, not coincidentally, one of the unhappiest combinations.)
I read Ron as a true soldier, not because he enjoys fighting, but because that's almost always his knee-jerk reaction to conflict, and it's also where a lot of his strengths lie. Ron is brash and bold and he will swing if you step to him, and that's why people love him (or hate him, if they do). Even in his best moments, when he's being a strategist and tactician, he's employing his skills in the service of battle. And the narrative is happy to put him in positions where that's the skill he has to contribute. He thinks of the basilisk fangs and the house-elves in the kitchens; he's good at tactics, but he doesn't do broad-strokes strategy.
Hermione is king-coded soldier, because I think in a different series of novels, she is absolutely the protagonist, and she kind of thinks she should be. She's proactive, driven, clever, and calculating, and she orders people around like she's the boss of them — usually with good reason, but she still does. She sees herself as the HBIC, and she often gets a bit irritated when other people don't jive with that idea. It's funny how often Harry gets along by just doing what Hermione tells him. That being said, her narrative role is being sworn in Harry's service, and as the books go on, she increasingly embraces that. She defends him and offers to risk her life for him, sacrifices volumes (her parents!!) and compromises her safety (gets tortured!) for his sake, all without complaining or seeming to begrudge Harry at all. He's her king; she's his knight. Which is another way of saying soldier.
Draco is a poet-coded soldier, or possibly a poet-coded king, depending on what direction you take his arc from the source material. In the books, he's kind of a flop, God bless him, he doesn't really manage much in the final days of the war. Besides refusing to identify Harry (after identifying both of Harry's well-known travel companions... booboo you tried), he's basically fit for neither use nor ornament from Book 6 onward. But taken more broadly, he is someone who absolutely does not want to be here — he doesn't want to fight, he doesn't want to be in danger, he doesn't want to risk people — getting conscripted forcibly into a conflict that was running for years before he was born. And he's conscripted, like Harry, because of his heritage; it's a position he was born into. Depending on how you read his relationship to power, and having it, he can either be a soldier or a king, or someone teetering on the cusp between them.
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what are some of your favorite pl headcanons?
Aughhh. I have so many. 805 messages in one of the servers im in. Okok.
Des is a prick about manners. Particularly table manners. Don’t talk with your mouth full, elbows off the table, cup on the right side, etc. He was taught piano when he was little and didn’t pick it back up till college. He reunites with Hershel in the days past the ending of UF. He takes things apart but can’t figure out how to put them back together unless he was the one that made it so he’s banned from the engine room in the Bostonius. He can also sew and embroider. He has a cat allergy. He’s overly dramatic (to Raymond and Raymond alone) when he’s sick, but won’t say anything if he’s seriously ill or he thinks someone needs him. Des took his dad’s glasses but they were prescriptioned so he fucked up his eyesight. So now he actually needs glasses. He still hums lullabies he learned when he was little, and he used to sing them to his daughter.
Hershel knits and crochets. Lucille taught him and he does it a lot when he’s stressed or bored. He made so many sweaters in the hospital. Especially when he was in high school he mother henned his friends a ton. Didn’t know why he had such bad anxiety about losing his friends. + Randall is reckless. Bad combo. Hershel has night terrors and just doesn’t say anything about them. They were a lot worse when he was younger though. Uhh. The Getting Beat Up By The Government fucked him up bad. Head trauma memory problems on top of mental trauma memory problems. He gets injured sometimes on his adventures and doesn’t say anything which causes a lot of chronic pain. His back got fucked up in ED. Hershel has so so many identity problems. He also needs glasses kinda bad
Luke and Clark are vegetarian. Clark more so but Luke will eat meat when necessary. He doesn’t enjoy it though, and won’t eat anything less than well done. Luke mimics Hershel’s behaviors often. Luke has a chronic fatigue disorder and will go to bed anywhere. Eepiest guy
Randall has ADHD. He has a hard time reading other people’s emotions and tones, and has zero volume control. Definitely ate dirt as a kid.
Angela likes horror novels and being outside. Claustrophobic. Henry is French.
Emmy likes fruit. Sweet tooth all the way but she’ll go ham if she sees fruit. Citrus for the win. Also like sour candies. Post AL she still works out just because she’s really into the habit.
Flora is into mechanics. She has a hard time when things aren’t predictable, and over-rationalizes frequently to make things make sense. Separation anxiety. Also liked horror and mystery books. Had a mythology phase.
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