(no subject)

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Am I the only one a little bothered by Dumbledore? Not only with the fact he could end up in the Guinness Book Of World Records for "Most Incompetent Headmaster of All Time" (though I'm sure there's worse. :P), but also because...he just bugs me. I know JKR was trying to write him as the "flawed Yoda", so to speak (and to be fair, he's nowhere near Yoda. XD), but it's also how...preachy he gets. Towards Fudge, for example. You know, in Goblet of Fire, with, "You place too much importance on purity of blood, yadda yadda et cetera et cetera" -- which considering how he treated Tom Riddle and the Slytherins is...slightly hypocritical isn't it? Probably bad writing on JKR's part, though. :/

Anyways, sorry 'bout the rambling. Thoughts?

Comments

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

What I have trouble with RE her trying to write Dumbles as flawed or necessarily evil in that scene is her statement that she sees Dumbles as being "the epitome of good." It's one thing to say that the character is basically good but due to circumstances has to commit some morally bad acts (a very short description of my interpretation of Severus for the most part); it's another to call such a character the unqualified 'epitome of good.' Because if those actions get a blanket justification and so don't count against the character's goodness, then one is basically arguing that the ends justify the means, and it's ok when the Good Guys do it because it's not the action that is wrong, its the intention behind it.

Which actually might solve my dilemma. Sadly. :( An ends-justifies-the-means, 'it's not evil when WE do it' morality does rather fit in well with many of the other WTF moments in the series, such as the Harry-Christ-figure engaging in needless torture, come to think of it.

Arg.

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Ugh, Harry-as-Christ. I think Marauder put it best: "Jesus Christ called -- he's sick of his name being tarnished." Or something like that. Marauder's awesome. :3

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

"Jesus Christ called -- he's sick of his name being tarnished."

Slapdown FTW!

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Indeed! :D

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

THIS.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

I mean at least Jesus really died, rather than living through some convoluted scheme because God couldn't bear to kill him off..

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

*This*! :D

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Not only that, but the hero's dying, getting advice from his mentor in the afterlife, then coming back to life to win the battle isn't even original. Rowling ripped it off from the novel The Darkest Hour, by Erin Hunter, published in 2004.

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Where can I read it?! (The Darkest Hour, that is. :)

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

Really? Wow... I thought she was above plagiarism...

[sunnyskywalker]

She's trying to have her cake and eat it too - oh, he's flawed for teh drama and to explain certain plot holes and because it's writing advice, but he's also the epitome of good! Which might work if they were minor flaws with minor consequences...

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

I know, right? *Facepalms*

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

unless she's really just playing with us when she says he's so good.

Wishful thinking, I know.

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

If only, if only...

(Although she *did* say that the "All was well" thing was a lie on Harry's part...but it was probably a bit of ass-covering instead of being an organic part of the story. :/)

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Well, to be accurate, the impression I got from reading that transcript is that she definitely wanted the reader to *percieve* Dumbledore as the "epitome of good". Which isn't quite the same thing.

Remember that that particular interview took place somewhere around midway through the series. When it was still possible to regard Albus as an unequivocal good guy, even though people were already having their "Hey, wait a minute..." moments regarding what he was clearly doing.

I do *not* believe that at any point in that particular interview she ever claimed that *she* regarded Albus as the epitome of good. We were always supposed to eventually discover his feet of clay. It's just that she has such a poor sense of porportion that the feet of clay rather turned into limbs of mud. Slimy mud, even.

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

*This*, just this! :D

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

What also, in thinking over the transcript, becomes fairly evident is that she got more emphatic and deffensive about the characters as the series progressed. Most markedly the "good" characters.

Lurking on her official site is a wonderfully intelligent and well-balanced capsule summary of Sirius Black. Plus there is that perfectly accurate and not at all simple summation of Remus Lupin's wanting to be *liked*. Which really does undercut everything he does, for both good and ill.

So I really think she started out with fairly clear ideas about the characters inherent flaws. But as she got too close to them, and was more and more identified with them, she lost any sense of proportion and criticism of *any* of her "good" characters was criticism of herself.

The overall secretiveness about everything didn't help either. Rather a lot of her "surprises" fell remarkably flat by the time she revealed them, and her determination to make *everything* a surprise upset the balance.

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

So...she kind of suffered from M. Night Shyamalan syndrome as she began to complete the series? *Is shot*

And if anything, one could say that she really started *dissing* Sirius near the end of the series (as Marauder pointed out on her blog. :). YMMV, though. :/

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

Yeah, see, I never paid much of any attention to the interviews or to discussions of fandom until recently, and so, based on my reading of the books, I had thought that she had meant to hoodwink us into thinking that Dumbledore was the prototypical elderly mentor and then pull the rug out from under us in book 7.

Without the train station scene and the epilogue, that is exactly what the story would look like, I think.

I'm still not entirely convinced that that wasn't originally her intent and she just failed to execute it very well. Or maybe she chickened out on doing it in the end.

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

That too. :)

[sunnyskywalker]

She chickened out of killing Arthur, so I actually could believe that at the last moment she just couldn't help trying to shine Dumbledore up again.

Rowling's View of Dumbledore

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Well, to be accurate, the impression I got from reading that transcript is that she definitely wanted the reader to *percieve* Dumbledore as the "epitome of good". Which isn't quite the same thing.

Remember that that particular interview took place somewhere around midway through the series. When it was still possible to regard Albus as an unequivocal good guy, even though people were already having their "Hey, wait a minute..." moments regarding what he was clearly doing.

I do *not* believe that at any point in that particular interview she ever claimed that *she* regarded Albus as the epitome of good. We were always supposed to eventually discover his feet of clay. It's just that she has such a poor sense of porportion that the feet of clay rather turned into limbs of mud. Slimy mud, even.


I'm sorry, I can't agree with that. Here's the direct quotation from the interview done July 13, 2000.

E: Do you have more fun writing the evil characters? Because Voldemort [the sinister wizard who killed Harry's parents] is the quintessential evil character.

JK: Yeah, he's a bad one. Do I have more fun? I loved writing Dumbledore and Dumbledore is the epitome of goodness. But I loved writing Gilderoy and I loved writing Rita. Because I just find them comic characters. (Emphasis added.)

That certainly sounds to me as if she's asserting outright that she herself believes Dumbledore is "the epitome of goodness." There are no qualifiers at all in that statement. It's a compound sentence, the first part of which is her feeling ("I loved writing DD"), and the second part of which is a statement of fact she is making about her character ("DD is the epitome of goodness").

I also don't see any references to how she wants the readers to perceive DD. As far as I can tell, she is expressing her own belief about DD's goodness, nothing more and nothing less.

Re: Rowling's View of Dumbledore

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Actually, that's not quite the interview that I'm remembering. This one sounds like she is quoting herself, having come up with a phrase she likes and is going to *use* it, damnit!

But if that's the earlier interview, then I'll leave it. Because, like you say, there isn't anything equivocal about that one.

Re: Rowling's View of Dumbledore

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

So yeah...*this*. :/

(The "so yeah" is for JKR, BTW -- not you. :)