death to capslock

I went there once and encountered a few people who were quite upset that I would dare criticise the books, with all the usual excuses for not actually debating my arguments themselves.

May I ask what you said?

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Nothing too evil or polemic; just a few general 'this is an error, and that is an error' sort of things.

As I said I only visited the Leaky Cauldron forum once; it was on a reference to a particular thread set up by a bloke (pseudonym 'migdalin'?) who'd written a *book* criticising Rowling. And he was getting attacked by most of the respondents in that thread.

Many of his arguments were along the lines of "I would have written it differently, therefore Rowling made an error", which isn't really a logical/good argument in my opinion, but some of the things he pointed out were bona fide flaws, and I was supporting those.

I came across a few kiddie-types who just snarled and gave the usual excuses to avoid discussion - at least I think I did. I mostly remember the discussion for one such person who - in rebuttal of my argument that *anyone* could have fought the dark lord - told me/us that no, it *had* to be Harry, because the HP series was a 'mythic work' and all such 'great' works of epic myth boiled down to the hero versus the villain in the climax, everyone knew that.

I was amazed by that person. He wasn't just giving Rowling a pass on the errors that would otherwise dash her from her lofty pedestal; no, he was happily giving her a free rocket boost to those heights. "Don't worry about setting up a good plot that shows us that Harry has to be the one who faces Voldemort, Jo, we all *know* that it *has* to end up that way, regardless of what you actually *write*". (My paraphrased sarcasm.)

Think about it. At the very end of DH, in that pathetic melodramatic showdown, Harry says "no-one interfere, it has to be him and me". Bull. Voldemort was on his own, all his death eaters defeated. It was one against two hundred. In fact, if you want to accept the (sad, inconsisent, flawed) assertion of Harry's providing the like-Lily's-only-totally-different sacrificial protection then Voldemort wasn't able to harm ANY of those hundreds of castle defenders.

Yet they all stand back and allow the ONE person who COULD be killed by Voldemort to duel him. Aurors, teachers, parents ... all stood back and watched. Why? Because Harry/Rowling says "oh, it's got to be him and me". But why did you say that, Harry?

Uhm ...

Oh, because the HP series resembles a MYTHIC WORK and we readers KNOW it has to be that way, it doesn't actually matter if the author failed to set it up in the story!

I'm still amused by that correspondent, can you tell?

Oryx has replied to my comment here saying that the Leaky Cauldron forums aren't the den of pro-Jo fundamentalism that my one foray there suggested. She also said that a lot of people there dropped out after DH. Maybe a lot more people have accepted the failure of HP than I thought.

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Wow, that is seriously one of the saddest explanations for that lame ending I have ever heard. I mean, at the very least, why are all the relations and friends of the people Voldemort killed content to stand by and let the hero finish him off? Because the script says so? I know that JKR thinks that Harry is the most important person ever, but the other characters shouldn't think so. It's like the literary version of metagaming.

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Here's a link (https://whywereason.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/psychologys-treacherous-trio-confirmation-bias-cognitive-dissonance-and-motivated-reasoning/) that explains what's going on. I'm subject to all of these biases, but I try to be aware of them, at least. (As an aside, I don't get the post's examples at all -- there must be better ones. In fact, there are probably better articles on each concept, but this one has them all in one place.)

For Rowling, I'd add liberal use of Informed Attributes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InformedAttribute) to the whole Doublethink (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Doublethink) tendency. I'm usually willing to suspend disbelief for fiction, but when the characters and then the author tell me what to think when the evidence on the page contradicts their view, when others tell me I'm prejudiced in my reading from the get-go and am reading it wrong, it does frustrate and insult me. I was a huge HP fan and looked forward to the last two books tremendously, but they were full of contradictions and stereotypes and unresolved plotlines and dei ex machina. Worst of all, they were tedious with the romance and the camping and the what not. The last two books can't help but cast a bad light on the previous five. Pottermore isn't helping, either.

I think some fans have invested so much in a certain HP worldview that maintaining the primacy of that worldview takes precedence over critical examination. "All was well." Sigh, it's beautiful because someone told me it was! It's fine if the worldview is acknowledged and restricted to fanfiction and art, as some shippers do. But when the worldview shuts people out of discussion, it's not so grand.

I also invested an embarrassing amount of time in the books, and I find it's hard to let go. Now I'm fascinated by the close examination that occurs in places such as DTCL. It's like stopping to watch the aftermath of an accident, I guess.

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Informed attributes are a shorthand that works in oral folktales, I think - where you don't have whole chapters to introduce characters and their background. But even there, if the simple son turns out sophisticated and subtle, if the wise adviser gives stupid advice, if the brave knight leaves innocents to a horrible fate - then we can't just trust the story teller with the attributes of the characters.

The last two books can't help but cast a bad light on the previous five.

Right. Because it is one story. At the very least characters shouldn't be arbitrarily changing beliefs and motivations from one book to the next. If something changes I want to know why. But if I can't trust the apparent reading then no wonder I end up preferring conspiracy theories :)

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Informed attributes are a shorthand that works in oral folktales, I think

What is interesting to me is how the information imparted by an unreliable narrator (or unreliable author) on a character's attributes is taken as gospel long after the story has been told and the information proven incomplete or even incorrect in the story. E.g., the characters of Dumbledore and Snape - are they what pre-DH Rowling told us they were when she was covering her tracks? Some still believe so, or want to believe. (Add to Rowling's disinformation the depictions in the films and in fan works, which can deeply color perception, and you're in a mess.)

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Your comment and references were really interesting, thank you. I never studied psychology but I've really had great fun trying to work out what makes some segments of the HP fandom tick, and I've learnt a few things along the way, thanks to occasions when folk like you have referred me to various psychological conditions. It's really interesting stuff.

Rowling really went to town with the 'Informed Attributes' thing, didn't she? She was basically flat-out *offensive* in her off-the-printed-page lectures and instructions on how her readers should be interpreting her books. Not understanding that every time she opened her mouth she was just highlighting her own failure as a writer in doing the job through her work itself.

And then there's no doubt a heavy use of it in the books themselves, although right now by default I'm focusing on one of my favourite Rowling failures, Ginny's characterisation and the H/G relationship. Rowling wanted Ginny's magnificence to be kept 'secret' (and in fact her doing so was too artificial to finally believe) but we were still told along the way that she was a 'powerful witch', I think. Where such is never really shown in the books at all. Unless you put the 'bat bogey' curse up there with Adava Kedavra. :-)

It was a case of having the cake and eating it too. Ginny is wonderful but I've got to hide it until she is suddenly revealed overnight as super-fantastic okay I'll have her brothers say she is powerful even though she never actually shows it.

Just one example, I'm sure there's others. I'm not sure if Harry's patronising praise of Dumbledore at King's Cross fits:

"I was safer at Hogwarts. I think I was a good teacher –"

"You were the best ---"

"--- you are very kind, Harry. ..."

I've always *detested* that line - Harry was never even 'taught' by Dumbledore - but maybe it doesn't fit as an 'informed attribute', coming as it does near the end of the series?

I thought Confirmation Bias and Motivated Reasoning were basically the two sides of the same thing, really; we focus favourably on what will support our theories and concentrate our criticism on that which will hinder them. Selective focus either way. And the flip side of that is 'deliberate ignorance', which is a large part of my own little theory of how H/G shippers and pro-canon zealots function. Maybe there's a fancy term for 'deliberate ignorance ... or I guess it's just a part of the definition of 'Confirmation Bias' as defined by that article of yours.

"All was well." Sigh, it's beautiful because someone told me it was!

Ah, yes. That abounds in the fandom. My current two favourite examples of that is the "Harry *is too* a hero! Because ... because ... because we know he was supposed to be!" (okay, that and Rowling pushed him into the hero's circle even if he was a square peg) and my absolute #1 favourite, some fans still believing that Harry had a 'power of love' and that the prophecy *meant something* because book 5 relied on it, even though it was emasculated in the very next novel ... or because Rowling had Harry quote "neither can live while the other survives" in his final melodramatic showdown and that must mean that the prophecy was fulfilled, surely? Bah. Rowling just desperately through those words in there with everythign else in the hope that the prophecy would 'stick'. Sadly some fans seem to have fallen for that trick.

Now I'm fascinated by the close examination that occurs in places such as DTCL. It's like stopping to watch the aftermath of an accident, I guess.

Nuh uh!! People who watch accidents just sit there and gawk. We HP critics are applying insight and intelligence to Rowling's work (even if sometimes I think Oryx and others are going too far in their 'conspiracy theories' :-) But I appreciate their industry (and marvel at their canon memories).

Seriously, the two years I spent in the Fiction Alley forums picking DH to pieces was extremely satisfying ... some clever people there just pulling it to shreds, every day coming up with new flaws to criticise and enjoy. A much more active pursuit than just watching the aftermath of a crime scene.

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sharaz-jek.livejournal.com

Rowling wanted Ginny's magnificence to be kept 'secret'

Really? Did she ever explain why? Or is this just something she said when some pesky person who'd actually read the books asked "where did Fiery!Ginny come from?

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No, that's my interpretation/slant on things; I don't think Rowling ever said something as exact as that. Although that was what she actually wrote, wasn't it? Ginny was hidden way in the background for books 1-4 (appearing as victim!girl rather than 'Ginny' in CoS) and only having a slight presence in OotP. But then in HBP she's revealed in all her sudden artificial glory; Pansy tells us in one of the first chapters that she's so good looking "a lot of boys like her" and the book went downhill from there.

Right after HBP was published Rowing had a lengthy interview wherein she patted herself on the back for her work; her comments on Ginny are in part 3, here (http://www.mugglenet.com/jkrinterview3.shtml). There's a lot of 'informed attributes' being passed down from the mount with that interview, I think.

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I think a good example of how the Treacherous Trio combine is found in the response of certain commentators, Pat Buchanan among others, to the recent Norwegian massacres. When the news first came out, Buchanan was not alone in declaring that the horrible events were the work of Islamic terrorists (confirmation bias - several commentators were all in agreement and supporting each other). When it turned out one Norwegian man killed all those people, Buchanan was initially silent (cognitive dissonance - the killer was a white guy who said he was a Christian and was inspired by far-right pundits, like Buchanan). Then, Buchanan came out and said the maybe the killer had a point after all, that Muslims were really the problem (motivated reasoning - Buchanan wants to hate Muslims and will find any excuse to do so).

I could also use Hermione/Harry shippers as an example... but that would be too easy. ;-)

But, yeah, it seems to be somewhat natural to remain belligerent and ignorant than to rationally consider evidence or confront one's prejudices.

However, this (http://michaeljfaris.tumblr.com/post/10525569930).

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Heh, Daria. Classic cartoon. She'd be a patron saint of deattocapslock, right? :-)

The Norwegian thing is a good example, although I didn't know much about the early commentary that followed.

I could also use Hermione/Harry shippers as an example... but that would be too easy. ;-)

Heh. Surprisingly, as a H/Hr shipper myself, I didn't see too much of the 'crazy' side of that sub-fandom. I did have contact with a few shippers who were still arguing/hoping for a H/Hr resolution with the last book, based on patterns of 'alchemy' they'd discerned from the books. Half their problem was that Rowling just wasn't as smart as they thought/hoped she was (and they were smarter than her). But they were also flying in the face of the post-HBP interviews where Rowling had made it clear that she thought she'd done a great job writing her OBHWF relationships.

Myself, I've had a few encounters with a handful of semi-feral pro-canon zealots which are classic examples of this sort of thing. I've long been building my own little theory of how H/G shippers can be such, and one of the elements is what I think of as 'deliberate ignorance/blindness'. Which is part of that 'trio' you referenced.

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Harry/Ginny was so weirdly executed in canon - OTOH a lot of what might be pretentious literary foreshadowing - if you squint really hard (like Ginny running after the train, or Harry saving her in COS) but no build-up of Harry's feelings towards her, or even recognizing her existence (eg he suddenly realizes he 'has' to share a train compartment with her because Ron and Hermione are with the prefects) that during the week between the OOTP movie came out and the publication of DH some alternate shippers used the OOTP movie as evidence that no, there's nothing between Harry and Ginny, therefore the infamous 'chest monster' must have been the result of a love potion and in DH both of them will end up with other partners.

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Canon's H/G was done so badly (that plus Ginny was such a noxious character) I for one would have welcomed a 'love potion' revelation. Seriously.

As I recall the main reason I decided that H/Hr wasn't on the cards - that the series would end up OBHWF - was that Rowling was too happy with herself in her post-HBP interviews. The 'Interview o' Doom' held right after the book's publication, in particular; the nauseating sycophancy demonstrated by Rowling's two interviewers was matched only by Rowling's own self-indulgent satisfaction with what she had wrought. Anyway, unless Rowling was deliberately out-and-out lying to her readers I decided that the series was going to end OBHWF.

(I didn't think it would be as bad as it was, though. A 'hero' who almost totally forgot the damsel left waiting for him, the girl overcome with jealousy every time he went close to another female, the boy who ranked her as less important than a sandwich, so on and so forth, you no doubt know all of the anti-H/G reasons, I'll be quiet now. :-))

But if it wasn't for Rowling's 'meta' interview information ... I would have probably had a much tougher time betting against H/Hr. The sixth book was so *bad* ... was it deliberate? There were love potion references all over the place (including a Warbeck song played over the wireless at the Burrow) ... was it possible that Harry *was* potioned? As of the end of HBP OBHWF didn't officially exist - H/G was 'broken up' and R/Hr were only back to being friends again. All too easy to bring in the *real* romance in the final book ...

I think there were easily ways that H/Hr could have emerged from the ashes of Sweet Valley Hogwarts (as it stood at the end of HBP). Just read any quality H/Hr 7th year fanfic for details. :-)

I don't know if I've ever read a good "love potion" story, I would love to read any.

Using the OotP movie as 'evidence' is pretty silly, though. Although I confess I've always been puzzled as to why Rowling 'let' the movie folk push H/Hr as far as they did on the big screen. Part of it is no doubt due to the actresses they ended up with - the photogenic leading lady as compared with the homely insipid sister-of-the-best-friend - but I do think the movie people also pushed the H/Hr simply because it was another obvious/suitable pairing. Still not official 'canon' though. Not really 'evidence' although certainly usable in gleaning additional canon insight.

... OTOH a lot of what might be pretentious literary foreshadowing ...

I detest H/G but sure, those few moments of foreshadowing are there (actually those two are all I can think of). H/Hr had a couple also, I think; the "Harry and Hermione flying on Buckbeak" was a decent image, for example. Not having the literary depth of the "slaying the dragon to save the damsel in distress" thing but ranking above "waving goodbye to her brothers".

The thing is ... those sort of literary meta symbols (what would you call them?) are nice and good stuff to add to a story, the icing on the cake, but it doesn't remove the requirement to still have substance within the story proper. Ask Harry "why did you fall in love with Ginny?" and he's not going to reply "because she waved goodbye to her four brothers at the railway station and my author thinks railway stations are romantic places". He has to have 'in character' reasons that *he* can see as to why she was the girl for him. And when it came to that Rowling both came up short AND seemed very rushed in conjuring her contrived union in the penultimate novel.

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Using the OotP movie as 'evidence' is pretty silly, though.

Author of the essay decided that the film makers must already know how the romances turn out and if Harry/Ginny was important they'd have him pay some attention to her, because with DH coming out soon there was no point in keeping the surprise.

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Well, maybe that makes some sense. OotP was the book where Ginny started to be more than just a background character after all. I'm not sure there was enough of her in the book, though, to turn around and say that there was even less in the movie.

The HBP movie is where the films really start snubbing Rowling's primary romantic pairing.

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Hmm, sounds like we had very similar experiences in going from huge fans to... uh, to so much. Did you change your mind right at the last book? It took me several years to figure it out, sadly.

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Myself, I finished DH with such an empty feeling. In part because we were shown no essential change in wizarding society, in part because of the shockingly immoral behavior of the supposed 'good guys'. But on top of that I wasn't quite sure how everything fit together - especially Dumbly's part - how much was his plan, how much dumb luck or bad luck. I stayed around fandom to pick things apart, and the longer I stayed the less flattering my view of the 'good guys' became.

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I actually hated the sixth book -- all the "training" of Harry -- passive, the depiction of the Gaunts -- offensive, turning Draco's confederates into young girls -- sexist, Hermione Confunding McLaggen to "help" Ron and abusing Ron -- creepy, the chest monster -- clumsy, Tonks turning into a wan phantom because of love then cornering Remus at someone else's sickbed -- weak, Remus "spying" on the werewolves -- pointless, Dumbledore telling Draco that it was his mercy that was important -- jerky, the whole Severus/Draco set-up -- unbelievable, Slughorn the "good" Slytherin -- no. I was so let down by the travesties of that book, the romances and Voldemort's backstory and the overall feeling of treading water.

ETA: I forgot Harry cheating the whole year and nearly killing Draco but only worrying about missing Quidditch afterwards -- sheesh, what a hero.

But, I got caught up in the whole "is Snape evil" debate. (I became an active fan after OOTP because of the turn in Snape's story in that book, so I had a horse in the race, so to speak.) Ridiculously, I carried a kernel of hope that Rowling would turn the story around in the seventh book and come out with something sophisticated and truly remarkable. I was quickly disabused of that hope.

Edited Date: 2011-09-24 06:28 am (UTC)

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Remus "spying" on the werewolves -- pointless

Hey, Albus knew about Fenrir's recruitment early on (according to The Prince's Tale, but in HBP he was supposed to be an old timer, so????). Also - that no werewolf other than Fenrir helped the DEs (as far as we know) means Remus was successful doesn't it? (Or just that Rowling forgot about any werewolves other than those two.)

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sunnyskywalker

Maybe his brand of reasoned argument wasn't so ineffective, then? Or maybe the other werewolves just didn't want to get involved. Running around with Fenrir on full moons is one thing, but joining a (gang) war? In which they might be called to fight while not transformed? Sounds like dangerous work, and would the general public - even werewolves - really trust Voldemort to keep his promises?

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That pretty much sums it up.

What was the whole chest monster thing again, though?

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The chest monster is the profound expression of Harry's true love for Ginny. *Swipes at a tear -- stop it! Crying is for babies and Slytherins.*

I found this essay (http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/features/essays/whyharrypickedginny), which sums up the references to the monster (see "The Monster Unleashed"), and paints quite an optimistic portrait of the H/G relationship. For me, the chest monster was hackneyed. I cringed each time it appeared. Not to beat a dead horse, but it did indicate the compatibility of G and H, as the wish for violent revenge towards third parties seemed to be a hallmark of both characters. Soul mates. (Then again, Hermione... violent revenge... hmm.)

I appreciate where others don't see it, and it was very poorly done, but much as Harry was the hero just because that was his designated role, it was pretty obvious to me from the first book that Ginny was the designated love interest. I mean, why have her in the book at all, especially as a fainting fan, if true love wasn't where the story was going?

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