Sorry, hwyla, you're trying valiantly, but canon doesn't support you. JKR was just too inconsistent in her descriptions of the tunnel.
Here's Harry and Hermione first entering it in PoA: "This way," said Harry, setting off, bent-backed, after Crookshanks....
They [H&H] moved as fast as they could, bent almost double; ahead of them, Crookshank's tail bobbed in and out of view. On and on wnet the passage; it felt at least as long as the one to Honeydukes..... All Harry could think of was Ron and what the enormous dog might be doing to him.... He was drawing breath in sharp, painful gasps, running at a crouch....
But two chapters later, yes, Harry and Sirius are carrying on an emotionally-fraught conversation, without ever noticing they are crouching the whole time, while Lupin, Pettigrew, and Ron, chained together, were turned sideways to fit down the tunnel while also (one presumes) bending over double. Getting back into the tunnel was difficult. Lupin, Pettigre, and Ron had to turn sideways.... Hary could see them edging awkwardly along the tunnel in single file. Crookshanks was still in the lead. Harry went right after Black, who was still making Snape drift along ahead of them; he kept bumping his lolling head on the low ceiling. Harry had the impression Black was making no effort to prevent this.
So going DOWN the tunnel it was so low that two teens had to crouch the whole way. Coming back, it was so NARROW that three people chained together (none of them large) had to go single-file.
Um, while simultaneously bending over double? Does anyone else notice the contradiction here? I mean, when I'm crouch "double" to reduce my vertical footprint, I'm automatically increasing the horizontal space I occupy.
Let's pause to visualize this fully. Three people, chained together, bent over double, are making their way-single-file, sideways, down a long (half-mile? Two mile?) tunnel. One is a twitchy werewolf, feeling the pull of the moon. One is a rat Animagus, desperate to escape.
One is a fourteen-year-old boy hobbling on a broken leg. Which has been crudely splinted, not set, and he's had no painkillers.
And Ron's inching his way along, sideways, down a tunnel, bent almost double the whole way? While being sporadically jerked off his balance by the restless wolf and the terrified and longing-to-escape criminal?
For MILES?
Um, yeah.
*
Sorry, I specialize in Watsonian apologia, but my imagination fails at this. I don't think there IS a way to parse this one except in Doylist terms: That JKR failed, spectacularly, to think about what she wrote, and her editors failed utterly to correct her.
There's no way to make the tunnel that Jo actually wrote in her various iterations work. So any meta-writer or fanfic author is free to make the tunnel whatever works in hir own works. BUT SUCH A WRITER MUST (unlike Jo) be internally consistent if s/he wishes to be honorable.
That is, if I write a meta on the Potterverse contingent on, say, the tunnel being only navigable by running wolves, I can't turn around the next day and say adults could stroll down the same tunnel.
Even though Jo effectively did.
*
(Of course, I CAN honorably write fanfics or metas exploring opposing possibilities--that the tunnel was open to humans, or that it was nearly closed. So long as I signal which possiblity a particular fic/meta was choosing to explore. And so long as I don't try to switch in mid-fic or mid-meta as plot-convenience drives me.)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2012-08-04 05:58 am (UTC)Here's Harry and Hermione first entering it in PoA:
"This way," said Harry, setting off, bent-backed, after Crookshanks....
They [H&H] moved as fast as they could, bent almost double; ahead of them, Crookshank's tail bobbed in and out of view. On and on wnet the passage; it felt at least as long as the one to Honeydukes..... All Harry could think of was Ron and what the enormous dog might be doing to him.... He was drawing breath in sharp, painful gasps, running at a crouch....
But two chapters later, yes, Harry and Sirius are carrying on an emotionally-fraught conversation, without ever noticing they are crouching the whole time, while Lupin, Pettigrew, and Ron, chained together, were turned sideways to fit down the tunnel while also (one presumes) bending over double.
Getting back into the tunnel was difficult. Lupin, Pettigre, and Ron had to turn sideways.... Hary could see them edging awkwardly along the tunnel in single file. Crookshanks was still in the lead. Harry went right after Black, who was still making Snape drift along ahead of them; he kept bumping his lolling head on the low ceiling. Harry had the impression Black was making no effort to prevent this.
So going DOWN the tunnel it was so low that two teens had to crouch the whole way. Coming back, it was so NARROW that three people chained together (none of them large) had to go single-file.
Um, while simultaneously bending over double? Does anyone else notice the contradiction here? I mean, when I'm crouch "double" to reduce my vertical footprint, I'm automatically increasing the horizontal space I occupy.
Let's pause to visualize this fully. Three people, chained together, bent over double, are making their way-single-file, sideways, down a long (half-mile? Two mile?) tunnel. One is a twitchy werewolf, feeling the pull of the moon. One is a rat Animagus, desperate to escape.
One is a fourteen-year-old boy hobbling on a broken leg. Which has been crudely splinted, not set, and he's had no painkillers.
And Ron's inching his way along, sideways, down a tunnel, bent almost double the whole way? While being sporadically jerked off his balance by the restless wolf and the terrified and longing-to-escape criminal?
For MILES?
Um, yeah.
*
Sorry, I specialize in Watsonian apologia, but my imagination fails at this. I don't think there IS a way to parse this one except in Doylist terms: That JKR failed, spectacularly, to think about what she wrote, and her editors failed utterly to correct her.
There's no way to make the tunnel that Jo actually wrote in her various iterations work. So any meta-writer or fanfic author is free to make the tunnel whatever works in hir own works. BUT SUCH A WRITER MUST (unlike Jo) be internally consistent if s/he wishes to be honorable.
That is, if I write a meta on the Potterverse contingent on, say, the tunnel being only navigable by running wolves, I can't turn around the next day and say adults could stroll down the same tunnel.
Even though Jo effectively did.
*
(Of course, I CAN honorably write fanfics or metas exploring opposing possibilities--that the tunnel was open to humans, or that it was nearly closed. So long as I signal which possiblity a particular fic/meta was choosing to explore. And so long as I don't try to switch in mid-fic or mid-meta as plot-convenience drives me.)