Resolving the wrong story problem
Mar. 19th, 2023 04:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sunnyskywalker posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
deathtocapslockFilm Crit Hulk’s essay “Black Widow and the Latent Last Act Blues” has some interesting thoughts about story beginnings and endings and how they work together to provide catharsis. (I haven’t yet seen Black Widow, but the essay makes sense anyway, so don’t worry if you haven’t either unless you care about spoilers.) He thinks the beginning of the movie is pretty great in isolation, but doesn’t properly set up the end, which makes the emotional resolutions at the end feel tacked-on and lackluster.
And this helped me crystalize one of my main problems with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Now, there are a lot of problems with that book. The one I’m going to focus on here is Harry’s resigned march to his death. There are a lot of problems with this scene too — and I think one of them is that it wasn’t set up properly.
This is where one of the main themes of the whole series reaches its climax: that you have to accept death, not try to fight it forever. But…did Harry need to learn that lesson?
Voldemort, yes. Dumbledore, yes. But Harry? He accepted his own death multiple times already, starting with the time seven years ago he clung to Quirrelmort to stop him at any cost. Not to mention that time in the fifth book when he was starting to look on the bright side of death and reassuring himself that he’d see Sirius and his parents again soon. No, Harry never really struggled with the idea of dying. He reliably rushed into danger he wasn’t sure he would survive from start to finish, and was explicitly resigned to dying, even eager, when it seemed inevitable, years before his (temporary) death.
And that makes his suicide march feel a lot more manipulative. Yes, it’s sad that a teenager who should have his whole life ahead of him is about to die. But we haven’t seen him struggling against a fear of death until that point, so it doesn’t resolve a character arc and doesn’t provide catharsis. It’s just depressing.
How might this climax have been set up better? I can think of a bunch of possibilities, some better than others. You’d need to add enough of these, or other scenarios which serve the same purpose, to make it clear that Harry is sufficiently afraid of dying that he might not be able to knowingly march to his death even to save the world. Preferably, his attempts to avoid dying would have caused him or someone else significant trouble at least once.
Alternatively, with different set-up, the emotional climax and the meaning of the suicide march could have been different. Harry could have had a problem letting other people knowingly sacrifice themselves, overcome this problem in time to let Snape do so, and then (after learning the full truth) truly understood how those other people felt when he discovered it was his turn to die. He might have sneaked off alone specifically so that his friends wouldn’t suffer the way he did in their places, and hoped Ron and Hermione would feel that he was always with him the way the shades from the Resurrection Stone were with him as he went to meet Voldemort.
As it is, Harry usually tried to prevent other people’s deaths, grieved when they died, and sometimes didn’t want to believe someone had really died — but he didn’t have plot-affecting trouble letting others risk or sacrifice their lives. So what might set up this alternative?
What would you add to these lists?
Can you see other story problems the existing ending could have resolved if only they had been set up properly?
What about suggestions for a different spin on the ending or different ending altogether that resolves the existing story problems to that point? For that matter, what do you see as the problems Harry has to resolve in the story as it stands?
“that’s supposed to be the big lesson that’s at the heart of everything, right? And we genuinely do get the sentiment / fallout of it, but we’re still missing the most important thing that makes us care for it. Because there isn’t that first act thing where we experience the heartbreak of that along with them. […] ‘What is the thing they can do at the end of the movie that they couldn’t do at the beginning?’”
And this helped me crystalize one of my main problems with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Now, there are a lot of problems with that book. The one I’m going to focus on here is Harry’s resigned march to his death. There are a lot of problems with this scene too — and I think one of them is that it wasn’t set up properly.
This is where one of the main themes of the whole series reaches its climax: that you have to accept death, not try to fight it forever. But…did Harry need to learn that lesson?
Voldemort, yes. Dumbledore, yes. But Harry? He accepted his own death multiple times already, starting with the time seven years ago he clung to Quirrelmort to stop him at any cost. Not to mention that time in the fifth book when he was starting to look on the bright side of death and reassuring himself that he’d see Sirius and his parents again soon. No, Harry never really struggled with the idea of dying. He reliably rushed into danger he wasn’t sure he would survive from start to finish, and was explicitly resigned to dying, even eager, when it seemed inevitable, years before his (temporary) death.
And that makes his suicide march feel a lot more manipulative. Yes, it’s sad that a teenager who should have his whole life ahead of him is about to die. But we haven’t seen him struggling against a fear of death until that point, so it doesn’t resolve a character arc and doesn’t provide catharsis. It’s just depressing.
How might this climax have been set up better? I can think of a bunch of possibilities, some better than others. You’d need to add enough of these, or other scenarios which serve the same purpose, to make it clear that Harry is sufficiently afraid of dying that he might not be able to knowingly march to his death even to save the world. Preferably, his attempts to avoid dying would have caused him or someone else significant trouble at least once.
- Harry could have wondered if there was a way to make the philosopher’s stone produce the Elixir of Life really quickly so he could survive Voldemort’s second attempt to kill him, or tried to keep it from Voldemort partly so he could use it himself, or felt disappointed that he wouldn’t get any Elixir as a reward afterward.
- Tom could have offered to spare Ginny if Harry would volunteer to die in her place, and Harry might have hesitated. Then the Hat-and-Fawkes intervention spared him from making the choice, or he realized that Tom wouldn’t keep his promise anyway. But it could have left Harry wondering if he could knowingly choose death.
- He could have tried to convince Hermione to give him the time-turner and pretend she’d lost it during the adventure, or outright tried to steal it, in case he ever needed it to escape death. I mean, suppose he hadn’t realized in time that he had cast the Patronus that saved past-him and past-Sirius? Then he’d need a time-turner to get that time, wouldn’t he? So he’d better hang onto it in case he runs into similar situations.
- He could have ducked behind Cedric in the graveyard. It might not technically matter since Peter would have aimed at Cedric regardless, but it would show a fear of death.
- He could have delayed reporting Nagini’s attack on Arthur because he was worried about getting the Dementor’s Kiss as punishment — long enough that Arthur died.
- He could have lost his nerve after years of mortal peril and decided not to rescue Sirius, only to be talked into it by his friends.
- He could have started wondering if this Prince fellow had left any notes on alchemy. Could Harry learn to make a philosopher’s stone so that he would never need to die?
- He could have stood frozen and silent under his invisibility cloak while Snape killed Dumbledore not because he was magically Petrified, but because he was too scared to act.
- He could have been tempted to search for the Hallows rather than the Horcruxes so that he could become Master of Death and, you know, not die in the fight against Voldemort. Or ever.
- He could have been tempted to use Hermione’s pilfered Horcrux books and his window into Voldemort’s mind to learn how to make a Horcrux. Only so that he could survive to kill Voldemort, honest. Would it be so very wrong if his victim wasn’t an innocent one? Maybe he could ambush Yaxley in Grimmauld Place…
Alternatively, with different set-up, the emotional climax and the meaning of the suicide march could have been different. Harry could have had a problem letting other people knowingly sacrifice themselves, overcome this problem in time to let Snape do so, and then (after learning the full truth) truly understood how those other people felt when he discovered it was his turn to die. He might have sneaked off alone specifically so that his friends wouldn’t suffer the way he did in their places, and hoped Ron and Hermione would feel that he was always with him the way the shades from the Resurrection Stone were with him as he went to meet Voldemort.
As it is, Harry usually tried to prevent other people’s deaths, grieved when they died, and sometimes didn’t want to believe someone had really died — but he didn’t have plot-affecting trouble letting others risk or sacrifice their lives. So what might set up this alternative?
- He could have tried to stop Ron from sacrificing himself on the giant chess board, leading to Ron getting an even worse clonk on the head than he otherwise would have. Hermione would drag Harry away, arguing that “Snape” (who they thought was the thief) would kill them all on his way out of the maze if he got the stone and became immortal, so the only way to save Ron was to stop “Snape” first.
- Voldemort could have tempted Harry with the idea that the Elixir of Life could bring back his parents. Then when Dumbledore later explained that Lily died to save Harry, we’d wonder if bringing her back — if that were possible, because of course we wouldn’t trust Voldemort’s promises, but maybe there was some other way — would destroy the magical protection.
- He could have wondered why, if they could use the time-turner to save Buckbeak and Sirius (and himself), no one used a time-turner to save his parents.
- He could have tried to keep Hermione’s time-turner in case he needed it to save other people.
- He could have fantasized about having a time-turner to save Cedric, or tried to run back to the time room in the Department of Mysteries to get one to save Sirius from the Veil, or to warn himself and Dumbledore to land anywhere but the Astronomy Tower.
- Voldemort’s false vision could have been that Sirius had allowed himself to be captured — for a strategic reason, or because it would save someone else, or whatever. Harry couldn’t bear the idea of letting Sirius choose to sacrifice himself and rushed off to save him — which led to Sirius putting himself in fatal danger for real.
- Harry could have tried harder to run through the Veil after Sirius — close enough to have a noticeable effect. Maybe his bangs made it through and something happened to them.
- He could have wondered if he could learn to make a philosopher’s stone so that no one he loved would ever die again.
- Maybe he could have escaped the Astronomy Tower before the Death Eaters arrived but chose to stay and “protect” the weakened Dumbledore, which led to him witnessing Snape kill Dumbledore, which meant that instead of everyone thinking Draco or the Carrows or Greyback killed Dumbledore, Snape’s cover was blown and he couldn’t pass the Order vital information anymore. Which would get someone killed.
- He could have tried to stop someone from jumping in front of a Killing Curse to save him during the Seven Potters battle…which would go badly wrong and lead only to someone else getting hit by the curse. Saving Hagrid only to lose Moody, maybe.
- He could have thought that the Horcrux hunt might fail without Remus’s help for some reason, but shamed Remus into staying home with his family because it seemed safer for all of them. At some point on the quest he’d realize that Remus would have been able to provide critical help and they wouldn’t be in such dire straits if only he’d let Remus decide for himself what risk was acceptable.
- He could have been seriously torn between joining the fighting at Hogwarts to save people in immanent danger and finding the diadem to save people in the future.
- He could have realized that Snape was deliberately withholding the truth about who disarmed Dumbledore from Voldemort, saving Draco at the cost of his own life. And wanted to interfere, but forced himself not to because he was finally learning his lesson. Though this wouldn’t work very well, because if Snape died without passing on his final memories, they probably would have lost — and Harry had no way of knowing Snape had critical information to pass on or that Snape would live long enough after Voldemort left to do so. Kind of a muddled message.
What would you add to these lists?
Can you see other story problems the existing ending could have resolved if only they had been set up properly?
What about suggestions for a different spin on the ending or different ending altogether that resolves the existing story problems to that point? For that matter, what do you see as the problems Harry has to resolve in the story as it stands?
no subject
Date: 2023-04-01 03:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-02 12:45 am (UTC)The funny (and depressing) thing about HP books is you could easily have that- the way Jo wrote the first 4 books (or even 5, but I have a lot of issues with OotP) you could have easily ended Voldemort arc in OoTP and use two following books she was contracted for to defeat the true villain. After all, we already have Albus' shifty behaviour starting from the very beginning and in as early COS we can see that there is something very wrong with MOM
Writer could have in OotP, where Albus keeps his distance from Harry, have Harry start to question Albus' past actions. Why Albus in PS spent so much time in MOM that he only arrived to save Harry's ass? Surely, he knows how to apparate if Artur does. What exactly Dumbledore in COS meant by never truly leaving Hogwarts? etc. In beginning, Harry is in denial about what his subconsciousness tries to tell him and he focuses on the obvious enemy- the corrupted Ministry from which nobody is protecting him. Considering how skilled canon Harry is at denying reality, it probably would take Harry accidentally walking in on... maybe Severus doing something shifty and having an argument where both of them lose their temper?
I would love to read something like this. It's hard to find anti-Dumbledore ffs that don't have him to be a moustache-twirling villain, let alone well-written ffs with this premise.
no subject
Date: 2023-04-02 03:22 am (UTC)There would have to be some telling detail neither of them could have known about unless Dumbledore told them to convince them that wait, he really did give them contradictory stories that would make them not trust each other. What's up with that?
It would be great if Harry went through the whole journey of "well maybe he doesn't mean to do anything wrong and doesn't realize and also he had a hard childhood and stuff," then realizes that may all be true but it doesn't stop Dumbledore from doing harm by using all of wizarding Britain to act out his psychodrama. Even if he's ultimately a victim himself, he still needs to be stopped.
no subject
Date: 2023-04-04 09:41 am (UTC)I think in this scenario Albus should be doing fucked up things with good intentions. After all, he was the one who said choices show who you are and I'm all for Dumbledore's past self-righteous speeches biting him in his ass. Also, it makes for a great ending to children/YA series.