deathtocapslock | Deathly Hallows, chapter 2

anehan posting in

In Memoriam

* The Dursleys are leaving tea cups outside Harry's bedroom door. What are they, house elves?

*Harry has never learned to heal wounds and thinks it's a serious flaw in his magical education. Maybe he ought to have, you know, studied during the six years at Hogwarts instead of letting Hermione do all his work for him. Sorry, Harry, but you have no one else than yourself to blame. Normal people, if they had a lunatic after their blood, would have actually devoted some time for making sure they weren't completely unprepared.

* Harry has never cleaned his trunk before. Gross. Our Harry isn't much for hygiene.

* Finding a fragment of the mirror Sirius had given him, Harry feels a sudden upsurge of bitter memories, stabs of regret and longing. He suffers, I tell you.

* Harry is going to take his photograh album and a stack of letters with him. Good lord, what does he think he's going to do with them. The boy is an idiot.

* And we come to the sickening obituary by Elphias Doge. One more person whom Dumbledore managed to hoodwink into believing he was a noble person.

* Dumbledore never revealed the remotest anti-Muggle tendency. Except when he bullied the Dursleys. But that doesn't count, because the Dursleys totally deserved it.

* Dumbledore became the most brilliant student Hogwarts had ever seen and constantly outshone his friends. Bet he liked that. It would have done good for him to be second-best at something. Instead, everything confirmed him in his belief that he was superior to others and that it was his duty to manipulate others for the greater good.

* According to Doge, Dumbledore never had Ministerial ambitions. True enough. He just wanted to take over the world.

* "Albus Dumbledore was never proud or vain". Ahahahahahaa!

* Dumbledore's losses "endowed him with great humanity and sympathy". Bitch, please. The man is clearly incapable of empathy.

* Doge was right in one thing, though: Dumbledore always worked for the greater good. Too bad his methods and definition of "greater good" were rather questionable.

* Harry had thought he knew Dumbledore quite well. What made him think that? The great openness Dumbledore displayed in his dealings with Harry, perhaps?

* Harry thinks that the idea of a teen-aged Dumbledore was odd, like trying to imagine a stupid Hermione. Much as I love Hermione, I have no problem in imagining her stupid. She isn't half so clever as she likes to think. For example, what good did it do to the DA to brand the traitor's face? It didn't prevent Marietta from squealing.

* The only personal question Harry had asked Dumbledore was the only one he suspected Dumbledore hadn't answered honestly. That's too naïve even for Harry.

* Unpleasant Skeeter may be, but I at least would rather read her book than any more of Doge's pennings. There might ever be a shred of truth in what she writes, if you manage to discount the more lurid details.

* Skeeter calls the Potter-Dumbledore relationship unhealthy, even sinister. Brava! At least someone finally got it right.

* Another chapter in which nothing happens comes to an end. I really need that alcohol to get through this.

Informed Attributes:
Dumbledore is noble. No, really.

Misdirected Answering:
Did you hear what Dumbledore got up to as a teenager? What do you mean, you're not interested?

Nut o' Fun:
Desiccated beetle eyes.

Final score: 3. Nothing happens in this chapter.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

violaswamp.livejournal.com

As I read this, I'm starting to think we're really only inches apart, not miles; but we're each clinging rather fiercely to those inches.

Probably true! I suspect semantics are a problem here, and maybe we should agree to mostly-agree.

But my point is that there is nothing about an egg which inherently suggests cake.

Okay, but I wouldn't object to an egg being described as a "cakey" ingredient, if there were such a word. Or as a "quichey" or "sunny-side-up-y" ingredient, if you see what I mean. In the same way, I wouldn't object to some interactions between (for instance) Kirk and Spock being described as "sexual" or as "brotherly," "platonic," "comradely," etc. I think you're seeing my description of certain interactions as "sexual" as implying that the sexuality or potential for it somehow overrides the other possibilities. I'm making a much, much weaker claim than that.

Furthermore, in order to get cake, you have to add a lot of other things to the egg. Where do those other ingredients come from?

True, and from what I've seen of (for instance) Sirius/Lupin shippers, many of them think they've got more than just the egg. They think they've got the equivalent of eggs, flour, sugar and icing sitting on the counter--all of which, taken together, can't help but be suggestive of cake. For some slash couples (or het couples, for that matter), I really do think there are eggs and flour and all the other ingredients sitting there, even if they haven't been baked together. But in a lot of slash discussions, I've seen this presumption that because a ship is m/m or f/f, there cannot possibly be more than the egg. I suspect this is what gets slashers riled.

you also appear to me to be putting extra weight on the sexual reading

I see. If it appears that way, it's because I think fandom as a whole puts more weight on the sexual reading. Not only do fans get more excited about the sexual reading a lot of the time, but fans who dislike a particular relationship will demand a higher burden of proof for sexual tension between two characters than for (say) anger, or jealousy, or affection with parental or sibling-type undertones, or threatening attitudes, or any other type of emotion between two characters. So discussing sexuality becomes so much more high-decibel and pedantic than discussing the possibility of other types of interactions, and I guess I was reacting to that.

If the "flour" truly is generic, then it is factors outside the text which incline people to the sexual reading, not the text itself.

Okay, I think I see what a source of disagreement here is: I think it is the text itself and the factors outside the text that incline people to the sexual reading. I was discussing the text itself, but I don't deny outside factors. I just don't think outside factors are sufficient without textual support. I think that the text contains suggestions which, for many people (based on their experiences prior to encountering the text), will be taken as sexual. And for others, again based on prior experience, will not. So the outside factors are certainly there, yes, but so are the internal factors. It's the interaction between the two that does it. If the outside factors are there but the actual text doesn't have those cues, I don't think people will just read the cues into the text. Maybe the occasional individual with super-strong slasher goggles will, but the Average Slash Fan won't, IMO.

Does that make sense?

I also suspect we've spent time around different types of HP fans. Most of the ones I've known are more inclined towards non-slash or even anti-slash readings, so I haven't talked to too many people who think everyone agrees with the slash reading. I can easily see how that assumption would get tiresome.

From:

cressida0201.livejournal.com

I wouldn't object to an egg being described as a "cakey" ingredient, if there were such a word. Or as a "quichey" or "sunny-side-up-y" ingredient, if you see what I mean.

See, I do object to that. Even when it's confined to something relatively uncontroversial like cooking, it offends my sense of logic and accuracy. Describing the eggs exclusively in terms of any one use is sloppy, unnecessarily limiting, and potentially misleading.

On the other hand, if the person making the statement acknowledges that it is a perception rather than an objective fact, I don't mind at all. "I always think of cake when I see eggs" doesn't bother me in the slightest.

I think you're seeing my description of certain interactions as "sexual" as implying that the sexuality or potential for it somehow overrides the other possibilities. I'm making a much, much weaker claim than that.

Okay, I accept that when you explain it, but I do think your way of stating it is misleading. (What do you say when you do think the text only supports the assumption that the characters are shagging like bunnies off-page?) Also, if that's all you meant, I am now rather confused as to why you contradicted me in the first place, when I was so careful to state that I thought the sexual reading was possible, but I objected to the assumption that it was required.

They think they've got the equivalent of eggs, flour, sugar and icing sitting on the counter--all of which, taken together, can't help but be suggestive of cake.

I accept that some people really do think that, but I can't for the life of me see it. I'm happy to agree to disagree with them, but I appreciate it if they allow for the possibility of other readings.

But in a lot of slash discussions, I've seen this presumption that because a ship is m/m or f/f, there cannot possibly be more than the egg.

Well, in a lot of slash and ship discussions, I've seen this presumption that because you have two characters and an egg, the cake is a given.

I suspect this is what gets slashers riled.

That cuts both ways. I've seen an enormous number of discussions assuming that because a ship is m/m or f/f, anybody who isn't seeing all the glorious sexual possibilities is frigid at best and an evil heteronormative oppressor at worst.

I just don't think outside factors are sufficient without textual support.

Sufficient for what? You did make reference above to people who go around happily slashing everyone in sight for no particular reason. Presumably that comes from outside factors?

The "interaction" thing is expanded in part 2, so I'll respond there.

From:

violaswamp.livejournal.com

Sufficient for what?

outside factors are not sufficient for popularity, or perhaps mainstream acceptance, of a ship. I'll agree that they are sufficient for some random fan to write a fic about that pairing, sure.

As for why I contradicted you in the first place, I'll admit my initial comment was casual and off-hand and had less to do with the specific content of your comment and more to do with recollections of arguments I've read in the past which your comment reminded me of. I certainly didn't think it would spark this much debate!

From:

cressida0201.livejournal.com

outside factors are not sufficient for popularity, or perhaps mainstream acceptance, of a ship.

I think they probably can be, especially among a younger crowd or a crowd that's strongly into slash as a genre and approaches each new fandom with the hope of finding slashability. However, I don't think there's any way to prove either of our positions, so I'm not sure we can go much further with this.

I certainly didn't think it would spark this much debate!

Heh, and I was expecting to get this debate from