Deathly Hallows Chapter 2
May. 19th, 2009 04:23 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslockDeathly Hallows: Chapter 2
In Memoriam
This chapter starts with the bang-o sentence: “Harry was bleeding.” Way to get our attention! Unfortunately, we’ll eventually find out that Harry is bleeding because he’s an idiot.
Humorously, Harry steps on a teacup placed just outside his room. I think it would have been funnier if Harry had been barefoot. Then he’d be bleeding in two places and he’d have to hop to the bathroom. Then, maybe he could lose his balance on the slippery tiles and end up with his head in the toilet. I’m really surprised Rowling missed his opportunity.
Instead, Harry merely picks up the pieces of broken teacup and throws them into a bin, speculating that the cup is Cousin Dudley’s “clever” idea of a trap.
I’d like to take a moment here to comment on Dudley’s devolution as a villain in the series. In PS/SS, Dudley was mercilessly beating on Harry and terrorizing all the other kids at school from even considering Harry as friend material. He was then punished with by karma and Hagrid with a pig’s tail. And after that he… what does he do, exactly? Nothing much to Harry as I recall. In CoS and PoA, he’s just there, enjoying the adoration of adults who dislike Harry. In GoF, he’s fat. In OotP, he’s shaped up and he’s bullying other kids—but not Harry. In HBP, his only crime is to refuse an alcoholic drink (which, in our country would be considered responsible behavior for an underage boy).
So, in DH, Dudley is reduced to placing teacups outside Harry’s door in a vain attempt to express his admiration. Something which Harry, who is apparently blind to Dudley’s actual mindset, interprets as a hostile action. No, Harry. Dudley isn’t your enemy. He’s your House Elf.
But, then Harry is distracted by the thought that he has four whole days until he can do magic. Not that his magic can heal anything. Even the narrator on Harry’s shoulder thinks he’s lame for never taking a Wizard’s First Aid class.
That should have been one of the elective courses, don’t you think? They could have called it the “Spells That Aren’t as Flashy as Turning Hedgehogs into Pin Cushions But a Whole Lot More Useful” class.
As for me, I’m distracted with wondering why Dudley didn’t set the teacup on an end table or something. Or maybe knock on the door so that Harry would get the tea before it got cold. But then, he’s never been portrayed as being very clever.
You know, I’m not trying to be mean about Harry... he is the hero and I’m trying as hard as I can to like him, but I can’t get over this next bit. We’re told that in six years, Harry’s never really unpacked his trunk completely, but always left a layer of “mulch” at the bottom. Is this a boy thing? I’m a really messy person, but I unpack my bags when I get home. And, if there’s broken glass in it, I clean it out. Even if it means lugging in the vacuum cleaner to my room. It’s not like I have this handy little stick on me at all times that will magically clean stuff.
Also, if I cut myself on something embedded in “mulch,” I put Bactine on the cut. Or iodine. Or clean it out with alcohol. Just because you’re a wizard doesn’t mean you can’t get infected.
Oddly, Harry thinks that his uncle and aunt will probably burn his things in the middle of the night, because they are so anti-magic. He’s obviously forgetting that his aunt and uncle are supposed to leave in an hour or so for parts unknown. The last thing they’d do is lug his stuff along with them for the pleasure of setting it on fire.
Among the things Harry is leaving behind are his school robes. What he’s keeping is his Muggle clothing. This sounds like he might be thinking of hiding out in the Muggle world. Or, that Rowling has finally owned up to the fact that Wizard clothing is stupid.
Harry packs the Marauder’s Map, not that the map will have any purpose on his Quest.
He also packs a small fragment of mirror (which he cut his finger on) and the locket which “cost” Dumbledore’s life. It seems that Harry values things by how much pain they have caused him. Or by how important they are to eventually wrapping up the plot in a surprising twist!
Meanwhile, Hedwig is pretending to sleep because she hates Harry. I’m not making it up. That’s in the book.
Hehe. Harry finds the newspaper he was looking for by remembering the short mention of Charity Burbage’s resignation on the front page. Too late, J.R! You’re placing the Chekhovian gun on the mantelpiece after it was fired!
In my book, this chapter takes up approximately 16 pages. Of those, 11 pages are filled with stuff about Albus Dumbledore’s life. Didn’t we have an entire chapter in the last book dedicated to his funeral? There wasn’t this much coverage of the John Kennedy assassination! (On the other hand, there was some effort to actually catch the man who murdered Kennedy, so maybe it balances out.)
The first article, by Elphias Doge goes something like this: I met Dumbledore when he was eleven and it was awesome! He awesome to me and awesome to Muggles. He was an awesome student and when we graduated, we were going to go on an awesome trip! But his mom died, so he didn’t go. But he was still awesome! He went on to get an awesome job as a teacher! Then he had an awesome duel and even more awesomely turned down the job as Minister of Magic! Wasn’t he awesome?
Dumbledore’s defeat of Grindelwald is considered a turning point in wizarding history on a par with the enactment of the Statute of Secrecy or the downfall of Voldemort. Consequently, it was never included in the history class at Hogwarts.
Harry feels ashamed about how little he knew Dumbledore. I think Harry’s giving himself a bum rap here. He tried to ask a personal question once when he was eleven and even then he could tell Dumbledore was lying.
Besides, Harry never even asked anyone about his parents. Nor does he know the names of Hermione’s parents. So, you know, asking personal questions isn’t Harry’s strong suit.
Then, Harry notices that Rita Skeeter is being interviewed about her upcoming book on Dumbledore’s life. Feeling the need to become enraged, he decides to read through a six-page article of “lies” about his beloved mentor.
By the way, nobody in the U.S. would ever write an interview like this (what with the descriptions of Rita tossing her hair back and such). Is this a common style for British tabloids?
Rita promises her readers that there’s a lot of nastiness in the Dumbledore family—much worse that Aberforth’s illegal goat charms. I don’t know how much nastier you can get than screwing goats. Maybe that isn’t such a big thing in the wizarding world, when you have half-giants and half-goblins running around. But it puts a whole new light on the Blast-Ended Skrewts, doesn’t it?
Rita brings up a controversial take on the famous Grindelwald duel, declaring that Grindelwald basically gave up. I wonder if this is a dropped part of the story. Why make the duel controversial, unless it has some bearing on the Elder Wand storyline? But, since we never find out how the duel went down, this never really goes anywhere and just becomes part of the whole “Was Dumbledore Just a Big Phony?” debate.
Rita goes on to insinuating that there was something “sinister” in Dumbledore’s relationship with Harry. Not that gay = pedophile by any means, but this might have been a good place to bring up the fact that Dumbledore was gay. I find Rita rather restrained for not mentioning it.
Or maybe Doge should have, just to enhance Dumbledore’s awesomeness. After all, Dumbledore appears to be the only gay person in the entire history of Wizardry.
Revolted and repulsed, Harry balls up the newspaper and throws it with all his force at the bin. Bwahaha. Nothing funnier than someone trying to throw a balled-up newspaper with force. I think that’s the nerdiest thing Harry’s ever done.
In his rage, Harry picks up the fragment of mirror and sees a flash of blue—just like Dumbledore’s eyes! He is despondent at the thought that Dumbledore’s blue eyes will never pierce him again. But he does get the consolation of having the mirror cut his finger again as he picks it up. See? They did pierce you after all!
Fan Service:
Shout-outs to Draco’s badge from GoF and Ron’s Sneakoscope from PoA.
Sirius’s two-way mirror finally makes it return!
References to Dumbledore/Harry slash! (Should that be Humbledore?)
Fan Slappage:
No, Harry can’t use the mirror to communicate with Sirius in the afterlife.
DVD Extras:
INT. DAY – GREENHOUSE NUMBER ONE
A first-year student with a pock-marked face listlessly prunes a Flutterby bush. In the background, other students can be seen working on other bushes in groups of twos and threes.
A boy, wearing the Gryffindor colors approaches. The sun, shining behind this head, turns his red hair into a golden nimbus.
GRYFFINDOR
Hullo. You look as though you could use a partner. I’m Albus. Albus Dumbledore.
The listless student, ELPHIAS DOGE, squints up at Albus.
ELPHIAS
Elphias Doge. No one wants to work with me. They’re afraid I’m catching.
ALBUS
That’s silly. Dragon Pox is only contagious for the first two weeks.
He takes out a pair of secaturs and squats down. They begin working on the bush. After a moment:
ELPHIAS
Oh, I say! You’re Dumbledore. Is it true that your father is in Azkaban?
Albus nods.
ELPHIAS
I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as the papers made it sound.
ALBUS
It was.
ELPHIAS
Oh, sorry.
There is an awkward silence. Finally, Albus sits back on his heels:
ALBUS
Well, that’s a jolly good job, if I do say so myself.
They smile shyly at each other.
ALBUS (cont’d)
So… shall we go wank off behind the shed for a bit?
ELPHIAS
(beaming) Oh, I say! Rather!
FADE OUT
In Memoriam
This chapter starts with the bang-o sentence: “Harry was bleeding.” Way to get our attention! Unfortunately, we’ll eventually find out that Harry is bleeding because he’s an idiot.
Humorously, Harry steps on a teacup placed just outside his room. I think it would have been funnier if Harry had been barefoot. Then he’d be bleeding in two places and he’d have to hop to the bathroom. Then, maybe he could lose his balance on the slippery tiles and end up with his head in the toilet. I’m really surprised Rowling missed his opportunity.
Instead, Harry merely picks up the pieces of broken teacup and throws them into a bin, speculating that the cup is Cousin Dudley’s “clever” idea of a trap.
I’d like to take a moment here to comment on Dudley’s devolution as a villain in the series. In PS/SS, Dudley was mercilessly beating on Harry and terrorizing all the other kids at school from even considering Harry as friend material. He was then punished with by karma and Hagrid with a pig’s tail. And after that he… what does he do, exactly? Nothing much to Harry as I recall. In CoS and PoA, he’s just there, enjoying the adoration of adults who dislike Harry. In GoF, he’s fat. In OotP, he’s shaped up and he’s bullying other kids—but not Harry. In HBP, his only crime is to refuse an alcoholic drink (which, in our country would be considered responsible behavior for an underage boy).
So, in DH, Dudley is reduced to placing teacups outside Harry’s door in a vain attempt to express his admiration. Something which Harry, who is apparently blind to Dudley’s actual mindset, interprets as a hostile action. No, Harry. Dudley isn’t your enemy. He’s your House Elf.
But, then Harry is distracted by the thought that he has four whole days until he can do magic. Not that his magic can heal anything. Even the narrator on Harry’s shoulder thinks he’s lame for never taking a Wizard’s First Aid class.
That should have been one of the elective courses, don’t you think? They could have called it the “Spells That Aren’t as Flashy as Turning Hedgehogs into Pin Cushions But a Whole Lot More Useful” class.
As for me, I’m distracted with wondering why Dudley didn’t set the teacup on an end table or something. Or maybe knock on the door so that Harry would get the tea before it got cold. But then, he’s never been portrayed as being very clever.
You know, I’m not trying to be mean about Harry... he is the hero and I’m trying as hard as I can to like him, but I can’t get over this next bit. We’re told that in six years, Harry’s never really unpacked his trunk completely, but always left a layer of “mulch” at the bottom. Is this a boy thing? I’m a really messy person, but I unpack my bags when I get home. And, if there’s broken glass in it, I clean it out. Even if it means lugging in the vacuum cleaner to my room. It’s not like I have this handy little stick on me at all times that will magically clean stuff.
Also, if I cut myself on something embedded in “mulch,” I put Bactine on the cut. Or iodine. Or clean it out with alcohol. Just because you’re a wizard doesn’t mean you can’t get infected.
Oddly, Harry thinks that his uncle and aunt will probably burn his things in the middle of the night, because they are so anti-magic. He’s obviously forgetting that his aunt and uncle are supposed to leave in an hour or so for parts unknown. The last thing they’d do is lug his stuff along with them for the pleasure of setting it on fire.
Among the things Harry is leaving behind are his school robes. What he’s keeping is his Muggle clothing. This sounds like he might be thinking of hiding out in the Muggle world. Or, that Rowling has finally owned up to the fact that Wizard clothing is stupid.
Harry packs the Marauder’s Map, not that the map will have any purpose on his Quest.
He also packs a small fragment of mirror (which he cut his finger on) and the locket which “cost” Dumbledore’s life. It seems that Harry values things by how much pain they have caused him. Or by how important they are to eventually wrapping up the plot in a surprising twist!
Meanwhile, Hedwig is pretending to sleep because she hates Harry. I’m not making it up. That’s in the book.
Hehe. Harry finds the newspaper he was looking for by remembering the short mention of Charity Burbage’s resignation on the front page. Too late, J.R! You’re placing the Chekhovian gun on the mantelpiece after it was fired!
In my book, this chapter takes up approximately 16 pages. Of those, 11 pages are filled with stuff about Albus Dumbledore’s life. Didn’t we have an entire chapter in the last book dedicated to his funeral? There wasn’t this much coverage of the John Kennedy assassination! (On the other hand, there was some effort to actually catch the man who murdered Kennedy, so maybe it balances out.)
The first article, by Elphias Doge goes something like this: I met Dumbledore when he was eleven and it was awesome! He awesome to me and awesome to Muggles. He was an awesome student and when we graduated, we were going to go on an awesome trip! But his mom died, so he didn’t go. But he was still awesome! He went on to get an awesome job as a teacher! Then he had an awesome duel and even more awesomely turned down the job as Minister of Magic! Wasn’t he awesome?
Dumbledore’s defeat of Grindelwald is considered a turning point in wizarding history on a par with the enactment of the Statute of Secrecy or the downfall of Voldemort. Consequently, it was never included in the history class at Hogwarts.
Harry feels ashamed about how little he knew Dumbledore. I think Harry’s giving himself a bum rap here. He tried to ask a personal question once when he was eleven and even then he could tell Dumbledore was lying.
Besides, Harry never even asked anyone about his parents. Nor does he know the names of Hermione’s parents. So, you know, asking personal questions isn’t Harry’s strong suit.
Then, Harry notices that Rita Skeeter is being interviewed about her upcoming book on Dumbledore’s life. Feeling the need to become enraged, he decides to read through a six-page article of “lies” about his beloved mentor.
By the way, nobody in the U.S. would ever write an interview like this (what with the descriptions of Rita tossing her hair back and such). Is this a common style for British tabloids?
Rita promises her readers that there’s a lot of nastiness in the Dumbledore family—much worse that Aberforth’s illegal goat charms. I don’t know how much nastier you can get than screwing goats. Maybe that isn’t such a big thing in the wizarding world, when you have half-giants and half-goblins running around. But it puts a whole new light on the Blast-Ended Skrewts, doesn’t it?
Rita brings up a controversial take on the famous Grindelwald duel, declaring that Grindelwald basically gave up. I wonder if this is a dropped part of the story. Why make the duel controversial, unless it has some bearing on the Elder Wand storyline? But, since we never find out how the duel went down, this never really goes anywhere and just becomes part of the whole “Was Dumbledore Just a Big Phony?” debate.
Rita goes on to insinuating that there was something “sinister” in Dumbledore’s relationship with Harry. Not that gay = pedophile by any means, but this might have been a good place to bring up the fact that Dumbledore was gay. I find Rita rather restrained for not mentioning it.
Or maybe Doge should have, just to enhance Dumbledore’s awesomeness. After all, Dumbledore appears to be the only gay person in the entire history of Wizardry.
Revolted and repulsed, Harry balls up the newspaper and throws it with all his force at the bin. Bwahaha. Nothing funnier than someone trying to throw a balled-up newspaper with force. I think that’s the nerdiest thing Harry’s ever done.
In his rage, Harry picks up the fragment of mirror and sees a flash of blue—just like Dumbledore’s eyes! He is despondent at the thought that Dumbledore’s blue eyes will never pierce him again. But he does get the consolation of having the mirror cut his finger again as he picks it up. See? They did pierce you after all!
Fan Service:
Shout-outs to Draco’s badge from GoF and Ron’s Sneakoscope from PoA.
Sirius’s two-way mirror finally makes it return!
References to Dumbledore/Harry slash! (Should that be Humbledore?)
Fan Slappage:
No, Harry can’t use the mirror to communicate with Sirius in the afterlife.
DVD Extras:
INT. DAY – GREENHOUSE NUMBER ONE
A first-year student with a pock-marked face listlessly prunes a Flutterby bush. In the background, other students can be seen working on other bushes in groups of twos and threes.
A boy, wearing the Gryffindor colors approaches. The sun, shining behind this head, turns his red hair into a golden nimbus.
GRYFFINDOR
Hullo. You look as though you could use a partner. I’m Albus. Albus Dumbledore.
The listless student, ELPHIAS DOGE, squints up at Albus.
ELPHIAS
Elphias Doge. No one wants to work with me. They’re afraid I’m catching.
ALBUS
That’s silly. Dragon Pox is only contagious for the first two weeks.
He takes out a pair of secaturs and squats down. They begin working on the bush. After a moment:
ELPHIAS
Oh, I say! You’re Dumbledore. Is it true that your father is in Azkaban?
Albus nods.
ELPHIAS
I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as the papers made it sound.
ALBUS
It was.
ELPHIAS
Oh, sorry.
There is an awkward silence. Finally, Albus sits back on his heels:
ALBUS
Well, that’s a jolly good job, if I do say so myself.
They smile shyly at each other.
ALBUS (cont’d)
So… shall we go wank off behind the shed for a bit?
ELPHIAS
(beaming) Oh, I say! Rather!
FADE OUT
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-20 09:23 pm (UTC)She must have kept plugging away, and her lack of coherent plotline was what caused her to start repeating herself and losing control of her own story. That was fatal, because as you rightly say, the storytelling was her forte. I'd like to say that she lost confidence in herself as she got into more of a muddle, but she actually seemed to become more arrogant, so that can't be a reason. In fact, arrogance probably led to the appalling lack of editing that started in Goblet of Fire.
I'm not aware of her problems with GoF, apart from Ron's lost cousin in Slytherin(?) but it must have been something vast to throw her off course like that. My first major gripe with the series is in that book - why on earth didn't Not-Moody create a port-key and whisk Harry off within the first month? It's maybe the first major plot-hole, too big to fan w*nk away. In one of these re-caps, I suggested that the spell to give Voldemort a new body, (obviously particularly dark magic) had to be performed on the Summer Solstice. Weak, I know, but if she’d included it (or some other explanation) in the text, it’d have just been accepted, no questions asked. Maybe her original story covered this, but why didn’t she tie up the loose ends when she had to change course?
I don’t know what she had planned originally, but I refuse to believe that she couldn’t come up with an equally good plan B. After all, me and you and a dog named Boo do it on this site and many others all the time. I wish she HAD employed a Ghostwriter, preferably one who could double up as a GhostStoryTeller, who could have helped her plan the second half of the series. Someone here (was it you?) said that she SAID she took 6 months to plan the last three books, but I find it hard to believe – they just seem so haphazard compared to the first four, which did follow an obvious plan.
JKR admitted that she started to look at Potter websites from about 2000. Wasn’t that when GoF was published? She started to realise just how much she and her work was adored and immediately she and it became far less adorable.
Long-arsed post Part 1
Date: 2009-05-21 01:04 am (UTC)Rowling has always been good at the kind of tale that *looks* just fine on a surface reading, but if you give it a poke, it falls apart. The stories are playful and fun because *she* is playing, and she is having fun. But she doesn't build sound foundations, and when she *isn't* having fun, the reader knows it.
And she was certainly not going to admit to the public that she was in trouble with the series before it was any more than half over. And the arrogance that you note was probably largely defensive, since she felt that she was under the gun. And she was right. No one really wished her ill, but she was now in a position that she had to deliver on a contract that she was no longer equipped to handle. Her story had a hole in it, and she didn't have another story, or a patch.
Even the underpinnings of the best of her work fall apart under closer examination. I still think that PoA was her best novel. It fit together just about perfectly. We got the pieces of the faux "mystery" at *just* the proper pacing, and the big reveal managed to surprise us *exactly* as it was supposed to. Yet when you look back it is clear that there was no cheating, everything that we were told pointed *straight* at that final reveal. And the distractions that were strewn in our path were all well built, and completely plausible within the context of the story. The fight between Ron and Hermione over their pets? The uproar over the Firebolt? The hints that Hermione was being in more than one place at the same time? The hints that there was something off about Lupin? Every one of these *worked*.
But the backstory comes apart as soon as you give it a 2nd look. It's like the backstory isn't really built into the action. It's just there to give everything an excuse. There is no *door* from the tunnel into the shack? Not even a *broken* door? And Albus trusted the safety of the *entire school* (and the village as well!) to his own secrecy, a word of honor of a child who was not going to be in his right mind when it *mattered*, and an animate *tree*? That is balancing the whole spinning world upon a teacup.
Perhaps that is the right metaphor for the whole problem. You can enjoy watching a top spinning away, solidly balanced on a tiny point. But as soon as it slows down it starts wobbling, staggering, and eventually topples over. And, as soon as Rowling lost momentum, the series was hosed. She never got back up to speed. Or, not to the speed she needed to be at in order for the story to regain its balance.
She claims to have spent something like three months going over her master plan with a fine tooth comb to be sure there were no more of such plot holes to fall into before sitting down to write OotP. What I now suspect is that she spent that time going over it to see what could be salvaged. I think that whatever happened in GoF blew a hole through the whole middle of the story. And no, she *couldn't* dig herself free. She doesn't have it in her to do that. She has an endless supply of funny *little* ideas, and a bottomless well of grade-school jokes, but she really doesn't seem to have any *big* ones. I mean, think about it. Has she *ever* managed to convincingly deploy what anyone could really call a *big* idea? She's managed some fairly deep feelings, yes. Occasionally, when she wasn't determined to chew the scenery while she did it. But *ideas*? No, not really. WHenever she tries she just comes across as confused. She isn't really a "big idea" person. And the story had grown beyond the point that it would still run on a stream of little ones.
It didn't change on her and then go adrift. It ran aground at book 4 and while she managed a few good scenes after that, she never got it afloat. I suspect that it was never really seaworthy in the first place.
Re: Long-arsed post Part 1
Date: 2009-05-21 02:34 pm (UTC)The first three books were fast paced and enjoyable, so I was happier to go along for the ride (I also think PoA was the best). The last three were slower and more meandering (DH was damned boring), so the flaws (themselves more numerous) stood out more. Then, I went back and re-read the ‘good’ books with a more critical eye. They’re still ok though, if the last three were the same standard, I wouldn’t be on this board.
I really agree with your point about JKR’s lack of big ideas/back story. In fact I think it helped blow a hole in the series. Even if her plot imploded in GoF, she’d have been able to move in a different direction more smoothly if she’d developed some key things more fully – or indeed at all. I dare you to go up to JKR and ask “What is magic and how exactly does it work?”, “Is the wand, and its ability to manipulate magic, the reason Wizards are disproportionately powerful in the magical world?” or “Tell me about the structure, numbers, origins, traditions, history and LAWS of the Wizarding Community” I’ll bet she never thought about it in any detail except to illustrate the stories as she wrote them - or come up with individual paragraphs on quirky Wizards of the Month. As time passed, I got a feeling her world didn’t exist as a separate entity at all in her mind (ironic when you think of how seriously the fans analyse it). We didn’t need to know most of the answers in any detail – the book does target 9 to 12 yr olds after all - but the fact that SHE didn’t know, seemed to come through. If she’d developed it first, before writing the stories (or at least after GoF, when she was floundering), it might have prevented many contradictions – she’d always be referring to a separate, *consistent* set of rules and ideas, not just making them up to suit the current chapter with no regard for what went before.
I know some people still think her magic is mystical or pagan – I have to say I think it’s genetic. Pureblood, Halfblood and Mudblood, to me indicate that magic is defined by what you inherit. If true, is magic dominant or recessive? If the latter, it would explain why Purebloods were so hysterical about Muggle ‘contamination’. (If I’m wrong has she ever explained it?) Have Wizards always existeded, or did they evolve? When and why, is controlled wandless magic possible? Can the Ministry tell the difference from afar? Are they’re more relaxed about it, because underage wizards *can’t* control it? I’m not going to list my endless questions, but despite her claims to the contrary, I don’t think she had any strong FIXED ideas about the bigger picture, which would have informed her writing. Her popularity thrust her out of her league.
Re: Long-arsed post Part 1
Date: 2009-05-26 12:30 am (UTC)So very, very true. One of my favorite HP essays (a really, really long one (http://community.livejournal.com/hp_essays/7250.html) *g*) linked the Patron-Client system of ancient Rome to how the WW actually worked and it was fascinating and made tons of sense and it seemed to work with the canon we had at the time and I remember getting this chilling little thought, "I doubt JKR's thought this through nearly as well." If only I'd realized how much she'd not thought it through. :(
I can only agree that not knowing the rules of her own world had to have badly handicapped JKR.
Long-arsed Post Part 2
Date: 2009-05-21 01:04 am (UTC)Like why didn't Tom take control of Ginny, call up the Basilisk, and send it straight into the Great Hall during the Halloween feast if he wanted to do some damage? Why fart around painting warnings on the walls, going to the trouble to call up the Basilisk just to petrify the caretaker's cat, and send it straight back to the dungeon? Obviously, since everything happens for the convenience of the author, he decided to fart around because Rowling needed the villain to do something to kick off the main event and she wanted it to be a bit creepy, but essentially small potatoes.
Re: Long-arsed Post Part 2
Date: 2009-05-21 03:40 am (UTC)I do understand what you say about the plotting, but I disliked POA when I read it (this is where my dad stopped reading the series), and, in retrospect, all the things that bother me so much about the last two books (not the last three) are fully present there already.
I'm a Snape fan, as you know, and POA was when I began to love him - and to question Dumbledore, perhaps, though I certainly wasn't doing it consciously. The man was clearly in so much pain at the end of the book; he was in agony - and it was played for laughs. I hated that. After DH, I hate it even more.
The conclusion of POA also seems to require a fair bit of stupidity on the part of the adults. Why on earth, for example, didn't Lupin and Black stun Pettigrew, the way the kids did poor Snape? But that's just one example.
Someone on Ferretbrain said the same thing: that the basic tone and problematic morality of the books are quite clear already in POA, if not before. I agree.
Re: Long-arsed Post Part 2
Date: 2009-05-21 05:30 am (UTC)It's a very bad mix, really. Cartoons can be fun, certainly, (and, "animation" does not necessarily equate to "cartoon" but Rowling's use of the tropes certainly does!) but they are a really poor vehicle for presenting moral truths, because, being essentially the property of the Trickster, they are inherently amoral in their violence and irresponsibility. And the story of Harry Potter is not a Trickster story. The very fact that Rowling seems unaware of this basic mismatch seriously undermines the claims that she knew what she was doing.
Re: Long-arsed Post Part 2
Date: 2009-05-25 07:50 pm (UTC)Oh, the clarity this provides! Thank you! I've had such a hard time figuring out how JKR could have slipped up her "moral truths" so very, very badly; it seemed such an obvious miss. But this is it! In the cartoon world of physical jokes where dropping the Coyote off a cliff, or hitting Daffy Duck with a train (or even shooting him in the face point-blank range with a shot-gun!) is hilarious, bouncing Draco off a stone floor isn't a bad thing at all. I always liked the Coyote and Daffy Duck, and I'd giggle as the Coyote gave his morose little wave before plummeting, or when Daffy Duck blinked through the gun smoke after his beak was blown backwards. Because I knew the Coyote would climb out of his self-shaped hole, and Daffy would push his beak back into place, and the show would go on.
But Draco got up from the floor wincing; Snape would go white-faced with anger and shame. And I couldn't understand why we were supposed to giggle. Now I see where JKR was trying to come from. (I'm still not sure where she was trying to go, but I suspect she's not sure either.)
Re: Long-arsed Post Part 2
Date: 2009-05-21 01:58 pm (UTC)Sirius and Lupin could easily have stunned Pettigrew rather then bound him (why should an animagus need a wand to become an animal, if they don't need one to change back? In which case, binding him was irrelevant). After 10 minutes of securing Snape, getting out of the Shack, Harry chat and Lupin seeing the moon it could have worn off. They could be excused for being distracted until it was too late and no change to the plot necessary. JKR, however, is the queen of inconsistency and not covering her tracks.
Snape is different. JKR meant for Snape’s intentions to be a mystery, simply to keep Harry from the truth/off the ball. He was meant to be a plot device/two fingers up to a hated teacher, she certainly didn’t mean for him to be sympathetic. I believe that he was the single best character in the series (though I didn’t like him much) and certainly deserved a better ending/motivation than a creepy, unrequited passion for the dead Lily-Sue. Sadly, Harry didn’t like him and neither did JKR and she spent the books trying to keep him in his place and worse, stop the readers from liking him. She was always trying to make us think the way she wanted us to think, when reading is supposed to spark our imaginations. (Apart from Twincest, I can't imagine why she bothered - she still got her cash. She should have been proud she made people think at all.) It was in the later books where this really became obvious, but with Snape it happened earlier. Harry didn’t like him, so he was doomed. That's why his despair wasn't treated with respect, because HE wasn't respected.
I once read a flimsy piece of fan fiction (I forget where) about George and Luna. In it, Zacharias Smith asked her to the Yule Ball, then asked someone else without telling her and left her to be excited, plan a dress, get ready and turn up, still without telling her. Ginny’s year could only get in as a guest of a Fourth Year, so she had to go back to her common room, totally humiliated. I was so furious at this throwaway paragraph, that I’ve hated him ever since. JKR, on the other hand, simply had Smith *dare* to ask Harry some impertinent questions about why people should trust him and left it at that. (Until the end of DH, when it was a bit late.) She genuinely felt that if Harry didn’t like someone, neither would we, but that’s not enough for children, never mind adults. We question motives, as Smith had the right to do. If Padma had told Ron and Harry that story about the Yule Ball, I’ll bet everyone would have *hated* Smith. Why did a fan fic writer, not being paid millions, who wasn’t even writing about Smith, manage to succeed where JKR didn’t?
She should have stayed away from the fan sites and written the books unaware of what people were saying about the individual characters etc. At the very least, the ridiculous manipulation of characters and events to try to please people, then changing them again to fit the plot, then changing them once again to make sure that we didn’t get the ‘wrong’ idea about things/or like the 'wrong' people would have been all but eliminated. Her sales figures should have been enough to let her know that she was successful. She might even have eased up on Snape if she didn’t know about his legion of fans.
Re: Long-arsed Post Part 2
Date: 2009-05-21 07:37 pm (UTC)Not that she hadn't pulled that kind of a stunt before the studios were even a factor. In the scene of Voldemort's rebirth, she doesn't seem to even have a clear idea of where the characters are standing and keeps changing the dimensions of the set from paragraph to paragraph.
But it ought to be noted that her attempts to bully the reader into interpreting the text *exactly* the way she intended it -- with no admissable variation -- only started becoming predominant in the last half of the series and really took over the whole narriative in DHs when she was seriously (and obviously) floundering around out of her depth. For all that she had been taken aback by some of the fan questions that she had encountered years earlier.
Re: Long-arsed Post Part 2
Date: 2009-05-21 09:37 pm (UTC)JKR couldn't control the films - apart from the British cast thing, which was probably in the contract. I doubt they'd let her have anything more than the right to comment on the script, despite what fans might hope. She's no Spielberg in terms of influence, though she did refuse to give them full character rights so we didn't get Harry Potter vs Predator. However JKR *could* control the source material - Hollywood is more than capable of messing things up for the films on their own, without her lowering her standards. She bottled it, sorry. Maybe she would have stood firm if her plot had remained healthy, and she had something to protect but it didn't, so she didn't. Heaven knows what they'll make out of the poorest book of all, DH.
I still remember her describing taking part in discussions on fan websites and having to drop out of a particuarly fierce one, because people turned on her! A shipping thread, no doubt - like the pairings were of any real importance. In 20 years time it'll be the plot and characterisation that determine how the books are remembered, not who Harry sired Albus Severus on.