Fandom, HP Fandom, HPfGU, Love, Language, and TBAY (long)

[kkersey at kkersey_austin.yahoo.invalid]

--- In HPFGU-Feedback at yahoogroups.com, "Doriane" <delwynmarch at y...>
wrote (and Karen added a couple of blank lines to make it more legible
between paragraphs):

> Anyway. To explain my problem, I'll quote Pippin who wrote :
> "Consider the end of CoS. Diary!Tom, a man of letters, literally
> literal-minded and prosaic, can not be defeated by the sword of
> Gryffindor. The pen is mightier. But he underestimates the
> power of symbols, and so he is destroyed by a songbird (faith),
> a sleeping virgin(hope) and old clothes (charity)."
>
> Well, when I read that, my mind just went blank. I do recognize that 
> she's speaking English, I know all the words here, but I don't get 
> the concepts at all. I have so many questions I don't even know 
> where to start ! Why would a songbird represent faith ? Why would a 
> sleeping virgin represent hope, or old clothes charity ? What's the 
> relationship between "a man of letters, literally literal-minded and 
> prosaic" and the fact that he can't be defeated by the sword of 
> Gryffindor ??

> Don't you see ? She's using a whole background of concepts and 
> symbols I've never even heard of. Which is exactly the same as using 
> words I don't know, as far as I am concerned.
> 

Oh Dear. 

If using a background of concepts and symbols that *any particular*
listee may not be familiar with is a problem, we are *all* in big
trouble. 

I am sure I miss all sorts of references to, for example, current TV
shows (or commercials) or movies or pop songs. After all, I didn't
even know who Emma Watson or Jim Dale were when I first joined the
list. Never mind all the references to old list debates, members who
don't post anymore, or discussions that took place in a thread I chose
not to follow. 

*However* I don't expect anyone to scrub their posts of all possible
references to either the culture at large or to the culture of the
list. When I joined I read back through the archives for a few months,
so I could get at least a running start to current list, but of course
the posts at the point where I arbitrarily chose to start reading were
at that point pretty confusing to me becuase of all the references to
other previous posts. I found myself spending a lot of time looking
things up in various reference files and the Lexicon. Time well spent,
I maight add.

I agree that those files *really* need to be updated, and not just the
TBAY one. I had it pretty easy, joining at a time when list volume was
relatively low (though still too much for me to read everything!) and
when volunteers apparently had many hours to while away researching
minutia while waiting for OoP. 

Oh, Del, by the way, I don't believe that Pippin made any references
from TBAY in her example... All the concepts and symbols she used were
pretty standard to English literature and culture. With apologies to
Pippin, let me try to explain a bit:

Literal == written. Diary!Tom is a product of the written word. In a
sense he exists only as a written character (written by the "real" Tom
Riddle).

"The pen is mightier than the sword" - don't know who said it first,
but has most definitely achieved cliche status, at least for those
educated in the US, Great Britain, etc. Familiarity with both the
words and the concept can be reasonably presumed when writing for a
general, English speaking audience

Faith, Hope and Charity - from the Bible, um, somewhere in the New
Testament? (OK, now you all know that I was not raised in a protestent
church, or I'd be able to cite chapter and verse. Sorry!). Once again,
so generally known and used as to be often a cliche.

As to assigning the particular images to the concepts of Faith, Hope
and Charity - I'll leave that for someone else. Let me say though,
that for me at least the symbols do "click" easily; in part because of
a long history of their usage in the language and literature I was
raised and educated in. 

By the way, using symbols and stories to illustrate and illuminate
ideas and concepts is precisely what Jesus was doing when he told
parables. Sure, he could have tried to just spell everything out
discursively instead of fictively (are those the terms we're using?)
but I think that much would have been lost in the, well, translation.

Karen

(Disclaimer: my bringing Jesus into the TBAY depate is in no way an
endorsement of any religion, faith, or belief system; nor is it to be
construed in any way as an appeal to divine authority on any matter
under discussion here; my aim is simply to provide an example of the
use of symbol, allegory, and narrative to further the undersatnding
and discussion of Serious Concepts, an example that I believe is given
further wieght by its popularity with a wide audience for a couple of
millenia.)