Point of order! (was Re: Neville/what's obvious (Culture, speaking, choice))

[heiditandy]

> David wrote:
> 
> > Also Heidi said 
> > something offlist about it being 'obvious' that JKR intends us 
to 
> > think that Neville is under a memory charm.
> 
Amy wrote
> Despite this literary training and the concomitant outlook, I do 
not 
> think it's "obvious" that Neville is under a memory charm even 
after 
> someone points out all the evidence.  There is such a thing as 
> "obvious" in literature (it is obvious that McGonagall loves 
Quidditch 
> even though there is no sentence saying "McGonagall loved 
Quidditch"), 
> but the bar is quite high.  "Neville is under a memory charm" 
doesn't 
> come close to meeting the standard, IMO.

: picks up gauntlet and chucks it onto the ice so those who think 
this is too ontopic can go off and do some curling...

What I was *trying to say* was that it's obvious that JKR wanted it 
to be a reasonable conclusion for people to draw, the same way that 
she wanted "Snape is working for Voldemort" to be an obvious 
conclusion of people to draw during parts of Book 1, or "Sirius 
killed Harry's parents" in Book 3. It doesn't mean that 
those "facts" are true, but it does mean that she's written the 
story in such a way as to cause the reader to think "Ah-hah! That's 
what she's getting at with this juxtaposition!"

We may be right, we may be wrong. We have no idea right now. It's 
just an obvious conclusion to draw. There are lots of other things 
in the books which some people think are "obvious conclusions" 
including certain SHIPs, the redemption of certain characters, and 
who's going to be on Harry's side (and alive) at the end of Book 7 
(or whether Harry will be alive at all).  I wonder if JKR also 
wanted to make it obvious that Lily was in Gryffindor, with her use 
of the word "naturally" when she made it official in a chat last 
year - because that certainly wasn't obvious to me when she said it. 
In fact, when she said it, I jumped from thinking Lily and James 
were the same year to thinking that Lily was perhaps a year older or 
younger, as it's unusual for the head boy and head girl to be of the 
same house.

Personally, I don't think Neville is under a memory charm - I think 
he's afraid of magic on a subconscious level, and afraid of Snape on 
a very conscious level. 

And this is getting frighteningly on topic, so I will end it here...


heidi