[HPFGU-OTChatter] British boarding school stories

[Shaun Hately]

On 16 Dec 2003 at 9:36, Tabouli wrote:

> Has anyone read these?  (Wendy?  I know Vicky's hugely into them...)

Yes, I have read these.

I didn't include them in my list mostly because I forgot about them  
- they're certainly another example of the genre in the fact that 
they *do* make use of the standard conventions - but they also take 
it a lot further, which to me shows how once those frameworks and 
conventions are understood, they can be used as a... stepping off 
point for other ideas - sort of, that an author can use the 
conventions to ensure that their readers are all starting from 
around the same point.

This definitely seems true of HP as well to me - one of the 
strengths of the HP books is because they build on the boarding 
school story genre, a lot of underlying details don't need to be 
sketched out... you know Draco is a bully, so you know what that 
means. Once you know there are houses and a sport, you know there 
is likely to be a rivalry, etc.

One clear example - Cedric Diggory.

>From the moment it first became clear he was going to be a major 
part of Goblet of Fire, I pretty much knew what his character would 
be like, because of those conventions.

I sometimes wonder what the experience of reading HP without 
knowing those 'codes' would have been like.


Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
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"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
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