Doube Entendres (wasRe: Tom Felton: Off Color Word Censored, ...But What

[Carol]

Carol earlier:
> > > > > > > > 
<snip> I have a feeling that "wand" wasn't used in that context until 
> JKR, who is a bit too fond of Freudian insinuations in my opinion, 
came up with, "What's got *your* wand in a knot?" <snip>.
> 
> Potioncat:
> The use of wand in the Equus article was that author's innuendo
cleverly (or so he thought) combining Potter with Equus.
> 
> Do you remember where Hermione said "wand in a knot"? Isn't "don't
get your knickers in a knot" British slang for "don't get so upset"?

Carol again:

Oops. It seems that it was only in the Film version of GoF (the Yule
Ball scene). But JKR does similar things elsewhere, for example,
trolls comparing the size of their clubs (which is, IIRC, a comment by
the narrator). I'm quite sure that she knows exactly what she's doing
and expects it to go over the heads of the child readers but not
adults. In most cases, the speakers (unless they're the Weasley Twins)
probably intend no double entendre, but JKR, who is amused that Dan
Radcliffe will have to appear nude in the "King's Cross" scene, surely
an allusion to "Equus," seems to find such innuendo humorous.

But, yes. She does alter ordinary British sayings to fit the WW, and
in the case of Arabella Figg, the alterations are suited to a batty
old woman. (Well, old by Harry's standards, anyway. She's probably
about fifty!) In other cases, like the Uranus jokes, they're suited to
teenage boys (in the case of Ron in the DoM, under the influence of
some spell that makes him giddy). Anyway, I've felt uncomfortable on
several occasions with the implied anatomical or sexual humor in books
whose primary readers are children. Your son is just the right age to
catch some if not all of those jokes and find them funny. Me, I'm an
old prude who'd rather they weren't there. I don't even like the bogey
and vomit humor, which ostensibly appeals to slightly younger kids in
the gross-out humor stage. At least, I don't recall any flatulence
jokes. I still remember my disgust on first encountering that sort of
humor in "Lion King."

Potioncat: 
> The example I gave---my son laughing at a wand comment--was his own
13-year-old sense of humor. At that age just about anything can 
become innuendo. I went back to find it to provide canon. 
> 
> **In DH, "The Seven Potters" <snip>
> 
> "I'm only yanking your wand. I'm Fred really--"  ***
> 
> While it could be innuendo, clearly it isn't meant to be. "Yanking 
> your wand" sounds a lot like "pulling your leg", "pushing your 
> buttons" or "jerking your chain." Are those used in England? I 
> thought her several uses of wands in a phrase was similar to "cat 
> among the pixies" or whatever it was Mrs. Fig said.

Carol responds:
Oh, I think that JKR intended it, and she expected thirteen- and
fourteen-year-old boys, at least, to see it and find it funny. They're
exposed to a lot of so-called humor relating to both the male and
female anatomy. I even saw an ad for "male enlargement" on TV last
night (admittedly, it was eleven o'clock at night--the kind of thing
that routinely appears in my Yahoo spam e-mail box). I'm not talking
about ads for Viagra, which are at least tastefully done. I'm talking
about feeding the myth that masculinity is based on the size of a
man's sex organ (the "manhood" concept that Geoff was talking about).
It's as sick and sad as ten-year-old girls wanting to look like
Barbie. IMO--maybe someone here thinks all this is normal and
desirable, in which case, there's no way of reaching an agreement.

Potioncat:
> So is there a counterpart, like infer is to imply? 

Carol:
I think it's implied but the reader is free to draw the inference or
not--rather like the relatioship between the young DD and GG, which
can be read as a close intellectual friendship, a romantic friendship
(platonic love between friends of the same sex), or a
boyfriend/boyfriend relationship, depending on the reader. Not so much
as a kiss is implied, but strong feeling, love of some sort is
implied, at least on DD's side (and we know where JKR stands on this
point so the implications are put there deliberately, but *Rita
Skeeter's* insinuations can be taken with a grain of salt). So,
anyway, I think that the innuendo is deliberate on JKR's part, but the
reader can miss it, ignore it, enjoy it, or be annoyed by it depending
on his or her age and taste.
> 
> 
> Carol, I see your point, that the author can intend something, even
if the character doesn't. But it seems that would seriously impede the
flow of the plot. I mean, if she set it up for kids to go beserk over
the wording when it had nothing to do with the situation, then it's
going to change how the scene is felt.

Carol:

I don't understand your objection. Why would insinuation or innuendo
"impede the flow of the plot"? What kids is she setting up to "go
berserk"? If you mean the characters, most of the characters miss the
innuendo (unless it's on the level of the Uranus jokes). If you mean
the readers, young readers, if they catch the jokes, will merely
laugh, possibly for a rather long time (as you and I do in other
places) and go on with the story. I remember laughing for a good
minute at Fred's reference to Percy as "Weatherby" (even though I felt
sorry for Percy, it was still funny), but the laugh didn't interfere
with the story line. I doubt whether your son's laugh over "yanking
your wand" (we can imagine the image it created in his mind) took him
out of the storyline for more than the few minutes it took to get the
laugh out of his system. IMO, the jokes about body parts (or bogeys or
vomit) don't interfere with the storyline, exactly, but they don't
contribute to it, either (I was getting very tired of the Twins taking
turns demonstrating the Puking Pastilles by projectile vomiting in
OoP). I think that the double entendres serve a similar purpose. JKR
thinks they're funny (she also thinks that the Ton-Tongue Toffee
incident is funny; I don't) so she includes them to regale like-minded
readers. As for "how the scene is felt," it will certainly be felt
differently by different readers.

Potioncat: 
> Granted, JKR has placed little gems throughout the books, that the 
reader can get or not. 

Carol:
Exactly.

Potioncat:
(Other than double entendres) Given JKR's interviews about Aberforth's
goats, you could be right about the other examples. There were some
lines connected to the book Ron gave Harry---I think that was
mentioned upthread---that may have been intentional. But I really
think that sometimes a wand is just a wand.

Carol:
And that's the great thing about interpretation. We're not slaves of
the author's intention. We don't need to share her sense of humor. If
we're not fans of Freud, we can ignore all Freudian implications.
(Have you ever read a Freudian critic's views of the cave scene in
"The Hobbit"? Bilbo is returning to the womb, to be reborn and emerge
as a "man!" Or, at any rate, an adult male. Similar critiques could be
made about the HP books, almost all of which have a scene in which
Harry goes underground. But if we think Freud is nonsense--sometimes a
cave is just a cave and a wand is just a wand--we can read it that way.)

Carol, who doesn't want to spoil Potioncat's enjoyment and wishes that
her own were not diminished by an awareness of Freudian implications