JKR's priorities and how they affect interpretation (small SHIP section in the middle)

[davewitley]

No: HPFGUIDX 31972

Penny wrote:
> 
> Well, David, you've rattled my cage ...<g>

<g> to you too!  The next step being to open the door, of course.

Me:
> 
> > This post is my personal attempt to say when we can say 
> > things - and when we are misleading ourselves in what we deduce.
> > 
> > [It] arose out of trying to understand differences of 
> > interpretation between myself and others on this list.

Penny:
> 
> What I would say is that this isn't mathematics: there is no *one* 
> single right answer.  We can all bring our own interpretations to 
the 
> mix; sometimes we will persuade others of the validity of our 
positions 
> & other times we will fail.  But, IMO, in sharing our 
interpretations, 
> we will all have a richer experience with HP than if we simply read 
the 
> books on our own & formed our own conclusions.

Oh, absolutely.  I thought my original post jumbled up two things, 
but knew if I tried to disconnect them nothing would ever be posted.  
I now see we have grown to four topics:

authorial consistency and misdirection;
characterisation;
good old fashioned SHIPping;
and, the grit of sand underlying all the pearls (if that is what they 
are): diverse reader interpretation. 

My question is: if I, the sophisticated reader and debater, can see 
the validity of more than one interpretation, why should I own one of 
them as mine?  How come it's such hard work not to get entrenched, 
through debate, in an interpretation which was possibly only loosely 
held at the beginning.  Or to put it another way, why 
does 'enriching' get divisive?  Is it just that we acknowledge the 
existence of alternative interpretations in principle - but tend to 
feel that, so far, those put forward by others fail to stack up in 
practice?

> I can't agree with David's conclusion that we are "misleading" 
ourselves 
> if we allow or speculate on possible JKR misdirections that *might* 
(or 
> might *not* in future plot developments) be outside of furthering 
> plot(s).

No, no, all I meant was (and I think I still believe this) that some 
forms of speculation are better (question: what do we mean 
by 'better'?) than others; given that we are deprived of simple 
logical deduction, my four priorities were a back-of-the-envelope 
first draft at an alternative, based on trying to interpret my own 
largely subconscious,and quite probably wrong (and what do we mean by 
*that*?) reading processes.  So, speculating that Draco may 
be 'redeemed' (I prefer 'developed') in some sense goes with the 
grain of the books - Luke's point about authorial tacit promises, in 
this case so tacit as to be almost invisible.  Speculating that 
Dumbledore's gleam means that he is a DE is a non-starter, for the 
same reason.

I will try to get back to characterisation another time, particularly 
the very deep comment that Ron is becoming more himself.  SHIPping 
I'm not sure whether I have more to say - except that Penny's 
interpretation of the potions lesson is more or less exactly what I 
thought the H/H interpretation is.

David