JKR's priorities and how they affect interpretation (small SHIP section in t

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 31986

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Penny & Bryce <pennylin at s...> wrote:

> Anyway, moving on.  Forster divides characters into "flat" & 
"round."  He notes that a novel that is to be at all complex 
requires some of both  types.  He claims that the test of a round 
character is that a round  character is "capable of surprising in a 
convincing way.  If it never  surprises, it is flat.  If it surprises but 
unconvincingly, it is a flat 
> pretending to be a round."
> 
> So, who's flat & who's round in the Potterverse?  

This is an interesting question, more interesting even than who's 
going to fall in love with whom?<g>  The thing which I find most 
unconventional about the way the books are structured is the 
amount of development which is packed into the final chapters.  
     JKR ignores the rule that says character development always 
goes in the middle of the story.  She pushes it to the end, into 
what would be the third act if the stories were plays. So one of 
the things that always happens in the final chapters is that some  
characters we thought were 'flat' are shown to be round...Snape 
in the first book, Lockhart and Riddle in the second,  Sirius in the 
third, Crouch/Moody and Fudge in the fourth, to give some 
examples. 
  Fudge is the most interesting for my point, since he was 
introduced in Book 2, but didn't get round until Book 4.  It wouldn't 
surprise me if  the pattern holds for the books as a whole. *Any*  
of the characters who are flat now could leap into roundness as 
late as the end of Book 7.  
    As to why shipping provokes so much emotion, I would have to 
say that for all the logical arguments we can muster, this is at 
bottom a question of personal taste.  And nobody likes to have 
their tastes questioned.

Pippin
still blushing. Cut it out you guys!