tragi-comedy, sidekicks, character change

[Elizabeth Dalton]

No: HPFGUIDX 32384

I'm trying to catch up with a few threads. I'm not going to be able to keep up
with this list now that it's up to full speed again....

I was muttering about how gloomy I think the end of the series will be, and a
couple of people commented.

The bloodthirsty Cindy wrote:
> As one of the more bloodthirsty fans, I'm not sure I'm the
> best one to help out here, but here goes.  I don't think the books
> (even GoF) were really all that depressing, as there was plenty of
> humor and lightheartedness.  If future books strive for that same mix
> of seriousness mixed with levity, I think they will be much better
> for it, and we'll be able to tolerate the more emotionally difficult
> passages.


Cindy, I'm always glad to have your (er, bloodthirsty) help. ;) I know, I know,
can't have them too cheery. <sigh.> And the first two books were too light to
take seriously (though that seems like a truly silly statement).

That being said, a friend of mine (who has read the books) commented that she
knows a number of teens who've sworn off the series after reading GoF. That
installment apparently went too far for them.

What I'm trying to say is that for me, the balance tipped with GoF, past what I
really enjoyed reading. Everyone has a different level of preference with their
balance between tragedy and comedy (or whatever), and I respect those who
thought GoF was just right. But for me, PoA was a lot more enjoyable.

I think Harriet may be right that GoF represents a sort of turning point, rather
than a trend mark, and I'm hoping so.

Later, Jon remarked:
> I'd question GOF as adult fiction though - I'd need it to be a lot 
> darker and so on than that. 

Oh really? Like _Dragonriders of Pern_, maybe? Or is that not "adult" fiction?
Well, maybe it isn't, by today's standards. Ok, how about David Brin's _Earth_?
No? John Barnes' _A Million Open Doors_?

(Is my problem just that I mostly read SF?)

I'll grant you, Ian Banks' _The Player of Games_ has some very dark moments, and
so does a lot of the other stuff I like to read. It's a matter of where the
balance is. But I don't think "darkness" is a good measure of whether a book is
children's, YA, or adult. Whatever those categories mean....

I'd also like to respond to this remark by Isabelle:

> An earlier post said that it 
> was obvious that Harry would get the Philosopher's stone and that 
> Ginny would be saved from the basilisk.  Fair enough - but I would 
> never have guessed how.

I think I'm the one you're quoting, and I agree with you -- the entertainment in
those first two books was in how they solved the puzzle, not in being held in
suspense as to whether or not they would solve it.

Some of us (besides me) like murder mysteries, I imagine. Just think about the
level of formula. There will be a body. There will be a killer. The killer will
be caught. Yet, we still read these things, and (some of us) enjoy them quite a
bit. The enjoyment comes in watching the author show us, cleverly (we hope)
*how* the killer will be caught. (And, going to a thread I'll get back to below,
I also like them best if several characters get some growth in along the way --
as in Carole Nelson Douglas' "Irene" stories.)

Amy Z (about characters in LotR):
> The death that touched me the most, by far, was Gollum's.
> 

And Tabouli responded...
> ... the Gollum scene I found most touching was the scene when he comes back > to camp and gazes dotingly at Frodo ("Nice master") and almost turns into a > sad, weary hobbit lived long past his years when Sam wakes and snarls and > destroys his very last chance of redemption.

Me, too. In some ways, it's both my favorite and least favorite moment in the
books. I always have a hard time liking Sam, and his stock dropped a bunch of
points in that scene.

A barkeep in Diagon Alley (as part of the thread I started about story types):
> So, excepting this time of year when the themes from "A Christmas
> Carol" dominate our minds, the idea of main characters having sudden
> epiphanies and turning their life around seems awfully cliche.
> 

Ah, that's not really what I (or Card, I believe) meant by "character change."
Characters can change in any number of ways. Tabouli pointed out several in HP,
and I'll add a few from other SF & F books: Pyanfar Chanur, in C.J. Cherryh's
_Pride of Chanur_ series, who goes from being an independent ship captain to
being the head of the Compact, more or less unwillingly; Adam in Neil Gaiman &
Terry Gillam's _Good Omens_, who goes from naive child to antichrist to
protector of the world; Gurgeh in Ian Banks' _The Player of Games_, who goes
from being a relatively light-hearted innocent to a lethally obsessive
strategist, finding it difficult to return to his former life at the end of his
adventures; Nell in Douglas' aforementioned "Irene" stories goes from being an
easily-flustered parson's daughter to a competent "adventuress," even if she
does deny the term. I think most stories are richer if they combine several
elements, but I happen to prefer character stories *any* time of year.

Elizabeth
(Collector of character stories and rejection slips from short-fiction
publishers)