I Love CoS, too!--stuff about Evil--Lewis and JKR

[Haggridd]

No: HPFGUIDX 19988

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., linman6868 at a... wrote:
> Caius wrote:
> 
> > I too have been curious that CoS seems to be regarded as the ugly 
> > duckling by so many on this group.
> > 
> > It was CoS that really made me an HP fan.  I first read PS/SS in 
> > December 1999 - while I enjoyed the book, I was ("with shame it is 
> > written, with sorrow it is read") really not blown away by it. It 
> > wasn't until May 2000 that I finally picked up CoS. I read the 
> entire 
> > book in a single day, and then rushed out to get Azkaban the next 
> > day. 
> 
> I can tell a similar story.  I liked PS/SS: but didn't seek out the 
> second book until the summer after PoA came out.  It was because of 
> CoS that I reached for PoA and devoured it...and the rest is 
> history.  
> 
> However...till I read the poll I thought I was alone in having an 
> unidentifiable grudge against CoS, and think I might have identified 
> what it is.
> 
> > I feel that, enjoyable though PS/SS was, it was really in CoS that 
> > JKR came into her own as a writer.  It's here that we first start 
> to 
> > get a better picture of the wizarding world <snip>
> 
> I agree with this.  But I think I like CoS much the same way I like 
> THE GOOD EARTH:  the book compels me but I hate what happens to O-
> lan.  CoS compels me but I hate what happens to Ginny.  <gives a 
Jack 
> Nicholson grimace> I am using the word *hate* here.  Oh, I concede 
> that it makes the plot very satisfying at its resolution.  I even 
> concede that it drags Ginny into the spotlight in a sort of macabre 
> way.  But that doesn't mean I have to like it.
> 
> Why then, you will say, don't I equally *hate* what happens to Harry 
> with the dementors? Or to Cedric at the Riddle grave?  Well...I 
don't 
> know.  I didn't say I'd figured it *all* out.
> 
> Now going back a little to the discussion about good vs. evil.  I 
> paid particular attention to an exchange between Rebecca and I think 
> Susan and Pippin about whether or not evil is bigger than good in 
> JKR, whether or not the Narnia books are formulaic, and whether or 
> not Aslan is the deus ex machina.
> 
> I think what set *my* bells off is when McGonagall says to 
Dumbledore 
> in the first chapter of PS/SS that Voldemort was only afraid of 
Albus 
> Dumbledore.  "You flatter me, my dear...Voldemort had powers I never 
> will."  "Only because you're too *noble* to use them," McGonagall 
> shoots back.  Well, wouldn't this imply that people who break the 
> rules are the ones with the real power?  That even the best among us 
> can't stand up to the potency of those who go outside the pale of 
> humanity?  But Dumbledore himself limits that idea in his several 
> talks with Harry ("if someone resists him again, and again, why he 
> may never come back to power"; and the famous "it's our choices that 
> make us who we are").  Not to mention the famous gleam.  And instead 
> of calling it pragmatic, I'd call it heroic, like the star dying in 
> WRINKLE IN TIME.
> 
> It's true that the Ministry makes use of Dementors and (along with 
> the rest of the wizarding world) gives more credence to Voldemort by 
> refusing to say his name; but I think JKR writes it more to 
criticize 
> it than, as Blake says of Milton, be "of Satan's party without 
> knowing it."  Blake makes an amusing and sometimes pretty good case 
> out of PARADISE LOST; I doubt you could make as good a case of the 
HP 
> books.  Not to compare JKR with our Great English Epic Poet or 
> anything <eg>.
> 
> And as for the Narnia books, I wouldn't call them formulaic either. 
 
> Nor would I consider Aslan the deus ex machina of the stories, or 
> even in particular of THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE.  The 
> stories may appear to be about the children, but they really *are* 
> about Aslan; and the main character of a story can't be deus ex 
> machina.  That would be like saying that Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn 
> showing up at their own funeral is deus ex machina.  You can 
> criticize it for other things, but not for that. <g>
> 
> JKR's stories are different because they *are* about people like us 
> muddling through the world, not knowing any Aslans or if there even 
> are any, uncertain that good will triumph but determined to do their 
> part -- and meanwhile sorting out what their part actually consists 
> of.  It's different stuff: but it's good different stuff.
> 
> Going to bed now.
> 
> <yawns and kicks off imaginary carpet slippers>
> 
> Lisa I.

I think it is critically important that we realize that we can NEVER 
employ evil means to a good end.  It is by the means that are employed 
that we can judge good or evil, not by the often nobly and grandiosely 
proclaimed goal.  I will not break the prohibition against referring 
to real-life examples to illustrate my point, but I trust we are all 
sophisticated enough to think of a number of these in our various 
experiences.  Dumbledore, or anyone professing to be good, may not do 
evil in furthering a good cause.  Dumbledore would then become like 
unto the Dark Lord.

As for the Narnia books,  Aslan is not deus ex machina, but Deus 
himself.  From this all the rest of the series depends.

Haggridd