Playing the game (was Some shipping questions... )

[Aurora Mendelsohn]

No: HPFGUIDX 30425


Luke wrote:
snip

> If you are like me, you read PS/SS and knew right away that there was 
> no way on earth that Snape was really the culprit, but because you 
> were still not in an entirely "conscious" state when reading, you did 
> not take that to its logical extension and try to determine who was 
> instead--you just kept reading.  So Quirrel was not really predicted, 
> but far from surprising.  It was just a kind of "nodding of the head" 
> moment.  But now, having read PS/SS, you are aware that future HP 
> books have similar misdirective elements, and it becomes easier to 
> pick up on them.  This is where the subtle change in mindset came for 
> me.  I therefore read the other three existing HP books in a slightly 
> more "conscious" state than I did PS/SS and had an even easier time 
> predicting those (though I did not predict everything, of course--


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> and the result is that I am a little bit more likely from that stance 
> to pick up on several of those little clues that I'm not supposed to 
> catch until the second time around.
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> point is that if anything in future books is spoiled for us because 
> of HP4GU, I think it is more likely to be the result of HP4GU making 
> us read in a more analytical state--by picking us up and moving us to 
> sit in a different place when we read HP, one that is a little 
> further away and more "conscious".


Like you, I changed to a more critical analytical approach after the first few books.
Part of the switch was due to the reasons you had. But partly, I blame Rowling for her
 use of meaningful names.I remeber thinking to myself, early in PoA, "Lupin means wolf, it can't be an accident, he must be a 
werewolf...Sirius is a dog -- he must be related to the dog Harry keeps seeing" (of course, I didn't catch onthat he was innocent or 
anything else). This aspect just made it more difficult to slip back into the less conscious reading you described.

Aurora