Twins, Toons, Humor and Instinct

[porphyria_ash]

No: HPFGUIDX 43402

Abigail wrote a very interesting post about why criticizing the twins 
hits a nerve with some readers, and while I think her discussion of 
how to resolve the issue usefully points to the wide variety of 
interpretations people have, I still have to reply to her assessment 
about how we read whether JKR "approves" of a character or not. 

Abigail said: 

<<
See, I don't think the problem is whether we like or dislike a 
character, but whether JKR does, or rather whether she approves of 
that character's actions. I think the main problem plaguing most of 
the F&G defenders out there is not the fact that they find F&G's 
antics funny, but that JKR seems to. It is an author's job to pass 
moral judgement on the characters that he or she writes, to indicate 
to the readers in means of varying subtlety whether or not this 
character is doing a good thing or a bad thing.
>>

See, I disagree here. I think that the mark of a great author is that 
she can create characters who are complex enough that they provoke 
debate, and present enough of their behavior to let readers make 
their own decisions. Authors who hammer in a moral point tend to turn 
me off. I like JKR because I don't think she does this. If there was 
only one right answer to whether a character is doing something good 
or bad then discussion groups like this would have no purpose and 
reading would be boring. Plus, as Elkins pointed out a while ago 
(#39058), books would never age well if we had to agree with the 
author's moral perspective; great books have a habit of lasting 
hundreds or thousands of years and in that time our sense of good and 
evil shifts, but our love of the books doesn't. In any case, every 
reader is free to have his or her own moral criteria that might 
differ from the author's without invalidating anyone's perspective. 

For some reason I think this is more obvious when readers want to 
defend a character that the author does not appear to like. For 
instance, in my own interpretation, I don't think JKR likes Draco at 
all. I just don't get that vibe; I find his portrayal, as Elkins once 
described, lame. But there are legions of devoted readers who do like 
him, defend him, make him the hero of their fanfics, and so forth. 
And this alternate reading is a good thing, which JKR should be proud 
of, and it's also something this list usually takes for granted. 

On the other hand, I think it's riskier to criticize a character that 
JKR does basically like. We seem to have more vehement arguments when 
someone criticizes Dumbledore, Molly, any member of the Trio, or in 
this case the twins. I'm not sure why it is that some characters seem 
sacrosanct, especially when I think JKR has built flaws into every 
character. But I'm tempted to punt the issue back to one of 
readership; I think people get upset if their beloved characters get 
insulted because it feels like they themselves are being insulted. I 
admit I often feel that way in the face of criticism towards Snape, 
even though I consciously recognize that he's cruel, vindictive, 
jealous and a variety of other nasty qualities. I would certainly 
think it would be that much more true of people who identify with the 
obvious authorial favorites. 

Abigail continues:

<<
In the Harry Potter books, there are several ways in which Rowling 
indicates to us her criticism of a character's actions. The most 
obvious one is to have Harry disapprove of said behaviour, another is 
to describe the character as unpleasant or disliked or physically 
unappealing, and a third is simply karma - bad things happen to bad 
people.
>>

I agree that these are some of the ways she does it, but that doesn't 
mean we as readers are limited to these ways. For instance, in the 
TTT incident, we know Harry approves of the twins actions, they are 
portrayed as jolly and amusing and they don't get much karmic 
punishment from this incident (actually they do: Molly yells at after 
Arthur finally tells her). But on the other hand we can look at 
Dudley's gagging and sputtering, Petunia's screaming, Vernon's 
desperate china-throwing and Arthur's "brandishing" of his wand and 
find the whole thing really painful to witness. JKR wrote the same 
words on the page that everyone is reading; some of us just interpret 
some parts as more significant or more palpable than others. 

<<
Now, I'm not suggesting that at every turn in the Harry Potter books, 
the bad are punished and the good are rewarded, because this is quite 
simply not the case. What I am saying is that JKR very clearly 
indicates to us who the good guys and the bad guys are.
>>

Like Fudge and Bagman? Like Crouch Sr. or Snape? Filch, perhaps?

I think JKR's ethics are more complicated than this. I think there 
are a lot of things she finds funny, sympathetic or just plain 
pathetic but that she doesn't wholeheartedly endorse. For instance, I 
happen to find Crouch Sr.'s story utterly tragic because I think he 
winds up in such intolerable situations where no matter what he does, 
it's wrong. Where did he make his mistake? Was it sentencing his son 
to prison? Was it springing him out again? Was it keeping him under 
Imperio all those years? I marvel at JKR's ability to depict someone 
as making the wrong decisions for the right reasons -- or is it the 
other way around? 

Anyway, I don't see why the twins can't be a minor version of this. 
Yes, we can think they are funny and still recognize that their 
actions are not appropriate -- not mature, not fair, and someday 
likely to have dangerous consequences. This does not make JKR bad 
for "approving" of them, just very nuanced. As I think we recognize, 
she is fond of portraying "good" characters as actually rather grey, 
and like many of her readers, she has a wicked sense of humor that, 
while not squeaky-clean ethically, is still very human. And that's 
how I interpret the twins.

~Porphyria