Future books: Humor element, Voldemort/Harry encounters & Non-Characters

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 34494

On "Comeuppance" humor, and brands of humor in general.

Cindy also thinks that GoF was the funniest of the books so far:

> Oh, I'd agree that GoF was the funniest book by quite a bit.  

I'm glad it wasn't just me.

> CoS might also contend if you like Lockhart.  

Lockhart didn't do it for me at all.  I found him irritating, and 
only rarely amusing.

> PoA is my favorite book overall, but I think that is because of the 
> characterizations, not the wit.

PoA is my favorite for a number of reasons: theme, characterization, 
keep-you-guessing plot, and high melodrama. (I don't care that it's
cheesy -- I *like* a bit of melodrama from time to time!)  Most of 
all, though, I think that I liked it for its oh-so-tight structure.  

But I also found it pretty darned funny: it would definitely get my 
vote for second funniest of the books so far.  It had a number of
really good farce scenes, and I love farce. But more on that below...


I wrote:

> I absolutely hate most varieties of "comeuppance" humor, for 
> example -- I always have, ever since very early childhood -- and 
> there's a *lot* of that in these books.  

Cindy wrote:

> "Comeuppance" humor, I'm guessing, refers to things like Draco the 
> Bouncing Ferret where we are supposed to think it is funny when a 
> character is abused?  Are there other examples you're thinking of?

A few other people chimed in to express their own dislike of 
slapstick, or of sadistic humor, so now I feel compelled to elaborate.

What I tend to dislike isn't so much slapstick or sadistic humor per 
se.  Far from it -- my sense of humor is actually quite sadistic.

What I don't much care for is a particular brand of sadistic humor
in which the comedy is meant to derive largely from the perception 
that the abused character "deserved it," or that he "had it coming."  
I don't like "Just Desserts."

I am resolutely unamused, for example, when Dudley must take the fall
over and over and over again; and when at the end of GoF the Gryffs, 
not content with having already hexed the Slyths into unconsciousness 
on the train, also feel the need to tramp all over their supine forms 
on their way out the door, it doesn't make me feel happy or gleeful 
or amused, or as if I've just been provided with a feel-good moment 
to lighten my mood.  It makes me feel simply *weary.*  Weary and sad, 
and very very old.  (Part of me desperately wants to believe that, 
given the general emotional tenor of the end of GoF, this was indeed
the intent.  But the realist in me knows better.)

Pig's Tail and Tongue Toffee and Bouncing Ferret and Sylth Stomping
fail to amuse me because...well, honestly, because I just don't see
what's funny about them.  They all seem to fall into a general
category of "it's funny because he really had it coming" humor that I 
just don't happen to get.

But I do very much like other types of humor that derive from
characters' being horribly pained or humiliated or embarrassed or
abused.  For me, though, in order for such scenes to work, the
characters have to be active agents.  It makes me laugh to see people 
desperately struggling to extricate themselves from impossible or 
embarrassing or even potentially lethal situations.  I don't know 
quite what this is called, but I tend to think of it as the primary 
comedic attribute of Farce.  

Both forms of humor are fairly sadistic, of course.  The difference,
I suppose, is that "Just Desserts" is purely sadistic -- there's no
particular identification with the victim involved, although there
may well be a strong identification with those who witness the 
victim's humiliation -- and it also has a tinge of righteous 
satisfaction: it is gratifying because it makes us feel that Justice 
Has Been Served.

Farce, OTOH, is more sado-masochistic.  We take malicious enjoyment 
in the character's discomfiture (and may even take a good deal of 
self-righteous gratification in its "you had that coming" aspects), 
while simultaneously sympathizing and identifying with the victim's 
plight.

The latter makes me laugh; the former doesn't.  Why?  Who knows?
I guess I must just have a taste for both sides of the whip.  ;->

I enjoy farce in all its forms, from the cheesy low-brow bedroom 
variety ("Oh, no!  It's my husband!  Quick -- go hide out on the 
balcony!") to the far more sophisticated verbal type.  I'm 
particularly partial to those farcical scenes in which one character 
is desperately trying to defend an all-too-obviously indefensible 
statement or position to someone who just isn't buying it for a 
second.  (The closest thing to a one-liner version of this that I 
can think of is: "She turned me into a newt!  Well...it got 
better.")  The more twists and turns the argument takes, the funnier
I tend to find it, and of course, it always helps if the character
to whom things are being explained is a bit of a sadist.  

PoA had a lot of nice examples of this form of humor.  I loved, for 
example, the scene in which Harry desperately tries to give Snape 
some explanation for why his head might have been spotted in 
Hogsmeade.  Snape's own dry humor adds tremendously to the comedy, of 
course, as does his malice.

And then, naturally, there was Shrieking Shack.

Yes, of *course* I found Shrieking Shack funny!  It was grim and 
terrible and disturbing -- and also utterly hilarious.  The steady 
degeneration of Pettigrew's attempts at self-defense -- from "It 
wasn't me, it was Black!" to "Listen to all the clever arguments 
these nice thirteen-year-olds are making here, why don't you?  It was 
Black, I'm telling you!" to "Well...okay, so it *was* me, but it 
happened in a moment of weakness, and really, what the hell else 
could you expect?  You know what a terrible coward I've always been," 
to "Well...okay, so I was actually passing on information for an 
entire year, but Voldemort *made* me do it!" to finally "Oh God, just 
please don't kill me" -- was absolutely hysterical.  

Well...to me, at any rate.  Like I said, I've got kind of a black 
sense of humor.

But then, I'm particularly partial to what one might call "black 
farce," farce in which the penalty for failure is monstrously severe -
- death or enslavement or torment, for example, rather than social 
embarrassment or unemployment or plain old humiliation.  The
darker it gets, the funnier I tend to find it.

No-win situations also always tickle me.  There is a subset of black
farce (often known as "ghetto humor") in which the humor derives from
the understanding that the character actually has *no* chance of 
extricating himself from his terrible predicament -- he's utterly 
powerless, and the situation completely hopeless; he simply can't 
win.  The best short example of this type I can think of right now
is that bit in Monty Python's Life of Brian, when the Centurion tells 
the crucified prisoners, already hanging bound and nailed to their 
crosses: "Right, then.  All those who *don't* want to be crucified, 
raise your hands."

JKR's never gone quite _that_ dark, but she starts edging there in
a couple of places in GoF.  Voldie and the DEs in the graveyard, for 
example, was the scene that I've found the funniest in all the books 
so far.  Particularly the brief exchange with Nott ("Yes.  That 
will do" was the GoF laugh-out-loud line for me.)  Again, it's black 
farce and while the humor there *can* be explained, I suppose, 
there's probably little point in doing so.  If it's not the sort of 
thing that happens to strike your comedic fancy, then it just isn't.

Mainly, though, GoF's humor for me lies in the re-reading.  Just
about every Crouch/Moody scene in the book strikes me as funny, 
because I always enjoy humor that derives from the reader's being in 
on the joke.  I like con artistry; I enjoy deceit.  And I 
particularly love to be in on the joke when it comes to statements 
with hidden secondary meanings -- especially if the motives of the 
character making the statements are malicious, or even downright 
*wicked.* (Richard III, Iago)  I'm not quite sure why this form of 
humor should work so much better for me when the double-edged
statements come from someone with ill-intentions, but I suspect that
it may have something to do with the fact that I actively enjoy 
feeling strong conflicting sympathies.  Laughing along with the 
villain, while simultaneously getting to sympathize with the innocent 
dupe, is just far more *satisfying* somehow than laughing along with 
the hero *at* the innocent dupe can ever be.

It's only on re-reading that you find the really black humor in GoF,
but some of that is very black indeed.  The scene in the anteroom off 
of the main hall right after Harry's name has come out of the Goblet 
of Fire, for example, is the thing that has definitely made me laugh
the hardest in all the books to date -- but it's definitely sadistic
humor, and it's only evident on second reading.  It made me giggle
madly the second time through because, knowing the plot, Crouch Sr.'s
position there is just so absolutely horrific that I found it funny.

I mean, there the poor bastard is, he's all Imperio'ed, and he's 
trapped in a very small room with Karkaroff, and with Snape, *and* 
with Ludo Bagman (who may or may not really be a Baddie, but I'd be 
willing to bet that at that point, Crouch was convinced that he was) -
- from his perspective, he's fallen into a pit of vipers, he really 
has -- and then, as if that weren't bad enough, in stomps his 
polyjuiced son, pretending to be Moody, and starts just *torturing* 
the poor man, going on about "gee, maybe someone Confunded the 
Goblet, wonder who could have done that?" and "I'll bet this is all 
part of someone's plan to murder Harry Potter, wonder who that can 
be?"

And poor Crouch can't do a *thing*.  He can't warn anyone, he can't 
tell Dumbledore what's going on.  All he can do is stand there,
looking sicker and sicker by the minute (Harry notices how ill Crouch 
looks not just once, but *twice* in the course of that scene), and
recite his designated lines whenever he's called upon to do so.  Even
when Dumbledore, who is obviously quite concerned that something may
be up with him, invites him to stay for tea (his chance!  his one
chance!) the poor guy can't even manage to throw the curse off long 
enough to so much as accept the invitation.  And I'm absolutely 
certain that Crouch interpreted Ludo Bagman's cheerful prodding ("Oh, 
come on, Barty -- *do* say yes") as deliberate cruelty.

It's terrible, but it's also very funny in a black, black way: the 
second time I read GoF, I found myself giggling out loud all the way 
through that scene.

Then, I have quite a few rather serious...er, parental issues.  (Why, 
yes!  As a matter of fact, I *did* identify with young Barty Crouch.  
Why do you ask?)  So I'm willing to acknowledge the possibility that 
my appreciation for the comedy inherent in that scene might well have 
been edging into the domain of the purely sadistic.

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, JKR is going in the right direction
as far as the humor element of the books goes.  But then, I like my
funnies dark.


--- Elkins, who *is* willing to cut Crouch Sr. some slack, but only
because he suffered horribly before he died