Where's the Canon? (Part One) -- Canonical "suggestion" and plausibility

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 34802

"BOOM. They knocked again. Dudley jerked awake.
'Where's the cannon?' he said stupidly."
-- PS, Ch 4

Hello, all.  Quite some time ago now, Rebecca began her last sally in
our discussion about Snape's attitudes towards his old Slytherin 
classmates with a preamble regarding the nature of canon.  Because 
issues of canonical purity have come to suffuse this exchange, and 
because I find them interesting in and of themselves, I'd like to 
take a bit of time here to examine the relationship between authorial 
fiat and reader desire: the space that lies between the two, the 
nature of the speculation that takes place within that space.

If theory gives you the screaming heebies, then you may want to give 
this one a miss, frankly.  I am no po-mo warrior, but I do 
occasionally indulge myself in a few ugly little habits, like using 
the word 'privilege' as a verb.  If that sort of thing upsets you, 
then please feel free to skip on ahead: I've extracted the parts of 
this discussion that did not, IMO, center on questions of canonical 
purity, and I'll be addressing those separately, in a different (and 
relatively theory-free) post later on.

This got long.  It got quite long.  I've therefore broken it up into
two parts.  Only part two has Snapestuff in it, sorry.  This part 
does have a bit of Draco, though, for those who like that sort of 
thing.

------

So.  In message (33930), Rebecca wrote:

> I'd like to make a brief preamble distinguishing between an
> interpretation based on canonical evidence and one based on ones 
> own experience, imagination, influence from other writers and real 
> world probability. Now if anyone tries to write a fanfic, which was 
> Elkins original example, they must draw on all these things. 

I would argue that _all_ readers both can and must draw on all of 
these things.  To do so is intrinsic to the very act of reading a 
text.  Fiction in particular relies upon the reader's ability to make 
sense of the story through extrapolation from real life, and through 
inferences drawn from that extrapolation.  Should the reader fail to 
do this, or should her inferences diverge too widely from what the 
author had anticipated (as might happen, for example, due to vast 
cultural differences between reader and author), then the story is 
likely to fall flat: it will not make sense to the reader, or it will 
fail to engage on any real emotional level.

(Yes.  This _is_ painfully basic.  But please bear with me: I really 
am trying to go somewhere with this.)

Non-canonical sources such as the reader's real life experience, 
imagination, and understanding of probability, politics, and literary 
or genre convention are not the enemies of Authorial Intent.  They 
are very important _vehicles_ of Authorial Intent.

But the Author does not get to steer those vehicles.

We do.  And We Are Legion.

This is relevant because, as the endless quality of some of the 
debates here demonstrate (just how many students _are_ there at 
Hogwarts, anyway?), canon itself is often ambiguous or self-
contradictory, open to many equally-plausible interpretations; on 
many issues, it is simply silent.  When this happens, then readers 
must turn to non-canonical considerations -- themselves often 
ambiguous or self-contradictory -- to decide which of competing 
potential canonical 'truths' they wish to privilege.  Because there 
are so many non-canonical factors open for consideration, however, 
and because many of these are intensely personal, no two readers are 
likely to construct 'canonical suggestion' in precisely the same 
way.  Some disagreement over what is in fact suggested or implied by 
the text is unavoidable.

It is, I believe, this very quality of fiction -- the fact that it 
not only invites, but actively _demands_ that the reader insert his 
own experiences into the text -- that makes the act of reading 
fiction so highly engaging, and so deeply immersive.  Fiction demands 
a great deal of active participation from the reader.  It is 
intensely personal.  The hazy indeterminate space which lies between 
What the Author Tells Us and That Which Canon Does Not Prohibit is 
the space in which the story lives and breathes.  It is the space in 
which not only fanfic, but also reader speculation -- such as gets 
discussed on this list -- and to some extent reader engagement itself 
resides.

Canonical "suggestion" lives within this space.

But so do reader imagination...and reader desire.


Rebecca wrote:

> But I'm trying to make a distinction between the way a reader 
> imagines things ought to be (and here everyone can and should make
> their own interpretations) and what is actually suggested by the
> text (which we can still disagree on, but there's a difference). 

Rebecca, while I understand (or believe that I do) the distinction 
that you're describing here, I also think that the situation is far 
more complicated than the above sentence might suggest.  There is in 
fact a vast grey area lying between What The Author Tells Us and What 
We Would Like To Imagine, and many gradations of canonical 'purity' 
within that space.  Canonical suggestion -- "what is actually 
suggested by the text" -- is itself, as you acknowledge, open to 
debate; it is so precisely because it is formulated through recourse 
to all of those non-canonical factors you mentioned earlier: 
extrapolation from experience, real world probability, literary 
convention, and so forth.  Unlike canonical _evidence_ (the actual 
words of the author), canonical _suggestion_ is a matter of nuance 
and assumption and inference: it is inherently 'impure.'

That said, however, I think that we would both agree that there _is_ 
such a thing as 'canonical purity,' and that some interpretations 
adhere to it far more strictly than others.  Even on subjects about 
which canon is silent, we generally do recognize certain theories as 
more 'plausible' -- by which we mean, 'more likely to be what the 
author intended' -- than others.  We recognize the existence of a 
thing called 'Spirit of Canon,' a spirit which can be either 
respected or violated.  Because the Spirit of the Canon is a thing of 
nuance and inference and tone, it may be difficult to define in 
precise terms, but we believe in it nonetheless.  It's a lot like 
pornography that way -- we may not know exactly what it is, but we 
recognize it when we see it.  ;-)

Within the vast grey realm of canonical possibility there lies a 
spectrum of what we might call 'canonical plausibility.'  Some 
speculations are so strongly implied by the text that they hardly 
require any defense at all ("Dumbledore Is NOT Evil!").  At the most 
plausible end of this spectrum we might place those notions so 
overwhelmingly suggested by the text that they may often be mistaken 
for absolute canonical truth -- until, that is, some crazed L.O.O.N 
steps in to clear up the misapprehension ("The Lestranges were two of 
younger Crouch's three co-defendents in the Pensieve scene of GoF").

Some theories, on the other hand, militate so strongly against what 
we perceive as the Spirit of Canon that while they _can_ be defended 
(and often _are,_ often by means of extensive citation), to do so 
requires both rugged determination and, one might argue, a healthy 
dose of perversity -- or at the very least, of eccentricity 
("Dumbledore Is In League With Voldemort!"  "Snape and Sirius Are 
Actually Blood-Relations!").  At the far end of the spectrum on this 
side lie 'subversive readings,' readings whose proponents know full 
well that they are not Authorial Intent, and never will be canon, but 
which because they are not yet explicitly _prohibited_ by the text 
are still "permissable" and may therefore be legitimately espoused.  
Subversive readings are those which deliberately and self-consciously 
violate the Spirit, if not the Letter, of Canon.

Readers might choose to privilege a subversive reading for any number 
of different reasons: political bias, aesthetic preference, 
philosophical protest, playful humor, or plain old-fashioned 
perversity.  In most cases, though, the decision to espouse a 
subversive reading reflects some degree of dissatisfaction with one 
or more aspects of a work which otherwise holds great appeal.  
Subversive readings are usually a symptom of a deep reader 
ambivalence about the text as a whole.

Of course, true subversion is a matter of intent.  For a reading to 
classify technically as a 'subversive reading,' its proponent must 
_believe_ himself to be in deliberate opposition to the Spirit of 
Canon.  It is therefore impossible to prove that someone else's 
speculation is truly subversive -- particularly as an important part 
of the "game" of defending a subversive reading is the assumption of 
a painfully earnest and sincere tone ("No, really, this MUST be 
what's really going on in these books -- just look at all the PROOF 
I've found!").  So, for example, while I strongly _suspect_ that Eric 
Oppen's "Frank Longbottom Was Judge Dredd On Acid!" speculation was 
intentionally subversive, I cannot know this for sure.  He may have 
been proposing what in his own mind he considered an "implausible" 
suggestion, rather than a deliberately subversive one.

I can, however, give with full confidence as an example of a 
subversive reading a post I wrote a week or two ago (but never sent 
out) with the subject line "Defending Avery," in which I embarked on 
a passionate defense of one of Rowling's most severely misunderstood 
and consistently maligned minor characters to date: Snape's old 
classmate, the unfortunate Mr. Avery.  In that message, I objected 
strenuously to Rebecca's characerization of this poor man as 
a "grovelling toady" and outlined all of the ways in which the 
canonical evidence actually strongly suggests that Avery Is Not All 
That Bad A Fellow, Really.

And I did a fair job of it too, I think.  (Hey, there's quite a case 
to be made for Avery, you know...)  But the point here is that of 
_course_ I don't really believe that JKR intended, or anticipated, or 
expected, or at all _wanted_ us to read the text that way.  Nor do I 
believe for a moment that Rowling's Avery, should he appear in later 
books, will bear any resemblance to the rather likeable figure I 
painted in that post.  It is perfectly clear to me that we're meant 
to read JKR's Avery as...well, as a grovelling toady, actually.

However, the canon _can_ be read to suggest otherwise.  There is 
plenty of evidence to support such a reading, and nothing in the text 
proper that strictly opposes it.  I was therefore not violating any 
of the accepted rules of engagement in my interpretation: I was, in 
short, not "cheating."  But I _was_ deliberately misreading the cues 
of canonical suggestion, and doing so with purely provocative intent. 
(I had at the time just been accused of extending unreasonable 
benefit of the doubt to criminals and other Very Bad Men; the post 
was my original response to that accusation, a rather aggressive "I'm 
going to commit the murder I was imprisoned for" tactic.  It occurred 
to me only after writing the thing that it was likely an unduly 
inflammatory response, which was the reason that in the end, I never 
sent it out.)  

"Defending Avery" was a truly subversive reading, a deliberate 
violation of the Spirit of Canon.  It is quite possible, however, 
that someone else could make the exact same case for Avery with _no_ 
subversive intent: they could merely have read the cues of canonical 
suggestion in a highly idiosyncratic manner and thus come to view 
what I consider virtually canonically impossible as the Author's Real 
Intent.  People read very differently, and sometimes they can come to 
very different conclusions regarding the true nature of the Spirit of 
Canon.

Leaving aside for the moment the question of deliberately subversive 
readings, though (I'll return to them later), I think that for the 
most part readers _are_ capable of differentiating between their own 
desires and the suggestions of the text.  Statements such as "I would 
certainly _like_ it if JKR redeemed Draco...but I don't really think 
that's ever going to happen," or "I don't _really_ think that Snape 
is supposed to be a vampire...but it sure is fun to speculate!" 
attest to this understanding, as do the occasional explicit 
rejections of canonical statement of fact. ("I don't care _what_ 
canon states, I always imagine McGonagall's animagus form as an 
orange marmalade, and I intend to continue to do so, no matter how 
many times the text tells me otherwise!")  Generally speaking, 
readers do know when they are choosing to ignore or override textual 
suggestion.

Sometimes, though, disagreements arise over where along the spectrum 
of plausibility certain speculations or conjectures truly lie.  This 
does not, IMO, happen simply because some readers are inept (although 
surely some are), or because some people have a tin ear when it comes 
to nuance and tone (although some undoubtedly do).  Rather, it seems 
to me that when such disagreements arise, it is usually because 
different readers have chosen to focus on different _aspects_ of 
canonical suggestion -- and because many of these aspects are in 
direct (and often strident!) contradiction.  

This situation is even further complicated in the case of the HP 
books because as the series progresses, the tone of the books has 
been growing steadily darker and the moral universe they present ever 
more complex and ambiguous.  As a result, the 'Spirit of Canon' may 
itself be seen to be in a state of flux: as the series progresses, 
some of the rules seem to be _changing._  After reading only the 
first two books, for example, Rebecca's statement that "JKR's 
Slytherin is the House of Bad Guys" would seem incontrovertable.  By 
the end of PoA it seems less so, and by the end of GoF, less so 
still.  This aspect of the series weakens our sense of surety about 
what truly is or is not permissable to imagine about future 
developments: what once seemed improbable may come to seem not only 
plausible, but even strongly indicated; the formerly subversive may 
come to be reinterpreted as merely highly unlikely.

(Or it may even become canonical fact!  Just after PoA came out, a 
friend and I entertained ourselves for a couple of days by racking up 
canonical "proofs" for the notion that Snape really _had_ once been 
one of Voldemort's supporters, see, but that he'd since...well, 
recanted, sort of.  Although we both loved this theory, neither of us 
believed for a moment that it was really Authorial Intent.  We knew 
full well that such a plot development would be grossly out-of-
character for Rowling's irritatingly morally simplistic universe 
<vbg>.  No, this was a purely subversive reading that we were 
defending partly to amuse ourselves, but mainly to annoy the _hell_ 
out of a mutual friend -- one who is often weirdly humorless 
about "heretical" interpretations of the books that she very much 
likes.)

(Needless to say, we were both thrilled with GoF.  But the point here 
is that when an interpretation that you had assumed to be utterly 
opposed to the Spirit of Canon is revealed to be Authorial Intent 
only one novel later, that can leave you with some lingering doubts
about your own ability to correctly interpret canonical suggestion.)  

In the absence of direct canonical evidence, readers must look 
outside of canon proper for ways to construct a kind of model 
representing the Canonical Spirit, and this process is unlikely to be 
undertaken in the same way by every reader.  We all believe in a 
Spirit of Canon, yes.  But our respective images of what that Spirit 
of Canon looks like are not necessarily at all the same.

As an example of this phenomenon, let's take the (rather contentious) 
statement: "By the end of Book Seven, Draco Malfoy will have found 
redemption, if only in death."

The general consensus about this statement seems to be that it is 
canonically implausible, yet still well within the range of 
possibility (i.e., it is not necessarily a subversive reading.)  
There is, however, no very _firm_ consensus on this particular 
issue.  Whenever it gets raised here, you can easily find people 
arguing strenuously for its allocation to all points along the 
spectrum of plausibility, including its most extreme ends.  "It is a 
virtual certainty that Draco will act in the service of Good before 
the end of the series: all indications point to that outcome; at this 
point it is practically a canonical inevitability" has its small 
group of adherents.  So, however, does "Malfoy will _never_ be 
redeemed in canon: the very notion is heretical and can only be 
defended as a deliberately subversive reading!"

The people who argue both of these extreme positions aren't coming to 
their vastly differing conclusions on the basis of nothing more than 
their own desires or personal neuroses (lingering resentment of 
schoolyard bullies, for example, or romantic preference for frail 
young blonds).  Such factors might certainly play some role, but for 
the most part I think that the adherents of both of these extreme 
positions _are_ looking at 'legitimate' sources of canonical 
suggestion.  The problem is that while they're looking at the same 
types of sources, they're coming up with completely different answers.

The most vehement opponents of Redeemable Draco, for example, may be 
looking for clues to Authorial Intent to literary convention ("Draco 
is Harry's literary mirror: just as Harry both has and will be 
tempted by Evil, yet choose to turn to Good, so Draco will be given 
the opportunity to turn to Good, yet choose an Evil path"), or to 
genre convention ("This is a boy's coming-of-age story set in a 
fantasy universe; in such stories, the hero must be given opportunity 
to triumph over an adversary of roughly equivalent age and 
experience; Draco is the character who fills that function in these 
books").  They may also be gaining their impressions from certain 
conventions and shorthands that JKR has already exhibited a fondness 
for in the books to date ("Slytherin Is the House of Evil," "Children 
Resemble Their Parents," "History Repeats Itself Through the 
Generations," "Blondes Are Bad News"), or drawing analogies with 
other literary works that bear some relation to the HP books ("Draco 
Malfoy is the cowardly bully of a boarding school tale.  He's the 
*Flashman,* for heaven's sake!  And just as that character never got 
one whit of authorial sympathy [until another writer came along to 
make him the star of his own deliberately subversive text], so only 
through a subversive reading could Draco be painted in a sympathetic 
light -- JKR herself will never do so.")

Assumptions about the author's personal philosophy, drawn either from 
observations of the work so far ("JKR has proven herself 
unsentimental about both the supposed innocence of youth and about 
the nature of evil; she will therefore not balk at sending even a 
character so young straight to the Dark Side"), or from statements 
the author has made in interview ("JKR herself has said that she 
wishes to depict Evil as truly _bad:_ in order to do this, she will 
_have_ to show the corruption of youth, and it would weaken her 
thematic point to provide such an antagonist with any last-minute 
redemption") may also play their part in their understanding of What 
Canon Actually Implies.

Finally, people who take this position may be drawing on their own 
understandings of real-life experience and real-world probability to 
reach their conclusions.  ("People's predilections usually _are_ 
visible by the age of 14," "It is rare for children to overcome 
beliefs instilled in them by their parents," "It just wouldn't be 
_realistic_ if all of Harry's peers turned out to be Good Down Deep 
Inside").

And as for those who maintain that canon overwhelmingly _suggests_ a 
redemption scenario for Draco?

Well, they're looking at exactly the same things.

They, too, are looking to literary convention ("Draco's literary 
double is Severus Snape: just as Snape managed to turn away from his 
evil path, so will Draco") and to genre convention ("This is the sort 
of story which must end with a decisive victory for the forces of 
Good; only if Evil is abandoned by some of its former adherents can 
this victory be in any way satisfying, and Draco is the obvious 
character to serve such a function").  They, too, are drawing 
conclusions based on certain habits or tendencies that the author has 
revealed in the books to date (The most likely suspect is never the 
real culprit; Characters often surprise you; The lines of conflict 
are never drawn quite where you expect them to be; As the series 
progresses, the books grow increasingly morally ambiguous, so by Book 
Seven Draco *cannot* remain the one-dimensional character he has been 
to date).  Also like their opponents, they are likely drawing 
comparisons with analogous characters in other fictional works 
("Draco Malfoy is an envious, proud, disdainful aristocrat.  He's 
*Elidyr,* for heaven's sake!  And just as Elidyr gives his life to 
atone for his wrongs, so will Draco make the same decision.")

Redeemable Draco's most devoted supporters are also likely to be 
making some assumptions about the author's personal philosophy, based 
either on knowledge of her life experiences ("JKR used to work as a 
schoolteacher, so she knows that children often grow out of their 
cruelty," "JKR used to work for Amnesty International, so she's been 
immersed in a tradition of redemption narratives"), or from the moral 
precepts that she has chosen to emphasize most strongly in her work 
to date ("Don't Prejudge Others," "It Is Never Too Late For 
Redemption," "It Is Our Choices, Not Our Heritage, That Define Who We 
Are").

Finally, also like their opponents, these people are likely drawing 
off of their understanding of real-life experience and real-world 
probability to reach their conclusions ("The people who parrot their 
parents' beliefs most vehemently in early adolescence are those most 
likely to rebel later in their teen years," "You can't really tell 
_anything_ about someone from the way they behave at the age of 
14," "Adolescents tend to express cruel and callous opinions that 
they don't necessarily really believe as a way of covering for their 
own fears and insecurities.")

Now, neither of these groups of people is exactly _ignoring_ canon.  
Nor are they going about interpreting canonical suggestion in an 
utterly wrong-headed fashion.  Every single one of the above 
statements represents, IMO, a perfectly legitimate step in the effort 
to construct a model of the 'Spirit of Canon' from which future plot 
developments may be predicted.  But these two groups of people have 
chosen to focus on completely different _aspects_ of canonical 
suggestion while resolutely ignoring other aspects: they have 
therefore reached diametrically opposed -- if equally extreme -- 
conclusions.

In other words, people don't always disagree because they fail to 
read the signs.  Sometimes they disagree because the signpost bears 
far too _many_ signs -- all of them pointing in different directions.

When we talk about certain readings being more strongly suggested 
than others, then, we can run into difficulties, because the aspects 
of canon that I choose to privilege might not be the same as the ones 
that you do.  "Harry is the Heir of Gryffyndor" is another good 
example of this phenomenon -- and a far simpler and less contentious 
one than Redeemable Draco.  To some, the speculation that Harry might 
be Godric Gryffyndor's heir seems highly plausible: genre convention 
supports it, as do certain canonical plot events and their 
implications.  Others, however, argue (with equal validity, IMO) that 
this theory is canonically IMplausible, or even downright anti-
canonical ("That would totally violate the spirit of the canon!") 
because the work to date has placed such a strong thematic emphasis 
on the primacy of choice over blood in the affairs of men.

In fact, both "Blood Will Tell" _and_ "Choice Over Blood" are 
strongly suggested by the text, despite the fact that these two 
statements are contradictory.  This is one of the major 'fault lines' 
of the books: one of the areas where the work strikes readers as 
thematically inconsistent, and which therefore causes a high degree 
of reader anxiety.

Which brings us back to the issue of reader subversion.  


-- Elkins