Too EWWW and mature to be True-Re: More LOLLIPOPS, Timeline, WL3

[lucky_kari]

No: HPFGUIDX 34902

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:
>  I don't think it would have to be too dark, though, for Harry to 
> discover that his mother and Snape had some history. JKR is 
> able to suggest some quite dark things without ever being 
> explicit. Turning Mrs. Roberts upside down, for example, and 
> having Draco say that Hermione was in like danger of showing 
> her knickers to the world.
> 
> I could see Voldemort taunting seventeen year old Harry at some 
> point and saying, "I don't believe I've ever told you why I offered 
to 
> spare your mother's life. Severus wanted her. Loved her, I 
> suppose, if you want to call it that. No, Severus is not really 
nice. 
> You had better leave him to me." though JKR would probably not 
> steal  from Tolkien quite so directly.

Which got me thinking. 

Tolkien used the "ewwww" plot at least twice in his fiction. Someone 
has already Saruman/Wortongue/Eowyn, and in the Silmarillion there's 
Morgoth/Maeglin/Idril. Both times he carried it off pretty well, so 
that an 8 year old could listen to both stories without being 
disturbed. 

As you say, it doesn't have to be long, involved, and specific. First 
of all, younger children don't even have an idea of what is so 
"ewwwish" about the plot. Like many other people I know, I was read 
"The Lord of the Rings" when I was about 8 years old, and it didn't 
occur to me what particularily Wortongue wanted Eowyn for (though 
objectively I knew about the facts of life and could probably have 
given you a correct answer if asked). Just another piece of evidence 
that he was bad. When I was 13, and I was reading the books, the 
"ewwwness" of the situation struck me, and I began to realize why 
Eomer had lashed out at Wortongue like that, why Eowyn was so 
depressed etc. I mentioned it to my friends and realized they hadn't 
picked up on it themselves either. Ever since then, I've noticed many 
movies, and books since time immemorial, include a theme of the badguy 
who's trying to get the woman. 100 years ago, people gave their 12 
year olds books like "Ivanhoe", for heaven's sake, which is pretty 
explicit about what is going on re: Rebecca and the bad guy (what was 
his name?) And yet, kids read it and don't get disturbed. Chasing 
after the heroine is just a mark of being bad (often cartoonishly 
bad). I think it's us adults who go "ewwwwwwwww" b/c we are more aware 
 of what it all has to do with real life. 

Eileen

PS. This is further confirmed by having gone a few days ago to 
someone's house. Her kids were all in front of the TV watching 
Disney's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" breezily, as Frollo sings about 
how he lusts for Esmeralda. Asked them what was going on. The bad 
guy's plotting to kill the good guys, because he loves Esmeralda, was 
the answer. Didn't disturb them at all, while I was wondering, "This 
is a Disney movie?"