The Spying Game and the Shrieking Shack - shorter

[bluesqueak]

No: HPFGUIDX 39703

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "davewitley" <dfrankiswork at n...> wrote:
> Pip wrote:
> > 
> > One question I've been asking myself is: 'what sort of war is the 
> > Voldemort-Potter war?'
> > 
> > The answer is that it's an undercover sort of war. A terrorist 
war. A modern war. 
> > 

Dave replies:
> Now, I like this theory a lot, not because I necessarily agree with 
> it, but because it provides a sort of litmus test for the vexed 
> question of the sort of literature that HP is.
> 
> My understanding is that the books are about the struggle between 
> good and evil, so that there is a fairly clearly identifiable good 
> and an identifiable evil.


I agree that is the impression Harry currently has (and we're being 
given), yes. He's still a child (growing up, but still a child) and 
children tend to see things in very black and white terms. JKR is 
hiding a very large amount of what the adults are doing and saying; 
as this is progressively revealed in the books we find that things 
are getting greyer and greyer [like Snape's nightgown - I love that!].

David writes:
> Characters who are in-between, like Fudge, are still judged in 
> terms of the overarching framework, because 'evil flourishes when 
> good men are silent' - to be in-between is to unwittingly aid evil.
> 
> However, the Dumbledore's Dirty War theory (as in effect this is) 
> radically redraws the boundaries.  It is a lot less obvious why 
> allegiance should be given to Dumbledore, either by Harry, or, in 
> moral terms, by the reader.  I think that if it turns out to be 
> true, it will lay to rest forever the claim that these are          
> childrens' books.
> 
> Instead of being about the (IMO) essentially juvenile theme of 
> choosing between good and evil, they will be about the adult (again 
> IMO) theme of choosing the lesser of two evils, of making up your 
> moral rules as you go along and never knowing if the outcomes  
> justify your choices.


Ooh, yeah, that's a really good way of putting it. I don't think the 
HP series are a series of childrens books (and I haven't thought so 
since PoA and GoF). I think they are a series that can be read and 
enjoyed by both children and adults, and the difference between the 
two types is huge. LOTR is an 'enjoyed by children and adults' book, 
with a surface level of an adventure story and much deeper levels 
asking adult questions about continuing without hope, about people 
having to lose the things they love in order to save them for others 
and so on.

<Snip>

David writes: 
> I can't help thinking that the master 
> manipulator is not Dumbledore (aided by Snape) but JKR doing her 
> best to make the 'face-value' story plausible - thus, e.g. Snape 
> cuts off rat references because it ensures *JKR's* goals of having 
> Pettigrew free, Sirius uncleared, Snape mysterious, and Harry being 
> the actor whose decisions shape the story.  And, Snape and 
> Dumbledore seem to knowknow about Scabbers=Pettigrew because JKR   
> knows and manipulates their actions towards the revelation.
> actions towards the revelation.
> 

This is where we may just have to agree that readings can differ. So, 
yes, JKR is the ultimate arch-manipulator behind this scene. But she 
has deliberately chosen to make the scene plausible in a certain way; 
for example by adding Snape's scream of  "Don't talk about what you 
don't understand." when his yelling  "Keep quiet you stupid girl" and 
shooting the sparks out of his wand would have been a perfectly 
plausible way to shut Hermione up. (PoA p.264 UK hardback). 

She chooses to make Snape goof in his mention of the rat and 
Pettigrew in the hospital when it would have been just as easy to 
have Snape say 'some fairy tale about Pettigrew being alive'. And she 
chooses to have Dumbledore shut Snape up when it would have been just 
as plausible to have one of the kids interrupting. 

> Perhaps it's just my tendency to see oddities as FLINTy - or, to be 
> precise, as slightly clumsy FLINT-avoidance -  rather than as cross-
> book references.
> 
> David

Again, we probably have to agree to differ here.  I think that JKR's 
pretty-well-confirmed FLINTs to date are relatively minor errors - 
using sixth-year instead of fifth-year for Marcus; or 'ancestor' 
instead of 'descendent' about Voldemort, getting confused when 
reversing the order of people's deaths.

IMO the evidence for cross-book referencing - the Scabbers oddities 
and Harry's Parseltongue in PS/SS, Hagrid's huge size being an 
important subplot in GoF, and my argument that Hagrid's being taken 
to Azkaban in CoS gives Dumbledore knowledge of Pettigrew-as-secret-
keeper, is looking much stronger. But right now that is very much 
IMO; we won't know which FLINTs are real FLINTs until Book Seven.

Pip