TBAY: HP and the Superfluous Scene

[dicentra63]

No: HPFGUIDX 40360

Dicentra is confused by this new phenomenon.  There are these...
words...  writing themselves in the sky, right before her eyes.  She
can't see who wrote them, only that the person is named Naama.  And
it's *another* one of those wearysome defenses of the Portkey chapter.
 Dicentra looks over to the Big Bang to see if Cindy is available for
help, but she can't see her.  Undoubtedly, she's below deck, kicking
the Snapetheories into submission or something, so Dicey turns her
attention back to the writing as this paragraph appears:

> A rather different aspect of this is the need for a certain 
> thickness of description in a novel (bastardizing Clifford Geertz 
> here). It seems to me, Cindy, that if JKR were to follow your project 
> of leaving only the parts that are informative and important plot 
> wise, we would be left with an abstract of a novel - not the novel 
> itself.

Oh wait, Dicentra thinks. That's not what Cindy would propose.  No no
no no. Not for a minute. 

Dicentra pauses.  Her thoughts are appearing as words in the sky, too.
 Yikes!  Get out of my head!  She tries to erase the words by waving
her hands through them, but they remain unperturbed.  *Sigh*  Well, if
that's how it is...

Dicentra continues: I'm fairly sure Cindy wouldn't ask that a single
syllable be removed from the Shrieking Shack scene, for example.  It's
very dense writing, but it's hardly an abstract.  (OK, it's a lot of
exposition of past actions that we would all rather see in real time,
if for no other reason than to resolve some nagging issues, but that's
not the point.)  The point is that when Cindy reads the Portkey
chapter, she's left with the sensation of not having gone anywhere. 
She doesn't go back to read it just for fun.  She wants those 20
minutes back.  

It would appear that many other readers, such as yourself, Naama, and
Pippin and Debbie and Rosie and Rowen and who knows who else do not
have that sensation.  That's why we have the "Tortam Comere Tanto
Habere" spell.  It acknowledges that what strikes one reader as
irrelevant might not strike others the same way.  I get to keep my
can(n)ons on board GARBAGE SCOW, and Pippin gets to make off with them
at the same time.

Then the words that Naama was writing just go on as if Dicentra's
words hadn't even been written yet.  Sheez!

> For instance, in order for us to become interested in Harry's special 
> destiny, green eyes and scar, we need, in the first place, to care 
> about Harry. For that, we need to *know* him (in the sense of get to 
> know), get a sense of who he is. Would we feel for him if the 
> books told us only those thoughts and feelings that he has that are 
> crucial to the plot? I doubt it. A description of Harry's anxiety 
> before a Quidditch match may not "enhance or establish plot twists or 
> significant events" and may not be "entertaining or clever in and of 
> themselves", but they *may* add density, thickness, depth, to the 
> reader's sense of Harry the person - and that is (IMO) a necessary 
> condition for the reader's involvement in the story.

If, in Harry Awakens at 4:30am, Harry were sitting there in the common
room, fretting his guts out before the match, I'd agree with you.  But
no mention is made of Harry's emotional state.  His fingers don't grip
the broomstick tightly, he stomach doesn't tie itself in knots, he
doesn't look out the window and wonder how the heck he's going to play
in that weather, he doesn't even go over Quidditch strategy in his
head.  We're only told that he whiles away the hours until dawn,
occasionally stopping Crookshanks from entering the boys' dormitory
(whose door is shut anyway, isn't it? FLINT!).  

When I finished reading that scene, I was left with the sensation that
absolutely NOTHING had happened.  Nothing "enhanced or established
plot twists or significant events," nothing was "entertaining or
clever in and of itself," nothing "added density, thickness, or depth,
to the reader's sense of Harry the person."  And that's *highly*
unusual for a scene in the HP series.  That's why I got me this boat
and hoisted some can(n)ons aboard.  All the other watercraft rely on
density of meaning; this one collects those scenes that don't get used
for theories, speculations, and other TBAY hijinks.  The useless
scenes need love too!  

--Dicentra, who realizes that the can(n)ons aboard GARBAGE SCOW are
highly subjective, but show me a can(n)on that isn't!