Potterverse Coherence

[GulPlum]

No: HPFGUIDX 38846

dfrankiswork at n... wrote:

> My doubts concern the extent to which this is true *from book to 
book*.  They are, I admit, based on the way I read the first three 
books, in turn based on my experience of the types of literature out 
of which HP seems to have sprung.  If you read the Jennings series by 
Anthony Buckeridge (or any other school series), or the Discworld 
series by Terry Pratchett (or most other fantasy series: I except 
Tolkien, of course), it is obvious that you are reading a collection 
of episodes loosely linked together in the same fictional 
environment.  In the school series there is usually not even any 
attempt to pretend that the characters are getting any older.

I think this is where you're beginning to go wrong in your reasoning. 
The HP books aren't "just" "a collection of episodes loosely linked 
together" - there is a definite overarching narrative (of Harry 
discovering his past as he prepares himself for his - uncertain - 
future). Of course, that narrative is is many ways incidental to the 
individual whodunnit/mystery plots of each book, but at the same 
time, those plots help Harry (and us) learn more about how this world 
fits together, and Harry's place in it.

Such an arc narrative is absent from most school fiction (at least 
most of the school fiction I ever read, and yes, that includes all of 
Jennings!). :-) The (boarding) school adventure genre is just a 
convenient way to have kids away from their parents and needing to 
fend for themselves, hence their need to resolve whatever adventures 
they have for themselves. I'm not aware of any school advbenture 
series where the main characters not only happen to grow older from 
book to book, but in this case it's an integral part of the 
storyline. The Trio do not behave in GoF the same way they did in 
PS/SS, for example.


> In GOF, it never occurred to me that Polyjuice had been 
*foreshadowed* in COS, even after Crouch was revealed: I assumed that 
Crouch was not even a twinkle in JKR's eye when Hermione brewed 
Polyjuice for the first time.  She just picked up something not 
uncommon in stories of magic and ran with it, then picked it up again 
and used it a bit more.

When I read the books for the first time (for those who don't know, 
I'm one of those who considered the Potterverse beneath me until I 
saw the movie at a preview, and read the books in one go before the 
official premiere a week later) I was utterly LIVID reading the 
Polyjuice sequence. I thought JKR had gone totally barmy - why didn't 
the kids just use the Invisibility Cloak to spy on Malfoy? The whole 
morphing scheme was fraught with dangers which they simply had no 
need to overcome because they had the Cloak. An argument I've heard 
was they had no guarantee that they'd be able to find anything out 
without the possibility of prompting Malfoy. However, it took them 
two weeks just to make the Potion, never mind prepare for it - during 
that time, they could have been through Malfoy's belongings a dozen 
times under cover of the cloak. People were being incapacitated, but 
they're prepared to wait two weeks and depend on a hair-brained 
scheme that had a very small chance of success? It simply doesn't 
ring true. 

As an aside: one of the things with which JKR has a problem is the 
consequences of "off-screen" activity.

The aftermath of PJ is one: After Crabb & Goyle are freed, how come 
Malfoy doesn't get to find out that they've been locked up in a 
cupboard? Malfoy is many things, but he's not utterly stupid: he'd 
realise that the conversation he just had wasn't with them. He'd 
raise merry hell trying to work out what was going on. Why do we not 
learn of this?

Also, in PS/SS, when Filtch fails to catch Harry in the library, but 
encounters Snape & Quirrel, they go off together, to where? Surely 
their aim is to find the recalcitrant pupil who is not in his bed? 
How come Harry decides to go off (and find the Mirror), rather than 
make a bee-line for his bed before he's caught? How come Filch, Snape 
& Quirrel don't appear to take any further action?

(end of aside) :-)

The whole PJ sequence had one purpose, which was to let us know in 
great detail how difficult the Potion was to make and the conditions 
of its use. When the hows and whys of GoF come to be explained, we 
only need a couple of sentences to know *exactly* how The Plan worked 
(or was meant to have worked). And JKR, in mystery-writer mode, can 
laugh at us and say: "I already told you that this was possible in 
the Potterverse! Why didn't you see it coming?"

You (and others) came up with various examples of cross-book 
foreshadowing, to which you prefer to assign "lucky accident" status. 
However, don't you think that JKR is having just a few too many of 
these lucky accidents for them not to be something more? 

As someone else has already mentioned, JKR spent five years planning 
the series before getting down to the nitty-gritty of writing out 
PS/SS. Of course, we don't know how detailed that plan is, but it 
seems that names, certain key events and some key plot elements were 
definitely in that. Various characters' personalities and their back-
stories are part of that plan (otherwise it wouldn't be a plan, as 
those characters have to drive the over-all narrative!), and thus 
Snape's ex-DE status would definitely be among them. JKR knows who 
has and who will double-cross whom, and who has been and who will yet 
be faithful to whom. 

> In a similar vein, I had really hoped to see the centaurs again 
after PS, and Dobby after COS.  COS disappointed me by dropping the 
centaurs so comprehensively: POA did not disappoint in either 
respect, because by then I expected to be short-changed.

I admit that on a basic level, I was also a bit surprised that the 
centaurs didn't turn up during Harry & Ron's adventures in the Forest 
during CoS; however, it was made clear to us in PS/SS that they do 
not concern themselves with human affairs - Firenze came to Harry's 
aid in PS/SS largely because life in the Forest was being disrupted, 
and he saw Harry as a means to make life return to normal. The Forest 
status quo was not under threat in CoS, so they had no reason to get 
involved.

I don't for a moment doubt that the centaurs will be back. Why 
shouldn't they be? Why do you expect them to have come back 
immediately, and to have felt disappointed that they weren't? One of 
the reasons I'm so sure is because Firenze was included (however 
badly) in the celluloid-creation-of-which-we-do-not-speak, whereas he 
could easily have been dropped. His presence was not required for 
dramatic purposes - Harry could've been saved by Hagrid. As we know, 
Columbus & Co had consulted with JKR on what could and could not be 
changed from the book, and this is one of the things that was not. I 
predict that Firenze (if not the other centaurs) will yet prove to 
have an important role.

> There is certainly some evidence that JKR's world is less stable 
than we might like to believe.  In COS, Dobby is presented as 
magically enslaved against his will, and his description of House-
Elves generally implies that he is typical.  In GOF, the House-Elves 
are presented as psychologically enslaved, with clothes a symbol of 
sacking, not a magical means of setting free.  

Someone else has replied to that point, but to add my own 5 knuts...

I disagree with your summary of Dobby, and indeed the house-elves in 
general. Dobby is a rebel. The typical elves (as personified by 
Winky) have accepted their place in society - it's the way things 
have always been for them. Dobby is prepared to buck the trend and in 
this respect JKR-as-moralist is yet again making her point that we 
are defined by our choices, not by our circumstances. Dobby actively 
tries to make choices which will change his position. Of course he's 
going to describe himself as a typical elf, because that's how he 
sees himself! Of course, the other elves don't see him that way...

As for the sacking -v- setting free, as the elves appear to be tied 
to a single master, aren't the two notions equivalent under the 
circumstances? Besides, from a slightly legalistic persepctive, 
they're not so much slaves as indentured servants (though I grant 
that in practice there isn't/wasn't a lot of difference in the real 
world); by being freed/sacked, they are indeed given their freedom to 
do as they choose, but their options are extremely limited. Dobby's 
seemingly unique perspective on this impasse is to treat himself as a 
free sentient creature and simply expect others to treat him that 
way. Of course, his social and cultural conditioning expects very 
limited freedoms, but his ultimate statement is that he is doing what 
he wants to do on his own terms, not those of others.

> More worrisomely, in PS, Harry's survival of Voldemort's attack as 
a baby is presented as a mystery; in COS Harry can assert it was the 
effect of his mother's love but that Voldemort's loss of power is 
(still) a mystery; in GOF, Voldemort, who one presumes ought to know 
(again, I find it hard to believe that an Evil Overlord can go 
against the genre convention of telling the truth, the whole truth, 
and nothing but the truth in his moment of boasting) confirms that 
this also was the effect of mother-love.  Is this supposed to be a 
mystery or not?  One would like to suppose (from the detective story 
point of view) that the 'mother's love' explanation is an artfully 
constructed red herring [from the thematic point of view I would like 
it to be the truth] in which Harry misunderstands Dumbledore's 
original explanation about Quirrell and goes on to unconsciously 
bamboozle a deluded Voldemort: however, is JKR up to it?  Is any 
author?

There are two aspects to this. I believe that what Harry, Voldemort 
and Dumbledore consider to be the reason why Harry *survived* is the 
only necessary truth: mother love saved him. That is no longer a 
mystery, and it took PS/SS to solve it.

*HOWEVER*, this does not mean that there is nothing more to it (for 
us readers and for Harry), because the larger mystery is why 
Voldemort wanted to kill him in the first place. This is a question 
Harry has asked, but has been refused an answer (thus far, but has 
been promised that he will find out).

And of course there is the reason why his failure to kill Harry 
caused Voldemort to lose his powers - I suspect that the wand-play at 
the end of GoF still has a role to play in this, but it is at present 
a mystery.

I'm not sure why you feel that JKR isn't up to reolving these 
remaining elements, when she's good and ready to do so, in her own 
time and in circumstances she judges best for dramatic effect. Whyare 
you having these doubts? 

> So, is JKR a brilliant opportunist, or does she transcend the 
genres from which her stories spring?
> 
> I would like to be convinced it's the latter, but I confess I am 
pessimistic.

I certainly don't share your pessimism - If I did, I wouldn't have 
felt moved to pick up the first book (and then the further 3) after 
seeing the m*vie...I don't consider JKR to have "transcended" the 
genres, and I don't even consider her approach to serial writing to 
be particularly original of itself (Babylon 5, anyone?) :-) although 
the mix of allusions, her humour and the characters she's invented 
provide me with enough basic pleasure to remain interested.