FF/SHIP: Authorial Intent, Canonical Plausibility, Draco/Hermione; Draco is Ever so Evil

[Penny Linsenmayer]

No: HPFGUIDX 39162

Hi --

As I told Elkins off-list, I've been debating how in the world to reply to her wonderful posts of last weekend without violating the "me too; what she said' rule.   I think I've found a way to add a bit to the discussion, and I want to chime in before the posts go completely stale so ....

AUTHORIAL INTENT --

So, I did a bit of internet sleuthing on "authorial intent" & literary theory as it's been far too long since I was a literature student in college (and I don't recall taking any literary theory courses per se anyway ... that would have been more graduate level study I suspect).  I'm still no expert by any means, but I now know that I clearly, yes, indeed, *very* clearly, subscribe to the "reader-response" theory and am a post-structuralist.  Hmm..  Yes, I didn't previously *know* those terms applied to my thoughts ... but there you have it.

Elkins said (note, I've tried to snip as much as possible, but still retain the meat of those arguments I want to add to or respond to):

<<<<Now, one of my constant problems with these conversations is that 
they tend to start from the assumption that the author's intent is of 
supreme importance to the work itself, that it confers legitimacy on 
textual interpretation, that it is, in fact, the final authority on 
the work's true "meaning."  

<snip>

I'd go Penny one step further here.  See, even if there *were* a "One 
True JKR Interpretation," I don't see why on earth any of us should 
allow knowing it to influence our reading of her text.  Authors are 
very rarely the best interpreters of their own works, nor are their 
interpretations necessarily any more valid than anyone else's.  
Indeed, authors are often *notoriously* oblivious to the true import 
of what they themselves have written.  

<snip more>

Who cares how the author wants us to read her work?  

As far as I'm concerned, as soon as a written work is distributed, 
then the question of how it is to be read is out of the author's 
hands.  Authors may indeed own the right to their works in the legal 
sense, but they do not own the rights to the reader's 
*interpretation* of their works, and they certainly have no power to 
dictate the reader's emotional response to what they have written.
That is the inalienable right of the reader.

Some people view this approach as hostile to the author.  I do not 
consider it hostile to the author at all.  I consider it *respectful* 
to the author.  

You see, the author already had the chance to affect the reader's 
interpretation of the text.  She got that chance when she was writing 
the thing in the first place.  She got to choose her plot, and her 
characters, and her dialogue, and even the very words by which all of 
those things were conveyed.  

We call that "writing," and *that* is the means by which writers go 
about dictating reader interpretation.  Not through their interviews, 
and not through their authorized biographies.  Through their 
*writing.*>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Yes, exactly.  That's precisely what I've been trying, in my muddled way, to say in several iterations of this debate in the past.  I completely reject the notion of authorial intent as the sole means of interpretation.  I highly commend the following brief essay, which sets forth my thoughts almost exactly:

http://mesastate.edu/~blaga/theoryindex/intentionx.html

I particularly like this bit:

" We know as well that texts can signify more than one thing, so it's unrealistic to assume that only
one "right" meaning exists. What the author says about her own text is nothing more than a reader's response and therefore no more valid than another reader's response."  

See also --

http://www.brocku.ca/english/jlye/meaning.html

Particularly --  
  Does the meaning exist 'in' the text? There is an argument that the formal properties of the text--the grammar, the language, the uses of image and so forth--contain and produce the meaning, so that any educated (competent) reader will inevitably come to essentially the same interpretation as any other. Of course, it becomes almost impossible to know whether the same interpretations are arrived at because the formal properties securely encode the meaning, or because all of the 'competent' readers were taught to read the formal properties of texts in roughly the same way. As a text is in a sense only ink-marks on a page, and as all meanings are culturally created and transferred, the argument that the meaning is 'in' the text is not a particularly persuasive one.

I think this is the heart of the dispute that rages intermittently on the list with regard to issues where there is a wide divergence of opinion.  I have strong issues with the "textual meaning" school of thought, under which I ought to be able to read "the words printed on the page" & come to the conclusion that Draco is a flat caricature who will never be redeemed.  Someone who thinks the reader-response theory that I favor is a load of bunk will naturally come to the conclusion that I'm being a "resisting reader" in coming to my interpretation of Draco.  That's okay.  I think we should just acknowledge though that there are different ways of approaching literary interpretation.  

CANONICAL PLAUSIBILITY --

Elkins noted:

<<<<I would like, however, to point out that the very fact that D/H *is* 
such a very popular fanfic convention is compelling evidence to my 
mind that it is also a reading of the text that many people have 
found to be instinctive.  Fanfic tropes don't come out of thin air.  
Occasionally they may develop purely within the fandom (the notion 
that Lupin lives in North Wales, for example, is AFAIK a "pure" 
example of "fanon"), but far more often, they derive from popular 
interpretations of the original text.  <snip>

Well, you know, I work in a bookstore.  And while I'm at work I often 
find myself eavesdropping on kids discussing the Potter books.  <snip>

And you know what?  Adolescent boys 'ship.  They do, they really do.  <snip>
And you know what adolescent boys like to talk about?  

Draco/Hermione.  

<snip>

This notion that Draco likes Hermione isn't even discussed among them 
as if it's some wild and out-there speculation.  They're not even 
bothering to *debate* that.  They're just *assuming* it.  To boys of 
around the same age as the books' protagonists, the notion that Draco 
has a crush on Hermione -- and that he has had since PoA, if not 
before -- seems to be a completely instinctive and unself-conscious 
reading of the text. <snip> >>>>>>>>>>>>

And, I would add that teenage girls definitely ship, and while they are perhaps less uniform in their shipping preferences, many of them do ship H/H.  Many of them don't see any evidence that Hermione returns Ron's feelings.  And .... uh .... they *are* teenage girls, who might, just might, have some inkling of what teenage-girl Hermione is thinking.  Of course, that brings us back to the authorial intent debate since there will be those who counter with "Well, but Rowling, for all her ability to put herself back 20 yrs or more in time, is no longer a teenage girl & may have had no intention of communicating that Hermione has a crush on Harry.  She might have thought it obvious that she was setting up reciprocal R/H."   But, as Elkins says, if the text supports both readings, and it does (IMO and as evidenced by the huge numbers of fans who ship R/H and the huge numbers who ship H/H), there ought not to be charges of "You're just not reading the words on the page; it's obvious, isn't it?"  :--)  To repeat Elkins again: 

<<<Popular readings don't just come out of nowhere.  They are not 
spontaneously generated.  If a particular interpretation proves 
popular with a wide range of readers, then you can bet that there is 
*something,* either in the text itself or in the way in which the 
text interacts with contemporary mores and beliefs, that is leading 
all of those people to read it in the same way.>>>>>>>>>>  

Turning to Draco is Ever So Lame --

<<< <snip long discussion of why Draco Just Doesn't Work, all of which I agree with> 
I do feel that Draco has been written in such a way as to encourage a 
good amount of reader sympathy, something that cannot be said for any 
of the series' other villain characters.  Voldemort is not written as 
a sympathetic character in the least.  Pettigrew is even less so.  
Crouch Jr. isn't either, and neither is Quirrell, and neither is 
Lockhart.  Sure, SYCOPHANTS like me often do find these guys 
intensely sympathetic, but the general readership absolutely does 
not.  The general readership *does,* however, tend to sympathize with 
Draco -- it's an incredibly popular and wide-spread reading -- and I 
can't help but feel that if JKR honestly didn't want for so many 
people to read him that way, then she made some *very* serious errors 
of judgement in how she chose to portray him in canon.>>>>>>>>

Yes, it does seem that with Pettigrew, we the readers are meant to feel loathing ... or even sympathy in the sense of "Oh what a miserable person he is."  Voldemort is written as just Evil Inviolate.  Interesting that you lump Lockhart into the Villains category.  I've always just thought that he was an unsympathetic character ... but not really villainous.  Now that I think of it though, I suppose his willingness to abandon the boys in the Chamber (and Ginny!) is evil, villain-like behavior.  Hmmm...  I like how you've pointed up instances where JKR does clearly avoid the meta-textual underdog sympathies with other characters.  This strengthens the argument that maybe, just maybe, JKR doesn't want to have Draco be a completely unsympathetic character.  If he just has a small reservoir of potential reader sympathy ... that's enough.

Anyway ... I definitely agree that JKR has used different signals with Draco, and I don't think this is all just a bunch of teenage girls picturing witty handsome Draco in leather pants.  As Elkins notes, there are several possible scenarios for Draco, and the redemption angle is only one of several.  But, it does seem that JKR has "more" in mind for Draco in some manner and just what remains to be seen.

<<<<What "Hurt-Comfort" comes down to is the fact that women are just 
plain Bent, and adolescent girls even more so.  They *like* to see 
male characters suffer, so long as they do so with some degree of 
manly dignity, because it turns them on.  Male vulnerability garners 
their sympathy, and it also kind of excites them.  They like 
it.  No one ever wants to 'fess up to this, but it's true.  Just look 
at the characters most often fixated upon as drool-worthy by JKR's 
adult female readers, will you?  Lupin.  Sirius.  Snape.>>>>>>>>>

Okay.  I'll "fess up."  I agree -- this is definitely true.  Although I do wonder, as someone else mentioned, why it is that so many readers divide on the Snape & Sirius line?  I fall into the Sirius camp... and I don't find Snape the least bit sexy.  I don't like him either.  I have respect for his complexity .... or at least his potential complexity.  But, I don't like how he treats his students, esp. my beloved Hermione.  <g>  So .... "hurt/comfort" holds no weight with me vis-a-vis Snape.  

<<<<<Female readers are almost always attracted to male characters who get 
hurt a lot.  They just are.  And Draco does get smacked around a 
*lot* in these books.  He gets ferret-bounced and hippogriff-slashed 
and pimp-slapped and seriously hexed.  And that's just the sort of 
thing that female readers -- and particularly adolescent girls -- 
really go for.  It's why they think Harry's so sexy too, I'd 
warrant.  It's because they're twisted little FEATHERBOA wearers, 
each and every one of them.>>>>>>>>>

How does Ron fit into this?  Because I don't think he gets hurt so very much ... well, not if you ignore the times he was stunned while helping Harry practice hexes.  

<<<And JKR must know this.  She *must.*  I mean, even Draco himself -- 
who's really rather stupid, honestly -- is hip to this dynamic.  <snip>

Yeah, I think that JKR knows what she's doing with that one.  I think 
she knew full well that all the adolescent girls were just going to 
swoon in guilt-ridden sadistic crush-mode the second that she smacked 
poor Harry with all of that Cruciatus in the graveyard, and I think 
that she knew exactly what she was doing when she started beating out 
her tune on that "Harry can't cry" drum, too.>>>>>>>>>

Oh, completely.  And ... er... .maybe not just limited to adolescent girls either.  :--)  

Penny








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