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

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 39200

David wrote:

> What does it mean, and how is it possible to say, that say)
> 'Dumbledore is evil' is an unlikely reading of canon, or a perverse 
> one? How can we say that a given interpretation is 'subversive'? If 
> I assert that the reading you find subversive is my instinctive 
> reading (something of the sort must occur on the R/H - H/H divide, 
> I think), are you reduced to saying 'fine for you, David', or have 
> you any rational basis for persuading me different?


Well, subversion itself is really in the mind of the beholder (as is 
instinct).  "Cupid's Snitch," the Sirius/Florence-as-Mrs.-Lestrange 
backstory that I once proposed here, for example, was a subversive 
reading of the canon because *I* thought it subversive.  It is 
perfectly possible, however, that somebody else could have come by 
that same reading on their own as an automatic interpretation of the 
story (as indeed, there is *plenty* of evidence for it in the text).  
To that person, it would not be subversive but instinctive, and so he 
would probably become very cross with you if you accused him of 
deliberately perverting JKR's intent.  

Indeed, my initial emotional response to the discovery that one of my 
own instinctive understandings of the story ("Snape is still 
emotionally invested in his old DE colleagues") was not only a 
minority opinion, but also assumed by many to be deliberate 
subversion, was to feel both taken aback and rather out of sorts.  
(My secondary response, of course, was to become fascinated by the 
issue and so to pester everyone on the subject until they all got 
tired of it -- but that's just me.)   

One man's painfully earnest reading is another man's subversion.

So, yes.  "Fine for you, David" really is about as far as that 
particular dispute can go.

Generally speaking, though, when people stand accused of favoring 
"subversive" or "perverse" readings on this list, they respond by 
trying to point out the ways in which the text does indeed support 
their instinctive reading.  In short, they launch into literary 
analysis.

Most literary analysis operates under the assumption that texts 
suggest meaning to readers in accordance with fairly consistent and 
predictable rules, and that that this process is therefore, while 
admittedly not nearly as quantifiable as physics or chemistry, 
nonetheless still *explicable.*  Literary analysis attempts 
to "defend" a given reading by showing how the text adheres 
to established rules of authorial conveyance.  

So, for example, while I did not myself find Draco/Hermione at all an 
instinctive reading of the text, once I learned that so many people 
had found it to be one, I was tempted to return to the text to try to 
figure out *how* it had managed to suggest that possibility to so 
many of its readers.  Similarly, while H/H is not at all an 
instinctive reading for me, its vast popularity leads me to believe 
that the text is indeed offering its readers *something* to support 
that reading.  The shipping debates on this list offer quite a few 
insights into the specific critical "rules" that have led so many to 
come by this reading.  (Ebony's recent reference back to her Lacanian 
analysis of H/H is an excellent example of how someone might choose 
to do this in an explicit, deliberate, and academic fashion.)

Of course, literary criticism is not a science but an art, which 
means that not only the rules themselves but also the way in which 
they are prioritized can vary tremendously depending on the "school" 
of analysis one favors.  A Jungian critic will privilege certain 
rules of textual suggestion very highly indeed, while devaluing (or 
even rejecting completely) others.  Critical approaches also go 
change with the era, they go in and out of fashion.  As Penny pointed
out, most of the popular schools of contemporary literary criticism 
don't accord the author's conscious intent much pride of place at 
*all* when it comes to prioritizing the rules.  The same could not be 
said a century ago, and whether it will still hold true a century 
from now is anyone's guess. Life is short, art long, and literary 
criticism something in between.  ;-)


> The above thinking does not bother me very much as far as Harry 
> Potter is concerned, but I think it has the potential for making me 
> feel very lost and alone if it is applied to speaking, writing, and 
> reading outside fiction. 

I'd advise you to avoid the post-modern theorists.  They will likely
distress you.

Miscommunications are, alas, a fact of life.  Surely that's the 
reason that we have laid in place so very many social constructs 
which are designed to avert or to mitigate their emotionally harmful 
effects?  It seems to me that nearly all of what we usually 
call "etiquette" is really designed to...well, to clarify the 
author's emotional intent, so to speak.


> Is anybody out there?

Not really.  We're all just constructs of your own mind.

After all, sollipsism is a *very* popular reading of reality among 
the text's adolescent readership.  There therefore must be 
*something,* either embedded in the text itself or in the way in 
which the text interacts with cultural and societal factors, that is 
serving to encourage that reading.  Right?  


-- Elkins (who has decided that if she ever decides to go back to 
school, she's going to blow off all of those Ever So Dead classical 
guys and go straight for the po-mo warriors instead, even if it does 
mean that she'll finally be forced to learn French.)