House points and Dumbledore - in context of school stories

[ssk7882 <skelkins@attbi.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51415

David wrote:

> I wonder if one of the things the author is setting up and 
> undercutting is the British School Story.
>
> The points award scene didn't press any buttons for me, but I think 
> that's partly because I would see that scene, and a number of other 
> aspects of PS, as fitting in with the school story genre. Taken 
> together, they left me not very impressed with the book. It felt 
> derivative to me. 

Yes, to me as well, which is why I described it as an "eye-roller."
It was standard school story fare, and it also -- particularly in
the Esteem Boost For Neville part -- reminded me quite a bit of an
After-School Special, as well. [1]

I suppose that what made it seem particularly annoying, rather than 
merely trite, was that the book *did* seem to be diverging from the 
standard school story format in so many ways.  You mentioned the life 
and death nature of the conflict as one of these.  I did feel that 
the school story genre was being neatly kicked by the "Oh, forget the 
stupid Cup, it's far more important to save the world" aspect of the 
plot.  I was also partial to the nasty sarcastic school master with 
an unexpectedly *poetic* opening lecture, the high fantasy element of 
the Mirror of Erised, and the snap of much of the dialogue.  It all 
conspired to make me feel that in spite of the rather tedious (IMO) 
opening (I have *mentioned* that I don't like Dursley sequences, 
yes?), there was a very creative authorial mind at work, one who 
seemed interested in toying with the rules of a number of different 
genres -- and probably in *breaking* them as well.

This made me feel vaguely cheated when the story was resolved with 
such a *very* standard Victory-cum-Humiliation-of-Enemies sequence.  
It made me feel talked down to, in a way that most children's books 
<nervous glance at Penny and Heidi> do not.  In some way that I find 
difficult even to articulate, it read like pandering to me.

> The cartoonish Dursleys also don't fit, though they didn't recall 
> Dahl to me so much as Grimm: another genre referenced to be left 
> behind, IMO. (Actually I don't like much of Dahl either, even when 
> written by himself ;-) )

I like Dahl *now.*  As a child, I had a violent love/hate 
relationship with him.  His books always made me feel strangely 
furious, and yet I could not seem to keep myself from returning to 
them over and over again.    

It's interesting that they reminded you of Grimm, though.  I was so 
strongly reminded of Dahl that I found it irritating, but it didn't 
even occur to me to read them as Grimm's evil step-parents.

The place in the series where I am most reminded of Grimm, actually,
is (punningly enough) PoA, in which Sirius Black always reminds me of 
one of the animal-man mentor figures from one of the more obscure 
fairy tales.

> Once COS starts, the pattern is fatally wounded IMO simply because 
> Harry is ageing. 

It's also wounded from the very start, I think, by the expansion of 
the fictive world.  The beginning of CoS gives us the Burrow, and
thus seems to open up all manner of possibilities for further 
exploration of the fictive world outside of either Hogwarts or Privet 
Drive.

Really, though, it was the doubling of Harry and Riddle, the 
implications of a much deeper and more complex history to both 
Hogwarts itself and Voldemort's earlier reign, and the introduction 
of an entire body of new cultural boundaries and distinctions to 
contemplate (pureblood/Muggle-born/Squib, wealthy/impoverished, 
human/elf, aristocrat/trade [yes, sorry, I *do* see ample evidence of 
a wizarding class structure existing apart from the issues of either 
blood or wealth]) that made me feel as if the series was going 
someplace more complex that the first volume had led me to believe.

> (To be fair, Wodehouse also took his characters into adulthood, 
> though I don't think they *developed*.) Jennings and Billy Bunter 
> will never get any older, and that I think has some of the same 
> kind of appeal that the points awarding ceremony can have.

Although I do like the fact that the tone of the books is evolving as 
the series progresses, I also think that there's quite a bit of the 
comforting repetition common to series fiction in the HP books, and 
that to some extent that repetition serves to provide the reassurance 
of predictability even in the face of a steadily maturing moral 
perspective.  Some of the comforting repetitions may be omitted from 
book to book -- no Quidditch matches or House Cup in GoF, no
train ride to Hogwarts in CoS -- but enough of them are always 
retained to provide that sense of familiarity and comfort.  I suspect 
that this will continue.  It would not really surprise me all that 
much if even Book Seven were to start out with Harry at the Dursleys, 
thinking about how little he can wait for school to start.  


Elkins


[1] Probably US-Speak, so let me explain.  "After-School Specials" 
are short made-for-television movies that used to be [I'm not sure if 
they still are] aired in the late afternoons, timed to coincide with 
the return of children home from school.  They tried to tackle <cue 
portentious voice> Serious Topics believed to be important to older 
children and younger adolescents -- things like peer pressure and 
divorce in the family and bullying and the like -- and they almost 
always did so very badly.  No real adolescent would have been caught 
dead watching one of these programs.  I highly doubt than anyone much 
over the age of seven would have been able to sit through one.  
Needless to say, the Serious Issue Of The Week was always wrapped up 
in some tidy package by the end of the one-hour programme, usually 
with a treacly feel-good sort of scene in which the protagonists of 
the story Learned Something New or Made Amends or Triumphed Over 
Their Opponents or some other such rubbish.  The last scene always 
seemed to be either a shot of lots of happy kids cheering, or a heart-
warming hug.