The Train Stomp vs. Dissin' The Slyths WAS Re: [HPforGrownups] Re: House points and Dumbledore, Authorial Intent, and A Question

[ssk7882 <skelkins@attbi.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51417

I asked if people had a different quality of reader response
to two separate, yet remarkably similar, "symbolic trouncing
of the designated enemy" scenes: the Point Award at the end
of PS/SS, and the conflict on the train at the end of GoF.

Eileen was the only person who answered me directly.

Eileen: 

> It is difficult for me, after reading an entire book which explores 
> the ways in which the good guys are less than good, to read the 
> Train Stomp without a certain degree of apprehension. 

So do you think that the difference in your emotional reaction comes
down to context alone?  Or is there something in how the two scenes
are actually *written* that makes them qualitatively different?

I guess this is really what I'm trying to figure out.  I'm not
quite sure what I think about the question myself, you see.  ;-)

> But whereas I felt that JKR was fine with dissin' the Slyths, the 
> Train Stomp seemed to be much more ambiguously presented. 

It felt that way to me, too.  But *why?*  Is context king?  Or
is there something specific about the presentation of the event
itself that made us share that reader response?  

What does it?  Is it the quiver in the smirk?  Is it the way that the 
scene leaves the issue of future ramifications unresolved?  Is it the 
discrepancy between the description of Draco, Crabbe and Goyle 
as "menacing" and the ease of their actual dispatch?  Is it the fact 
that earlier in the novel, we had the Ferret Bounce subverted by 
revelations about Moody's real identity, and that this makes the 
reader more suspicious of the pleasures of payback overall?  

What precisely *is* it that makes this scene seem so much more 
ambiguously presented than the point award scene at the end of PS/SS?

And second, to what extent might Train Stomp actually *invite*
a reevaluation of the point award scene?  Were readers as bothered by 
the point award scene *before* GoF came out?  Or is it the steadily 
changing tone of the series that is inviting readers to go back and 
look at past events in a new way, or from a new perspective?


Dicey:

> I'd have to add that Harry's vision is growing, too. It's 
> natural for an 11-year-old to see the world in black and 
> white. I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt and 
> say that she planned the apparent shallowness of the first 
> book.

I am beginning to believe that she did indeed.

This ties into the comment someone (forget who, sorry!) made a while 
back about childrens' books being written to "lead" the reader far 
more than "adult" books do.

In the case of the HP series, I think that the series as a *whole* is 
being written, to a certain extent, to "lead" the reader.  Just as 
the maturity of Harry's POV is increasing with each passing volume, 
so is the sophistication of the moral universe that the books 
present -- as, for that matter, is the vocabulary and overall reading 
level of the writing itself.  GoF is a much "harder" book than PS/SS 
is.  It's longer, it uses bigger words, the plot is more 
complicated.  Even the sentence structures are rather more complex.

Given that this is my take on the series as a whole, I do believe 
that there is a profound significance to the differences between how 
the PS/SS point award scene is presented to the reader, and how the 
scene on the train at the end of GoF is.  They are parallel scenes in 
my mind, but I think that they are viewed through a very different 
lens.  

The Point Award scene at the end of PS/SS is strangely innocent.  It 
glosses the ambiguities inherent in its presentation and expects the 
reader not to look behind the curtain.  It asks the reader to read as 
a child.

The train scene is not at all innocent.  As befits its place within
the overall arc of the series, it invites the reader to consider its 
ambiguities and by doing so, to reconsider many of the events which 
have come before in a new light.  It asks the reader to read as an 
adolescent.

Train Scene = Point Award + Maturity.   


Pippin:

> I think we are going to see a broader spectrum of Slytherins in 
> the books to come. Not *all* the Slytherins refuse to drink to 
> Harry. This is the first indication that they are not all firmly 
> in Malfoy's camp.

Yes, I agree.  But *why* does the first indication of this come in 
the fourth volume?  

Quite some time ago, Pippin wrote:

> Perspective in a novel, like perspective in art, is an illusion....
> This illusion, like the illusion of perspective on a stage, can only
> work from certain points of view.

Indeed.  And when the point of view changes, then certain illusions
are broken.  Illusions like Slytherin=Evil.  Illusions like 
Comeuppance=Harmless.  Illusions like History=Destiny. 

If the Slytherins are indeed "part of the background," then why does 
JKR herself not permit them to remain there?  

If we are not supposed to look behind the curtain, then why does the 
author start inviting us to do so more and more as Harry, our POV 
character, comes to a more sophisticated understanding of the world 
around him?

The problem with viewing events in PS/SS as if they do not belong to 
the series as a whole, as I see it, is that the series was *planned* 
as a series.  It does not, in fact, resolve with the end of Book 
One.  The serial nature of the story makes it rather difficult to 
pretend that the events of the first book are taking place in an 
entirely different moral universe than the rest of the series.  That 
really *does* start to feel like sloppy reading.

In fact, the series often seems to me to be designed to force the 
reader to reevaluate earlier assumptions and responses constantly 
as the lens of Harry's POV matures.  

I was bothered by the point award scene on my first reading of SS.  
But I find myself wondering how much of the current reader discontent 
that we see expressed about this scene is to some extent 
*retroactive.*  I wonder to what extent the series is "leading" us 
there, by the very nature of its structure.


Elkins