Objections to Magic Dishwasher - Shrieking Shack

[Tom Wall <thomasmwall@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51735

Melody wrote:
Well, to be honest. The idea of the terrorist 
war was JKR's not Pip's. It is canon not theory, 
so the praise should go to JKR. That *is* what 
Voldemort and Dumbledore are doing before the 
fateful night and after...or are you trying to say 
the terrorist war *is* just a theory and not canon?

I reply: 
Well, is it stated in canon that they're involved 
in a terrorist war? I don't remember that it says 
anything like that.  Maybe something like 'reign of 
terror,' but I'm just guessing. I was giving credit 
to Pip for formulating it that way, at any rate, 
since I'd never heard it referred to in that way 
before.


Melody wrote:
Really, what else are they doing? Not ground war.

I reply:
Well, we really don't know that for sure. However, 
I'm curious as to how giants would be used if there 
wasn't some sort of pitched battle from time to time.


Pip wrote in 39662
"Snape (and Dumbledore) know about Pettigrew being the secret
keeper."

I replied to Pip:
Yes, it is tricky. Granted (and nice memory, there) Hagrid *was* in
Azkaban, and therefore *could* have heard the imprisoned Death
Eaters rambling and wailing. Okay. That I can buy.

Melody replied to me:
You can? I'm shocked. Isn't that ::small voice:: "inferred"?

I reply:
No, I wouldn't say that it's inferred. After all Sirius says:
"I heard things in Azkaban...<snip some text>...sounds like they 
think the double-crosser double crossed them." 
(PoA, US softcover, The Servant of Lord Voldemort, 368) So, yeah, 
it's buyable. That's all I said. I can buy that. And I do.


I wrote:
This is at the end of the book, in one of the `Dumbledore tells all-
confessional' scenes (they occur in every book.)

Melody replied:
Do they really? Every book? My my.

Seems to me Dumbledore has yet to "tell all" anyway. He more works
his words to satisfy a young boy's curiosity while keeping him from
the full truth, or so it seems to myself. But I will get to that next.

I reply:
Well, 'tell-all' in a novel-related sense.  Sure he has a novel-
related 'confessional.' Confessional... tell-all.  Something along 
those lines.  Is there a better adjective you have in mind?


Tom:
> There is NO indication
> in canon that Dumbledore has lied at any point in any of
> these 'confessional' scenes. Every time he either a) answers
> truthfully (as far as he knows) or else b) he refuses point blank to
> answer.

Melody wrote:
Lying to me is out and out saying something that is not true. I like
to play with words though and find that the act of it does not mean
you are lying. Maybe I need to go to a priest on this...

So to your point...yes. Dumbledore has answered truthfully all the
time. That does not mean he told *all* the truth. Just because you
say something carefully, does not mean you lied.

Is giving a false impression lying?

I reply:
I don't think that Dumbledore is giving a false impression. 
He either omits part of the truth, or he gets people to 
answer questions that aren't necessarily related or don't 
reveal the best possible answer, or else he refuses to talk 
about it at all.


Melody wrote:
He can fill in the blanks later. Does a eleven year 
old need to start dealing with all the heavy baggage from
his infancy in PS/SS anyway?

I reply:
I'd say that instead of lying, Dumbledore seems to just refuse to 
answer questions related to stuff like that.


Melody wrote:
::I reach down and pick up my m***thinking bunny and turn off the
dishwasher a minute::

I reply:
Eh?  What's a m***thinking bunny? ;-) 
M-E-T-A? That's all I can come up with.


Melody wrote:
I do not understand why it being "unnecessary" matters. Just because
the events play out smoothly to the reader, does not mean that nothing
else is going on.

I reply:
Okay. Necessity doesn't matter. Quite right. In that sense, 
everything that goes on here isn't 'necessary,' and that's not what I 
meant.


I wrote:
<snip snip snip>
He knows that Pettigrew just escaped, and he also
knows that Pettigrew has a life debt to Harry. Convenient.

Whether or not these were the result of his own machinations is
irrelevant. He knows, and is pleased, because the life debt is a
handy coincidence.

Melody replied:
Well no. It is not irrelevant. If you just learned a loyal servant
is running back to his master, and you also heard from you resident
psychic that this will probably mean the stronger rebodiment of the
said master, then would you be so relaxed as Dumbledore if you did not
have a plan in mind already? That is pretty fast thinking for
Dumbledore to be so sure that he is relaxed and almost breezy. 

I reply:
Well, first, I don't see how whether or not Dumbledore planned for 
the Shrieking Shack to happen as it did has anything to do with 
relevance to whether or not he's pleased. He's ostensibly pleased 
because Pettigrew has a life-debt to Harry. If I was Dumbledore, I'd 
be pleased too, whether I'd planned for it to happen or not.


Melody wrote:
He worked out his entire plan to use the life dept in a day. A night
really. A very long night. Ah huh. Sure.

I reply:
Yes, well, this is a case of starting from MD and working backwards. 
There's no indication that he has to have a plan all worked out by 
now, nor why he should have it worked out by now, nor that he 
necessarily has a plan at all, just yet.


Melody wrote:
Besides, if Dumbledore is so sure of how Peter's life dept to Harry is
to help the side of "good" after PoA, then I wonder how sure he is
after GoF if he did not expect *that* form of rebodiment. Seems
Dumbledore needed to know that information before he knew how to apply
the life dept to their advantage and relax in the knowledge that it
*can* in fact help them.

I reply:
Again, you're starting with MD and working backwards. Why does 
Dumbledore have to have applied everything to everything by now? It's 
just possible that things are working (for the most part) as they 
appear on the surface and that Dumbledore's plan is forming 
organically, or that it *has* formed quite to his liking.

For instance, the notion of a flawed potion doesn't *have* to have 
been planned by Dumbledore. But he can recognize it once Harry tells 
him and be tickled-pink all the same.


Melody wrote:
Well as I said before, this scene *is* Magical Dishwasher. If you
have problems with it, then MD is not for you. Go look up Marina's
PRESSURE COOKER. It seem more tailored for your liking.

I reply:
<being defiant> I want to take the parts of MD that I like, and leave 
or try to repair the parts that I don't. So there. =P  I don't have 
to accept that the Shrieking Shack scene is pre-planned to like the 
other stuff. And the other stuff doesn't necessarily follow from the 
notion that the Shrieking Shack may be pre-planned. 

After GoF, whether or not Dumbledore has planned for things to work 
out this way isn't important. Whether or not he planned it, that's 
the way things turned out. In *that* sense, MD adds nothing new to 
the scene.

IMHO, JKR's pattern seems to be to leave hints and clues, in other 
words, things that *are* there for the finding. Whereas, my major 
disagreement with MD is that a lot of it is based on what's *not* 
there. Which is fine, if what's there and what's not there lead to 
the same conclusions. Which, as of the end of GoF, they seem to.


Melody wrote:
I infer: Harry Potter does go to the potty.
I have not canon to back that up only observed life experience.
Therefore by your logic:
You do not believe Harry Potter ever goes to potty.
END QUOTE.

I reply:
I know that you're kidding, because that is such an extreme example 
of not being allowed to infer. And extreme examples are always a sign 
of having nothing closer to work with. And if there's nothing closer 
to work with, then the argument must have a flaw, otherwise there'd 
be a better example.

For the record, I have never said that I don't allow any inferences. 
I said I don't like inferences that are based on what's *not* in 
canon, and even that's not true, entirely. I couldn't honestly argue 
that I have an ideology here or anything. But I'll tell you I reserve 
the right to like what I like and not like what I don't, regardless 
of ideology.

I posted several times with ideas, and more often questions, that are 
totally read between the lines. For instance, other than the one 
mention of Grindelwald from PS/SS, I have no solid canon to support 
my idea that Riddle went to him after graduation to study the Dark 
Arts. I still think so. I just can't prove it yet, except with a 
bunch of dates and information that isn't there right now. Maybe I'll 
try again. <grin>

So... as long as it's admitted that they're inference, I can accept 
it as an idea at face value and leave it alone. But that's exactly 
what makes MD so difficult to accept, is the way everything starts 
with MD and works backwards until you get the stories, and the way 
everything's stated as fact, the way facts and inferences are 
confused to the point that debates over everything end up with 
references to Magic Dishwasher.


Melody wrote:
So, I see no harm is producing theories based on close study
of the words and actions that are and are *not* told to us by the
author. This *is* what Pip did. She did study canon and draw
conclusions from it.

I reply:
Yes, but as I pointed out in my last post, a lot of the support for 
this theory, no, sorry, most of the answers to objections to MD come 
from total conjecture and an invention of what's "not" in the books. 
If the defenses could be answered with a little bit of canon (and 
sometimes they are, yes, that's true) then they'd be a lot more 
palatable.

So, whether or not I accept the analysis of the Shrieking Shack, I 
can still take everything else.


Melody wrote:
Excuse me? 
<snip snip snip all the way to>
That the theory will be *proven*, and therefore, it is JKR's
creativity not Pip's.

I reply:
In fact, I have lauded you guys several times for MD. Not that anyone 
needs any praise from me, but seriously now. I never said half of 
what you're inserting into my mouth. I never implied that I thought 
of the analysis as tantamount to Pip sitting with crayons, honestly 
now. *chuckle*

I have made an effort to read through all of those posts, the 
originals, the defenses, and the objections, and have made an effort 
to think about them. I did not just jump in and criticize without any 
basis. And being someone who had no prior knowledge, I think that's 
pretty good initiative. If I disagree, or if I think there's not 
enough to back it up, well, it's clear that I'm not alone in holding 
those sentiments based on how much controversy it caused.

But regardless, I can still love an idea without approving of the 
methodology behind it. And I think that you could perhaps derive some 
of MD in other ways, and you could defend it in other ways too.  
Criticism isn't the same thing as loathing. And whether or not you'll 
let me like your theory, I do. =P 


Melody wrote:
So I ask. What misinformation (from precious canon) is Dumbledore
feeding Voldemort? There is no say of precise misinformation, so you
must be trying to say you are "inferring" that he is. After all,
there is no canon proof he has in fact done such an act.

I reply:
Perhaps not that he is currently, although I think he is, but won't 
dare throw that out there now. But we have proof that he did feed 
misinformation to Voldemort at least once: Snape turned spy. That's 
misinformation from Dumbledore to Voldemort.

-Tom