[HPforGrownups] You're reading the wrong book

[Torsten]

No: HPFGUIDX 51095

Pickle Jimmy:
>JK is writing a book in which we are *meant* to -
>
>-Hate Malfoy and Love Harry
>-Cheer for Gryffindor and Boo Slytherin
>-Love Lupin, hate Snape, think Trelawney is an old crackpot and 
>cringe at Hermione's Lockhart crush
>-See a struggle of good over evil in which good will eventually 
>triumph
>-And understand that it is our choices above anything else that makes 
>us who we are.
>
>So, if you Love Snape and think he was mis-treated, if you cheer when 
>Slytherin win, if Malfoy the bouncing ferret brought a tear to your 
>eye (and not from laughing - like mine was), if you're hoping that 
>Lupin/Black/Dumbledore/McGonagall/etc turn out to be Evil, then *you 
>are reading the wrong book*

So we're not supposed to make our own choice about how we think of the characters 
and the story? I thought our choices are important ...

If Rowling wanted us to perceive things in one way only, she would write that way. 
She could do it, she could depict everything in radical black and white, not allowing the 
shades of grey when it comes to Snape and Lupin and all the others, even Harry and 
Dumbledore (they're both not perfect, they both don't always do the right thing).

You're telling people to read without using their brains, to accept everything in it's pure 
literal meaning. This works for fairytales told to four year olds, but I can't believe you 
seriously expect mature readers to follow that approach.

HP is no scientific text, it is fiction. There's never only one interpretation of a work of 
fiction or poetry, every reader has his very own, and no interpretation is 'better', 
'`worse' or more 'true' than any other.

Torsten