You're Reading the Wrong Book

[derannimer <susannahlm@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51122

Pickle Jimmy wrote: 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*


Now me: 

In other words, JKR is writing a book in which we are never supposed 
to disagree with the protaganist's first impressions. Does that mean 
that: 
 
"Hate Malfoy--" Because Harry hates Malfoy currently, Malfoy will 
never be redeemed? 

"Hate Snape--" At the end of Book Three, when Harry (and me) thought 
that Snape was nothing but a petty and embittered school teacher, 
Snape really *was* nothing but a petty and embittered school teacher? 
I'll remind you that he *wasn't;* although we didn't know it yet, he 
was also an Ex-Death Eater double-agent who had risked an awful lot 
fighting Lord Voldemort. (*Despite* natural inclinations--a big shout-
out to Elkins's "Snape as Sadist!")

"Hope that Lupin/Black/Dumbledore/McGonagall/etc turn out to be Evil, 
then *you are reading the wrong book*" So what happens if JKR *goes* 
with Ever-So-Evil McGonagall? Does that mean that she's *writing* the 
wrong book?

I mean, the central problem I have with your criticism--*aside* from 
the fact that you speak as if there's only one "correct" reading, and 
*aside* from the fact that you seem to suggest that all other 
readings are intentionally subversive--is that you seem to have 
somehow forgotten that there are still three books to go. You 
honestly seem to be saying that the way we feel at the end of Book 
Four about the characters is the way we will feel at the end of Book 
Seven.

Why? 

Certainly the way we felt at the end of Book One about the characters 
isn't the way we feel at the end of Book Four.

*Right?* 



Derannimer (who has a sneaking suspiscion that some may answer that 
question "Wrong.")