House points and Dumbledore - in context of school stories

[David <dfrankiswork@netscape.net>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51246

Elkins wrote:

> To some 
> people, the last minute victory was indeed (as I agree with you 
the 
> author very likely intended it to be) thrilling, exciting, 
> climactic.  A dramatically satisfying end to the story.  
> 
> To others, however, it left a very nasty taste in the mouth.
> 
> I confess that I had the latter reaction to the scene, the first 
time 
> that I read the book.  I did not care for it at all.  It was a 
total 
> eye-roller for me.  In fact, I found it sufficiently annoying that 
I 
> probably would never have bothered to read CoS at all, had I not 
> brought it along with me on the same plane ride.  After finishing 
SS, 
> it was either CoS, the in-flight mag, or a nap.  And I wasn't 
feeling 
> sleepy. ;-)
> 
> I didn't really start liking the series until CoS, and part of the 
> reason for that was that I saw many signs in CoS that the author 
was 
> setting about to undercut to number of the things that I had so 
> DISliked about SS

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.  I found the Quidditch scenes tedious for the same 
reason: reminiscent of Mike at Wrykin by P G Wodehouse (definitely 
not one of Wodehouse's best, IMO).  The existence and behaviour of 
Draco are equally in line with that tradition.  As is a plot which 
must be worked out within the confines of attending lessons and 
appearing to obey school rules.

OTOH, other things don't fit.  Snape's ambiguity.  The life and 
death nature of the conflict.  The fact that Harry has a history 
outside school life (other than a golden age of idyllic childhood 
from which the protagonist is snatched to start a seemingly 
cheerless boarding school life).  The existence of the magical world 
as a space to explore, outside of the school world.

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 ;-)  )

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

David