[HPforGrownups] Re: Why to Like and Not Like OoP

Wed Jul 16 14:37:06 UTC 2003

No: HPFGUIDX 70863

>"ellejir" wrote:
>
> > I'll admit *upfront* that I hate any criticism of the HP series,
>
I appreciate your admission, but I don't think that's very realistic.  
Criticism doesn't mean someone hates it.  I have criticisms of the series 
and I enjoy reading them a great deal and recommend them to many.

The concept of unconditional love doesn't even hold true for human beings, I 
don't think it has to hold true for books.  ;-)

> > I do think that JKR's "highly annoying habit of not telling things
> > straight and clear" is due to the fact that she is writing a 7
> > book series and trying to keep things interesting for the readers.
> > It is unreasonable to expect her to spell out every future plot
> > twist.  I imagine that she either has her reasons for not revealing
> > things like which house each of the Marauders belong to, etc.
>
>Yes, but you see, that goes against one of the very first rules of
>honesty between writer and reader. I'm an amateur writer (would be
>professional if I didn't have to feed, clothe, house my family :-),
>and one of the very first things I learned is this : when a reader
>opens a fantasy book, he allows himself to enter into a state
>of "willing suspension of disbelief". That means that he puts aside
>all his preconceived ideas of what life and the world are like, and
>opens his mind to whatever concepts the writer wants to put in.
>BUT !! That means the writer has to be honest and write about an
>acceptable, COHERENT world. JKR does that beautifully most of the
>time : the way she's explained how the WW works, why we Muggle
>readers can't see it, how it still interferes with our world
>sometimes but we don't notice it for what it is, all of this is truly
>remarkable ! I more than willingly suspend my disbelief when reading
>a HP book, because I know everything holds together fine. Most of the
>time anyway. And that's precisely why I get so angry when I catch her
>twisting things right into my face and forcing me to buy something
>that absolutely illogical. It's the same kind of reaction a little
>kid has when the doctor tells him "it won't hurt", and then it does,
>and the kid gets angry, rightly so !!

Absolutely, and a good analogy.

So when JKR asks me to swallow
>with a smile things like : "Harry doesn't care about finding more
>about his parents" when she's taken so much pain previously to make
>me understand that he's desperate to know more about them, "it
>doesn't matter which House the Marauders were in" when she's taken so
>much time describing a school dominated by the House system, and so
>on, I feel betrayed and I get angry.
>
Absolutely.  I don't get angry, because I think that's too violent of an 
emotion over books - but I get peeved and wonder about the consistency.

> > or possibly does not consider such things important to the books.
> > It is *possible* that such issues are of more interest to obsessed
> > fans/fanfic fans like those of us on the list than to JKR herself.
>
>Nah. Who his parents were and what House they belonged to, just those
>2 things among myriads of others, are BOUND to be of BIG importance
>to HARRY, and even if only for that reason, they MUST be of
>importance to JKR and to us. If the POV character cares about
>something, then that something MUST be mentioned. Otherwise, what's
>the whole point of having a POV character ??
>
> > JKR's use of descriptive verbs and adverbs is frequently
> > repetitive, but I don't care.
>
>A bit of purple prose, yep :-)
>
I care.  :-)  She's obviously got an entire lexicon at her fingertips, and 
she could mix it up a little more than she does.  Her knowledge of culture 
is extensive.

> > I have read many books that have far more scintillating sentence
> > structure and not enjoyed them half as much.
>
>I agree, I agree ! And that's precisely why I get so angry when JKR
>tells us obvious lies only for the plot's sake. Pretending that there
>was no way DD could tell Harry why they couldn't talk anymore or why
>he had to have Occlumency lessons, only so that Harry could : a) get
>into Snape's Pensieve, and b) still remain under V's control, that
>makes me angry. Asking me to close my eyes to such BIG plot holes
>just because the rest of the book is so fine, is like asking me to
>not notice that there's a cockroach (sp ?) crawling on my delicious
>piece of cake : "oh but it's such a good cake, just swallow it all
>together down, you won't notice the bug". Excuse me ????
>Oh, and don't get wrong : a writer has all the rights in the world to
>manipulate her readers. The thing is, she must do so in such a way
>that the readers won't notice it. You CAN put a cockroach in my cake,
>but make sure you put it somewhere I won't notice it. JKR did that
>beautifully in the previous books, pulling the rug from under us at
>the last minute and crying "fooled you" ! And I just LOVED it !
>Because I never noticed the bugs.
>
You're just the queen of analogies, aren't you?  :-)

> > Del:
> > "Moreover, I hate to see characters' personalities being modified
> > or trampled just so the hero can look better. I disliked that hero-
> > worship JKR's displaying towards Harry right from the first book,
> > but now I feel it has taken dangerous proportions : she's
> > sacrificing the plausibility of the other characters, of the plot,
> > of the whole story, just to make us pity and love Harry. Urgh."
> >
> > Me:
> > Errrr....People *do* change and Harry *is* the hero of the books.
> > Perhaps JKR is not being manipulative at all.  Perhaps she just
> > loves Harry herself.  I certainly do.
>
>I'm sure she does, and I perfectly understand that you do. But just
>because the Dursleys love Dudley doesn't mean they should have
>spoiled him that way.
>
So true.  In fact, it would have shown more love to have disciplined him.

> > I don't understand how you can love the HP books and not like
> > Harry. (I don't mean that in a nasty way.)
>
>No offence taken. I love the books because they tell a whole story.
>It so happens that the POV character and hero is not my favourite
>character in the story. So what ? That doesn't mean I can't love the
>story. I'm a Star Trek fan, and I positively hate Jim Kirk. I don't
>hate Harry anywhere as much, I just don't have a particular liking of
>him. But I love the stories.
>
I neither love nor dislike Harry, actually.  The *mystery* about him is what 
drives the entire series.  You don't have to love him to experience that; 
you don't have to hate Harry to give up if the plot doesn't hold you.  And 
'Star Trek' is a good example.  sometimes the other characters can sort of 
take over whent hey weren't planned as such.  Spock wasn't planned as an 
international sex symbol.  With George Lucas' innate wooden handling of 
characters and lack of real knowledge about human beings work (something 
*he's* said in an interview when asked why he's not married and not even 
dating any more, before anyone jumps me unnecessarily - not the wooden 
handling part, but the lack of knowledge part), he wrote 'Star Wars' 
expecting that women would fall for Luke, the paladinic hero.  He was total 
aghast when droves of women went mad for Harrison Ford's Han Solo.

> > Sirius's personality change was not so striking to me as to some
> > others on this list.  He was really not in the other books a great
> > deal, but always did seem to be described as an impulsive risk-
> > taker who really cared for Harry. Pretty much like he was in OoP.
>
>So Sirius remains the same but acts completely un-Sirius-like
>throughout most of the book
>
Yeah - I felt this as well.

> > Ron and Hermione were pretty much their same old selves, except
> > Hermione was even a bit more of a nag than usual (but always right,
> > of course!)
>
>So Ron and Hermione stay *exactly* the same, even though a lot
>happens to them (at least to Ron)
>
>See what my problem is ? Some characters undergo drastic changes for
>no obvious reasons, others remain stubbornly the same even though
>they go through life-changing events (Ron being made a Prefect),
>while still others are said not to change but act totally unlike
>themselves for most of the books (Sirius, and even DD). And all of
>that with only one goal that I can see : to make life more
>complicated and difficult for Harry, so he can come out even more as
>a poor tragic courageous little hero. Sucks.
>
Heh.  Yup.  Everything happens to drive the plot in HP.  None of the 
characters, save Harry, are really intended as a study in the human 
condition.

Felinia

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