[HPforGrownups] Surprises in OOP (Guardian article)

[maisaura2 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 58331

New member, first time poster, so edit away!
In a message dated 5/19/03 12:53:53 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
dfrankiswork at netscape.net writes:

> A series of minor jolts, yes - we need enough reversals and 
> revelations to keep us turning the hundreds of pages. But we also 
> expect everything to work out according to the well-known pattern: 
> Hogwarts threatened, Harry to the rescue, Voldemort thwarted, 
> Slytherins worsted. Harry Potter has already become a reassuring 
> symbol of stability in a shaky world and the industry Rowling 
> started is now so vast that the onus on her is not to take a leap 
> into the dark, but to deliver another slice of the same lucrative 
> cake."
> 

And maria_kirilenko at yahoo.com writes:

> The same thing can be said about every detective novel there is. I do 
> expect things 
> to work out that way. The thing is, though, that we have three books 
> to go, and I don't see how anyone can be sure that Voldemort will be 
> twarted in OOP. 

I have two responses to the Guardian.  First, the statement about JKR not 
taking a leap into the dark is rather superficial.  The books may have been 
taking successive slices from the same lucrative cake, but that cake has become a 
great deal darker.  The Dementors, especially given the memories they trigger 
in Harry, are among the scariest things to grace "junior" fiction.   Chapters 
32 -34 of GOF are terrifying, and gruesome.  Goodness, a student, a nice, good, 
kind young man -- a Hufflepuff -- is cut down as a "spare" simply because he 
got in the way.  Extending Guardian's cake metaphor much too far, this isn't 
exactly spun sugar and meringue, but dense, dark, and bitter.

Coming to my second point, and expanding upon what maria_kirilenko wrote, 
yes, to an extent there is a formula at work.  Do any of us really believe that 
HRH will die?  Well, no, probably not.  But, will they and any other character 
survive **unchanged**?  Most definitely not.  It is the journey and the change 
wherein the story lies -- how evil is defeated, why, and who is hopelessly 
corrupted along the way.  A fundamental message of Lord of the Rings and many 
other works is that yes, the world is saved, but only at great personal cost to 
the protagonists.  They may not suffer a physical death, but they do suffer 
terrible spiritual deaths and loss, over and over.  They may save the world, but 
not for themselves.  

T.
The Good Mother Lizard


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