OOP: The people in the promo pics of OOtP

[jodel at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 58445

Morgan D muses:

<< I wonder why. JKR seldom (never?) offers us much detailing in her 
character descriptions. She picks five or six adjectives to each character and keeps 
repeating them over and over.  >>

She learned this trick from a master. Or rather, a school of masters. It's 
the same sort of "hands off" detatchment in the definition of characters, or 
more properly, character "types" that was one of the cornerstones to the classic 
"detective story" as exemplified in the work of Agatha Christe and others of 
her era. By letting the reader fill in the blanks themselves, the author has a 
greater leeway in directing the plot in whatever direction s/he wants it to 
go. It is a clever device, but one that has fallen a bit out of favor.  Possibly 
because it tends to render the plot into an intelectual exercise rather than 
to foster emotional connection to the characters as people one choses to 
"know". In the hands of most detective story writers it tended towards the sterile. 
Rowling has managed to balence it at a point much closer to a middle ground, 
but the reader is still invited to fill in the blanks himself.

This also allows the various character (types) to change position and perform 
necessary functions "because the author says so" much more smoothly than in a 
more "character-driven" construction. In an Agatha Christie mystery, *anyone* 
could hve been the murderer. NO ONE was exempt. (A rarity. In most mystery 
writer's hands there were usually exceptions. The butler never actually did it. 
The young lovers were *always* innocent. This was not the case with Christie.) 
Rowling has managed to stake out this particular territory for her own as 
well.

-JOdel