Hyperbolic Chapter Titles; Was Re: Snape's worst memory

[msbeadsley]

No: HPFGUIDX 81282

feetmadeofclay" wrote:
> But I can't take Rowling's titles for her chapters as hyperbole. 
> Otherwise I would never be able to believe anything she tells us 
> when she's speaking as the author. 
> 
> Are we going to give the authorial voice, this same treatment over 
> the whole series?

Aren't we already? We have ESE!Lupin fans and Hero!Malfoy theories. 
We even have ESE!Dumbledore, for Pete's sake. Why aren't chapter 
titles grist for the mill if characterizations are? We have some 
people, me included, who are even suspicious of *interview* 
information where JKR in the flesh opens her mouth and speaks into 
the ears of thousands. Although I don't think the chapter titles are 
precisely hyperbole, however I would not put it past her to mislead 
us with a chapter title as much as anything else. How about a Weasley 
chapter called The Red Hairings? ;-)

Didn't we (well, I did) spend four books hating Snape, only to find 
in the fifth one that he had a hard childhood and was the victim of 
bullies, 3/4th of whom are people we've been rooting for? Petunia 
turned out to be someone we need to approve of in at least a 
rudimentary way for doing a distasteful (to her) but important (to us)
duty. Dudley almost gets demented and even that is written in such a 
way that we are not disappointed when Harry saves him. (Are we?) 
Ron's pet rat of the first two books turns out in the third book to 
be a former and future Voldemort flunky. The dangerous criminal 
everyone is so terrified will catch and murder Harry in that same 
book turns out to be Harry's most ardent protector. Hem hem. Yes, I 
think we *are* going to give the authorial voice the same treatment 
over the entire series; besides, what else have we obsessed fans got 
to do for the next couple of years? Is nothing sacred? With this many 
people looting it for valuable artifacts, no. I'm ready to turn each 
book and the whole series upside down and look for the spell to turn 
my enemies' ears into kumquats.

Sandy