DD: an appreciation (Was Re: Snape, A Murderer?)

[arrowsmithbt]

No: HPFGUIDX 95682

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "nkafkafi" <nkafkafi at y...> wrote:

> All the more amazing, then. A single person fighting the war and 
> saving the whole WW almost by himself, manipulating his soldiers and 
> enemies alike just by the power of is wits. Incredible. The best show 
> in town, I'd say, and we poor readers can't get to the front seats. 
> In fact we hardly get to peek through the windows. But we do get 
> direct broadcast from the mind of this annoying teenager Harry 
> Potter, detailing at great length all his petty bickering with his 
> equally annoying teenage friends, his stupid crushes on whiny teenage 
> airheads and his irrelevant quarrels with his teachers. Don't you 
> find it frustrating sometimes?
> 

Nope. Teenagers are alien beings so far as I'm concerned, be they RL or
WW. Reading how much of a mess they can make of their lives, fully
equal to the cock-ups perpetrated in the dear dead quondom days of 
my own generation just gives me a feeling of smug satisfaction. Serves
the little buggers right. (Empathy is not my strong suit. It encourages
them to keep on whining IMO.)

And this idea of one person saving the world all by himself (isn't that
what you see Harry doing?) is not so ridiculous, even in RL. I'll be 
tedious and quote from one of my favourite essayists on history:

"There is always a role for a great man in the clash of collective forces;
no one who studies English history can be in any doubt on this point.
The opportunity  exists; the moment is ripe; the resources are there;
but unless the man to set them in motion is available, the occasion will
pass, and perhaps never recur. One solitary person, with clarity, single-
mindedness, energy and will can thrust his shoulder against the hinge
of history, shift the equipoise, and thus accomplish the work of
multitudes. In retrospect it looks inevitable, but without him it would
not have taken place." (Paul Johnson, writing about Alfred the Great.)
And that's the role I see for DD.

But to go back to some of your other points, I'm not the one claiming
or even wishing that HP is based on some sort of morality. I've little
doubt that it is, but frankly I don't give a damn so long as morality
isn't slathered all over the plot resulting in a  yuck-fest. Deeply
flawed characters such as Snape are much more entertaining than 
insufferable know-it-all, earnest little prigs like Hermione, in the
same way as Tom Lehrer is much more  fun than Joan Baez. If Voldy
and the DEs are redeemed and transmogrified into the WW branch of
Friends of the Earth I shall be severely disgruntled. Evil is interesting
and fictional dystopias have vastly more readers than utopias do.
Many have read Dante's 'Inferno'; how many read his 'Paradise'?
Remember the speech by by Harry Lime in 'The Third Man'? To the
effect that 30 years of war, plague and the Medici tyranny produced
Michaelangelo and the Renaissance, 300 years of peace and stability
in Switzerland produced just the cuckoo-clock.
Wonderful sentiment, even if some of the facts were a bit askew.

The object of telling the story from Harry's viewpoint is that we, the
readers, like Harry, are Strangers in a Strange Land, we learn the plot and
the back-story with Harry. We're on the same level of understanding 
and knowledge. To switch it round to DD's would require an enormous
amount of exposition of what he already knows and why he does what
he does. I don't think it could work over 7 books. The only suspense
would be in whether he succeeds or not.

Yes, Harry is irreplaceable (probably), despite what De Gaulle said. (I 
seem to remember that he considered himself irreplaceable, no matter 
what his thoughts on others.) So what? He's a trump card, but somebody
else shuffles the deck and deals. He has absolutely no idea of what,
how, when or where to do what has to be done. It's all  very well for
brain-dead Hollywood producers to pander to the youth market  with
offerings that depict teenagers saving the world despite their elders 
and betters, it might be harmless fun but it's mindless fluff to anyone
with an IQ greater than their shoe size. JKR is providing something more
substantial (I hope).

Kneasy