prophecies and choice..was Re: Neville and the Prophecy - VERY LONG

[cubfanbudwoman]

No: HPFGUIDX 108444

Shannon:
>> By the same token, I have a very hard time swallowing all this 
prophecy stuff.  
<snip>
Especially given that the prophecy tells us something that we as 
readers (at least I assume I can speak for all or most readers) have 
assumed from the start: that it will come down to Harry and 
Voldemort at the end.  When I read that chapter in OoP, I remember 
thinking, "Am I supposed to be surprised by this?"  Harry certainly 
is, but I as a reader wasn't, after five books in which Voldemort is 
built up as Harry's arch enemy.<<
 
Kneasy:
> One thing JKR is good at is getting fans to chase their  own tails.
> Harry trips over Voldy or his avatar in every book but one - 
> which makes me very suspicious of some of the events in PoA, but 
> more on that later - yet somehow he doesn't seem to have grasped 
> the fact that Voldy has decided that Harry's the prime candidate 
> for winning the Black Spot raffle and together with his dastardly 
> crew he spends an inordinate amount of time drawing up 
> ridiculously  complicated plots, (worthy of Baldrick at his best) -
> and they never work. Harry *always* gets away. Sometimes I can't 
> help but think of Sylvester and Tweety Pie.
> 
> You've got to admit, it is getting a bit much. Consider:
> PS/SS. Harry and chums decide that it is their duty to prevent 
> Snape from having it away with the Stone. Naturally they've got  
> it all wrong. Good job too - if it had been ESE!Snape down there, 
> Harry would be dead. His protection wouldn't work against ole 
> Sevvy. Not that he understands about his protection yet, in his 
> wide-eyed innocence he just assumes that 3 eleven years old 
> untrained students can somehow circumvent the cunning protections 
> supposedly emplaced by the best in the business and then overcome 
> a mature wizard full of evil intent.
> 
> Instead he finds out there was a basic error in his calculations. 
> Oops! he's up against the No. 1 baddy, foaming at the mouth and 
> drooling down Quirrell's collar. He should by rights end up as a 
> small grease spot on the floor - except. Except Quirrell forgets 
> that he's a wizard.
> Note that  during his excursion through the trapdoor Harry does not
> cast a single spell.
> 
> CoS. Tom has him on toast. but he gets away - again. <big snip>
>
> PoA. The odd one out. Why no Voldy? Why no plan to lure Harry to 
> his doom? Well, there might be  one in there somewhere, especially 
> if you happen to be leery of Fudge and wonder exactly what 
> instructions had been given to the Dementors. They seem awfully 
> interested in Harry and Sirius doesn't seem to be their favourite 
> flavour. I wonder why?
> 
> GoF. Well, this one's got everything - from dirty work at the 
> cross-roads to a wooden leg. To be fair most of what happens isn't 
> down to Harry - it's DD this time.  <snip>
> So Harry goes on his own sweet way, eventually coming face-to-face 
> with the biggest, grossest, most bumbling incompetent in the 
> books. Voldy - our friendly neighbourhood mass-murderer.  
> Typically, he's too busy preening to get down to business as any 
> self-respecting supreme ruler should, and when he does get round 
> to squelching this little scrote things don't go according to 
> plan. Oh dear. Will he never learn? Not when the author's against 
> him, he won't. 
> 
> A careful reading gives one the impression that there were a lot 
> of DEs in that graveyard - a lot; many more than were named. Yet 
> with one bound our hero is free... One unaimed Impedimenta! spell 
> thrown over his shoulder and all are confounded. Come now! 
>
> OoP.  Here we go again. A clutch of killer desperados ambush 6 
> school kids and come off worst. Only one fatality (adult) and it's 
> not certain that that was the result of enemy action. Just how far 
> can belief be suspended?
> It's not just suspended -  it's fitted with anti-gravity.
> 
> Fortunately I don't read the books for their verisimilitude; it's 
> the character studies and puzzles that grab my attention. Good job 
> too, otherwise I might be getting a bit restive. A supposed super-
> wizard who uses hardly any spells against the enemy and a bunch of 
> fearsome killers that  fall over their own feet.
> 
> Huh! It's fortunate that I'm not the type to complain.


SSSusan:
What?  NO responses to this?   How the hell can there be NO 
responses to this?!?  I'm assuming that people are merely stunned by 
your candor, Kneasy.

I shall, therefore, respond.

Ahem.  Well done.  

Seriously, as much as I love these books--and I do!--and as much as 
I love Harry's story and think he *is* really special, there is a 
certain amount of suspending disbelief that has to be done...and I 
*don't* mean just to enjoy the magic.  

If we're supposed to believe Voldy is the Biggest Baddy in 
generations, or that all of the WW was terrorized by his DEs, then 
JKR's not done a very good job so far of showing us why/how.  *I* 
think Harry's much "specialer" than many other listers do, but even 
*I* don't think he should've been able to take on these Baddies in 
all these situations with these odds and have come out smelling so 
rosy.  

And I'm not buying the "But they're children's books!" rationale.  
Because, first, we've been over that one time & time again, and 
there's nothing conclusive.  She has stated flat-out that she 
*didn't* set out to write a children's story.  Even if, in her mind, 
they are children's stories, she has also said that "DEATH is an 
extremely important theme throughout the seven books--I would say 
possibly  *the* most important theme" [A&E Biography].  She's 
dealing with some BIG stuff in these books--death, loss, horrible 
burdens, betrayal, Dementors, lack of a loving home--so I'd think 
she should be able to expect her readers to handle something 
*convincing* about Voldy & the DEs.

As an aside, I will also note that, while Kneasy wasn't offering his 
comments up necessarily in this manner, I can take the ones about 
PS/SS to fit nicely with my theory that DD set the obstacle course 
as a test of sorts for Harry, and the ones about PoA to fit nicely 
with the idea of a possibly ESE!Fudge.  So, thanks. :-)

Siriusly Snapey Susan
(Man, it was hard to snip anything--sorry, list elves!)