OKAY, let's all just take a chill pill

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 120156


Okay everybody, I daresay that this is the House Elves job, but why 
don't we all just take a few breaths.

NOW:

1) There is a difference between fiction and real life;

2) Those who find certain abusive/evil/etc. characters interesting in 
fiction are in no way advocating or defending their actions and would 
not be allies of them in RL.  (I, for example, find Sauron in LOTR a 
fascinating figure, but I wouldn't want to play cards with him.)

ON THE OTHER HAND:

1) There ARE real issues with some of the themes brought up in the HP 
books, in OOTP in particular, where there sometimes seems to be a 
subtle and not so subtle message that abuse is OK in a good cause and 
that emotional health is not important as long as the job gets done;

2)  Those who find these themes disturbing, problematic, and 
pernicious are not being silly, deluded, hysterical, over-the-top, or 
ignorant of the definition of fiction.

I personally think a lot of this arises from the fact that JKR 
assumes we know what she means when in fact what she means is often 
very unclear (combined with the fact that OOTP was written under an 
enormous amount of pressure and badly needed better editing).  I 
could be very wrong, however.

I think I am on stronger ground in saying that we ALL often assume 
that other people understand what we mean, when in fact our meaning 
is often not at all clear either from our words or the context of our 
messages.

This problem seems to flare up particularly with regard to Snape, the 
Dursleys, and Dumbledore's actions/failures with regard to Harry.  
Perhaps when dealing with these subjects, which we have abundant 
evidence are controversial and tend to involve deep emotions, it 
would be best to think several times before hitting the "Send" key as 
well as making sure we have made ourselves clear.  If that means 
being redundant, PC, and preachy, so be it.  It's worth a little 
preachiness and redundancy to avoid a lot of spewing, spitting, and 
anger that only ends up creating very bad feelings all the way around.

Lupinlore