[HPforGrownups] Re: Appropriate terminology

[Kathryn Cawte]

No: HPFGUIDX 89482


Kneasy
>
> OK, if I mis-understood the tenor of your post, I apologise.
> *But*  (oh, how that word must cause a sigh), I will probably quietly
> go my own way even having read your exposition. To me it is just
> a descriptive term in a story and carries no punch or overtones of
> shock!horror at all. No, I'm not expecting agreement (or discussion,
> come to that), the word has no meaning to  me except as a cue for
> reaction from another character. I do not react myself, and doubt
> that I ever will.
>
K

Goodness how boring! I wouldn't read a book (of fiction) where I could
objectively sit outside of the story and not get emotionally involved in it.
I have plenty of non-fiction I can read if that's what I want. For me the
whole point of fiction is to escape from the world (which isn't to say that
I only read happy bookd or fantasy books) and step into the author's world -
whether that be Hogwarts or the gritty world of Kay Scarpetta's coronor's
office or medieval York or wherever the world's only female werewolf happens
to be at the time (my latest addiction. K Armstrong's Bitten and Stolen, go
and read everyone, especially if you like the ideas behind LKH's Anita Blake
books but find her writing a little simplistic). Here in the real world
mudblood has no punch for me but in JKR's world I find it shocking when
someone uses it, hence my care not to use it myself, especially in
connection with a character i like thus inadvertantly linking it with
positive feelings in my mind.

And actually I agree with your comments about the adults (to some extent - I
wouldn't agree that hermione is two dimensional, in fact until OoP I would
have argued she was the only 3d female in the books). I find them far more
interesting. When I'm involved in one of my periodic rants about the fact
that Harry is an obnoxious brat from time to time I always try and point out
that that doesn't mean I dislike him or think he's evil. I think it's
realistic - most teenage boys are obnoxious brats about 90% of the time
after all. I can identify with Hermione to a certain extent, since when I
was her age that was me (minus the death defying adventures fortunately) but
the characters that most interest me are Severus and Remus and Sirius,
although a few more moments like we saw in OoP and Minerva's going to rocket
to the top of that list. For all the fact that I hate him I have to admit
that Albus is another fascinating character - I can't decide whether he;s an
idiot or a horrible person but I'd far rather talk about him than Draco for
example. I think the majority of my posts have probably been about adult
characters (well those about individual characters rather than Slytherins
for example) too. Heck, that's one of the reasons I write and read
fanfiction - I'm interested in the adult characters and I want to explore
them far more than we're likely to be able to in the books.

I'm sure that your attitude works for you, but I couldn't imagine wanting to
read something where I didn't get deeply involved in the characters. A good
book demands an emotional investment as far as I'm concerned, if it can't
engage my feelings as well as my brain then I won't bother with it. Actually
that's one of the reasons I was so disappointed with Sirius' death. The fact
that she killed him off upset me a great deal because I was emotionally
invested in the character *but* I was completely dry eyed and cold about the
death scene itself. If the lesson she was trying to teach was simply that
people die in a war - then for me she failed because the scene was so
unemotional. That's the main reason I think that there is something else
behind the way she killed him - not that I think he'll be alive again in
later books, but I do think we will see him again in some way, in the same
way we've seen quite a lot of James and he was dead before the books even
began. But really I will cry at almost anything so the fact that I didn't
cry when I read the death said to me that she wasn't trying to make an
emotional point but rather set something up for a later book.

K