Conspiracy Theories

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 97379

Geoff wrote:
> <snip> The point I am reiterating in this ramble is that, as I have
said 
> previously, I wonder whether Jo Rowling has her story planned to the 
> level of intricacy that we seem to believe. Whether every second word 
> needs to be analysed? Why was the passive tense used there? Why a 
> conditional clause here? With all the combined thinking power we can  
> field, it is possible that we are putting in more nuances and 
> subtleties than JKR has in fact considered. She has a set plan in her 
> mind and has presumably constructed the plot to lead us to that 
> point; she may not have thought of some of the variant 
> interpretations which we, in our little corner of the hothouse behind 
> the cacti, have managed to produce to satisfy our take of the story.
> 
> Great will be the cheers (or the gnashing of teeth) on "dies irae, 
> dies illa" ** when all will be revealed in Book 7, a book which I 
> think we shall all open with trepidation, apprehension and hopefully 
> satisfaction as we seek to find whether our pet theory has achieved 
> congruence with that of the spinner of the web which has drawn us 
> together in the group. <snip>

Carol:
While I agree entirely about inadequately snipped posts full of
repetitious material and brilliant discoveries being made for the
200th time (okay, that's my hyperbole, not yours!), I do think there's
something to be said for examining seemingly insignificant details
(other than the red herring vs. clue variety, which are obviously
important and don't need defending). The passive voice is one such
important detail. Why? Because its chief use is to obscure meaning
(which it also does if used carelessly rather than deliberately).
That's why why sociologists love it and bureaucrats like Mafalda
Hopkirk of the MoM use it so frequently, and it's also why English
teachers try to pound it out of their students with red pen. (Forgive
the mixed metaphor--I know you can't pound with a pen, at least not
very effectively.) My point is that if it appears in a memo or a
speech by Dumbledore, that memo or speech becomes ambiguous because
the doer of the action is concealed--and could, in theory, be anybody.
As for passive tense, if you ever encounter an example, please point
it out to me. It will be a highly unusual grammatical construction,
rarer than thestrals at the local zoo. :-)

BTW, I doubt that Book 7 will have *all* the answers even if JKR
intends it to. Even when the series is completed, different readers
will still have different interpretations. If that weren't the case,
there would be no such field as literary criticism.

Carol