book 7 my most hated ending

[dan]

No: HPFGUIDX 99350

Geoff
> To use the idea of a dream is a cop out.... as it would 
> undermine the power of their imaginations which are such a valuable 
> part of their development.

This post is also addressed to others who have spoken on the subject 
in this thread and others. I realize every few months I really do 
need to post any developments of my theories, since it seem the gist 
of what I've posted in the past gets speedily reduced to the "wake up 
from a dream" idea, something I've never ever posited, by the way, 
but which seems a kind of default response.

The idea is very simple, but it has nothing to do with waking up, or 
with the Witchwizard world being any "different" from what it is 
right now (which is to say, it isn't). It is, in essence, a kind 
of "meta" - yet no more so than many of the SHIPs or theories being 
posted every day here. (Yes, that means I see MAGIC DISHWASHER, for 
instance, as just as "meta.")

The theory is that the Harry Potter books can be read as if they were 
the fantasies of someone still locked in a closet (mental, physical, 
spiritual, or such), and the progression in the series, whether 
alchemical or psychological or whatever, a kind of liberation. Each 
mental act encapulated by a school year gains this person some kind 
of internal freedom - represented as a bigger room, a bit more 
protection from the Dursleys, or alternatives to the Dursleys, and 
the like - a broadening vision of self, self-definition, even, in 
exactly the same way that adult readers of the series "participate" 
in the progression of the books. We can certainly say that we adult 
readers are choosing to make these books significant by participating 
in this list, for example, by posting on fanfiction net 4 or 5 times 
as many HP fictions than all other combined, by writing books and 
essays about the books. Is this related to the hyperbole-ridden 
silliness of the muggle world as the books represent it, and related 
to the more accurate reflection of our own real world, certainly 
politically, as the witchwizard world of the books? I think it is. 
But at the heart is the fact that, in the witchwizard world, people 
can say things and it is so, as they say, magically. What a boon to 
someone in a closet that would be! And who among us wouldn't like our 
intentions to actually bear fruit just because we say such and such 
with conviction?

Reading Harry Potter as an adult is, in fact, pretty much a political 
gesture. There are two ways, however, to take this. One is to 
reiterate to ourselves how what we really really mean should be 
enough. The other is to acknowledge that it never is, and know that, 
after all, things like friendship, courage, heart etc. are what 
matters.

Also, to respond to the last statement in your post, if the 
application of imagination arises from a real world situation, and 
Rowling's explication is about such a thing, how would that demean 
imagination? If there are things in the books directed toward young 
readers, like Arthur's rubber duck question, or the very silly 
fellytone joke, what do we adults make of them? We turn off the 
critical reader for those passages. But why?

I guess it's just that there our (adult reader) responsibility to 
explore what resonates so about the series. Not that we owe an 
explanation for the midnight lineups, for this group or whatever, but 
that we owe it to ourselves to not avoid questioning why - as in 
everything else, when it comes down to significance.

For me that means I have to question why feel it is significant to 
read these books. I have stated before that, in some ways, by reading 
the books I feel, strangely, as if I were participanting in Harry's 
liberation - and the liberation of whatever it is I identify with in 
him, for example. How is this so? Perhaps the anarchism, 
or "queerness" in the books is reflective of a very socially critical 
(and liberal) intelligence.

dan