Bad guys and black hats (was Re: Unreliable narrator)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 117553


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:

<snippity>

> Pippin:
> I don't know about that -- seems kind of limited in this 
> multi-media age. Why not regard the whole kit'n'caboodle -- text, 
> promos, chats, website, films and legosets etc. --- as a 
> multimedia work? I know that's not the approach we take here, 
> but that doesn't mean it's not a legitimate way to approach the 
> matter.

We take a rather New Critical approach here, with the text itself 
being the thing--but that's certainly not an unchallenged approach.  
On the other hand, the classic formulation of the intentional fallacy 
(the problems of trying to read authorial intent as a factor in the 
interpretation of works) done by Wimslett and Beardsley has also 
taken a massive beating over the past 50 years.  My own inclination 
is to side with the New Critics but to pay very, very careful 
attention to the author because the text is not complete yet--ask me 
again when we have 'everything', such as it is.
 
<snippity>

> But one of the scarier things about the historical Hitler gets 
> lost when that happens. He was able to persuade shrewd, 
> sophisticated people who had noble ideals and a sense of 
> decency to support him.  If Voldemort is a Hitler-style villain, I'd
> expect him to be able to do that as well and to see it 
> demonstrated in Six and Seven.
> 
> There's some hint that Voldemort has that talent, but we haven't 
> seen him exercise it -- he's always characterizing the people 
> he's charmed into helping him as naive and gullible. But this is 
> self-serving -- naturally he doesn't want his current audience to 
> think that people as clever as themselves could be hoodwinked.
> 
> We don't even know if Ginny, Dippet, and Quirrell were as easy to 
> mislead as he claims.

Pippin and I agree on, ummm, probably the first thing in a while.  
What's really scary to me about Voldemort is the way that he 
apparently was able to get a fairly wide amount of popular support 
for his ideals, even if this support fell off later because of his 
actions.  That's what sparked me to try to look at it in terms of 
fascism.  What I'd go back and add to that essay iffn'when I get the 
time to rework it is the reminder that fascism can be a terribly 
attractive thing, especially to the putative beneficiaries of its 
social changes.

What JKR hasn't really succeeded in showing us yet is a Voldemort-as-
Voldemort who can be charming in this way.  She did so very well with 
Tom, which is why Diary!Tom is so scary--charming, smooth, and 
amoral.  And we may not *see* this direct side of Voldemort, as she's 
said we'll see less of him and more of his henchmen, as that's how he 
likes to work.

Now, of course, if Pippin is right, the tragic denoument of ESE!Lupin 
will show us all, with full doses of pity and tragic recognition 
(and, one hopes, the break against the open portrayal of violence on 
the stage :), what Voldemort can do to a weak but originally well-
intentioned soul, on the personal level.

Right now, Voldemort seems to me so much more like an intensification 
of the ideological nastiness of wizarding society than something 
radically new/different/shocking/separate from it, he's 
simultaneously very scary (as the rise of fascist states is, when you 
study how they ascend and what they do along the way) but lacking 
that personal edge/characterization of a truly great literary 
villain.  Where's Hagen when you need him?

-Nora watches the sun set entirely too early in the afternoon