HP: Mystery or Adventure?

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 117929


> Neri:
> 
> I'm not sure JKR herself is completely decided about the 
proper  balance between mystery and adventure. For example, 
as an adventure  story the Shrieking Shack scene leaves a lot to 
be desired. Right  there in the middle of the climax, Lupin takes a 
chapter or more to  explain the MWPP backstory. It really 
hampers the development of the  climax, IMO, but it is necessary 
for the mystery part, and the  adventure climax is rectified by the 
following TT plot. But in other  cases it seems that JKR sacrifices 
the consistency and detail of the mystery for the needs of the 
adventure plot effect, and then we get  explanations that aren't 
completly satisfying, such as the  explanation of the Mirror of 
Erised trick.<

Pippin:
Why do you find the Mirror of Erised trick unsatisfying?  True, we 
can't yet tell how much PuppetMaster!DD had to do with it all, but 
that is the point since he will eventually be one of the suspects in 
Sirius's death, for those who realize that it has been staged as a 
mystery


Neri:
> I would add that a typical mystery story ends when the Sherlock 
 Holmes type gathers the other characters, gives them the full 
 explanation and reveals "who dunnit". In such a story the 
Holmes type  and his faithful sidekick the Dr. Watson type are the 
main and  important heroes, while all the rest are expendable 
(they usually  change from one book to the other anyway). 
Therefore any of these  side characters, which are usually pretty 
two-dimensional, might turn out to be ESE, including even 
characters that have a romantic or  otherwise deep emotional 
relationship with the heroes. Thus the  mystery readers of the HP 
saga expect DD to be the Holmes type, Harry  to be the Watson 
type, and each book (especially the last) should end  with DD 
solving the mystery in front of Harry (as I mentioned here  before, 
this might be technically difficult in the Book 7 because DD 
 might not be alive by then, exactly when we need him the most).,

Pippin:
I think the detective character is us. Harry/the narrator is our 
Archie Goodwin, reporting verbatim what he sees and feels, but 
not necessarily understanding all of it.  Of course we aren't the 
only detectives on the case -- it's generally Hermione and 
Dumbledore who figure things out, and one of the challenges for 
us is to deduce how they did it. 

There isn't a traditional whodunnit scene -- instead the villain in 
his/her hubris confesses, and we get to see whether our 
guesses, if we troubled to make them, were right. I suspect most 
readers rush right past the moment when JKR gives us a cue 
that we have all the information we need and can deduce the  
identity of the villain instead of guessing. 

For example, ESE!Lupin is a guess -- logically I can't eliminate 
either Bella or Puppetmaster!DD from consideration as Sirius's 
murderer. I suspect it will be possible by the end of Book Seven, 
but only a paragraph or two before Rowling herself lifts the veil. 
At that point, one might as well keep reading.

What makes it interesting  is that Dumbledore and Hermione 
don't work from the same set of clues that we do, so like the 
potions puzzle in Book One, we have to work backward from the 
answer to find out what the clues were. But I suspect in Book 
Seven Harry will finally have to work things out without their help.

The books works as mysteries on first reading, ie the characters 
know more than we do, and as thrillers after that, ie we know 
more than the characters. What makes this work is that the  
villain's exposure changes the entire meaning of the story. I had 
heard enough about the series to know that people were 
fascinated by Snape when I first read PS/SS.  I was wondering 
why everyone thought this absurd cliche of a children's book 
villain was so intriguing right up until I read the words, "It was 
Quirrell."

Since Rowling refers to clues and red-herrings when talking 
about her work, says that her readers can figure things out, and 
that we will understand everything at the end, we can conclude 
that  things which are relevant to the plot, like why Lupin  ran
right past the invisibility cloak, will in the end be explained or at 
least be explicable.  

Much as we were all wondering how Harry got the map back, did 
anyone think it was going to have a bearing on the 
plot?

Mark Evans, on the other hand, was not set up as a red herring, 
and needed a common name (WHY? notice she says she could 
have called him Smith or Jones, but doesn't suggest she could 
have called him Nackledirk) --so I think we have, in a devious 
way, been told what is significant about Mark Evans, certified 
nobody.


Pippin