Spy novel? maybe (was Lupin's secrets )

[naamagatus]

No: HPFGUIDX 118562


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Sharon" <azriona at j...> wrote:
> 
>snip> 
> Is one of the five books specifically about spies and traitors?  Of 
> course not.  But spies and traitors are very much a part of the 
> overall story.  If you removed them, you've lot a great deal of the 
> meaning.
> 

I think you'd lose (as I said in my last) a driving force in the plot 
and the readability (the page-turner quality), but not so much in 
meaning. 

> 
> Naama:
>  There is no constantly underlying question of whether people (as a 
> > general rule) can be trusted - as a general rule, people are what 
> > they seem. 
> 
> I disagree.  We first saw Sirius Black as a traitorous friend, a 
> murderer and someone who was out to kill Harry.  We learned later 
> this wasn't true.
> 
<Further examples>
> 
First, my argument is about the *general* trustworthiness of people 
in the Potterverse. 
Secondly:
1. We, and Harry, never "saw" Sirius or Peter. We hear of them, we 
see Sirius' picture - that's all. Neither of them gained Harry's 
trust and then betrayed that trust, in the way that Pippin is 
postulating that Lupin has.
2. Fudge was signed (not least, by his name) from the very beginning 
as a moral coward - not evil, but reluctant to face unpleasant 
realities. The first time we see him, if you remember, he is caving 
under public pressure - he is sending Hagrid to Azkaban for the sole 
purpose of being as doing something (the classical scapegoating 
manoeuver).
3. I still see DD as kindly and as having Harry's best interests at 
heart. The end of OotP, in fact, should show us how very much at 
heart he had Harry - to the point of risking the final defeat of 
Voldemort.
4. Lupin really was poor and he really had a hard time finding a job. 
What we find out about him doesn't contradict that. I didn't say that 
we always know everything about a character right away - that would 
make the story boring; but, *by and large*, added information does 
not contradict previous information.
5. Actually, the Moody example strengthens my argument. Moody (the 
real Moody) is exactly the kind of person the readers are led to 
believe he is - loyal to the cause and to DD. The twist is that 
somebody else impersonated him. To me, this shows how reluctant JKR 
is to subvert readers' established views on characters.
6. Yes. Both Harry and the reader are mistaken about Riddle. This is 
one case - maybe the only one - where we are truly deceived. Think, 
the one true case where a person manages to seem good, and actually 
be evil is Voldemort. Does Voldemort represent humanity in general 
for JKR? Of course not. He represents the darkest and worst in 
humanity. So, showing Voldemort as a deceiver is certainly not a call 
(for us or for Harry) to generally distrust the impression we form of 
people.

> Misconceptions of people abound in HP.  No, you can't trust a first 
> impression of anyone, because the longer you give JKR, the more 
> she'll show you why your first impression just wasn't true.

Really? Draco, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Hagrid, DD, MM, the Dursleys, 
Harry himself - how is our first impression of them not true? 

>....  I don't think we can take anyone in these books at 
> face value.  JKR has proven time and time again that her story goes 
> much deeper than just "Snape hates Harry."  Instead, it is "Snape 
> hates Harry *because*..."  "Voldemort hates Muggles 
> *because*..."  "Lupin can't find a job *because*..."
> 
> And in each instance, the because is often far more intersting than 
> the fact which preceeds it.  

Again, getting additional information is a very different matter from 
getting contradicting information. Harry felt from the beginning that 
Snape hates him - and he was right. Does the fact that Snape hates 
Harry because of James makes Snape's unfair behavior not unfair? It 
gives Snape depth - it doesn't undermine our basic perception of the 
character as unfair, unpleasant, etc.
The same goes for the other examples you give.

> 
> Are these characters adequately known?  Not by half!  We don't know:
> 
<examples of unknowns>
> 
> We're not even *close* to adequate yet.  At least, not for me.

When I said 'adequete', I meant that the basic knowledge we have of a 
character (mostly on the good/evil divide) is true. That doesn't mean 
we know every thing, or even every interesting thing about the 
character. The question is, whether the additional information we get 
will be, in some way, an extrapolation of what we already know, or 
that it will undermine, subvert what we knew (thought we knew, in 
this case). My argument is that JKR tends to develop her characters 
on a trajectory of their basic personality, which she mostly makes 
known to the reader early on. 

Naama