Conspiracies and re-assessments

[nkafkafi]

No: HPFGUIDX 111845

Kneasy wrote:

Regular readers of this board will be familiar with my take on the HP
saga - that it's more a mystery tale in form and structure than
anything else. That we are constantly being challenged with ambiguous
characters performing ambiguous actions, usually in situations where 
we have limited or incomplete information. And that we should see it 
as our bounden duty to resolve the apparent inconsistencies and to 
present a neat and tidy explanation to what the hell is going on.
<snip>
And make no mistake, conspiracy and betrayal is at the heart of HP;
it's what makes it tick; it's the skeleton that is fleshed out with 
all the other bits and pieces. 
<snip>


Neri: 

As usual, Kneasy is very good with helping me to understand where 
exactly I disagree with him ;-)

I agree that HP is a mystery story as much as it is (but not 
necessarily more than) anything else. Conspiracy certainly plays an 
extremely important role in it. However, the part of *betrayal* in HP 
tends to be highly exaggerated by FEATHERBOAS. A quick count will 
show that in all the five books combined there is only *one* case of 
classic betrayal: Peter betraying James and Lily. Even this case 
happened off-page, before the first chapter of the first book begins, 
and we didn't have a chance to personally meet the betrayer (in human 
form at least) before the betrayal took place and develop any 
feelings for him, so the betrayal never came as an emotional shock to 
us, as a "proper" betrayal should. To Peter's case you might want to 
add some minor or less than classic cases of betrayal: Snape and 
Karkaroff betraying the bad guys, Lupin hiding his lycanthropy, 
Marietta the DA sneak. I hesitate to include Kreacher betraying the 
Order, since it was pretty clear where his true loyalties were to 
begin with. This is more the case of the demon unexpectedly breaking 
his geis. I don't think I'll include Percy changing his loyalties 
since it was very gradual and until now it wasn't used as a source of 
any mystery or conspiracy. Considering we already have a huge number 
of characters in about 2000 pages, the betrayal rate in HP has 
actually been *very* low for a mystery book. This is a fact. Many 
conspiracy theorists take it as given that in the next two books a 
main character must betray the good side, and only disagree about who 
will it be, but based on the above past statistics I wouldn't put any 
money on this.

Most of the mystery and conspiracy in HP, especially that which is 
emotionally charged, comes not from betrayal but from cases of faked, 
assumed or unknown identity (Pettigrew!Sacbbers, Crouch!Moody, 
Voldemort!Riddle!diary), possession (Voldy/Quirrell, Riddle/Ginny), 
the Imperius curse (Crouch Sr., Krum, Bode), the unknown intentions 
of characters who are suspicious to begin with (Snape, Dobby, 
Lockhart, Sirius, Crouch Sr., Bagman, Kreacher, Umbridge) and mainly 
unexpected abilities of persons and magical devices (the scar, the 
mirror of Erised, Parseltongue, the diary, animagi, Trelawney 
prophesying, the time-turner, the Goblet of Fire, Priori Incantatem, 
etc, etc, etc.).

A member recently asked me offlist about an apparent contradiction in 
my posts: I do a fair amount of theorizing and speculating but in 
other posts I seem to condemn all theorizing. My answer is that I 
don't condemn theorizing at all, not even conspiracy theorizing. It's 
fun. The question I ask, however, is which kind of theories is likely 
to prove right (which is, as I wrote here before, not necessarily the 
same question as how much fun they are). My conclusion is that 
besides the obvious such a theory also requires two properties that 
are less obvious.

The first property is that the theory has to fit with JKR's style. 
For example, a theory that is based on other characters continuously 
playing Harry for a puppet is not a good bet in a saga of which the 
main hero seems to be Harry Potter and a main theme seems to be Free 
Will and Choice. Note that there might be a big difference between 
JKR's style and fandom style or fan-fiction style, which is why it is 
important to find out what JKR's style *really* is. As in my example 
above, a lot of fans think that betrayal is JKR's style, but anyone 
making a quick inventory of betrayals in canon will immediately find 
out it is not. It is only fandom and fan-fiction style. So if you are 
working on your ESE!someone theory it can be a lot of fun, but don't 
complain if JKR won't follow your predictions. 
   
If we really seek to uncover the secrets of HP, I believe we first 
must learn to accept JKR's style, and not impose our own tastes on 
her. For example, I consider myself a part-time FEATHERBOA and I 
frequently enjoy much more violent and blood-spattered books than HP, 
but it's pretty obvious that JKR is not a FEATHERBOA, so I don't 
expect blood when reading HP or when theorizing about it. Luckily 
there are enough other good qualities in HP or I wouldn't be a HP 
fan. In a similar way I like blues music, but this doesn't mean I 
expect electric guitar riffs when listening to renaissance and 
baroque music, which I like for other qualities.

One of the great hopes of FEATHERBOAS and other types of HP 
theoreticians is that JKR will change her style to suit their 
tastes. "The books are getting darker" is repeated a lot. And maybe 
JKR was easy on the betrayal theme because she saves her BIG guns for 
the climax. Could be, but I wouldn't bet on it. When JKR 
says "darker" she means darker by *her* standards, not by FEATHERBOAS 
standards. Yes, the tone of the books has considerably changed from 
Book 1 and will probably keep changing, but it will still be JKR and 
it will still be Harry Potter.

Another kind of theoreticians who are frequently disappointed with 
JKR are SHIPpers. It is a sad fact that all the shipping in the HP 
saga could be combined to fit into a single chapter. Not even one 
important plot development that we know of happened because of 
romantic love. The shippers hope this situation will improve when 
Harry gets older. Well, I hope so too, since personally I could 
easily accommodate five times as much shipping, but I doubt very much 
it will be such a dramatic change. JKR is just not a romance writer. 
If you can't stand it go read/write fan-fiction, but don't expect JKR 
to change into something she's not. She writes these books for 
herself. So if your theory hinges on romantic love, it could be a lot 
of fun, but you might be in for a disappointment.  
 
A second property that I believe is very important for a good HP 
theory is that it should simplify the picture rather than 
complicating it further. This is especially important in the post-
OotP era. In five books the HP saga grew into something incredibly 
huge and complex. The number of characters, plotlines, mysteries, 
clues and red herrings is staggering, and we already know that JKR 
plans at least one new main character (the HBP/"lion man") for Book 
6. All these should somehow come to a satisfying resolution within 
just two books, which means that there must be A LOT of convergence 
of plotlines soon. Furthermore, almost all of it must be described 
from the point of view of Harry. This is a very severe limitation 
that JKR took upon herself. Harry can be only at one place and follow 
a single plotline in any given moment (except when he's using a time 
turner). Anything he doesn't see happening will have to happen off-
page, which is no way to bring about a proper resolution of any 
plotline or making justice to any character.

Consider for a moment only the "heart of it all" plotline. We already 
have the thread of Lily's "ancient magic" that now includes also 
Voldy's resurrection and Petunia's pact, we have the thread of the 
powers that were transferred from Voldy to Harry, we have the mind 
link/Occlumency thread (that until now JKR has kept completely 
separated from the transferred powers thread), and we have the "power 
behind the locked door" thread. To this JKR just recently added the 
thread of Voldy's immortality. That's already five different plot 
threads that JKR has kept practically separated from each other, yet 
they somehow must be all woven together in any satisfying "heart of 
it all" theory, complete with explanations for the "gleam in DD's 
eyes", "in essence divided", "neither can live while the other 
survive", and probably incorporating Wormtail's life debt and silver 
hand and explaining what exactly is Neville's part in the prophecy. 
What? Do I hear somebody's shouting "impossible"? But this is exactly 
what JKR promises to do. And I didn't even begin to discuss the 
plotlines of double-agent Snape, Neville's parents, Ron and 
Hermione's share, a satisfying explanation of Sirius' death, Lupin's 
contribution, a very likely role for the veil, a possible time-travel 
gambit, the destiny of Slytherin house, the WW's political future, 
the fate of the House Elves... OK, you get the picture. 

I'm not saying a theory is worthless unless it explains EVERYTHING. 
What I'm saying is that you want to try, when theorizing, to leave 
the overall picture slightly simpler than what it was before. If 
you've found a terrific explanation for some mystery, but this 
necessitates three other mysteries that otherwise wouldn't exist, 
then you are complicating things instead of simplifying them. If OTOH 
you've made a single assumption and it explains three or four 
mysteries that previously seemed not to be connected at all, then 
there's a good chance you're on the right track. If your theory 
explains ten different mysteries but in order to bring it about you 
had to make twenty assumptions that are not canon, then you've 
perhaps written the plot for great fan-fiction, but chances are it's 
not the story that JKR is writing.

Here are some possible directions for theorizing that concur with the 
two principles above:  

1. JKR loves mysteries based on faked or assumed identity, and in 
OotP she had given us a great new way to bring it about: 
metamorphmagi. So which character in the books (other than Tonks) is 
a metamorphmagus and which other character did he/she impersonate in 
the past so that one of the current mysteries would be solved?

2. How did Snape manage to worm his way into Voldy's grace again? JKR 
loves using magical devices and magical abilities in an unexpected 
way, so here also the key might be instrumental rather than some 
espionage plot. Maybe Snape uses the Pensieve to hide memories he 
doesn't want Voldy to see, but this doesn't seem enough. The ideal 
case would be for Snape to implant false memories in his mind for 
Voldy to find. Could perhaps another magical device or ability be 
combined with the Pensieve to do that?

3. The HBP: there were many theories who he might be, but very few 
theorize how he might help to solve some of the existing mysteries. 

4. The Longbottoms bubblegum wrappers message: many try to guess 
*how* it is encoded, but not many ask *what* is this message? What 
could the Longbottoms know for which they were attacked 14 years ago 
and could still solve a recent mystery?

I'm not saying, however, that all this should prevent us from making 
the wildest speculations and theories. It's a lot of fun, and it's 
the kind of fun that doesn't last forever. Just think about it: in 
three, four, or five years at most we'll have Book 7 in our hands, 
and then there won't be much point anymore in any speculations and 
theories. *I'm* going to make the most of it while I still can.

Neri