Allowable reader responce was Re: Disapointed in Potter?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 127761


Lupinlore wrote:
<snop>
> No one is under any command whatsoever to remain within invisible 
> boundaries as long as the discussion is based on canon.  To wit:
> 
> Canon says that Remus Lupin had a very small role in OOTP.  He is 
> one of my favorite characters whom I find quite interesting.  If he 
> does not appear in HBP more than he did in OOTP I will be 
> disappointed.  I will probably find it a mistake on JKR's part.
> 
> That is absolutely and undeniably my right to say.  There is no rule 
> that I know of against it, and trying to prevent that type of 
> discussion amounts to censoring opinions you don't happen to like.
<snip>

Carol responds:
But your not liking something JKR does is different from JKR making a
mistake. If Lupin doesn't play a large role in HBP, you have every
right to be disappointed. You also have a right to be disappointed if
Snape isn't punished, a position that I find disturbing and that I
will never agree with. (At least we agree that the less we see of
Grawp, the better.) But neither of us can justifiably say that JKR
made a *mistake* because she didn't take our preferences into account.
She has said time and time again that she's writing to please herself
(and I also believe that she considers her chief and most important
audience to be children, and that she won't forget that chosen
audience as she writes the last two books). 

I may well lose my affection for the Potter books if they don't end
the way I want them to. I may even sell them or donate them to the
library. But I'm not going to say that JKR was *wrong* not to heed my
preferences. Who am I to dictate to her? (Yes, I'm an editor, but not
*her* editor!) To her, I'm a complete unknown, and my preferences are
a matter of complete indifference, as are yours.

Please don't think I'm dictating to you or anyone else what can be
said on this forum. I'm just reminding you of the difference between
opinion and fact, and between your judgment and JKR's. If you expect
the books to satisfy your hopes and preferences in every respect, you
are bound to be disappointed. JKR can't satisfy every reader, and no
single reader is going to be happy with her treatment of all events
and characters. Try to look at the books objectively, as works of
literature, as the product of the writer's imagination or her craft,
rather than dismissing them as uninteresting or "wrong" if they don't
meet your preconceptions of how they ought to be written. You are only
one of millions of readers, and your tastes are exclusively your own.
And the same is true for me and for all of us.

I expect that I'll be disappointed in some aspects of HBP and even
more aspects of Book 7. JKR can't possibly want what I want for every
character. But she will only be "wrong" if she violates her own rules.
As long as the plot is credible within the bounds of the secondary
world she has created, as long as the characters' actions are in
character, she is perfectly "right" to write the books as she pleases.
And we are "wrong" to call her decisions "mistakes" if she follows her
own rules.

Carol