JKR's Messages (was Re: Hermione In Trouble?)

[nkafkafi]

No: HPFGUIDX 120938



> SSSusan:
> I do think I get the distinction you're making, Neri, but I'm not 
> sure it's going to show in what I say here. :-| 
> 
> What do you make of the fact that it was JKR who was identifying the 
> trio as persons she tends to see as "innately good"?  Do you think 
> she's simply saying, that because of the choices she's going to 
> *make* them make as their creator, she CAN see them that way?  Or is 
> she saying that within the book, as characters, she sees them that 
> way?  
> 
> Because I didn't see this comment as authorial intention when I read 
> it.  It seems to me that, having this phrase come from the horse's 
> mouth as it were, that if it's discrediting their personhood, then 
> JKR herself did that.  I mean, is it problematic to you that *she's* 
> the one who said it, or do you see it differently?
> 

Neri:
Well, according to my own distinction I have a bit of a problem with
the logic of this discussion. If I consider the trio to be innately
good because JKR says so, then I'm obviously arguing from outside the
story. If OTOH I want to argue only from within the story, then I have
to pretend that the author doesn't exist, so how do I know that the
trio are "innately good"?

OK, I wouldn't want you to think that I'm avoiding the question. So
lets pretend that we are within the story, we know the trio personally
and very closely, and someone told us that they are "innately good".
We are now considering if it is possible to accommodate this statement
with what we know about them. 

Are the trio little saints? Do they always choose good? Do they have
some magical power that prevents them from wrongdoing? Nope, from my
personal acquaintance with them this interpretation is incorrect. And
if some funny muggle woman would have told me that she's "the author"
and therefore she knows for sure that they are "innately good", I
would have told her that 1) she's crazy and 2) she's not consistent
with the way she wrote them.

A more realistic interpretation is that the trio follow good
principles and values. Principles and values are just a practical way
of making choices. Instead of weighting the pros and cons and having
the whole moral discussion each time, you decide once about a set of
principles and then most of the time you just have to follow them.
It's much more efficient and it enables you to make decisions much
faster, which is a distinctive advantage with choices that might only
be available for a second or two. It also makes being "good" and "bad"
look more like a description of an inner state than a matter of
choice. People who follow their principles faithfully might appear as
if they are pre-programmed, as if they are innately good (or innately
bad). But we shouldn't forget that they chose which principles to
follow and they chose to follow them faithfully. If this is what the
crazy muggle woman had meant, then from my personal acquaintance with
the trio I fully agree.  

Neri