Clear as day (was: Your greatest fear . . .)

[cubfanbudwoman]

No: HPFGUIDX 121383


Adjusting the attributions a bit, as most posters would be likely to 
know me as SSSusan than as cubfanbudwoman.

SSSusan wrote:
> > And you're saying that you believe the ambiguity is intentional? 
> > Or that JKR just *is* ambiguous in this area?
 
Dan:
> Gosh, I don't know how to separate intention from being, honestly. 
> Our "way" is where we are, right? There are many responses to 
> whatever Rowling is doing in terms of ethics and morality - the 
> plethora of theories about character intention signals not only 
> that the books can be read partially as detective fiction, but also 
> that Rowling has created a scenario wherein folks can attribute 
> ("project") what motives they find reasonable unto the characters - 
> Rowling doesn't relate these motivations to us directly. I think 
> many novels are not only more explicit in describing motivation, 
> but are almost solely about character motivation. Rowling 
> describes/creates situations, and actions - and puts different 
> characters in them. She does not talk about a character's "being," 
> and she uses "soul" as if it were almost mundane, a structuralist 
> kind of soul. Even when she talks about what's going on inside 
> certain characters' heads, she does it as if parsing tremor data 
> from underground faults, say. So the mental space of the characters 
> is, well, something we gather from the data, their actions. Open to 
> interpretation, yes, but no less "singular" or "real" for all that.


SSSusan:
This is an interesting take -- that JKR creates situations and 
actions and then "puts" characters in them.  I think you're very 
right that we often see just the behavior and little of what's inside 
the person... and even in those times when we get in their heads, we 
don't get a whole lot of what's in their hearts.  We could "blame" 
this on the POV of the narrator.  Or we could "blame" JKR as simply 
preferring this style, perhaps helping to sustain mystery.

Now that you point it out, I see what you mean about JKR's talk of 
souls.  Souls are discussed actually quite a bit, but pretty much in 
terms of what a dementor can do to one.  We're meant to understand 
that a dementor sucking out one's soul is the most horrid thing which 
could happen to a person.  We're NOT told about what a soul is or 
contains nor do we witness discussions among characters about the 
importance of one's soul, etc.  As has been remarked here many times, 
we get little in the way of characters discussing ethics or morality 
or spirituality.

All of this leads me, then, to remain puzzled by your comments in the 
original post, about things being as "clear as day" to you.  I'm a 
bit embarrassed to admit it, but I didn't find the explanation 
(below) to help me much with just what it is which is clear as day to 
you. :-|
 
Dan: 
> Again, I don't know what Rowling "believes," but the central theme 
> seems to be connected to knowledge and deception, to some kind of 
> secular Calvanism (Harry at the Second Task, for example, where he 
> acts without a lot of reflection or philosophy) and to systems of 
> morality, or systems of value that can cloud, but also certainly 
> provide a kind of rubric for such acts (pure blood politics, house 
> separation, eg.). These systems become, well, irrelevant, a kind of 
> noise, even.
> 
> Before the current mention of fate on the list, I had posted that 
> fate, long a useful concept, has, by way of mainstream 
> instrumentality, become a perfectly inane, banal concept. It is 
> never a debate about external forces vs. internal forces, but about 
> HOW the two come together, as it were, in any individual in any 
> situation. They cannot be separated, IMHO. Now, if Harry is indeed 
> in the closet, and is somehow enacting a kind of creative 
> liberation from it, physically and/or mentally and/or spiritually, 
> as it were, then what we see in the books might just be the mirror 
> of what we can acheive ourselves, a kind of resonating liberation 
> struggle, like the one Hans describes using his readings - hence 
> the mirroring dynamic and the plethora of theories. I am coming 
> from a more existential place, yunno? But I am talking essentially 
> about the same thing.
> 
> After all, we need different things, are on different paths and all 
> that, and there are, so I've read, many paths to freedom.
 
SSSusan:
I guess what I need is more explanation about Harry's coming out of 
the closet and achieving liberation.  Is it your contention that JKR 
*is* rather vague about any "system," and that allows us to be on 
many different paths to freedom along with Harry?  Or is there *a* 
path she's touting?

Sorry -- it's that phrase "clear as day" which just has me hung up, 
because I'm not seeing what's clear to you.

Siriusly Snapey Susan, suspecting she'll be trying patience with this 
one!