Umbridge, detention, scars, and plotlines, oh my!.

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 126057


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03"
<horridporrid03 at y...> wrote:
> 
<SNIP>
> 

> 
> >>Lupinlore:
> >An example is Ron suddenly being both a prefect and a Quidditch 
> keeper.<
> <snip>
> 
> Betsy:
> What?  But Ron works so darn hard to become keeper.  Actually, I 
> would have been surprised if Ron *hadn't* tried out for a spot on 
> the team.  He's quidditch mad, his brothers have all played (except 
> for Percy, who's *definitely not* Ron's role model), and we learned 
> in PS/SS that Ron, at the very least, wants to be on the team.
> 
> Now if Ron had been an outstanding keeper, totally unfazed by 
> Draco's taunts or the attentions of the crowd, *then* I would have 
> suspected authorial tampering.  No - Ron earns his spot, and in the 
> end, he earns his triumph.  (Sucks that it was off-screen though.  
> I'm betting JKR is setting us up for something there.)
> 
> Ron's being prefect was also handled perfectly well, IMO.  First, 
> everyone is rather insultingly surprised that he got it instead of 
> Harry.  And second, Dumbledore, in the end, makes it clear that 
> Harry had been removed from the running.  Of the fifth year boys 
> only Dean struck me as someone who could have been prefect.  But 
> he's been so uninvolved in all the adventures that have earned 
> Gryffindor their housecup year after year, even he would have been a 
> strange choice over Ron.  Frankly, Harry is so unassuming in 
> general, I don't know that he'd have made a good prefect.
> 

Chuckle.  Well, we'll just have to disagree on this one, Betsy.  I
found the whole prefect situation so contrived and poorly written that
it strikes me as one of the worst pieces of plotting JKR has done in
the entire series.  It's like she said, "WHOOPS!  Got to get
Ronniekins a prefect badge!  Got to make sure the Mirror of Erised
comes true!  I'm sure they won't see this one coming!"
Like Phoenixgod, I found it impossible to believe that Dumbledore
would act as strangely and stupidly as he did, in that situation and
most of the others in OOTP.  And if the Mirror is foreshadowing, it's
incredibly clumsy foreshadowing of incredibly implausible plot
developments.

The keeper situation is, I agree, more plausible and better written. 
Had it not been for the clumsiness of the prefect subplot, I would
have had no trouble with it at all.  But I maintain, linked together
they point to a clumsy, contrived, and poorly written attempt to give
Ron everything he saw in the Mirror, flying directly in the face of
plausibility and believability.

Now, if in the end this plays out in a more believable and less
contrived fashion, JKR will have recovered from her disaster in the
making.  For instance if Ron becomes Quidditch captain but not
Headboy, or vice-versa, I will conceed that the foreshadowing in the
Mirror is not as poorly done as it first appears.  But if the Mirror
does come true, it will be forced and manipulative beyond belief.


Lupinlore