Dry Humor in HP

[Tonks]

No: HPFGUIDX 129517

It always amazes me how so many people can read the same books and 
have such different interpretations of what they have read.  One 
wonders what the author thought would happen when folks read her 
books.  Prior to being a member of this list, if I were an author I 
would naively assume that everyone would read it the way that I 
intended. It would never occur to me that there would be such 
diverse interpretations.  Now I am older and wiser and realize that 
people do see the events and characters in sometimes radically 
opposite extremes.  Reading this list has really been an education 
for me in diversity.

Having said that, I wonder about the humor of JKR.  Dry, sarcastic 
humor, what some call dark humor or gallows humor can be difficult 
to convey in person.  I tend to use that type of humor myself and I 
know that not everyone takes what I say as humor. Some think that I 
am being serious.  It is even more difficult to convey that type of 
humor in written form.  I think that JKR does use that type of humor 
in the books and just as in RL the fact that it is humor does not 
come across.

People on the list here are in two camps on a number of issues 
involving the behavior of certain characters.  I suspect one reason 
for this is that there is a difference in the perception of the 
humor that the author is using.

For example, take the incident in the second book when Uncle Vernon 
locks Harry in his room and feeds him through bars on the door.  
Some here see that as severe child abuse and others don't interpret 
it as strongly.  Now I don't want to start these fights all over 
again.  But I suspect that part of radical difference in POV is that 
some take the books more literally and others see some of these 
scenes as the author's humor.  I for one see that particular scene 
not as "poor Harry see what they are doing to him now", but rather 
as "poor Vernon, he has really gone off the deep end this time" and 
see it as a humorous commentary on Vernon's fears. I see it as 
similar to when he drags the family all over the place trying to get 
away from the letters in the first book.

The same is true for many (not all) of Snape's comments.  Take the 
time he said he didn't see any difference in Hermione's teeth.  I 
have a friend like that; she might say the same sort of thing to me 
in a similar situation.  It is not being mean and thoughtless, it is 
humor.   And in a stressful moment, it can be helpful.  Now if it 
came from someone I really hated I might take it as something else.  
As a reader, however, I often take Snape's comments as humorous. 
That time in the teachers lounge when he bates and sets up Lockhart 
was one of the best.  

There are a lot of places in the books where I think that JKR uses a 
dry sense of humor, and it is one of the things that I love about 
the books.

Tonks_op