Story Structure (WAS: ACID POPS and teenager Draco) LOOOONG

[Sydney]

No: HPFGUIDX 157549

warning, long and very rambly....


> Neri:
> First, I never wrote "you're confusing fanon with canon". I wrote
> "it's dangerous to confuse fanon with canon". It was a general
> statement, which I think you'll agree with me is valid, and not a

> personal accusation. It is generally advisable, before accusing other
> people of misremembering, to check first that you don't misquote them
> in that very paragraph.

Sydney:

I do beg your pardon.  I don't know where on earth I could have gotten
the idea that "it's dangerous to confuse fanon with canon" was you
saying, "you're confusing canon with fanon".  I apologize for the
misunderstanding.

Neri:

 I don't see that
> Snape and Harry are the central characters, or that theirs is the
> central relationship. <snip>

> I'll give you one trivial example, from the books, of what I mean
> regarding the importance of central characters. <snip exhaustive
typing out of Ron arc>.
> This is what I meant when I said that central characters are served by
> the story, and this also shows that Ron is a central character, second
> (together with Hermione) only to Harry.


Sydney:

I'm sure I wrote something about this.. ah yes.  It's in the post you
were replying to.  Perhaps I wasn't clear enough the first time
around, but I'll cut and paste as a starting point.  I am now going to
bore you for a bit with what I mean by a 'central relationship'.


"As I said, Snape and Harry have the central *relationship*. It's the
one that has the most unresolved emotional energy going into the last
stage of the book. It's the one with the most potential for change in
*Harry*, the central character. It's the one, as I said, where
everything that goes on with Snape has to go back to Harry. *Ron and
Hermione are sidekicks and they can have their own stories that run
parallel to the plot, like Jane could have her own romance with
Bingley or all the little side characters in Dickens can have their
own colourful storylines*. Snape is not so free. His story has to
loop back into Harry's."

Let me try to be a bit more clear.  I'll start with a plot that
doesn't have a whole lot complicated emotional content, and the main
character doesn't change much, so you can see the spine of the story
pretty clearly:

Think of, oh... "The Wizard of Oz".  That's a good one.  What's the
central storyline?  There's a little girl, and she blown to the
Wonderful Land of Oz, which is not so wonderful that she does not
immediately want to go home.  She's told she should go to the Wizard,
who will know what to do.  Unfortunately, she has inadvertently killed
a Wicked Witch whose even wickeder sister swears vengeance.  She goes
off to the City of Oz, making three great friends along the way, where
the Wizard tells her she must bring back the wicked Witch's broom. 
I'm sure you know the rest.

Pop quiz:  what's the central relationship?  Answer:  Dorothy and the
Wizard.  Why?  Because the story can't end until they have a
resolution that is dependent each on the other.  Dorothy threatens to
reveal the Wizard's weakness because she makes a request he can't
grant.  The Wizard has something Dorothy desperately wants-- it's a
simple story, so it's a simple thing, a way home.  They are locked
together.  It's attached to the emotional spine of the story because
there's actually a fair bit of change in Dorothy's attitude to the
Wizard--the Wizard is the same guy as the charlatan in the first reel
who has a strong bit where he persuades Dorothy not to run away from
home; he's the guy she's so happy to see because he'll solve her
problem; he's the guy who suddenly becomes someone who makes her
situation worse; then he's the guy she reveals as a fake.  The second
relationship that is also belonging to the 'spine' of the story is
Dorothy and the Witch.  They also are bonded, storywise, in that they
can't have a resolution to their plot independent of the other.  The
Tin Man can't kill the witch;  Dorothy has to.

Page time is not a function of centrality to the story's spine.  The
Scarecrow and everybody get great songs and great scenes, and they're
what makes the movie fun to watch.  They must have four or five times
the screen time that the wizard has.  They have their own arcs that
are in a way more rewarding and interesting than Dorothy's.  But they
don't pull the central spine of the story.  You can tell it without
them:  A girl goes to a magical land, tries to get a wizard to send
her home, the wizard gives her an impossible task, she completes the
task, accidentally exposes the wizard as a mere fraud, reconciles with
him, and they go home.  I mean, try telling the story with just
Dorothy and the Scarecrow and without mentioning the wizard.

The Wizard and the Witch, on the other hand, don't get to have the fun
of their own storylines because they are part of the spine and have to
run in a certain direction and support the main character's growth. 
You wouldn't expect, for example, for a cut back to the Emerald City
to a subplot about the Wizard, I dunno, planning to annex a
neighbouring country or something.  Your audience would be all, "What
does this have to do with Dorothy?" You COULD cut back to the Emerald
City for a subplot about a rebellion growing in the city as everyone
realizes the Wizard is weak or something, because that goes back to
Dorothy.

Why doesn't the audience get irritated with "What does this have to do
with Dorothy?" when the Cowardly Lion bursts into song?  Because they
recognize the character's function in the story, as a sidekick who is
there to be endearing and entertaining.  They don't expect there to be
a push-pull with the central character the way they would with an
antagonist like the Witch.

Neri:

The fact that R/L was very
> insignificant only shows to what length JKR would go for Ron's
> character. She *likes* Ron, in the most emotional sense of the word.
> His character is heavily affected by memories of her best childhood
> friend.

Sydney:

That is totally beside the point.  Everyone loves Jiminy Cricket, but
his relationship with Pinocchio isn't the central one (in the book he
gets squashed :-( , but I do love Jiminy in the movie).  The central
relationship is Pinnochio and Geppetto, who hardly get any scenes
together, but who have the unresolved situation of Pinocchio being
disobedient and wooden and Geppetto wanting a good, flesh-and-blood child.

On the other hand, Harry Lime is a loathesome monster, but there's not
much question that he and Holly have the central relationship in "The
Third Man".  Despite the fact that the lovable soldier what-sis-name
may actually get more screentime.
 
There's a lot of different kinds of 'central relationships' but the
thing that defines them is, they are the relationships that wind
around the central axle, if you will, of the story and can only turn
in a certain direction because they support the structure of the plot.
 They are a connection of the main character, to another character,
that will force the main character to turn in a certain direction
because they are attached to each other.

Snape and Harry, I think, are in this sort of relationship-- something
that is pulling around the central core of the story.  Why do I think
this?  Because for an antagonist, Snape has an awful lot of unresolved
backstory that attaches to Harry's backstory.  Because they get a few
key dramatic, emotional scenes together that never properly resolve--
Occlumency, Snape's flight.  Because nobody has a more unstable
relationship with Harry-- he saves him!  He hates him!  Harry should
trust him!  But he's so suspicious acting!  He should have gone to him
in OoP!  He killed Dumbledore! 

And most of all, because their attitudes to each other are so intense.
 Harry imagines Crucioing Snape in OoP, he feverishly collects reasons
to hate him in HBP.  I can't think of another character Harry has this
kind of emotion over *that needs resolving*.  Harry's love for Sirius
and his friends does not need resolving, it's stable.  Harry's hatred
of Snape has to end one way or another.  Maybe when he kills Snape
with his bare hands, maybe when he spends 10 years in a Buddhist
retreat, maybe when Snape is thoroughly humiliated, maybe when it
turns out that Harry's had the wrong attitude all along.  But one way
or another, it has to resolve.


Neri:

> And I suspect it's going to detract from the energy and intensity of
> the story if the "central relationship" is between the hero and a
> secondary character. We've seen it in OotP, when what was supposed to
> be the driving relationship emotionally was the one between Harry and
> Sirius, and at least personally I think it never quite worked. I
> accepted as an axiom that Harry feels so strongly for Sirius, but I
> never felt it myself, and ultimately this was because Sirius was a
> secondary character, with his development mainly enslaved to the needs
> of the plot.

Sydney:  

As an antagonist, Snape is just plain a source of the "energy and
intensity of the story".  Sirius and Harry can't have a 'driving
relationship', they don't have a *conflict*.  Their relationship is
not serving a 'driving' purpose, it's serving a tear-jerking, 'you
bastard you killed Teddy!!' purpose.  Stories revolve around conflict,
that is the meaning of story.  Ergo, the central relationship in a
story is the one with the most conflict and the most change.  To me
that looks like Snape and Harry.  Harry and Voldemort's relationship
is also pulling around the central spine-- he's like the Witch in
Wizard of Oz-- but lacking in any change except for the one big one
where presumably Harry defeats him, it's not looking like the central one.

The guy at the other end of a central relationship is, in very simple
stories, normally a villain-- like the stepmother in Cinderella.  In
romances in which the characters are moving towards each other (rather
than facing external complications) it's the Other Half, and most of
the conflict comes from between them.  In a buddy movie you do the
same thing as in a romance but take out the sex. 


Neri:
> Romantic stories are indeed usually based on a relationship between
> two central characters, but I don't think HP is primarily a romantic
> story. In Good vs Evil stories the hero is usually left alone against
> that evil overlord, at most with the help of a sidekick or two that
> don't outshine him.
 
Sydney:

Oh, man, I feel a lecture coming on... genre is a particular favorite
topic of mine, and understanding genre is, as you say, critical to
understanding story.

I think you're right that to a large extent this a "Good vs. Evil"
genre tale.  But I disagree that that's the genre that is directing a
great deal of the plot.  When I see a children's story that has masses
and masses and MASSES of backstory, and all the adults are messed up,
and there's Secrets Hidden in the Past, I feel I'm in the presence of
a "Child Healer" story.  Many children's classics fit into this in
some way (including, come to think of it, The Wizard of Oz).  The
characteristic energies are:  child in introduced into a world that is
both wondrous and mysterious.  There are adult characters who are
labouring under the yoke of some sort of oppression that is tied into
the very structure of the society.  The child is told stories about
what happened that the world is sick or broken in some way, but
there's a missing element, a mystery.  The child, because as a child
s/he has a fresh, innocent view of this world and/or is not touched by
its corruption, has a power that no one else has to heal the sickness,
because they can answer the question or discover the hidden cave or
reveal the deception.  The dark hidden thing is brought into the light
and society can begin anew.

Off the top of my head, stories in this genre would include the legend
of Percival, The Secret Garden, Great Expectations, Little White
Horse, most "Scooby do" plots.  As a whole, the genre is an optimistic
one with an upward, comic arc in the old sense of the word.  There is
normally some sort of reconciliation or gruding hand-shake as everyone
realizes that their differences can be resolved in a civilized
fashion, after the Source of Evil has been purged.

Why don't I think Harry Potter is mainly a Good vs. Evil story? 
Because unlike Orcs, the Slytherin students can't happily be wiped out
in order for the society to continue.  It seems the sickness in the
Wizarding World does not hinge on Voldemort;  he's an embodiment of
the sickness but killing him wouldn't end the story.  The rift in the
society is too deep for that to end the book on and leave the audience
with the sense that that's enough to be going on with.  There's a
healing factor, an opening of festering wounds factor, that can't be
resolved in the clean way a Dragon-head-chopping scene would in the
Good/Evil genre.  That's where I think Draco, as the new generation,
and Snape, as the recent past, and Salazar Slytherin, as the deep
past, come in.

In your reading I see that not only Snape is part of the evil that has
to be purged, but so is Draco, because you still think that he should
be feeling that the killing of Gryffindor's and blood-traitors is
cause for celebration, and if he isn't there has to be some reason
that has to do with, I dunno, Snape having an affair with his mother
or something.  How do you see Draco being reconciled-- or does he get
carted off to jail, Voldemort is destroyed, Snape kills himself to
stop himself from being killed by the life debt, and everyone goes,
yay, except for the remaining Slytherins to make trouble for the next
generation?  I guess that *is* the way you see it, as a clear-cut good
vs. evil story, but I would find that... distrubing in a children's
book and I don't think that's what's being set up.

Basically, I think (to use the term I used way back in my Massive
Villains Post of Doom), that Snape is a reconcilable antagonist.


Neri:

> Regarding the Life Debt, this is a different discussion, but I
> think that if in Book 7 Snape steps between Voldemort and Harry to
> save Harry's life, then it would have a huge importance to both Harry
> and Snape.


Sydney:

Not if Harry could dismiss it as Snape still being the git he's always
hated and acting for his own wicked and selfish reasons.  In story
terms, that's not important at all.  It's *plot*, not *story*.  Plots
can be altered without much affecting the story-- Snape getting killed
could be because of the Life Debt, or because he starts vying with
V-mort for Top Dog and they take each other out, or he trips on a
wand.  If it doesn't hit Harry's hatred of Snape it's not part of the
story.


> >
> > > Neri:
> > > Life debt and ACID POPS give you two "What?!?" moments in Book 7
> > > instead of just one.
> >
> > Sydney:
> >
> > And you think that's STRONGER?  And here I was looking for a grand
> > unified Snape theory that ties back into Harry on every unanswered
> > point.  
>
> Neri:
> I am not familiar with any grand unifying Snape theories, and
> LOLLIPOPS certainly isn't one. LOLLIPOPS doesn't explain why Snape
> took the UV and it doesn't explain several other Snape mysteries. I
> doubt it is possible to find any single motivation of Snape that would
> explain each and every thing he did in the books. We probably need
> more than one motivation, which is why I'm using a combination of two
> theories (though they don't necessarily depend on each other).

Sydney:

The LOLLIPOPS story is, Snape loved Lily, but was rejected by her for
his hated enemy.  Angry and hopeless, he joined the Bad Guys, and in
doing so inadvertently doomed Lily to die.  When he realized this, he
changed sides, and devoting himself to the Good side and to the
downfall of Voldemort, doing whatever was in his power to effect this.
 He is motivated by his essentially unresolvable guilt over Lily and
his desire to deal with it through the defeat of Voldemort.   All his
actions and principal issues can go back to this-- his rage at James
and Sirius, his obsession with Harry, Dumbledore's unshakable trust
and his reluctance to explain his reasons to Harry, Snape's repression
and sudden rages, his craving for acknowledgement as a 'good guy'. 
The Vow can connect in three possible, and not mutually exclusive,
straightforward ways:

1.  The death of Dumbledore was already in train, because of the ring
curse.  His death at Snape's hands would further the war effort by
being put to use to entrench Snape as completely trusted by V-mort.

2.  Snape's guilt and despair were so overwhelming that he did not put
a particularily high value on his own life, so taking a vow would kill
him under all but some very narrow conditions was not alarming to him

3.  The sight of a mother begging him to save her child from Voldemort
was one he was particularily succeptible to.

Simple, clean, strong, not requiring too much exposition, does a
whiz-banger on Harry, and has several interesting possible
resolutions.  There's plenty of good reasons to keep this thrilling
plotline under wraps for the entire series.  It seems in keeping with
the themes of the book, and works with Snape's tirade about "fools who
wear their hearts one their sleeves" being easy prey for Voldemort. 
It ties Lily into the heart of the story with a character who is still
alive and lets her have an effect on things in the present day.


> Neri:
> You say yourself that LOLLIPOPS is much more popular than ACID POPS.
> In fact I'd say any HP reader above the age of 12 probably had thought
> about LOLLIPOPS by himself/herself early in the series (I certainly
> did, and I had zero connection with the fandom at the time). So for
> most readers ACID POPS will be a much bigger "WHAT?" moment than
> LOLLIPOPS. Of course, for the few who had the misfortune to read my
> ACID POPS posts it won't be such a big "WHAT?" moment.

Sydney

Oh, good!  At least we agree that Snape/Lily is implied or
foreshadowed in some way in the text, in a way that you could see
early in the series, that the target audience (lower demographic)
could also see and understand.  I'm happy to see that it's been
properly set up, because sometimes I think it's a bit too subtle
(until HBP, that is, when nearly everyone can feel it in the air). For
me, something that is properly set up is better than something that
comes out of nowhere.  Maybe that's just me though.  I should say that
if the high prize is to "comes out of nowhere", we wouldn't enjoy
reading the books for a second time, we would ship them off to the
Goodwill along with our monthly stack of paperback mysteries, because
we've had the payoff.  Instead we seem to enjoy knowing that something
is coming but experiencing it again and again.


> > Sydney:
> > "If nobody thinks so, it can't be true".  Well, I thinks it more, "if
> > nobody sees it coming, it can't be foreshadowed as you say it's being
> > foreshadowed.  Because nobody seems to see it coming."
> >
>
> Neri:
> Hmmm. And you think it is impossible that JKR will actually *want* to
> come up, in the last book, with something that nobody has seen coming?

Sydney:

If that was the case, she would close the books with an asteroid
hitting the earth, or Trevor the Toad being Merlin in disguise and
defeating Voldemort.  The point of story structure is play between
anticipation and surprise.  You have to have more, MUCH more
anticipation than surprise, otherwise your audience will not care
what's going on.  They cannot be pulled forward through the story
without being swung forwards, as it were, on strategically placed
vines.  Snape being in love with Narcissa provides no surprise,
because I can't see where the audience would care about it, so it
doesn't place a vine on the far end of the gap.  It doesn't provide
anticipation because it's not, as I said, foreshadowed, so it doesn't
provide a vine on the near side of the gap.  Providing neither
surprise nor anticipation, unanchored to anything we know to expect
from Snape already, having no effect on the main character... it would
be a very weak choice no matter what Snape you have.

Let's say you have Evil Snape who planned all along to kill
Dumbledore.  Then the UV being motivated by a yen for Narcissa is just
confusing in retrospect-- "hang on", the audience would have to stop
and ask, "did he or didn't he want to kill the old man when he took
the Vow?  I mean, he's evil and it was part of his plan to begin
with... so was the killing motivated by the Vow, meaning the Narcissa
thing, or was it motivated by his original plan since the start of the
books?  Is it just the timing being made a bit awkward?  But then it's
still part of the plan, isn't it, I mean, he MADE the vow as part of
the plan to get Narcissa, so presumably he was okay with the sacrifice
of having to do it that year. It's not even a good complication.


I'm going to cut this post here, and go onto a new post to address the
rest of the Snape/Narcissa specifics, because this post is now
officially unweildly...

-- Sydney, back after these messages