Depiction of death in the books WAS:Books moral messages

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 162549

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Scarah <scarah at ...> wrote:
>
<SNIP>
> 
> Sarah:
> I don't want to put words in Lupinlore's mouth, but it seemed clear
> she was referring to an analysis she didn't agree with, there.  One
> she's seen from people on the list and doesn't share.  (Those people
> may include me.)  She wrote that as one of three distinct
> possibilities, and then said that she tends toward a different one.
> 

Yes, that is so.  I (I'm a "he" by the way) tend toward the 
explanation of inadvertant problem-making on JKR's part -- i.e. that 
she just doesn't consider the implications of much of what she says 
until it explodes on her.  Dumbledore's speech in OOTP is, I think, a 
very clear example of this.  Another way of putting it, and a way 
I've put it many times before, is the "rule of three."  That is what 
you hear yourself say, what you actually say, and what other people 
hear you say are three very different things.  I think JKR often 
falls into this trap.  

To continue with the DD-OOTP example, only because it is a discrete 
and clear case, I think JKR understood herself to be writing a 
certain type of scene.  However, what she understood herself to be 
doing, what she actually put down, and what came across to many 
readers are different things.  And I think she was rather taken aback 
by the results, hence the scrambling in the early part of HBP with 
regard to DD and the Dursleys.

The thing about cruel woman, etc., I actually took from a couple of 
her own interviews, where she has indicated that she often gets 
accused of this (and where she has expressed reactions ranging from 
weary resignation to snappish bewilderment).  


Lupinlore