JKR's dealing with emotions /Harry's grief over Sirius - realistic or not?
lupinlore
rdoliver30 at yahoo.com
Wed Feb 1 16:37:43 UTC 2006
No: HPFGUIDX 147433
Jen D.:
> L,
> Given that your problems with how JKR handles a lot of issues, the
> question that begs to be answered is: What keeps you reading HP? I
> think that would be a far more illuminating discussion since none
> of us is going to be able to change the things that are lacking (in
> your view!).
Well, why wouldn't I read it? Will they be damaging to me just
because I may decide I don't like a lot about them? Will they hurt
me if I find JKR's attempt at dealing with complex emotional issues
ham-fisted and unbelievable? Will they damage me if, for instance, I
determine that they speak approvingly of child abuse? Will my world
quake and shatter because JKR displeases me? For goodness sake, it's
only a series of books! A series of books that vary widely in
quality, with flashes of true brilliance in the early books that get
betrayed by the self-indulgent, neurotic mess that was OOTP followed
by the laughable HBP -- which essentially featured JKR running away
from OOTP as fast as her typing fingers could carry her, shoving
issues under the rug as fast as she could so that she wouldn't have
to bend her plot schedule to deal with them. It's a series of books
with a morality that goes from the sublime to the truly puzzling and
occasionally (and I'm certain inadvertantly) the reprehensible and
near-monstrous. It's a set of books that won't make one smidgen of
difference in my life one way or the other, or change the Earth's
rotation by one nanosecond however they come out. If I like the
ending I like the ending. If, as I think is possible but unlikely, I
find the ending uninspired and even morally reprehensible, so be it.
I'll put them in the wood chipper and use them for compost. There
will be one more set of books that didn't live up to their early
promise and one more celebrity author for whom I have little respect.
I'll be out a few dollars and a few minutes here and there. Even in
the worst case, it beats drinking the money away (the HP series may
induce nausea from time to time, but never a hangover).
Lupinlore
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