Role of ESE in Hero's Quest (was:Re: Was HPB's ending BANG-y?...)

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 147611

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

Betsy Hp:
> See, I'd say that the *entire series* has been a heroic quest.  And 
> Harry has *always* correctly identified the villain (Voldemort).  
In 
> fact, he's one of the few people willing to out and out name the 
> villain, and often (each time?) he has a moment of personal 
> connection with the villain.  Harry's challenge has, it seems to 
me, 
> been to correctly identify himself and thereby correctly see past 
> Voldemort's smoke and mirrors.  Voldemort and Harry are tied 
> together and perhaps the whole thrust of the series has been Harry 
> trying to untangle himself from Voldemort.

<snip>
 
> But I don't think she's ever written an out and out mystery where 
> Harry gathers clues and has a "j'accuse" moment.  In fact, he's 
> usually as stunned as the reader when the ESE!character is 
> revealed. (What I find interesting, and an important part of  
> understanding his character,is that Dumbledore is generally stunned 
> himself.)
 
> And, every single time, the actual villain is Voldemort.  (Even 
> CoS's Tom Riddle has become Voldemort to his closest friends.)  So 
> yeah, I think the entire series has been a hero's quest or   
> journey. ESE's provide flavor (so I'm back to thinking book 7 will  
> have one) but they aren't the backbone of the story (so I'm seeing 
> secondary story line). Harry's quest to destroy Voldemort has 
> always been the key story line.

Geoff:
There is one deviation from your suggested line and that is in 
Prisoner of Azkaban. Voldemort is not the actual villain - he doesn't 
appear of course. I suppose the ESE guy here is Peter Pettigrew but 
he's not working for Voldemort in this particular instance so your 
villain "family tree" is missing a branch. Perhaps the one you're 
perched on?
:-)