Role of ESE in Hero's Quest / McGuffins & Horcruxes

[Neri]

No: HPFGUIDX 147679

> > >>Neri:
> > <snip>
> > One of the main reasons I'm hoping for something like Horcrux!    
> > Harry is that it will prevent the Horcruxes from being standard   
> > plot coupons, and Book 7 from being a standard collect-the-coupons 
> > quest.
>   
> > >>Pippin:
> > <snip>
> > But as for  storied objects themselves, of course they are of no   
> > genuine importance -- how can they be? Fabulous treasures are     
> > fabulous only until they have been found. Then they are mere      
> > possessions,  worth no more than someone is willing to pay for    
> > them.
> > <snip>
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> Exactly.  And, from what we've seen, the horcruxes will become 
> worthless junk once they're destroyed.  

Neri:
I'm not sure I made my argument here clear. I maintain that the
Horcruxes are in great danger to prove worthless junk (from the
literary point of view, at least) even *before* they are found.

Nick Lowe explains why much better (and much more wittily) than I ever
could, so I recommend again his essay about different kinds of plot
devices:
http://www.ansible.co.uk/Ansible/plotdev.html
but I'll try recreating his argument here in specific relation to the
HP series:   

JKR could have plotted Harry vanquishing Voldemort in many alternate
ways. She could have Harry become a leader and use the DA to unite the
houses, including Slytherin, to fight the DEs. She could have Harry
win the support of the centaurs and/or the goblins and/or the giants
and/or the werewolves. She could have Harry discovering how to release
the house-elves from their magical slavery and in return they would be
his army. She could have Harry use his influence as the Chosen One to
unite the WW against Voldemort. She could have Harry teach everybody
to pronounce Voldemort's name so they won't be afraid of him. She
could have Harry devise a secret plan to kill Voldy with an ingenious
combination of Polyjuice Potion, Priori Incantatum, The Mirror of
Erised and the Death Arch in the DoM. She could have Harry delving
into Ancient Magic and use his own blood to brew an anti-Voldemort
potion, or study and somehow use the power in the locked room. She
could have Harry lead a brilliant espionage scheme, maybe with
double-agent Snape as his point man, or using Legilimency and the mind
link to discover Voldemort's secrets. Or any combination of the above
or something different yet. But what is common to all these examples
is that plotting them in a convincing way wouldn't be easy. It would
require not merely deep knowledge of the Potterverse, but also of
things such as logic, strategy, sociology and politics.

Instead, JKR had Dumbledore, which is a classic Wise Old Man stock
character, inform the hero that in order to defeat the evil overlord
he must locate and destroy several magical objects. The identities of
these objects are completely arbitrary. Their magical properties are
completely arbitrary. Their histories and hiding places are completely
arbitrary. JKR could have chosen them to be anything she feels like.
So this kind of plot is much easier to write, but it's also much more
artificial. It has the feel of a video game quest, of a set contest,
like the tasks in the Tri-Wizard Tournament. It makes you suspect that
the author was simply lazy, or that she didn't think she would be able
to put together a more complex and realistic plot. And indeed, as Nick
Lowe demonstrates, this plot device is one of the most common in bad
fantasy literature (I don't object to calling it a McGuffin, but I
think Lowe's definition of "plot coupon" nails it more precisely). 

So the question IMO is how to save the Horcruxes from being worthless
junk in the literary sense. Well, some of the answers basically seem
to say "the Horcruxes aren't really very important to the story", but
I think that wouldn't save them from being worthless junk, it would
just make them *unimportant* worthless junk. Not much of an improvement.

It seems to me that the only way to save the Horcruxes is if the whole
"how to split your soul and make a Horcrux" thing, rather than being
mere arbitrary back story for a collect-the-coupons quest, would prove
central to the story, both plot-wise and in the thematic level. I
think JKR can do that because she already did a similar thing with the
prophecy. Arbitrary prophecies are also a very common plot device in
bad fantasy lit (Nick Lowe classified them as one cheap form of the
deus-ex-machina, and he wrote his essay years before Harry Potter came
to Jo in the train). The directions for operating this device are
incredibly easy: do you need to explain the readers why only a mere
kid can defeat the greatest Dark wizard of all times? No problem! Just
put in an arbitrary prophecy in mock-archaic verse that foretells it.
JKR used this cheap trick in her plot, but then she went and
"subverted" it. She gave her prophecy a central thematic value by
involving the Choice factor. I predict, or at least I hope, that
she'll do a similar thing with the Horcruxes.

Neri