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

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 147700


> 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:   
<snip>

Pippin:
First of all, anybody who thinks Cooper's _The Grey King_ is no good is not a
literary authority as far as I'm concerned. <g> It's not the plot devices that
make hackwork hackneyed, it's the refusal to do anything creative with them
for fear of challenging the audience. A hack would never have given us
Hermione as a lead character. Ginny would have got the spot (and sold a
lot more Ginny dolls.) Similarly, the self-admitted commercializers of the 
LOTR property replaced Tolkien's middle-aged, sarcastic Frodo with the
young and wide-eyed naif played by Elijah Wood.

The plot device of destroying the horcruxes will no doubt require Harry to
do many of the things I've snipped from your post, and I am sure Dumbledore
knows they need doing. But Harry would never have accepted the task in 
that form, since he does not think of himself as a potential leader, or spy, or 
magical researcher etc. 

Pippin
who will be AFK for the next 10 days or so