Subverting Prophecies, Wisemen, Horcruxes (wasRe: Role of ESE in Hero's Quest...

[Neri]

No: HPFGUIDX 147929

> Betsy Hp:
> <snip> The stereotypic Wise Old Man 
> should have all the information.  I mean seriously, just about 
*all* 
> the information.  Especially compared to the other characters in 
the 
> story.
> 

Neri:
I'm not sure that a stereotypic Wise Old Man should know *all* the 
information. Merlin, Gandalf and Yoda surely didn't.


> Betsy Hp:
> Dumbledore knows some things Harry doesn't.  But honestly, it's not 
> that much.  Not for a Wise Old Man, anyway.  <snip>
> 
> But his actual "only I know" information is remarkably small, IMO.  
> He knows the prophecy; he knows why Snape changed sides; and by HBP 
> he knows about the horcruxes.  That ain't much by Wise Old Man 
> standards.  Gandalf would be dismayed. (And Gandalf is, I believe, 
> the Wise Old Man against whom all other Wise Old Men are judged.)
> 

Neri:
I always have been an opponent of Omniscient!DD myself, but I'd say 
the prophecy, Snape's motives and the Horcruxes is quite a lot. It's 
a considerable percentage of the main mysteries in the series. To 
this you should add the powers that were transferred from Voldy to 
Harry in GH, the mind connection between them, the Ancient Magic 
protecting Harry, the interesting bit about the brother wands and 
Wormtail's life debt, all of them things we know almost exclusively 
thanks to Dumbledore's explainations. And this is even before 
counting things like The Gleam or "in essence divided" that are yet 
to be explained, but are probably central to the main mystery. 

> Betsy Hp:
> He didn't realize Quirrell was the threat to the Stone, at first. 
> And I seriously doubt he knew about the "Voldemort in a turban" 
> trick Quirrell had going.  And under his watch, Harry very nearly 
> died. 
> < snip a list of things in the series DD didn't know>  

Neri:
I see your list, in many cases, as making Dumbledore *more*, rather 
than less, of a Wise Old Man stock character. Some of the things that 
he didn't realize, like Quirrell's secret or his old friend Moody 
being an imposter, are so unbelievable that some notable HPfGU 
members simply refuse to believe it. In fact, even Harry himself 
suspects by the end of SS/PS that DD knew everything about Quirrell 
but let Harry have his fight. This strange paradox is explained, I 
believe, by the common Wise Old Man formula. Unfortunately Nick Lowe 
doesn't seem to have ever extended his research to characterization, 
but I think we can agree between us that the Wise Old Man formula (at 
least in regard to his contribution to the plot) looks something like 
this:

1) Wise Old Man identifies Hero and his destiny.

2) Wise Old Man coaches Hero and gives him some key background 
information needed for the quest.

3) Wise Old Man steps aside, willingly or not, in order to let Hero 
have his quest alone.

What is slightly original about the HP series (although I suspect 
other members may come up with precedents for that too) is that this 
formula works not only for the series as a whole, but in many ways 
for each book separately. Wise Old Man steps aside in each book in 
order to let Hero have his fight alone, thus generating the somewhat 
paradoxical Wise Old Man who sometimes makes "huge mistakes". Does 
this makes HP less formulistic or *more* formulistic? 

Actually you can already see the beginning of such a repeating WOM 
formula in LotR. In the first book Gandalf was supposed to help Frodo 
make it to Rivendell, but that would have interfered with Frodo and 
Aragorn doing it by themselves, so Gandalf had to make the mistake of 
trusting Saruman and get stranded on the Orthank for a while. This 
formula is then repeated in a larger scale when Gandalf is taken out 
of Frodo's quest in Moria. 
 
> Betsy Hp: 
> In general the Wise Old Man is something more than human.  He's 
> someone almost god-like, or at least someone from a higher plain.  
> Dumbledore is wonderfully human, IMO.  He doesn't get personal 
> rivalries, so he failed Snape and the Marauders, and he failed 
Harry 
> and Snape.  I think he also fell down on the school unity issue, 
and 
> he certainly failed Tom Riddle.  I don't see these as unforgivable 
> failures because he's made very human mistakes.  Which is, I think, 
> a subversion of the Wise Old Man. 
> 

Neri:
I think we should measure the superiority of each Wise Old Man 
against his natural habitat. Gandalf and Yoda exist in universe 
populated with many superhumans, so they have to be superhumans 
themselves to compete. But Dumbledore certainly is described from the 
first chapter of the series as the greatest wizard in the world (and 
thus the most powerful being, as the Potterverse doesn't have beings 
more powerful than wizards) with Voldemort only taking the lead in 
the Dark Arts that Dumbledore is "too noble" to practice. And like I 
showed above, while Dumbledore's characterization is indeed nicely 
human, his role in the plot is certainly that of a rather stereotypic 
Wise Old Man. 

> 
> Betsy Hp:
> You seem to be using "The Lord of the Rings" as an example of a bad 
> fantasy tale, which is a mistake, I think.  Especially since 
Tolkien 
> pretty much invented the genre.  So the idea that any story that 
> contains a plot coupon is somehow bad (which is what I think you're 
> saying?) is similarly mistaken. <snip> 

Neri:
I'm not saying that. I'm a big LotR fan, but that doesn't mean I 
can't see it's shortcomings too. I generally agree with Lowe that the 
One Ring was, from plot considerations alone, a very artificial plot 
device, but that Tolkien managed to get away with it by making the 
Ring very meaningful in the thematic sense (BTW, Tolkien also *just* 
managed to get away with the deus-ex-machina of the eagles rescuing 
Frodo and Sam, by invoking the clever parallel with Bilbo's story. He 
was very good at just getting away with cheap plot devices). At any 
rate, Tolkien was a true master of theme, language, scope and 
atmosphere, so the bare plot was less central in LotR. But in the HP 
series the plot is considerably more complex and plays a considerably 
more important role, and the Horcruxes have (as of now) much less 
thematic value than the One Ring, which is why they feel artificial 
while the Ring doesn't.  

> 
> Betsy Hp:
> "The Lord of the Rings" wasn't a video game, it didn't read like a 
> video game, and throwing the ring into the volcano was not an easy 
> way out for the hero of the story.

Neri:
It's not *supposed* to be easy for the hero, it's supposed to be easy 
for the author <g>.

No, LotR certainly didn't read like a video game, but notice how many 
video games use similar plot devices, frequently in quantities, like 
having to locate a concealed key in order to open the door to the 
next room or collect several items in order to finally win a prize 
(reminds you of a certain website? <g>). This is why there are so 
many Tolkien wannabees and why they are frequently so lousy. A plot 
coupon would make the story feel like a video game *unless* it's 
given a deep meaning of its own. Tolkien did it to the Ring in LotR 
and I hope JKR will do it to the Horcruxes in Book 7. 

> Betsy Hp:
> Rectify what?  How have the horcruxes ruined the story right now?  
I 
> know you *worry* that suddenly JKR will write a video game or a 
> cheap, trite, fantasy tale (with Ginny in judiciously ripped gowns, 
> I suppose? <g>) but she hasn't fallen into those sort of traps yet, 
> has she?
> 

Neri:
I know that the Horcruxes felt artificial to several readers of HBP, 
and many others didn't like them much although they didn't have the 
vocabulary to explain why exactly. I too couldn't explain to myself 
why they felt weak until reading Lowe's article. 

> Betsy Hp:
> Quite frankly the very fact that there is more than one horcrux 
fits 
> neatly into Voldemort's fear of death.  "If one talisman is good, 
> more talismen are better."  <snip>

Neri:
This is a plot reason, not a thematic reason. There's usually a plot 
reason explaining the existence of the plot coupon, as such reasons 
are mostly very easy to manufacture.


Neri