Real child abuse/ Snape again

[juli17ptf]

No: HPFGUIDX 145719

Lupinlore: 
> Perhaps you mean that we should confine our canon discussion to 
issues 
> that JKR definitely means to put forth AS issues?  I suppose in 
that 
> vain we would keep on talking about Snape and whether he is ESE (I 
> personally don't think so), OFH (a good way of dealing with him, 
from 
> a storyline standpoint), DDM (which I think is very possible, 
although 
> I also think it would be poor writing and, frankly, so silly, 
> unbelievable, and downright laughable that I would probably give 
> myself a hernia from guffawing in derision), Grey (better than OFH 
and 
> leagues better in terms of writing than DDM) or LID (which is the 
most 
> logical and believable of all the possibilities).

Julie:
Of course, these labels are not all mutually exclusive, except 
perhaps DDM and ESE. DDM can flow into Grey, which can flow into LID, 
etc, etc. The most believable Snape will have shades of several 
qualities, just as real humans do. (Which is why DDM!Snape to me is 
most definitely not analogous to Good!Snape or Hero!Snape, though 
some insist on pressing that narrow definition.)

Lupinlore:
> However, what JKR wants is not at all what JKR gets, and what she 
puts 
> forth as issues may, perhaps, not be the most important issues in 
her 
> stories.  It is rather an old fashioned thing to say, but stories 
are 
> like living things, they grow in directions their parents don't 
> anticipate, and often take on meanings that their creators did not 
> consciously infuse into them.  

Julie:
I'm not sure JKR expects to "get what she wants," as she is 
intelligent enough to know that some readers will and some won't like 
various plot developments (and has said so). And while creators may 
infuse their stories with meanings, the real meanings stories take on 
to the reader are those infused *by* the reader him/herself. We all 
interpret the world and everything in it from our own individual 
perspective, which may be similar to the creator's perspective, or 
may not. 

Lupinlore:
> I remember a friend of mine, a Tolkien expert by way of a degree in 
> medieval literature (she became a Tolkien expert when she 
discovered 
> nobody cared about her theories concerning Sir Gawain and the Green 
> Knight as medieval myth, but everybody was fascinated by the story 
as 
> a bit of Tolkienia), talking about whether the War of the Ring 
> resonated with WW II.  Tolkien always claimed it did not.  She said 
it 
> did.  As she put it, "The LoTR is about WW II because readers say 
it's 
> about WW II.  Just because Tolkien was the author doesn't give him 
any 
> more say over what the story's about than anybody else."

Julie:
She's right that LotR is about WWII to readers who interpret it that 
way. But I'd says Tolkien is just as correct in saying he didn't 
*write* it about WWII (which is presumably what he meant). 

Lupinlore: 
> 
> So, in a very real way, the HP stories are about child abuse 
because 
> we say they are about child abuse.  JKR, I am sure, did not mean 
for 
> them to be about child abuse.  But she doesn't have anymore right 
than 
> anybody else to determine what the stories are about.  Her rights 
> consist of signing autographs and cashing royalty checks.

Julie:
Again, she cannot tell a reader what a book is about, as that 
interpretation belongs to each individual reader. But she has the 
right to say she was making no personal statement about child abuse 
in the books (i.e. she can't say what the books are about, but she 
can say what she *wrote* the books about). Which does give her a bit 
more say about her own stories than simply signing autographs and 
cashing royalty checks. Oh, and she gets to keep the copyright ;-)


Julie