Love and Vengeance (WAS: The Dursleys and Being Nice and Civil)

[kchuplis]

No: HPFGUIDX 145751

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lupinlore" <rdoliver30 at y...> wrote:
> 
> Chuckle.  I'm not at all sure DD is a person who I would take as a 
> model of effective decision making.  But be that as it may, I think 
> one problem isn't so much the issue of justice and satisfaction 
> (although those certainly are extremely important issues which other 
> threads are exploring) as the -- *sigh* how to put it? -- sheer and 
> overwhelming SERMONIZING that would constitute.  If we end up with 
> something as, well, extreme as this, I would have to say that for 
> someone who has a horror of preaching JKR has shown a rather insipid 
> inclination to engage in it. 

How would this constitute sermonizing? I've heard this claim before, but in general I 
find it to be more a case of "that's not how I want it to be".  To be quite honest, I 
don't know how anyone could get to book 7 and not be able to tell this is a basic 
hero/coming of age story and it examines a lot of lifes choices and right and wrong 
and well, yes, a parade of morality skits lined up end on end. What JKR does is 
present it in a fantastically entertaining way and with the biggest underdog ever.  It's 
not as though the basic throughline is completely original. But the way she presents it 
is rife with imaginative detail and sharp caracature. 

How can one read DD telling Harry that his mother's love gave him protection and not 
think this isn't leading somewhere along these lines? Or in CoS the show of loyalty 
that brings Fawkes and the sword? How can you read "the time may come to choose 
between what is easy and what is right" and not think we might not be heading 
toward a bit of moralizing? And I really don't see how one could get through OoTP 
and not see a host of social and moral criticism of people not looking at truth when it 
hits them in the face because it is more comfortable. To be honest, *I'll* feel cheated 
if it ends up a Revenge Tragedy where half the characters are killed and maybe even 
the evil guy, but all those little tidbits that lead to this point were useless platitudes 
because we don't want to appear to be preaching. I mean, where is the point in that?

kchuplis