JKR is a Death Eater? (was:Re: Hobbsian worlds; Crime & Punishment)

[juli17 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 145936

 

Lupinlore wrote:

I'll have to say that if JKR really wanted to  show us a 
classical "liberal"  scenario, she missed a golden  opportunity 
with Voldy's backstory.  Do we find great moral struggles,  human 
emotion, and sympathetic portrayal in the Fall of Tom Riddle?   
Nope.  Kid was born evil, strange even as a baby, snake in the  
bosom of Hogwarts, DD never trusted him, yada, yada, yada.  
 
Julie:
Actually, I did feel sympathy for Tom the child, as did Harry.  JKR
told us that Voldemort is less responsible for his actions (as 
compared to Snape) because he was never loved. This to me
is a fairly liberal notion, that a lack of love in a child's formative 
years can have disastrous consequences. 
 
I also don't recall any inferences that Tom was *born* evil.  Yes,
his mother's family was full of degenerates but as far as we
know there was nothing wrong with his father's family. Even
most of Merope's problems seemed to come from the way her
family treated her, rather than any inborn dysfunction. And
again, there have been studies that show infants raised without
human contact or affection suffer serious emotional setbacks. 
So environment plays a strong part.


Lupinlore:
I think that JKR actually gives less thought to these issues  
than people believe.  I think she's concerned by her story, 
with  philosophical and religious issues mostly serving as the 
unstated  foundation.  That is why people find these things 
contradictory and  unclear in the Potterverse.  People's basic 
outlooks on life and  morality often are unclear and 
contradictory.  I think JKR probably  laughed out loud when she 
wrote the ferret sequence and the ten-ton-tongue  scene.  She 
probably also felt genuine sympathy with Dudley when faced  with 
dementors and for Draco in the bathroom scene.


Julie:
Perhaps things are contradictory and unclear in the Potterverse
because JKR wanted to reflect that people's basic outlook on
life and morality (thus that of any society) is often unclear
and contradictory. I'd also note that while JKR may have
laughed out loud while writing the above scenes (as many
readers did while reading them) she did not neglect to 
comment on the questionable morality of those acts by 
having the instigators (the Weasley twins, and Fake!Moody)
dressed down immediately by characters with unquestionable
moral fiber (Arthur and McGonagall respectively). 
 
Lupinlore:
Such contradictory messages often aren't even very subtle in  
canon or even in JKR's interviews.  We have a headmaster who 
loudly  proclaims his care for his students yet seems willing to 
let Draco go on  with his bumbling activities that almost kill 
two of said beloved  students.  We have an emphasis on choice 
and a villain who was born  evil, the product of a degenerate 
and poisoned bloodline.  We have  denunciation of race-prejudice 
and important and ancient magic that  validates, in a way, the 
emphasis the DEs place on ancestry and blood  ties. 
 
Julie:
Which ancient magic? 
 
Lupinlore:

And we have 
a writer who seemed shocked and surprised when asked  why 
Slytherin House still exists but who has persistantly shown  
Slytherin House as being the nerve center and home of Voldemort's  
supporters at Hogwarts.  Or was I the only one who read that  
statement about how the DEs would have supporters in all houses 
and how  Draco and his gang are only a small portion of Slytherin 
and thought: "Okay,  it would have been nice to show us that 
before now, you know, instead of  having to tell us at the 
eleventh hour in an interview.  Now if you do  show us any of that 
it will have the inevitable feel of box-checking."
 
Julie:
I interpreted this interview differently than you did. JKR didn't
seem shocked or surprised to me. She answered, and said
"You must remember I have thought about this..." And she
intimated that it was intentional that "You are seeing Slytherin
from the perspective of Death Eater's chldren." Perhaps in 
that way she is emphasizing the rift between the Houses
(as between countries/ethnic groups) is partly because the
the parties look no *further* than their own set prejudices,
seeing only the "stereotypical" version of the other. Thus Harry
(who is our eyes, after all) does not look beyond the few 
Slytherins he knows (and who are children of Death Eaters)
to judge ALL Slytherins as devious, evil Voldemort supporters.
And unless the parties look beyond the stereotypes and see
*themselves* in each other, they can never unite, and never
stop hating. Which of course resonates strongly in the real
world. 
 
Lupinlore:
It all comes back to the fact that JKR is, I think, sometimes  
rather naive about the messages she sends precisely BECAUSE she's  
usually focused on the story and doesn't consider as much as she 
maybe  should the "wider" implications of some of her plot points.  
All of  which is to say I don't think we'll have a clear and 
unconflicted statement  on these issues in Book VII -- if only 
because it's very late in the day to  go into the complexities of 
all this.  We may very well see some nod at  House Unity or Good 
Slytherins, but a nod is about all we have time  for.  Check the 
box and move on to the Great Horcrux  Hunt.


Julie:
I don't think she's naive at all. And as for the "wider  implications"
of her plot points, she can't control her reader's interpretations.
And implications are by definition open to interpretation. We've
already argued here the "Is Snape abusive?" issue to death, to
no agreed-upon resolution.It's also almost impossible for a writer
to make a "clear and unconflicted" statement, because you can
be certain there will never be a 100% agreement by readers about
the meaning of anything--at least not anything well-written. That's
the *point* of a well-written book, to make you think, sometimes 
to the point of never reaching a clear conclusion. 
 
Julie








[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]