The 'Seeming' Reality

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 155510

Alla:
> Not that she is giving out the plot, but she is giving direct hints 
> sometimes, you know?
> 
> And of course the much talked about "anvil sized clues", etc.
> 
> So, what am I trying to say?
> 
> That JKR "tricky ways" are IMO really not that tricky and because of 
> Emma being a love story and Harry Potter is not quite, it is IMO 
> perfectly understandable.

Magpie:
But JKR has already uses the same kind of twist as Emma all the time 
with her (as I think Sydney calls them) re-cognition mysteries.  In 
every book Harry, like Emma, usually has some wrong impression that's 
validated by things he sees.  Then when we find out the truth we 
realize that we've seen everything wrong even though it was right in 
front of us.  Sometimes it's a question of misunderstanding a physical 
thing that's going on, but more often it's about motivation.  Harry 
doesn't get everything wrong, and neither do Jane Austen's characters, 
but the ends of the books usually do wind up explaining things that 
never quite added up with new information.  Jane Austen isn't that 
tricky either, after all.  It's not like Emma doesn't pick up on 
anything.  She's less reliable when her personal biases or pre-
conceptions come into play.

Oops, sounds like I'm talking about Snape, huh? :-)  But Rowling did 
that in the first book where Harry was focused on catching Snape and 
he turned out not to be the bad guy.  Though even then Harry wasn't 
wrong about Snape in the way some fans write him.  It's not like every 
time it seems like Snape is being a jerk he's really being nice.  
Harry was perfectly correct when he sensed that Snape hated him that 
very first day.  He's not always wrong about Snape.  He just doesn't 
know the man truly and neither do we readers.  There's a big question 
mark at the center of him.

-m